Valentine's

Came in to some fresh baked mint/fudge/brownies from Brian's fiance. Spent the morning mostly observing other people working on projects, then started learning new things on other programs. Eventually, Kristen started helping me look for something to do. She asked if I knew After Effects, which I said I knew very little, so she got a project from one of the animators, Shige, for me to do. I was to create the animation of these little circle bubbles popping up over eastern Asia that were to meant to represent exchanges. Shige gave me the map image and an animation template to work on and I went from there.

I really knew so little about after effects, but I watched closely as Shige created the template and then dove right in. I forced myself to learn very quickly and get and overall understanding of the program. The set up of the program is pretty intuitive, so it didn't take to long to figure it all out. I worked on the animations for a while, finessing each circle to make it look like it was really popping out rather than just a circle scaling up. After I created the basic bubble elements, I added them onto the map image, varying the size and timing to create an even flow.

I eventually showed it to Shige to see if I was going down the right path and he asked me to do a different transition out which I easily implemented. After I filled up the map with a few more circle animations, I started adding circles that trasfer from one place to another, because I feel like this is what she had in mind. When Shige saw it, he loved it so I just kept it in.

It felt really going learning After Effects. I had been wanting to learn it for a long time now. I would especially love to learn how to more stuff with lines that follow a path. Hopefully soon! After I was finished with the animation I put it in the drop box and called it a day.