Motion Design · After Effects · 3D Camera · Expressions
HUD
Study
Designing interfaces that exist inside a world, not on top of it.
This motion study was completed as part of a course focused on HUD (heads-up display) design, 3D camera animation, and After Effects expressions. The brief was technical: build a layered, animated HUD element that responds to a 3D scene — concentric rings, rotating dashes, a geometric inner frame, and a glowing arc — composited onto existing 3D footage of the Hulkbuster armour.
HUD design sits at an interesting intersection between UI and motion graphics. The elements have to read as functional — as if they are genuinely scanning, processing, or measuring something — while also working as pure visual composition. Getting that balance right is almost entirely a timing and layering problem, which is what the course was teaching.
The technical work covered After Effects' 3D camera system, expression- driven animation (using code to automate and synchronise element behaviour), and image tracing to produce the geometric frame layer. The 3D model was a provided course asset; the HUD design, compositing, animation, and expression work is original.
HUD Study — After Effects, 3D camera, expressions. 7 seconds, looped.
HUD design sits at the intersection of UI and motion graphics — the elements have to look like they mean something, which means timing has to do the work that content would do in a static composition.
What the course covered.
The course introduced After Effects' 3D camera as a design tool — using depth, angle, and camera movement not just for visual interest but to give animated elements a sense of inhabiting real space. The HUD rings and frame needed to track convincingly against the armour's surface across the full camera move.
Expressions were used to drive timing relationships between layers — so that the outer dashed ring, inner solid rings, and geometric frame all rotate at proportionally related speeds without having to keyframe each one individually. Image tracing produced the hexagonal frame layer from a reference shape.
The result is a seven-second loop that builds from a tight close-up of the chest piece through a full-body reveal — the camera pull timed to coincide with the HUD expanding outward.