3D Cameras in After Effects

Background

This was one of the later projects from the Motion Foundation course I took. I am very proud of how this assignment turned out from start to finish. This was the first time I've really used the 3D Camera in After Effects properly. I decided to make it themed after the old operating system, Windows 95. From the file layouts to the icons I tried to make it as accurate to the source material as I could.

Design Process

First I had to do some research about what all the UI elements of Windows 95 even looked like so I could recreate them for this project. Fortunately there is a working Windows 95 emulator that is archived on the web. I had also found some of the original icons used which certainly helped a lot. After I had all the information I got designing the UI Elements for the animation!

Starting The Animation

Now that I had all the Illustrator vectors made I could get to work on creating the animation. Each file explorer box I wanted to be animated in slightly different ways but not too dramatically to be distracting. Using the skills I'd developed over the previous weeks of Motion Foundation Getting This done was a cinch.

Adding The Parallax

Parallax is the effect of when you are looking at something, far things move slowly and close things move faster. Using this effect we can make it look like the viewer is traveling through this scene with objects passing by. The effect is actually pretty simple. The camera slowly moves forward while all the objects in the scene are placed in different positions in a 3D space. It creates a really neat scene!

Final Product

Conclusion

Besides a few added effects on top to make it slightly more interesting to look at, that really is about it. This is one of my assignments I'm most proud of and have probably learned the most in. Doing this assignment has made me much more comfortable with using the 3D camera and I hope to do more projects with it soon!