Geekery: Saturday Short – ‘Tank’ Harks Back to Early Vector Video Games

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Jun 23 2018

This short is inspired by classic games like Tempest, Battlezone, Asteroids, and the amazing (at the time) graphics of Tron. Tank tells the story of a group of pilots that must save their world by stopping a weapon of mass destruction.

Veteran animator Stu Maschwitz had to reverse engineer modern software to achieve the awesome retro look. It was created entirely in Adobe After Effects using math and a ton of custom code; it took hundreds of hours to complete. Maschwitz describes the process as “a little crazy… with equal parts animation elbow grease and nerdy expressions madness.”

For those interested in the tech specs and process, he created a detailed behind the scenes look. If you’re interested in making your own vector animations this way Maschwitz has shared his template and a list of the resources he used.

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Author: Mars Garrett

Pop culture writer and news editor that has been on the BoLS team since 2010. Contributor on the One of Us podcast. Marvel, Vertigo, Batman, and dystopian sci-fi fan. Enjoys bad movies, amazing stunt performances, and the internet. Hates rom-coms. (she/they)

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