September 8, 2009 by John Dickinson | 14,448 views | Comments (43)
For this promo for W Channel, my client suggested this beautiful HBO promo as a guide. I only had 3 days so a full 3D look was out of the question. Instead I turned to the ultra-useful Adobe After Effects plug-in - Trapcode Form. Form was used to transition between shots and text, with the footage itself used as a layer map to colorize the particles and control where the particles were displaced. A recent Form tutorial by Aharon Rabinowitz helped as a guide. In that tutorial Aharon used a block-style Fractal Noise layer as a matte to soften the transition from the footage to the Form animation, I used the same technique here.
Watch movie (no audio) (30sec, 12MB)
43 Responses to this post
September 8, 2009 at 3:56 am |
Wow! Very cool!
September 8, 2009 at 1:09 pm |
Thanks Toneto and best wishes, John.
September 8, 2009 at 4:54 am |
Nice. I would have added some motion blur at the beginning of each transition. Maybe it wouldn’t look that “hard”. But i also like the look shown on picture 2.
September 8, 2009 at 1:09 pm |
Hi Macoba, we specifically wanted no motion blur to keep the hard look. All the best, John.
September 9, 2009 at 4:46 am |
very nice effect.
September 9, 2009 at 2:50 pm |
Hi Sam, Trapcode Form is just one killer effect for sure. Best, John.
September 9, 2009 at 8:39 am |
_google translate_
Already seen, but I like it.
John what happens when you realize that your project starts to look like the “already seen ” and you can not and nothing changed.
September 9, 2009 at 3:02 pm |
Hi Pev, I think it’s fine to create something that looks similar to something else, this happens every day. The key is to not copy something exactly but to give it your own “spin”. Best, John.
September 9, 2009 at 10:18 pm |
hey Dickinson you web site is great!!! cool tutorials and post, you’r a great artist. Unplugged is the law!! XD peace keep in up!! peace!!!
September 9, 2009 at 10:29 pm |
Hi A04, thanks for the kudos and peace to you too! Best, John.
September 9, 2009 at 10:23 pm |
Sadly not up to the standard of the HBO promo I’m afraid, but not a bad effort nonetheless.
September 9, 2009 at 10:28 pm |
Hi John, it was not my intention to come any way near the HBO promo, especially not in 3 days. When a client approaches you with an idea it’s important to be able to make it clear just what is possible within the given time allocation. When I showed my client this idea, they were very happy. All the best, John.
September 10, 2009 at 12:52 am |
For a 3 day turn-around, that’s a fantastic looking promo; great job, John!
September 10, 2009 at 4:03 pm |
Thanks Bellacose. Form certainly got the job done! Best, John.
September 11, 2009 at 2:04 am |
I’m hoping that we’ll see a Form 2.0 in the not-so-distant future; Form is easily my second favourite Trapcode Plugin, behind Particular.
It would be awesome to have the same shading and light reaction in the Form particles, that we now enjoy in Particular 2.0.
Just my Canadian Nickels’ worth…
~bellacose~
September 11, 2009 at 5:09 pm |
Hi Bellacose, that’s not a bad idea and most probably something to consider for Form 2.0. All the best, John.
September 26, 2009 at 12:48 am |
Touche my friend. I would like to see a norms effect with form. It would be great to integrate that plugin with a form layer map.
September 26, 2009 at 8:25 pm |
If you watch the Unplugged interview with Peder (out next week) it’s pretty clear that he will probably be thinking of these kinds of enhancements. All the best, John.
September 10, 2009 at 8:11 am |
I think you could have got better results with Particular 2?, with an “almost” similar amount of work, so that you have individual rotation and shading… What do you think?
It would be a great tutorial if you can imitate the HBO promo using Particular2, and having a 3D coin as a particle for example…
September 10, 2009 at 4:12 pm |
Hey Luis, Particular 2 was an option for sure. I knew that I could get it done pretty fast with Form and the client was happy so stuck with Form. If you get a chance, give it a go in Particular 2 and be sure to show us your results! Best wishes, John.
September 11, 2009 at 4:41 am |
Hi John,
Cool effect. Just a question. If a client asks you to exactly replicate an effect produced earlier, would you accept to do the project? (unlike here where you gave your own touch).
Just a noob question
and since you generally respond to comments left here
September 16, 2009 at 3:52 am |
Hi Hafeez,
I am sometimes asked to replicate existing graphics exactly but generally I’ll give it my own touch. All the best, John.
September 14, 2009 at 3:09 pm |
quite impressive, I like a lot your work , not only on this example, I mean in general, i’ve been learning a lot from this site and obviously from you.
keep doing this, cause you are really good on it
September 14, 2009 at 4:28 pm |
Thanks Diego, I appreciate your comment. All the best, John.
September 15, 2009 at 11:37 am |
Wow, awesome job John! I hope to see a tutorial of this coming up!
September 16, 2009 at 2:26 am |
Thanks Manuel, I’ll probably put something together for this
Best, John.
September 17, 2009 at 4:33 pm |
Hi John, nice website, been a while since i came here. Used to come here often back when you made that classic movies tutorial.
I do motion graphics aswell and my sudgestion for this one was a radial ramp on the background instead of a full black… from a center white to a total blackness on the borders, so that the Form appears to be blowing from somewhere.
Best wishes,
Pedro
PS: sorry about the spelling i’m from Portugal.
PS2: how about a tutorial with expression on how to make a similiar look in AE to your “random” word tags ?
September 17, 2009 at 9:39 pm |
Hi Pedro, nice idea. In this example we wanted the squares to shoot directly towards the camera. Expressions are not my strong area, that would probably be a job for my buddy Maltaannon! All the best, John.
September 24, 2009 at 11:12 am |
The spot looked great John!! By the way, your site is awesome sauce!!
Thanks for all the great tips.
September 24, 2009 at 11:48 pm |
Hey Shannon, glad you’re enjoying the “sauce”! Best, John.
September 29, 2009 at 2:49 am |
These are great John!
September 30, 2009 at 3:20 pm |
Thanks Chris.
October 26, 2009 at 10:51 am |
John,
Nicely done!
I just bought the trapcode suite so I am relatively new to these plugins but they are mindblowing…
I have one question: Did you precomp the title animation?
Cheers,
Tim
Antwerp – Belgium
October 27, 2009 at 2:21 am |
Hi Tim, no I didn’t precomp the text animations but I did use a separate application of Form to animate the text. Best, John.
November 9, 2009 at 9:39 am |
Hi John
in a previous post someone asked about precomping the text and you talked about not precomping the text and using a separate application of form to the text. I tried a similiar clip like yours using a vector logo and when I follow the trapcode tutorial I get a field of numbers. But 1 want to localize the effect to the text only. A subsequent couple of transition in your example showed this.
How did you do it…could you show some screen grabs of your setup?
Regards Mark
November 1, 2009 at 9:12 am |
This freaking awesome man great work!!
trapcode is a powerful plugin
i have a question for you wich font thit you use for it?
It is a nice font for promo’s and that kind of stuff! nice
Keep up the good work Mate!
Thanks, Thomas
November 2, 2009 at 2:27 pm |
Hi Thomas, thanks for your compliment. The font is “Limerick”. Best, John.
December 26, 2009 at 3:58 pm |
I just found your website and I’ve been messing with a similar idea after seeing HBO’s spot.
Do you think they used a 3D program for those particles? I have yet to figure out how that’s possible in 3ds Max.
Nice website and tutorials!
December 27, 2009 at 2:16 am |
Hi Pepe, welcome to Motionworks. I’m not familiar with those spots but Form is one popular plug-in these days! Best wishes, John.
April 9, 2010 at 7:06 am |
I enjoy your site and tutorials very much. I had a question about this trapcode form project. What sort of shape did you use for your layer map to create the transtion. I saw that Aharon Rabinowitz used the binary numbers for his and I was curious what you used for yours.
Thanks much
Ira
July 2, 2010 at 5:23 pm |
Good work John, But how do you make a transition in after effects and use it in adobe premiere or any other editing workstations.
July 4, 2010 at 8:19 pm |
Hey Hassan, Isn’t Form available in Premiere Pro?
July 4, 2010 at 8:23 pm |
nice work!!!!
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