I LURVE AE + handy Ae scripts+ BLACK JACK
So now that I've been compositing in After Effects everyday for awhile... my brain has shifted from 3d to 2.5d 0_0 It was kind of tough at first but now After Effects is my best friend again ^ ^ Now I remember why I love this application so much.... because you can throw practically any type of still or moving image type in there and with a little work you can make it all blend seamlessly...
NOW since I'm tweaking the FAWK out of my 3d shots... the raw 3d shots look like RUBBISH compared to the final comp'D ones! Of course I'm going for a very stylized look... I'm not going for "photorealistic" or a standard 3d look...
If you work in After Effects all the time and don't know about aescripts.com GO THERE! Most of the scripts are free BUT if you work with a lot of image sequences BUY IMMIGRATION its way worth it and also download the free arrange project items into folders THAT SAVED ME HOURS... I also use this one that renders stills from markers...
On a completely DIFFERENT topic... I always loved Black Jack from Osamu Tezuka... I had seen a couple of the OVA's and recently I bought some of the manga and started watching the anime series... Tezuka being THE GAWD OF MANGA was a master storyteller of course and with that comes his AWESOME CHARACTERS... You'll read in various places that story comes from character... and ya know I think thats right ON... Since I'm an animation/film geek I try to watch all the new independent stuff I can...but that's mostly 3d/stopmotion animation and some live action films and I've noticed that if no interesting characters come into the film in the first few minutes I lose interest and stop watching... I don't want to watch SETPIECE: THE MOVIE which it seems a lot visual fx artists turned "directors" make... I don't give a FAWK how well its shot and lit and blah blah blah as long as it has character I'm in!
It seems most "Hollywood" movies are HIGH CONCEPT SITUATION WITH CLICHE CHARACTERS: THE MOVIE ....I'm not into that... gimmie CHARACTER MOPHUCKAS or GTFO
AND it also has to have non cliched original characters to keep me interested...yeh theY the same archetypal character baseS used in most stuff BUT put a new spin on it or I'm yawning and turning it off... and a new spin isn't the way they look 0_0 BUT if they can TRANSFORM then YEH thats totally GREAT 0_o
What makes a character different to me is.....It's what motivates them, how they act and why... it's theY approach to they world...theY approach to danger and so on...
If you watch/read Black Jack its an excellent study for storytelling and character... like a few minutes or a few pages in you already HATE the badguy or feel SO BAD for the poor lil guy that needs an operation or somethiN... Tezuka was a MASTER so I'm learning a lot by studying the master ALSO IF your a Berzerk fan you gotta know that Miura gave Guts that white streak in his hair as a nod to Black Jack ^ ^
The visual storytelling is so good I don't have to be able to read it to get it ^ ^ nah I have them in English... I grabbed this on my first trip too Japan as a souvenir Also a note on cute characters... there's a fine line between cute and OBNOXIOUS and Tezuka walks that line perfectly in Black Jack with Pinoco... she's gotta be the cutest and most obnoxious character ever ^ ^
Another excellent older anime study in character and story is Future Boy Conan season 1 by Miyazaki.... Great characters and great stories will grab anyone... I mean I consider myself to have extreme tastes... so I wouldn't think I would be interested in an anime about a boy with a harpoon trying to save some girl BUT when its done by a master storyteller like Miyazaki it's GOT ME ^ ^Brought to you by professional weirdo M dot Strange.