Projects I and II: SPORE

Spore ended up being a lot of fun to work on. Well, fun in a tedius, mind-numbing, ever-caught-up-in-the-minutia, never-actually-finished sort of way. Which is still a sort of fun, I suppose. Though when I say never-actually-finished, I mean it. It's still not a complete piece. No sound yet, and there's one scene that is yet to be animated.

However, I have to say I am incredibly proud of the result, even in this incomplete state. I had always wanted to have a crack at 3D animation, and I'm so glad I did. The number of hours that went into this one (so far) is probably well into the 200's, but worth every second of it.

All of the elements were created using Flash, then exported as .PNG's into Adobe Aftereffects, where they were placed in 3D space and animated. There exists a total of four city blocks of what I call "Spore City," each of which is about 2500 pixels wide. The buildings beyond, while equally 3D are just arranged as background, and are not in a grid pattern.

The reason that this project counted as both Project I and II for me was that the undertaking continued to grow in the weeks after I presented it as my first project. So I asked if I could present an up-to-date version for Project II instead of the Facade-based project I had originally conceived of.

Click here (opens a new window) to view the video in a resolution that will make your computer happy. The full-res thing is somewhere in the ballpark of 700MB. This file is about two more days' work beyond what I screened for my second project.