I watched this video last semester in my Computer Art and Animation course. I thought of it as soon as I heard we would be learning how to animate in Maya. It was created to demonstrate what one could do with the software in 1998 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bingo_(1998_film).
(Unfortunately, Wikipedia seems to be the only detailed source of information regarding this animation.)
I think this was a great story to tell with animation. The professor who showed this to me
liked to say that animation is an excellent medium to create what's not possible in real life. A good example of this is shown at 0:42. The clown's head begins to grow larger as he yells at our protagonist, creating a much more threatening image. Had this scene been created with real people, it certainly wouldn't have been as fear inducing as it was here. This exaggerated image helps the viewers empathize a bit more with the small man in the chair, by showing us exactly how afraid he is. Not everyone is scared of clowns--even if they're yelling-- but I'm sure anyone would frightened of the giant monster portrayed in the short.
Despite its age, this animation is certainly still a gem and is worth a watch (or two).
Over the summer, After Effects turned twenty. Given that this was a big milestone, there has been a lot of history coming out about the program, that I thought would be interesting to post here. Development on After Effects was started in June of 1992. It was created by the Company of Science and Art, and codenamed "Egg". Version 1.0 was released in 1993 under the name we all know, "After Effects". With After Effects' recent anniversary, screenshots of the original interface have been popping up. Let's take a look:
The thing that I find most interesting about this screenshot, is that if you look past the old-school mac interface and the floating panels (which are still part of the Photoshop interface, among other Adobe products), remarkably little has changed. Sure, the tool set has expanded dramatically, and After Effects has grown exponentially more powerful now that we are up to version 11.0, but the fundamentals are the same. There is still the project bin with all the media, effects controls, the layers panel, properties, and timeline (now combined under the timeline panel); all the basics are there. There are even more similarities if you take a look at the 1993 After Effects Demo Reel...
Besides being an enlightening look at the graphics and music of the '90s, you can see that all the basic tools used by graphics artists on a daily basis were all there. There are masks, text, layer styles, keyframe animation, even 3d layers, all on display. This is not to say that After Effects has not improved, but rather to show that the basic core functions are still used and relevant. Just for kicks, I'll leave you with one more bit of After Effects history before wrapping this up: An unopened AE 1.0 box.
Image (and box!) by redefinery. Check out their scripts, they're useful!
And here are some other interesting links pertaining to the After Effects anniversary or it's development (or both).
The Ae & Me blog, celebrating 20 years of After Effects
