AE artists doing animation?

Michael Carter

Michael Carter

Veteran
Just wondering how many of you guys are using AE strictly for animated projects - I know it's discussed primarily as a post-tool here, but with the popularity of explainer videos, more and more of my billing is straight-up animation vs. footage with post work.

These were rough client storyboards, but they wanted a torn-paper look, zero footage involved:



If you can integrate footage you shoot with animation, it's even better as far as billing goes:


(Yeah, that's my hand, can you tell I'm missing most of one finger??)

Anyway, if you know AE fairly well, everything you've done with footage and motion can apply to character animation, and you don't have to leave the house.
 
No, I use shape layers a lot and animate the points; I used to use flash for that sort of line work and render image sequences, but it's massively frustrating to get flash shape tweens to work, and AE's shape layers work like a dream. If I'm animating a bitmap, I make them like twice as big and use animated distortion tools, generally vector distort.

One thing I really like with flash is the randomness of line work if you use a stylus pad - haven't been able to really match that in AE, it's a very cool look.

It's still pretty ghetto animation-wise, but when my clients really have the budget, I guess I'll send 'em to my son, who's a frame-by-frame guy. I can't imagine doing what he does. I think he primarily uses Photoshop.


https://vimeo.com/102976955
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top