Nimbus Link: First Post

Nimbus Link was my senior film that I worked on at SCAD. I used only what was within the vanilla version of After Effects CS 5.5.

Apart from the DuIK Tools plugin, which can be found here: http://ik.duduf.com/
DuIK helped with posing the legs using inverse kinematics - which is a time saver.

What is notable about this project is that I am mostly a 3D guy, so I rigged this character as if it was 3D. The truth however is that it is not - it only appears that way. It is straight up cutouts using masks, puppet pins, and assorted distortions.

Every layer in this character rig is pretty much flat, however I also used a plugin already within After Effects (as of CS5.5) called Digieffects Freeform. Through Freeform I was able to create a 360 degree rotatable head.

This plugin allows you to use displacement maps (along with other attributes) to create what appears to be a 3D surface - trouble is it doesn't actually interact with 3D layers or anything else outside the layer it is affecting.

I will be doing a tutorial on how to assemble such a character rig in After Effects on this blog.

Seeing how this is my first post I might as well state what my objectives are:

This blog will have tutorials like this and general updates from within the heart of darkness known as animation. I'll say animation is fantastic, there's a lot to offer, but I'm not saying it's magical - that's just presumptuous it is trial and error if anything.

Alright now that's a knife!

I have my Machete lets weed through some minutia together.

Head Tutorial:
Nimbus Link: First Post
360 Head Tutorial Part 1: Design
360 Head Tutorial Part 2: Eyes and Mouth
360 Head Tutorial Part 3: The Head