Blog Post Two: Laying Things Out (Visual Effects and Motion Graphics)

Currently laying out the towns in after effects. Most of the buildings and backgrounds have been created in photoshop, now they're just all being assembled into after effects. Some scenes are using 3D layers, others are just using a top down view so they are normal layers. After the towns are built, it will just be a matter of putting in the characters, who are basically already animated. I'll need to do a few text effects/animations and add in some particle effects, but for the most part, it's looking good. I think I need to step up the work because I'm working a little more slowly than I'd like and I'd like to have the project done by Sunday.

OLD PROJECT: Simple 3D Animation (3D Animation)

Untitled from J.Bar on Vimeo.

Just a simple animation to demonstrate paths and some easing in and out. I had done a similar project in after effects, and thought it would be interesting to give it a try in Maya. It's a little more simple than I would have liked. I feel like I should have at least put in a starry backdrop or given the comet a trail.

OLD PROJECT: Green Screen (Visual Effects and Motion Graphics)

Wizard from J.Bar on Vimeo.

Wizard guy was on a green screen. The hairs made it difficult to fine-tune, so there area couple areas where the green shows up. The lightning is just a pre-made effect I played around with. I had originally wanted to animate some music bars and notes across the screen with some epic orchestra in the background, but I wound up running out of time unfortunately.

OLD PROJECT: 3D (Visual Effects & Motion Graphic

The Room from J.Bar on Vimeo.

Basically just created a room with 3D layers, but since we had to create a camera, I thought it would be interesting to make the camera theIt's supposed to be some guy waking up from being drugged, captured, or something else equally unfortunate. He sees the room and either freaks out and faints or the drugs kick back in and the room spazzes out.
It was interesting playing with the camera in the program as opposed to a real camera.

OLD PROJECT: Particles (Visual Effects&Motion Graphics

Particle Rain from J.Bar on Vimeo.

I wanted to try and simulate rain. The thing at the very beginning was just to see how it would look, but it starts to rain, then at the bottom, I tried to make it look like the rain bounced off the ground. It's really simple, but I like how the rain and the bouncing turned out.

Pre-production Blog: VisEffects&MotionGraphics Final

Pre-production:

The main idea is to create some scenes from a game that my group is pitching for our Rhetoric of Video Games class. Basically the story centers around a couple different characters who have different mental illness. The point of the game is to
1) Show the mental illness can be treated and show some basic information about each disorder
2) Attempt to de-stigmatize it by showing that normal people have these disorders
3) Provide people with information and show how isolating the person does not help with their recovery

For this project, using After Effects and Photoshop, I will be creating the overworld and demonstrating what gameplay will look like. I will be creating a couple cutscenes for some of the different characters. It will mostly be a compilation of some different scenes in the game, so not much of a narrative structure.

I'm thinking I might make the town a 3d image in after effects to see how it looks. It could make for some interesting camera movement, especially since we will be emphasizing each character's mental illness through some of the gameplay features. For example, one character has PTSD. I would add some effects to show the transition from normal to "holy crap people are shooting at me" modes.

The asset list is huge, so I've grouped things together to save space:
Photoshop images of buildings, background, trees
16bit Characters sprites (being pulled off of a 16bit character creation website and imported into After Effects)
Text boxes

Most of it is just creating the maps. I feel like those will require the most work.

The characters and maps will look like the following: