Graphics Programs Reference
In-Depth Information
Maxon's Cinema 4D, to After Effects, to Apple's Final Cut Pro, and it all started with
Illustrator. To begin the 2D animation, they drew all the parts in an Illustrator file that
they would use for a segment. Every part was placed on its own layer. So, for
example, the man and woman seen here were created with separate heads, bodies,
and expressions—each change in position on its own layer. They only needed B&W
in Illustrator; the color would come from other programs.
Once all the parts were finished, they could choose either to create and name
symbols in Illustrator for later importing into a Flash library, or they could save the
file and import it to the Flash stage (which is what they did for this scene). They
chose to have Flash convert all the layers as Flash layers, which preserved
Illustrator's layer names and organization. After animating the husband and wife
talking, they were ready to export their 2D Illustrator art as a QuickTime file with an
alpha channel (to create transparency around the animated characters), and from
there take it into Cinema 4D to become a “texture” for a 3D type of “material” that
controls how the 3D models appear. Eventually, with the aid of other programs, such
as After Effects and Final Cut Pro, this 2D segment became incorporated into the
rest of the movie.
