Right so the Aftereffects part of this course is well and truly over. My opening sequence came out pretty well. The Brief (below) really called for a sequence of house images with some kind of snazzy transition. There was no way of getting away from it , especially with the supplied music the whole thing rather wrote its self. For the snazzy transitions I decided to use the good old popup book animation style. Some could say this is quite an overused look for animations at the moment - but It really fitted the brief well on this one. Its all about history see, and history comes in book - right? It communicates the idea of discovery also , and finally the soundtrack had these fluttering sections that couldn't evoke the idea of pages turning better.
So just for the heck of it i also used that current animation staple of layered waves made out of card, as though they are from some kind of puppet theatre. I swear if anyone ever invents another way of creating a good looking seascape with 2.5D animation they will win the Nobel prize...of animation.

At first I thought I would have to do allot of the 3d construction in MAYA - but after a few tests I was surprised to find it was all possible in AE. The pages are not as floppy and papery as they could be as AE doesn't allow you to do curves really, but Popup books are made of card - so get over it!