Assignment #4: Nighttime

Ciao, ragazzi!

Sorry, guys. This one's a little bootleg...and by that, I mean I'm not very impressed with it. The scene is set in the hills under a star-filled night sky. I wanted to animated a glowing meteor flying through the sky but it just wasn't working. I tried to have the glitter follow the meteor like Ben's fish example, but I'm not really sure I fully understood how he did it.

Oh well! This gives me something to build on for the next project.

As far as the assignment requirements:
I used the ease in and outs for the movement out from the sky. I also used the parenting tool for the squash and stretch entrance for the hills and the clouds. That allowed me to bring them in using the same style but still be able to animate the cloud movements later.

(And even though you can't tell from the video I did use nested compositions. I love pre-composing! All that clutter really annoys me....)

Nighttime from Alex McCrea on Vimeo.

Animated Short: Crossing Guard

Ciao, ragazzi!

Happy Monday! I wanted to share another past creation. My final project for my first animation class. The assignment was to create an animated short in either Flash, After Effects or a combination of the two. I chose to do the entire thing using Flash CS3 because After Effects scared me at the time. (Not so much anymore. Don't worry, Ben!) :)

The story is fairly simple, primarily because there wasn't much planning behind it. I kinda just started with the idea of an over-eager student crossing guard and went with it. Things I learned: make a storyboard first, don't wait till the last minute, and USE A TABLET! Throughout my first animation class, I hadn't bought a tablet yet and this was almost all done with a mouse (I later went back and re-animated his facial expressions with a tablet). Like Ben always says, "drawing with a mouse is like drawing with a rock!"

Anyway, enough explanation. Enjoy my first finished project!

Crossing Guard from Alex McCrea on Vimeo.

My First Animation: Paintbrush Loop

Ciao, ragazzi!

This will be just a short post. I just wanted to share my very first animation piece. It's the first project for my animation class with Geoff Marslett at the University of Texas at Austin and the assignment was to create a self-contained loop. Basically the animation needed to have an action that caused itself to be repeated over and over again.

For my first go-around on flash, I thought it went incredibly well. I fell in love with how easy it was to animate simple designs. It was something I had tried before with a pencil and a flip book, but Flash helped me take it to the next level. There's just about everything in there: motion tweens, shape tweens, and, of course, frame-by-frame. Enjoy.

Paintbrush Loop from Alex McCrea on Vimeo.

Project #3: No Swine Flu!

Ciao, ragazzi!

Here's my public service announcement for the week. WASH YOUR HANDS! Now, I don't normally do the whole public restrooms thing, but I was in one earlier this week and saw not one, not two, but THREE guys just walk out without washing their hands. GROSS! (And not to mention, DANGEROUS!)

Ok....this might be a little bit of melodrama, but seriously folks, lets do our best to make sure everyone stays healthy and germ free.

NO SWINE FLU! from Alex McCrea on Vimeo.

Project #2: Northern Lights

Ciao, ragazzi! Come state? ("How are ya'll?")

For my Photoshop project I wanted to do two things:

1) Transform something. Not just "cut and paste" but completely make over an image into something new.

2) Work with water in some shape or form.

The following are the before and after pictures:

Before

After

Basically, I transformed this image of an arctic wasteland into large glacier formations floating in a sea under an Aurora Borealis. For my first attempt at Photoshop, I have to say I'm really pleased.

The trickiest part was creating the surface part of the water. I had to mask out the ice formations into a different layer and then rendered a couple of fiber effects on top of a solid blue rectangle shape. I used the "Perspective" transform tool to make the ripples in the water look like they were coming from the horizon. As for the reflections, I masked out each of the large glacier formations, used a horizontal flip, placed them underneath the water effect and lowered their opacity.

The sky is just the MacOS Snow Leopard background with a rendered cloud effect placed over it with an "Overlay" blender.

The last thing to do was a color correction for the glaciers so they were no longer the stark blue. I added a little purple in the mid-tones and shadows to add a little warmth and make it look like the Northern Lights were reflecting upon them.

And there you go. I hope you like it!

Alex

Introduction...

Ciao, ragazzi! (Hey, guys!)

My name is Alexander McCrea (Alex, for short) and welcome to my first blog!

As you've probably observed from my "About Me" section, I am a Radio-Television-Film student at the University of Texas at Austin. Though generalized as just a Film major, my focus of study is in Animation and Digital Motion Graphics. Yup, I study CARTOONS!

Some things about me:

• I draw.
  
• I'm a perfectionist. (Often to a frustrating end...)
  
• I try to take inspiration from many different sources; film, music, graphic art, literature, etc...and as I type this, I realize these are, of course, all components that make up animation! :)
  
• I love music. A textured score can create just as vivid a picture as any paintbrush, and in most cases, takes a person to far deeper places. I'm fascinated with the way music interacts with animation. When combined, the two work together to take the audience those crucial, emotional steps forward into the story.
  
• I grew up on Disney, if you couldn't tell. And obviously my favorite movie was Fantasia (closely followed by the Menken/Ashman trio).
  

• I like Italian. Be prepared to learn some new, foriegn terms!
  
• Hayao Miyazaki's work is some of the best animation I've ever seen (Disney has a special place in my heart, though) and his studio embodies a quality that I will always try to hold myself up to.
  

This blog is just intended for my Visual Effects and Motion Graphics Course, but this is kinda fun! Who knows? It may evolve into a full-fledged personal blog. Look forward to posts of my own work, reviews of things I like, and other random stuff I can think of!

That's it for now. Check back soon for some more updates!