Motionworks

I stumbled across a review about Twixtor by Marco Solorio at creativecow.net and I was excited about the capabilities of this After Effects plugin.

Twixtor enables you to speed up, slow down or frame rate convert your image sequences with visually stunning results. Twixtor 4.5 introduces a complete rewrite of its tracking.
It’s much more accurate, tracks objects farther, and exhibits fewer artifacts when there are objects crossing in the scene. This means less tearing and stretching of objects as they cross or go out of the frame.

I downloaded the demo and so far I am simply thrilled with the outcome on some footage I tested it on. But since I am a freelance mograph artist and don’t have a production house purchasing plug-ins for me, I was hoping to find a few others who are using it and hear what they have to say.

What about you? Have you used Twixtor? What do you think? Do you use another solution?

-Greg

I’m on the lookout for some of you frequent (or not-so-frequent visitors) who might be interested in posting on the Motionworks blog and helping me by giving back to the mograph community. Email me at john@motionworks if you are keen.

Here’s a Quicktime movie (8MB) of the finished Saw 4 promo graphics. As mentioned in the Grungy Text tutorial, all images were sourced from StockXchang. All animation was done in After Effects, with the flickering text created using one of Harry Frank’s awesome expressions.

This week I’ve been working a lot in Photoshop preparing graphics for a promo, so I thought I’d take the opportunity to show you the technique I used for creating some grungy text. Check out the 11 minute video tutorial. Have fun.

As a full time broadcast designer for TV much of the work I do is smaller half, one and two day jobs. Here are a couple of examples. The “Great Speeches of the 20th Century” example uses Zaxwerks 3D Flag, which is a great way to quickly give what might have been flat and boring, a powerful and dynamic look. You can grab the original US Flag project file here. The other example is one of a series of  full frame supers for a movie promo. Here 2 colored spotlights give the text color—one light blue for overall color, and one white, with a smaller “Cone Angle” focussed on the center of the type to a hot spot. “Cast shadows” was enabled for both lights which were then positioned to cast shadows in different directions on the background. A simple move on the type layer gives some nice parallax between the type and shadows. Simple but effective.

The promos for Making It Look Great™ 2 and 3 are online now at makingitlookgreat.com.

Sometimes After Effects does some crazy things that only deleting the AE preference file will sort out. Finding that file can take time but there is a much faster way. Restart AE while holding down the Command + Option + Shift keys (Mac) or Control + Alt + Shift (Windows), and you are presented with an option to delete the preferences. You’ll also get an option to delete the shortcuts if you want. Now with all the new time you save why not check out the new release training Making It Look Great. Have fun.

Just got back after a 21+ hour trip back from Vegas. NAB was great as usual. Thanks to all of you who came up and said hello at the Zaxwerks booth. I’ve come back with some great ideas for future products but first I’ll be posting the Making It Look Great 2 and 3 promos and finishing up Making It Look Great 4, which will be available in June. Caught up with Trish and Chris Meyer, who will be doing a review of Making It Look Great soon. Check out their new blog, including a great review of the plug-ins featured at NAB.

Making It Look Great 1, 2 and 3 are now available on DVD-ROM or by download. The banner link will be updated today but if you can’t wait you can use these links:

MILG 1: http://zaxwerks.com/dvdtraining/milg1.shtml
MILG 2: http://zaxwerks.com/dvdtraining/milg2.shtml
MILG 3: http://zaxwerks.com/dvdtraining/milg3.shtml

Promo movies for MILG 2 and 3 will be available later this week.

Since entering this industry around 15 years ago I can honestly say I can’t imagine doing anything else. But motion graphics wasn’t my first career choice. I left high school early and worked at McDonalds. I followed that with a 4 year apprenticeship as a ladies hairdresser, and then a number of years as a bar attendant. What about you? Did you get into “mograph” directly from school or planning to enter the industry after school? Did you also have an unusual career path? Now’s the time to“fess up”:)

This ECG, created using masks and the Vegas effect, is something I created a while back but recently found myself needing it again. Grab the After Effects CS3 project file here.

Check out this 17 minute video tutorial for the basics of using the latest version of Magic Bullet Frames.

Well it’s that time of year and once again I’ll be demoing at the Zaxwerks Booth at NAB in Vegas. If you’ll be there make sure you come over and say g’day

Oh, and April 13th is the official release date for Making It Look Great™ 2 and 3 and we’ll have plenty of DVDs at the booth. Those of you who can’t make it don’t worry, you’ll also be able to order a DVD online or download if you prefer

In this Motion Graphics Mastery™ 2 minute tip check out how to use the Leave Color effect to create a look made popular by the film Pleasantville.

At this time of year in Sydney the Golden Orb spider is common. I happened to catch this one busy making some repairs to its web right outside the lounge room window and took the opportunity to shoot a little footage. Then used Magic Bullet Frames Plus to remove the fields and Magic Bullet Looks to grade.

Often when I post work here on Motionworks the movies have no audio. At Foxtel we rarely get the opportunity to have the music track at the beginning of a project. Most of the time the soundtrack is added once the graphics are complete and this can be a challenge because personally I feel the music to be a very important part of the design and animation process. It helps determine the style and pace of the animation and can also be used to drive the animation either by manual keyframing or through the use of After Effects’ own Convert Audio to Keyframes feature or the more advanced and flexible Soundkeys plug-in from Trapcode. Luckily for some of the bigger projects such as CI NZ the music came early, otherwise these kinds of projects would be much tougher to pull off.

What about you? Do you always animate to music? Is it a big part of the way you work? Where do you get your music?

Ever wondered how the pros get their work looking so sharp? The popular and proven Making It Look Great™ video workshop series has been designed to answer that question. Throughout these in-depth DVD workshops, professional motion graphics designers demonstrate techniques essential to their daily work and give the design decisions and rationale that support them. The featured projects are demonstrated step–by–step from start to finish, giving priceless insight into what it takes to design and produce professional broadcast motion graphics.

Presenting Making It Look Great™ 2 and Making It Look Great™ 3, two brand new, full length video workshops available soon on DVD and by download.

Making It Look Great™ 2: Design and Production Techniques for Adobe After Effects and Zaxwerks 3D Invigorator Pro

In this full–length video workshop, sit with freelance artist and After Effects pro Alan Shisko as he walks you through his favorite techniques, tips and tricks for creating a stunning broadcast news animation sequence.

Topics include:
• Learning how to think like a designer.
• Secrets of effective project workflow.
• Pro-level modeling and texturing with Zaxwerks 3D Invigorator Pro.
• Advanced techniques for transforming and deforming 3D Invigorator objects.
• Building dynamic transitions using text.
• Beyond–the–ordinary background design.
• Creative color grading with Blend Modes.
• Quick and easy lower third design.
• Mastering the After Effects Graph Editor.
• Tips and tricks for taking control of masks.

Making It Look Great™ 3: Design and Production Techniques for Adobe After Effects, Zaxwerks 3D Invigorator Pro, Trapcode Particular and Form

In this in–depth video workshop sit side–by–side with motion graphics designer and After Effects expert Harry Frank as he guides you step–by–step using real–world techniques, tips and tricks for creating a beautiful and organic broadcast promotion.

Topics include:
• Understanding and working with consistent color palettes using Adobe Kuler.
• Advanced animation and texturing with Zaxwerks 3D Invigorator Pro.
• Generating realistic clouds with Trapcode Particular and light emitters.
• Creating life–like 3D grass with CC Hair.
• Animating with expressions to save time.
• Using gravity and turbulence to create realistic 3D falling leaves.
• Advanced type animation plus an in–depth study of After Effects’ type animation tools.
• Addressing critical details such as type weight, tracking and kerning.
• Creating organic, flowing design elements.
• Finishing touches to add color and mood.

Both titles will be available from early April for $49.95 each.

Things have been a bit quiet on the blog but we’ve been working hard on two new releases in the Making It Look Great™ series. Stay tuned, more soon

Recently I was asked to revisit the look I created for the Crime Investigation Australia series screening on the Crime & Investigation Network here in Australia. The brief was to freshen up the look of the promos for the show but honor the original, in other words “make it look the same but different”. It can be a challenge to revisit your existing work and it’s also a great opportunity to come back to something with a fresh eye (I did the original about 2 years ago). The existing typeface (Bank Gothic) and a number of source files from the original were used but everything else was reworked. The original was based on the concept that viewers were looking through a microfiche, there are none of the original promo graphics available but you can get the idea by watching the title sequence for the show.

For these promos the microfiche look was discarded and replaced with simple camera flashes as transitions. The original logo was also reworked, mainly removing the grunge and inverting the colors ( I had always intended for Australia and the right side of the A to be white but the previous creative director thought differently).

The feature of the new look is the text animation which was created using one text animator group for each word. The larger (important) words rotate into position while the smaller (less important) words blur–fade in. Using multiple animator groups meant that the entire text animation could be done using a single text layer. The color grade on the footage was done using Magic Bullet Looks. Checkout one of the new promos here. This version has no sound which is usually how our department has to work…but that’s another story.

All challenge entries have been compiled into one project (except for 11 which was somehow mislaid, Søren please contact Motionworks so that we can add it to the file). Download the project file here.

We’ll it was close, and I understand that many potential votes were lost due to technical difficulties, but we have a deserving winner: Explosion 10 (Rashad Mammadov). This is the final tally: 1 (20 votes), 2 (36 votes), 3 (50 votes), 4 (12 votes), 5 (3 votes), 6 (4 votes), 7 (6 votes), 8 (11 votes), 9 (30 votes), 10 (54 votes), 11 (4 votes).

In case you are wondering my vote went to Scott Frizzle (8). If you take a close look Scott has done some really convincing flames using some heavy Particular work. We’ll be posting the Explosion Challenge Pack with all contest projects for download soon.

In the meantime, Rashad has won the $500US voucher for any Red Giant Software product. Thanks to all who took the challenge and all who voted. Stay tuned for the next challenge

Voting is now open for the Explosion Challenge. Instead of the top five we’ve included all 11 entries so you can see the effort all of our worthy challengers made. Click here to watch the explosions, choose the number you like most, then use the Poll in the sidebar on the right to vote. In one week we’ll see who the winner of the $500 dollar Red Giant Voucher will be. Let the voting begin

I had a chance to fine-tune the Wrestlemania logo created in Cinema 4D. This is the version from the previous post, and this is the finished version. Not perfect but the bevels and reflections make a big difference.

The challenge has been extended to 3 weeks to give everyone more time. That gives you 1 week from today before the top 5 (voted by Motionworks) are posted and you guys get to vote for winner of the 500 dollar voucher from Red Giant Software.  We already have some pretty hot entries, so hurry up and get yours in.

Thanks to all who attended today’s Adobe E-Seminar. To those who missed it here is a recording of the 1 hour seminar.  There is a short pause about 15 minutes in where my connection dropped out, but otherwise it’s pretty jam packed with info. Leave a comment if you have a question. Have fun.