This was my first project working in Adobe After Effects, so my objective was to create a looping animation that would help me learn the software. I wanted the animation to be well designed, so it would look good as a still, while still being an effective animation.

I went through several different ideas for my animation, but wanted to do something that I hadn’t seen before and that I felt confident would push me to learn the software. Once I settled on the idea of the bowling ball just missing the pin, I had to decide from what angle the animation should happen, and then from there what should be in the background.

The first piece of feedback that I received from peers was to speed up the rolling of the ball. The roll was fairly slow, and even though I kept the position the same, I changed the speed of the rotation so it looked like the ball was moving faster. It was also suggested that I alter the way the pin tipped so it looked more natural and less engineered.

The final animation fulfilled my objective of creating a looping animation, while helping me learn the software--I learned to use and utilized several different tools during this project. I took the time to make the assets well-designed, so when they were brought together the animation would work well.