My Fantasy Olympics

In this project, I need to produce a 30 sec animation by using Adobe After effects. I have to think of a futuristic sport, and design an appropriate character to compete within the sport. For me, this project was a challenge, because I have to use a software that I never use it before.

Firstly, it involved some research to get some ideas of sport and character that I created. I came up with ideas of playing sports under water or in the galaxy etc. Then I decided to have the sport of Hamster ball running over water. It is about a character running inside a hamster ball, it is like a running game. Running inside a hamster ball and compete with others.

To start, I sketched out of the idea of running inside a hamster ball on water. Then I sketched some ideas of my character e.g. faces and outfits. Also, I have sketched the assets that I need in this animation e.g. the environment (trees, clouds, water, banner…etc) and audience.

After sketches, I have to create the character in illustrator by using different layers, because I have to separate different parts of the character of different layers in order to animate in After Effects. After I created all the parts that I need, and then I imported them into AE, and place them into a 3d space by following my storyboard. In this animation, I have created a particle that made the animation interest was the CC particle world. This is how I create the fire from the fire torch.

In this project, everything was new to me, and I found it is interesting to use 2d character in 3d environment. At first, I was confusing how can I create 3d environment by using 2d elements. However, after I finished this project, I have a clear idea of what does it mean. It is just about layering and camera angels.

I was not 100% happy of what I produced in this project, because I don’t have skills with the software and I did spend a lot of time to experiment with the software. There are lots of little bits that I want to have like the wave of water etc. However, in my next semester I hope to learn more. From this project, I learnt that I could not import too many assets into one project, because this will affect the speed of preview while you are creating. I did imported too many trees in my project, and I end up I could not have the effect of a depth of field camera, because I could not preview from the screen of what will it look like. This project did gave me the feeling of what is the advertising animation industry fields like, also from this project I realised most of the advertising are combine with 2d and 3d elements.