After Effects [Session 1]

Today was our first session learning to use Adobe After Effects.

To learn the basics, we went through an example exercise together. The aim of this session was to do a step-by-step recreation of this video:
https://vimeo.com/541868242/c7b3b0fa6b?embedded=true&source=video_title&owner=26858774

A big part of this exercise involved recreating the planet system. The sun was relatively simple to make. The earth and the moon were more complicated to do, as they needed to have the appropriate shadows in relation to their position around the sun. The earth was the most complicated out of the three, as on top of everything else, we needed to make the continents.

I had quite a few issues with the moon's shadows, as I found the process used to make it work rather weird and confusing. I had to go over it a good few times and change different elements before I eventually got it to work.

Aside from that, there were a few other places I got a little stuck, such as the part where we had to make sure the overspill from our planet shadows didn't show on the space background, as when I was following along with the tutor, I had missed one of the steps without realising it. 

Even though it wasn't that different from the results other people has ended up with, on account of us all re-creating the same base video, I was happy with how my version looked.

For the rest of the session, we were prompted to make our own pieces using the skills we had learned.

For my piece, I wanted to make something abstract. At first I was having trouble deciding what to make it look like, but I decided to give my piece a singular focus. The next thing that took me while to decide was what shape to make the focus. Some of the shapes I tried out included a triangle or a diamond, but because they were annoying to make without the presence of a triangle tool.

I decided to go with a pentagon, as when I applied the rotation expressing to it, I found myself liking it looked. After duplicating it, making it smaller and connecting it with the bigger pentagon, I liked how it looked even more, cementing in my mind that this was the path I should follow.

My decision to make the circle pulse every few seconds was inspired by music visualisers. 

Outside of the main section, I wanted to add some objects that could spin around the outside. However I was unsure of how I would achieve this. Eventually, this square moving around the edges of the image was what I settled on. Instead of just moving around without any thought, I decided to give it a rhythm and make it squash and stretch as it moved around. I like how both of these elements turned out.

Considering this is only the second time I have created motion graphics in After Effects, I am happy with the look of my final result . The two things I feel it would look better with would be more objects spinning around the main section. I also think I could have used a greater variety of colours.