Applied Animation 2 - Week 12

Utilizing squash-and-stretch by changing proportion

This week, as expected, has consisted of finishing up character animation to be ready for composition once we collate our work together. I have been mainly animating the portal scene where my minion jumps through a portal and then proceeds to come back. Thinking tactically, in order to eliminate any possible problems in foresight, I've devised how the execution of this scene will work: the portal will be a separate asset with a 50% feather mask so when the minion dives his body gets gently cut off. Meaning, for this raw animation file I need nothing more than just a simple movement with the portal being added later to the final cut. Alongside this, I've been finishing up animating small instances of the remaining pieces of character animation that I've started but had not yet finished - I completed the 9 universe types explosion scene. In this instance, as well, I started thinking tactically and replicated the same minion movements on the other side in order to spare time and connote the minions' hive mind personality and lack thereof. From this perspective, I decided that the entirety of all squash-and-stretch factors will be separately animated through a Mesh Warp modifier within After Effects due to its versatility and simple interface.