I often try to bite off more than I can chew. Luckily for this project It didn't complete destroy my teeth. I wanted to do something really simple in 3D, but not being super familiar in any 3D software I wanted to put AE to the test and do a completely native 3D project in AE. Not only that but the character was already supposed to be lipsynched to the voice over. Rigging the character and getting the lipsynch down was a piece of cake. A time consuming piece of cake but at only 1 minute and 5 seconds I was able to crank it out pretty quickly. 

As you can see the concept was simple. The character walks through doors of a building as he gives his presentation. The camera tracks him as he does and thus the scene setup was really straightforward. 

The chemistry set was a blast to build. Although not exactly specific to Amazon it was still a lab-like element that I thought would connect with the feel of the audience.

The real trouble with this project came with the actual rendering of the project. I've learned a lot from this project. Namely that After Effects doesn't not work with complete 3D scenes well. Lights don't bounce realisticly and shadows tend to get wonky as they surfaces move. If I remember right, rendering took 20+ hours. This was not ideal as a rough, or preview, render wasn't really sufficient to see where the errors were. 

 

All in all this was a fun unique project. I've since spent way more time learning the ropes of Cinema 4D. A much better program for anything 3D. But I still do 90% of my work with AE.