In this recorded e-seminar, learn how to create a stylish and moody, Sopranos–style 3D text look. Main tools covered include Adobe After Effects and Zaxwerks ProAnimator. Check out Making It Look Great for more Zaxwerks workflow training.
Watch tutorial (34mins, 60MB) Download project (6MB)
The Foundry has released 3D Camera Tracker and Kronos, two exciting new plug-ins for Adobe After Effects.
Alexander of Amateurmedia.net has created a stylish new font named Typograph Pro. Also check some of the great usage examples created within Cinema 4D.
Red Giant Software has released Colorista 2, with some exciting new features and improvements. Use motionworks10 for a 1o% discount.
Fontfeed.com has an excellent column “Screenfonts” which discusses the use of fonts in movie posters.
Industrial Light and Magic has a new site. It’s quite amazing just how many productions ILM has been involved in.
Urban Dirty has terrific free grunge stock images and also provides color themes for various images with a downloadable .ASE file. You can import the .ASE file into After Effects using Swatch You Want.
30 Responses to this post
October 28, 2009 at 2:54 am |
Nice
thx was waiting for this tutorial.
October 28, 2009 at 3:09 am |
You’re welcome Vikash, hope you find it useful. Best, John.
October 28, 2009 at 6:37 am |
Very insightful – It does save alot of time then using external 3D programs – as the text can be altered anytime throughout the process.
October 28, 2009 at 2:52 pm |
Absolutely Paul, sometimes I use Cinema 4D, sometimes I use ProAnimator, it’s all about choosing the right tool for the job. Best, John.
October 28, 2009 at 7:55 am |
Hey JD, I’ve not seen it yet but I bet I’ll learn something new!! AE + ProAnimator – match made in heaven!! Thanks buddy!!
October 28, 2009 at 2:53 pm |
Hey Hussin, I hope you found it useful. Best, John.
October 28, 2009 at 8:52 am |
Hi John, Thanks for another excellent tutorial. I do still have a question about layer mapping. How do you apply a layer map (a targa or jpeg image) across all of your text rather than to each of the individual letters. If I select all the text and apply the layer map, it appears individually assigned to each letter, not stretched across all letters. Is there a way of grouping the text into one object and then applying the layer map. I have both 3D Invigorator and Proanimator. I think it might be possible in Proanimator with the group and ungroup functions, but I don’t see a way in 3D Invigorator. My other question is totally unrelated. In the early days of playing around with 3D Invigorator, I mistakenly deleted some of the materials supplied in the material bin (ouch). Is there any way to get these back ie a reload feature (I hope). Keep up the good work!
October 28, 2009 at 1:01 pm |
Hi Brett,
To apply a single image on all the text, you could try grouping the text in Illustrator, then using the “Open Illustrator File” command, and bringing the text into ProAnimator/3D Invigorator.
The text will come in as one object. When you apply a texture map/layer map onto your object, it will now be applied onto the whole text instead of individual characters.
As for replacing the material presets, if you are using version 4.5.0 (or newer), the swatches are set up with a master copy (located in the After Effects Plug-ins folder), and also an user set of swatches located in the “Documents/My Documents > Zaxwerks > ProAnimator/3D Invigorator” folder.
If you delete the ProAnimator/3D Invigorator folder, the swatches will be reset the next time you launch the program. Be careful to back out any important swatches first though!
Best,
Edward
October 28, 2009 at 2:56 pm |
Hi Brett, Ed has answered those questions for me! Best, John.
October 28, 2009 at 11:18 am |
thanks Jhon. I got here Very Good Tutorial…
October 28, 2009 at 2:46 pm |
Thanks for a really helpful tutorial. I do love 3D-text
It was worth the wait, and it was nice for a change to not get everything “right here, right now”
There is a lesson to be had in waiting
Anyway, love your site!
//Klas
October 28, 2009 at 3:04 pm |
Thanks Klas, isn’t that what they say… “good things are worth waiting for”?
Best, John.
October 28, 2009 at 7:52 pm |
Once again, a super tutorial!
Two quick questions:
1. The font used in your tutorial title screen, is that Quicksand?
2. At work, we use ProAnimator. However, I found this really cool free AE comp online the other day which uses the Invigorator plugin. Is there a way to import this comp into AE and translate the Invigorator data to ProAnimator, or are we talking about 2 completely incompatible things here?
In any case, major congrats again!!
October 28, 2009 at 8:58 pm |
Hey Peter, the font is Faricy and no, there is no way to use your 3D Invigorator project inside ProAnimator that I know of. Best, John.
October 31, 2009 at 12:53 am |
Thank u sir. a await this tutorial for many many times. Nice work & goodluck.
November 1, 2009 at 11:13 pm |
Hi John…
Unfortunally, the tutorial doesn’t load in my FF. :S If I click on the link, the website will turn gray, but without the FLV player. Then I’ll have to reload the page, because I can’t get out of the gray screen. Ofcourse I did already found a workaround. Don’t worry for that.
I did just download it by right clicking. This is possible, because the link seems to link directly to the FLV file, rather than the FLV player.
Thanks for the tutorial, I’m going to watch it right now!
November 3, 2009 at 2:30 pm |
Hi Roy, I upgraded Shadowbox and hadn’t set it up correctly. All is working fine now so thanks for the heads up. Best, John.
November 7, 2009 at 4:41 pm |
Hey John !
Is it better to buy a camera that shoots videos, or to buy a camcorder that takes pictures ?
What Camcorder or camera would you recommend ?
November 9, 2009 at 8:09 am |
Hi John ,
I learned about your website through video copilot after you did the interview with Andrew ,since that time I am addicted to your awesome tutorials ,please keep up the great work .
Best regards
November 9, 2009 at 3:02 pm |
Good to hear Zaher, glad to have you visiting us here at Motionworks. Best, John.
January 5, 2010 at 6:59 am |
Thank you for the tutorial, it’s very useful! I have never realized Proanimator is such a powerful plug-in.
Just one question: what is the difference between 3D invigorator and ProAnimator? The plug-in that I have is called 3D invigorator and it’s actually quite much the one I saw in your tutorial, but it doesn’t have animator window, thus I can’t do some operations. Can you help me with this? Do I need to re-install the plug-in in some different way? Or is ProAnimator different plug-in and I need to buy it? I would be very thankful if you’d reply. Once again, thanks and I’ll wait for your reply.
January 5, 2010 at 2:46 pm |
Hi Nick,
Check out the Zaxwerks site for the difference between 3D Invigorator and Proanimator. In 3D Invigorator, you assign an object or group of objects to a set. You can then animate the set using the traditional keyframes. Proanimater uses a system of animations that can be called behaviors. It supplies many presets but you can customize them or create your own. You don’t have the animate window in 3D Invigorator, but you do have the same set up window as Proanimator. Hope this helps.
Brett
January 5, 2010 at 3:20 pm |
Hi Nick, ProAnimator is completely separate from 3D Invigorator. Check out this product comparison I did which should clear up the confusion!
ProAnimator vs 3D Invigorator
Best wishes,
John
January 5, 2010 at 11:18 pm |
Thank you, to both Brett and John. Well, the difference is quite much what I expected it to be. I had a project in mind and didn’t know which tool to use. Now I know which one I need. Thank again to both of you.
January 5, 2010 at 11:26 pm |
Good to hear Nick. Since I started using ProAnimator I completely stopped using 3D Invigorator. Best wishes, John.
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