Author: Alfie Dennehy Vazquez

Today we continued with the basics of Ae. We covered shape path animation, layer parenting, masks, easing and the graph editor.

I have a clearer direction for my final video however we have yet to cover topics I am unfamiliar with so I spent the day little bored again. However, towards the end we did do some squash and stretch exercises, and while the technical skills were not new, I enjoyed giving the little ball some character.

We also looked into the 12 principles of animations briefly and basically said ‘yeah some of this is important, but also f*** it.’ Very in character of me to be a Disney hater, but yes, I do appreciate the emphasis on learning the ‘rules’ in prder to break them intentionally.

I will use my free day on Thursday to block out most of the animation and on Sunday I will do some touching up in preparation for feedback next week. I want to stylize the the textures so I will be looking up how to change stroke styles.

Today was the first day of classes. I was a little disappointed to begin with motion graphics but there are lots of interesting people in my class and Jess is a very fun lecturer. We began with learning the basics of After Effects, followed by some exploration of shape language and finally further exporation of After Effects.

I honestly spend a lot of time a little bored because I had taught myself After Effects last year, and while I am by no means an expert, I did use it for all of my classes on my CertHE course. The shape language section got us to think about certain feelings as shapes and movements.

Despite my lack of inspiration (hence the very ‘nothing’ doodles), this did end up prompting some thought on the shape self portrait. I looked at the concept of restrained chaos, something precariously balanced, free in a standardized way.

I ended up with an altered trapezoid shape; it can balance upside-down, but is not quite fully stable. It is then filled with some sort of fluid that moves around haphazardly and can spill out with any movement. Finally, I gave it some limbs to personify it a little.

Overall today was alright, albeit a bit slow. It will be nice to refresh my After Effects since last term and I think our final video will be a very cute visual.