After the mascot for the museum was developed with various variations and props, we learned how to make a moving animation of the mascot so that it could be utilized as the virtual docent for the audio tour of the permanent exhibition of the museum. The virtual docent will be embedded into the mobile application of the museum later on.

Tools Used for Animation Development

For the animation development, the following tools were used: Adobe Illustrator and After Effects.

Adobe Illustrator

We used the Adobe Illustrator program to give final touches and various hand, tail gestures that would be used for the animation production. We finished up the assets using Illustrator, and imported the assets from Illustrator to After Effects to get ready for animation production.

After Effects

After Effects is one of the mainstream software for 2D motion graphics and advanced video effects for video art. For our team, we used After Effects to create the animation and sync the voice recording of the tour introduction and captions to the animation. Skills such as keyframe animation was introduced and used for the production.

Summary

The animated mascot will serve as the virtual docent for the museum's audio tour of the permanent exhibition, which will eventually be integrated into the museum's mobile application. Utilizing Adobe Illustrator, we finalized the mascot's details and various gestures, importing these assets into After Effects for animation production. After Effects was pivotal in crafting the 2D motion graphics, integrating voice recordings for the tour introduction and captions, and employing keyframe animation techniques to bring the mascot to life as the tour guide.