Washington Wizards - G-Wiz Hype

I had the exciting challenge of creating in-arena hype motion graphics and a video for the Washington Wizards’ mascot, G-Wiz. This project was a lot of fun but also quite demanding, as it required dozens of unique design elements to be seamlessly integrated with the season’s look and feel, all contributing to an incredible arena experience.

Here’s a wide shot of the animation in action during halftime entertainment:

And here’s a look at the After Effects workspace with all the screens running simultaneously:

Technical: I used an expression on the blue stars of the P-board, applied to the Scale parameter. It’s a neat inertial bounce expression I found years ago and have kept in my library: amp = .5;

freq = 2.0;

decay = 10.0;

n = 0;

time_max = 4;

if (numKeys > 0){

n = nearestKey(time).index;

if (key(n).time > time){

n--;

}}

if (n == 0){ t = 0;

}else{

t = time - key(n).time;

}

if (n > 0 && t < time_max){

v = velocityAtTime(key(n).time - thisComp.frameDuration/10);

value + v*amp*Math.sin(freq*t*2*Math.PI)/Math.exp(decay*t);

}else{value}