I'm trying to learn some more advanced expressions, other than simple "this equals whatever this other value is" expressions. So I came up with this animation, which is controlled almost entirely with expressions.
First, the ball's movement is random using the wiggle() expression. The ball's size and color change directly related to the current speed of the ball, both of which required tweaking the math to translate the speed into the proper scale or color values.
The particles are seperate. They follow the position of the ball using simple expressions. The actual number of particles emitted per second vaires with the speed. Their velocity also matches whatever direction and speed that the ball is traveling in, which is a pretty cool effect.
By the time I finished, I had used a ton of expressions, and it's confusing to explain them, so here's a screenshot showing them all:
Also, last couple of posts have been late, but I am back on track now and all other assignments will be on time! Possibly even early!
2 comments:
Man, expressions, nice! You better watch out, though. It is a slippery slope from artist to programmer once you get into java script. I have a friend who started as an animator, wrote some scripts to make his life easier, got asked to write a few more. now he is the tech director at a game studio. In any case, nice job! Is this class doing you any good? You are pretty far ahead of the curve.
well whatever brings in the money, I suppose. :-p
I have learned a couple things already in the class. I've never actually had real after effects training, so there's a bunch of little useful things that I never discovered. For example I didn't know about the z-scale function, or more importantly the world vs. local orientation (which will actually be very helpful!)
I'm trying to use the assignments as an excuse to try to do things I haven't done before, so sorry if I get ahead of myself or don't quite follow the instructions. :-p
I'm want to get into 3D motion tracking for this next assignment. That stuff is nuts!
What I'm really terrible at is actually designing text and logos and drawings and stuff. Like, that castle on a hill example you showed today... that looks really cool, but I have no idea how to even begin drawing that. Dunno if that's really covered in this class (or if art skills can even be taught) but it'd be cool to know.
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