Aliens!
For this project, I wanted to make an animation out of vector graphics that I created. I was inspired by arcade games such as Galaga and Asteroids. I made a battle between a green monster and a spaceship. I did all of the vectors in Adobe Illustrator and the animations in Adobe After Effects.
Assets
Pictured above are my assets that I used to create the animation.I started by sketching and making a storyboard of what I wanted the animation to look like. I made the assets with the style of old arcade games in mind. Those games used pixels. So I created the ship and the monster to look like they were made out of pixels. Then, I made the background. The stars are tiny rectangles to keep up with the pixel style. I made a few of the stars, and then used a pattern to make the whole square I needed.
First Draft
https://youtu.be/HQRCSnv7AAs
The link above is the first draft of my project. I started by getting in the basic movements. It took me a good amount of time to choreograph the way that the assets move. Once I had an idea of their movements, I was able to make them come on and off the screen to make it possible for the video to loop later. I used a pre-composition to make the eyebrows move.
Final Draft
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=De-QzfMN4Aw
The link above is my final draft. I adjusted the paths of the assets slightly. I then added the shots of the ship. I did this by parenting the shots to the ship and placing them below. Then, I moved them out when I was ready for them to fire. This added to the story of the animation. It was no longer just mindless flying, it was a battle. I added one more pre-composition to make the antenna wiggle throughout the battle. I finished by making the video loop to make it thirty seconds long.
Conclusion
This project was a valuable practice of my skills. Being able to animate the graphics that I create can breathe that much more life into them. This can be valuable for mockups, or even for projects. Because this is a style that I enjoy, I had a lot of fun creating this. I plan to do more animations in the future and improve my skills.
