After Effects Cinema | Arts | Animation Softwares | Technology 

Stylized blur for animation

Duduf 0 Comments , , , ,

When compositing a 2D animated film, choosing the right blur to simulate depth of field (or choosing to not use blur at all) is very important and has a great impact on the general aesthetic of the film, and its stylistic consistency.

This is an example of how I worked the blur effects (with After Effects) for the short movie Purpleboy, by Alexandre Siqueira. The film is co-produced by my cooperative Rainbox.

Read more
After Effects Cinema | Arts | Animation Softwares | Technology Video 

Breakdown of a character animation – Acting

Duduf 4 Comments , , , , ,

I’ve just finished a new character animation from an illustration by Justine Cunha.
I’ve recorded this three-hour animation work (excluding character rigging). Here’s the accelerated video – three hours compressed in 8 minutes – and a few explanations about the different steps of my animation process for an acting like this in After Effects with Duik. You can watch the finished animation at the end of the video or in the end of this post.

Read more
After Effects Softwares | Technology 

Designing Duik 16 icons: “My” theory

Duduf 1 Comment , , , ,

The “My” word in this title might sound a bit arrogant, but it’s actually quite the opposite. Read next…
Working with icons is new for me – the icons of the previous versions of Duik were not designed by myself – and I discovered how hard it can be to design icons which are: intuitive, clearly “readable” – even when they’re as tiny as only 14 pixels wide – and beautiful. Yes, I’m trying to make Duik16 at least a bit less ugly than Duik15, but this is a bonus, I’m actually working really hard to make it intuitive and quick and easy-to-use.

Read more
After Effects Cinema | Arts | Animation Softwares | Technology 

Behind the scenes: From illustration to animation!

Duduf 12 Comments , , , , ,

I’ve been very happy to work on Justine Cunha’s wonderful illustrations recently, and I’m going to share my process with you. What’s interesting is that those characters were… Well, illustrations. They were not meant to be animated at all, so it could be a bit tricky to adapt them. The technique I used, Duik in After Effects, seems to be one of the easiest way to do this, animate illustrations, without having to adapt the style.

What’s great with animation in After Effects, is that you work on the actual illustrations, you don’t have to re-draw them. This means they can be very detailed, with textures, shadows and small details, which would be impossible if you had to draw each frame by hand like with more traditional 2D animation.

Read more