If you do any kind of character animation work in After Effects, you know the built in tools can be a bit limiting. Rigging parts to move together is time consuming and awkward, the puppet tool only goes so far, and results from both can be frustrating. Thankfully Duik 15 from DuDuf is coming later this month and it looks pretty damn amazing. The video below walks through a ton of new features, and then rolls into a show reel with some killer animations built using the plugin for After Effects. The video starts out in silent mode. Don’t adjust your speakers. When it gets to the show reel part the audio comes up.
Character Animation
The Illusion of Life. 12 Principals of Animation.
Back in the 1930’s “The Illusion of Life” by Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston introduced the 12 universal principles for animation. The principals were developed as a teaching tool for Walt Disney Studios and they still hold true today. This video by cento lodigiani walks through each of the principals set forth by Thomas and Johnston using an animated cube to illustrate the functional quality of each. It’s a fun little video clip that is a solid refresher for anyone animating content. In addition to the video there is a whole series of short animated GIF files for each available here.
An Animated Short, “Les Pyramides d’Égypte”
It’s that time of the year again. When universities wind down for the year and another graduating class emerges. From the Supinfocom Arles Class of 2014 comes “Les Pyramides d’Égypte” written, directed, animated, and styled by Corentin Charron, Lise Corriol, Olivier Lafay, Nicolas Mrikhi. Once again this stuff makes me a bit jealous of the talent, and totally envious of the amazing education these students are getting. It makes me want to go back to school and take a year or two polishing my craft.
Rollin’ Safari.
the video below is one of a series of short animated films created by Kyra Buschor, Anna Habermehl, and Constantin Paeplow, that won “Outstanding Visual Effects in a Student Project”, at the Visual Effects Society Awards. There are 4 of these short films that can be watched here, along with a complete break down of character development and story development. Each video is fairly short, so do yourself a favor and take the time to watch all of them.
Modular 4 