QUICK NOTES For this lesson, unfortunately, my notes were insufficient, and as I wanted to long to create this post, I have forgotten most of the detail. I still remember how to create this effect and use the tool, so I will go further into depth if I use it again for future projects. I also want to focus on my fantasy brief and catch up with other posts that benefit the brief. For now, I will simply copy my quick notes from my sketchbook so that I have a reference, and I can show that I have had a […]

Animating along a Path This lesson was about learning another method of animating a shape to move in After Effects. Once the program is open, create a small shape – I did a rectangle. Centre the anchor point of the shape. Then go to the pen tool and empty the fill and stroke so that you can create invisible lines or paths. With the tool selected, create a wiggly line as the path that you want the shape to move. The next step is to open the path layer up, go into contents, shape 1, path 1, open that, select […]

We learned two more skills in After Effects. The first, parenting, allows you to link one shape to another, so that it follows it, like a child and a parent. To get our first taste of how it worked, we made a simple animation with two stars in After Effects. First, I animated the bigger star to spin, then I dragged the tether from the little curly-whirly symbol next to the small star to the bigger star. The parent link will show where ‘none’ used to be. Now, when the big star rotates, the little star follows it. You can […]

Expressions are small bits of code that you type into After Effects, to change somethings or animate a shape in a certain way. It is a little bit of software that says that a property is something or gets the property of a layer to do something you want. The two expressions that we learned are the wiggle expressions and loop expression.   Loop Expression  Create a new composition, new solid and a circle. Using position, transform the circle to move across the screen and back. The goal is to make the animation repeat without using copy and paste.   […]

We were introduced to yet another new tool in Illustrator, which involves a 3d viewpoint. The first thing we learned of was what a vanishing point is, which is a point on an image plane of perspective drawing where the 2d perspective drawings of mutually parallel lines in a 3d space appear to converge. In basic terms, it is the point where the lines appear to disappear within the illusion of distance. We also quickly went through a two-point perspective, which is where you can only see two sides of a shape, and a three-point perspective, which is three sides. […]

This lesson was an introduction to the mesh tool in Illustrator, which I opened up a poster-sized canvas to begin. I started by creating a basic shape, which was at first a circle and became a balloon, by clicking the direct selection tool, clicking on anchor at the bottom left and dragging down.       With the shape selected, I went to object, create gradient mesh – four rows and four columns to start out. It was recommended to click preview to see the mesh before selecting okay, and since it looked quite good, I went ahead to make […]

So far, we have been working in 2d on After Effects, meaning we have been using the x and y axis. When it is time to work in a 3-dimensional space, a third axis is introduced, called z. X left and right, y is up and down, and z is forwards and backwards. So the z provides that depth which allows objects to be seen in a third perspective thus making them 3d.     To have our first taste of working in 3d in After Effects, we began with making some text and showing the 3d space through lights […]

Firstly, a recap to refresh our memory! In under ten minutes, we were asked to create a swinging rope with cc bend it and possibly think about what the puppet tool would be. I found this to be a very simple task, but I still didn’t make the bend quite as natural as I would have liked. Nevertheless, getting the job done quickly allowed me to guess what the puppet tool would be. My guess was that it is a tool which allows you to manipulate the limbs of a character and animate their motions, because of the word ‘puppet’ […]

This lesson was dedicated entirely to Adobe Illustrator. We learned how to create a portrait in a very interesting black and white graphic style, which creates a stunning result that looks incredibly complicated but is actually very simple and, with some practise, easy to do. In order to create a portrait with this style, firstly, we had to choose who to draw. The example presented to us was Eunice Kathleen Waymon, a musician, arranger, and civil rights activist, in recognition of black history month. We also had a few other examples to choose from if we wanted – and I […]