[Jakob Christensen]

Excellent! Animating in 24 fps makes life much easier. 🙂
Thank you very much for your help.

Jakob

[Jakob Christensen]

The Animation consists of Photoshop and Illustrator files only (no filmed footage) and I will burn it to DVD – so that it can be watched with a regular DVD player (not avi, mov, mpeg4, etc.)

By the way, thanks for your Photoshop for Video videos. I really enjoy them. There’s always something to learn.

Jakob

[Jakob Christensen]

Hey Jon

Sorry that it took me so long to reply. School semester is coming to an end and I have a lot of stuff to do.

Things have changed a little. I will apply for a technical college for Multimedia Art in Salzburg (I’m not sure what it’s called in English). Now I need to do an animation and a sountrack for a specific topic in order to have a chance to be one of the 70 people (out of 300) that will be chosen.
Thus I’ll need to leave the brain animation for now (hopefully I can do it in summer) and concentrate only on that topic.
I will make the animation with After Effects though because I find it so much cooler than Flash.

It’s good to know that Illustrator integrates so well with After Effects. I have been playing around with the 3D functions in AE. That 2.5D thing is really awesome!

However, I guess I need a storyboard before getting started. What were the first things you did in the beginning?
Did you do the soundtrack before animating or the other way around?
Is it a good idea to take some time and learn expressions? I read that expressions can save a lot of time.

I will start the animation in two weeks when school’s over. Then I’ll have plenty of time.
Until then I will think about the story some more.

Thank you again for your help. I feel much more motivated than I did a couple of weeks ago. Your funny animation gave me a lot of inspiration. I’ve watched it about six times already and it still fascinates me every time I watch it.

Oh, before I forget: How many frames per second should the animation have?

All the best

Jakob

[Jakob Christensen]

Hi Jon,

Thank you very much for your long answer and helpful tips. I am absolutely amazed by your animation! The house, the kid, the monsters…everything fits together so well!
I have so many questions.

How did you create the shadows and that 3D look? Everything looks so three-dimensional. I would have never thought that far.
How long did it take you to complete the animation?
Did you create the soundtrack by yourself? If so, what software did you use? And where did you get the sound effects?

To be honest, I have never made an animation before. Furthermore, I cannot draw very well. However, I know quite a bit in Illustrator and Photoshop. Actually I like Illustrator more than Photoshop but what is the best way to import Illustrator shapes into After Effects?

Parenting the shapes is a good idea. At least I know the basics of parenting from Maya.

I hope you will let me know when your animation is finished. I definitely will buy a copy of it, that’s for sure. 😉

Thanks for the inspiration and keep up the good work.

Greetings from Austria
Jakob