Before starting to animate, I wanted to have a go at testing the panning shot which I might repeat throughout the three animations. Since this is a key scene, I really wanted to try and see what way I could go about it before actually adding characters and lighting into the animation.
I began with making a wider version of a background I had made, making sure that both the left and right side of the image were symmetrical, so that when the camera pans and I repeat the image, it will look effortless.
I imported this image into After Effects and began trying to create the 'pan' camera effect with the After Effects camera layer itself. I made sure to make the background a 3D layer so that it would be effected, but it was just making the image 'flip' instead of moving it along the x axis. I couldn't figure out why it was doing this, so I ended up deleting the camera layer, and manually moving it across the x axis myself. This turned out to be more effective because it means if I want to simulate a 'bump' that the car goes over, then I will be able to through manually moving the position of the background up and down!
This is what the simple panning looking like with just the background. At first I thought this was moving WAY too fast and I wasn't happy with it at all, but this was because there was nothing else in the animation. When I import the car later and it moves in the opposite direction, the background in fact, needed to be faster to create the illusion of speed.
Like this! With this next test after importing the car, I really wanted to try and make the car look less static. I didn't want it to just pan to the right as well, I wanted it to look like it is being driven (even though there are no characters in it, this is just a test!). Therefore, I made sure to move the car's position ever so slightly now and then, thinking about spacing as well, in order for it to look more realistic. I made the background pan faster to increase the illusion of speed and think it looks a lot better.
Lastly, I added in some clouds which were really difficult to incorporate. For some reason, I could not get my head around which way they were supposed to move, and how fast. Every time I animated the three of them, I didn't like the outcome, so this may be something I need to look closer into. However for a test, and with added snow, I think that the scene looks okay. I would be happy to extend upon this, adding characters and shadowing, with perhaps some more gradients! I didn't know where to start with these animations, but for now, I am liking the look of them. Also, with added sound effects, I think they could be even better!
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