I think my testing went well and I particularly like how 'clean' the movement of the text looks. At times I think the text isn't on screen for long enough, but obviously I can consider this more closely when it comes to the production of my actual animation, and I can also change the speed at which the transitions happen depending on the message I'm trying to visualise.
In this example I also experimented with camera movements as well as the transition of the text. I thought that the camera helped make some of the transitions a lot easier to create, and in some cases (i.e. at the end of my clip) a rotation of the camera and text made the info graphic more interesting. I also think that using a selection of different techniques like these will help to keep the animation entertaining. At first I was worried that using too many effects and transitions would make the piece seem over the top, but considering the rest of the composition is very basic (background and components), I think it is fine.
I thought it would be best to carry out further research into the ways that text and components are animated in info graphics, to get a better understanding of how I want my own work to be animated. This way I can choose a couple of my favourite styles without having to create masses of tests which would be extremely time consuming.
Care to Click
Social Networks in Numbers
After Effects XYZ
Above are just a few of the animations that I looked at, but I soon found that the ways in which text was animated across different info graphics wasn't all too different. Instead they all seemed to use a handful of techniques.
Diagram of Example Transitions
The above diagram shows the most common examples of transitions that I found whilst researching. The main techniques seem to include; The change of position of the word, rotation and scaling. These are either used on the sentence as a whole, individual words, or individual letters. I'm going to quickly try out a handful of these to see which I like and can animate the best, and also see if they work well together or whether it would be best to stick to just one technique.
As I had sufficient research, I was able to refine my plan and outline exactly the stats I was going to present in my infographic. When doing this I tried to select points that I thought would flow well from one another.
PLAN
Then:
- Introduction of: Gameboy, Super Nintendo, Playstation, Sega
- Massively male dominated (8 Male players for every 3 Female)
Now:
- UK Game industry worth £3.9 Billion
*Did you know? Games sold more than music in 2014*
- New consoles: PS4, Xbox One, Wii U
- Mobile Gaming! (Refer to 'Device Graph' in research)
The Players:
- Estimated 20 million people playing games in the UK
- Gender: 57% Male, 43% Female
- Times: Average of 8.9 hours a week
Esports:
- 135 Million viewers worldwide (2015)
- Watch on platforms such as Twitch and YouTube
Future?:
- $91.5 Billion projected gaming revenues
- Mobile gaming expected to grow by 51%
- Esports expected to grow to 145 million enthusiasts
- Potentially end on a question for the audience to ponder
I thought my plan had good structure and presented a good mixture of stats to show how gaming had grown since the 80s/90s, so I made a start on drawing some of my components, starting with the consoles that were released in the 90s.
Game Consoles - Gameboy, Playstation, Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis
I'm really pleased with my consoles. I love the simplicity and how clean they look, as I used the pen tool to create the shapes that made up the consoles. This also means that I can resize the drawings easily if required and they won't become pixelated.
After Effects Tutorial
I wanted to quickly test how I could animate these components, so I searched on google for infographic tutorials. I found one that I quite liked the look of and wanted to see whether I'd be able to apply the technique to my own components.
Test One
I think I was able to follow the tutorial rather well, and think I have made a good first attempt at animating an infographic, but I'm not sure that this is going to be the style that I go for. Instead I'm going to continue testing different styles and transitions. I also have a lot of other things that I have to play with/consider, including the positioning and scale of the components and font, the background, whether I want to use 3D layers, etc.
