Macroverse Soligram is a project I completed for an independent filmmaker to represent his company. It was one of my first projects—one that dealt with certain creative freedoms. The client explained a few specific elements of the project to me but left a lot of it very open ended. In the end, he was more than pleased with the result, noting how it matched the feel and excitement he had intended it to have.
Since I had been taking a film editing course at NYU at the time I had received this project, I decided to tackle it for my final project, allowing me to put enough time and resources into it to get it done in a few days. Utilizing After Effects for the 2D (only simulating 3D) animation, Photoshop for the planet textures, and Pro-Tools for sound design all came together to create a cohesive project with varying degrees of excitement. It definitely helped to have the enormous sound effects library of NYU at my disposal, and having excellent feedback from some of the instructors was quite helpful. In the grand scheme of my 3D proficiency, this project seems to lack a bit. However, I do feel as though it acts as a definitive transitory project, opening my eyes to the potential of advanced animation. I expanded upon this project while I was in a film editing class. This project brought me from cutting film clips together to creating interesting motion graphics. When I found that After Effects failed to truly utilize 3D, I sought Cinema 4D and became closer to where I am today. This project played its part, and while I can look back and point out a few of its flaws, I still think it stands on its own.
One of the prouder moments of this animation; standard particles were used in the “CC Particle World” plugin in After Effects to produce the beautifully colorful warp-like nebula effect
A still from the final animation just before the camera jumps into the center "O"
A still from the final animation highlighting the suspended Earth about to hover over the hole; looking back I think more time could have been devoted to making the hole look a bit more believably vortex-like
One of many textures I created in Photoshop using a few filters and the “difference clouds” function; these textures were then used in conjunction with the “CC Sphere” effect, simulating 3D