Motionworks » Tips

Cinema 4D: Easy Scripting

John Dickinson — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 23:50:40 +0000

In this handy tip, guest host Tim Clapham demonstrates a must-know and surprisingly simple technique for creating custom scripts in Cinema 4D. The example Tim shows where he zeros all coordinates will save you a bunch of time! Watch Tip

After Effects: Effects A-Z: Bulge

John Dickinson — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 08:54:25 +0000

In this Adobe After Effects: Effects A-Z tip, special guest host Eran Stern demonstrates Bulge.

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After Effects: Effects A-Z: Bilateral Blur

John Dickinson — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 10:56:08 +0000

In this Adobe After Effects: Effects A-Z tip, special guest host Eran Stern demonstrates Bilateral Blur.

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After Effects: Simplify your workflow

John Dickinson — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 11:00:49 +0000

Design skills are important but good workflow is also critical when working with Adobe After Effects. In this tip learn how a seemingly simple technique can be simplified further, saving keyframes, expressions and, most importantly, time! Watch tutorial (5mins, 15MB)

After Effects: Effects A-Z: The Bevel Effects

John Dickinson — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 09:50:55 +0000

In this Adobe After Effects: Effects A-Z tip, special guest host Topher Welsh demonstrates Bevel Alpha and Bevel Edges.

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After Effects: Effects A-Z: Beam

John Dickinson — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 22:13:01 +0000

In this Adobe After Effects: Effects A-Z tip, I demonstrate Beam and share two more unusual ways to use this handy effect.

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After Effects: Effects A-Z: Audio Spectrum

John Dickinson — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 07:11:01 +0000

In this Adobe After Effects: Effects A-Z tip, special guest presenter Maltaannon demonstrates the Audio Spectrum effect.

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After Effects: Motion Sketch

John Dickinson — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 20:42:20 +0000

Motion Sketch is one of those Adobe After Effects tools that is often forgotten (at least by me) but is still a handy addition to the After Effects toolset. In this quick tip we look at how you can use Motion Sketch to add natural, organic motion to your layers. Watch tip (7 mins)

After Effects: Rotoscoping fields

John Dickinson — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 11:55:35 +0000

In this short tip, learn how to set up your Adobe After Effects composition to rotoscope footage imported with fields. (Note: please excuse the room ambience included with the audio, my regular microphone failed during this recording). Watch tip (5mins)

After Effects: Effects A-Z: Auto Effects

John Dickinson — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 23:11:42 +0000

In this Adobe After Effects: Effects A-Z tip, special guest presenter Topher Welsh gives a brief tour through the Auto Color, Auto Contrast and Auto Levels effects.

Watch tutorial (4mins, 5MB)

After Effects: Effects A-Z: Audio Waveform

John Dickinson — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 22:08:19 +0000

In this Adobe After Effects: Effects A-Z tip, special guest presenter Maltaannon demonstrates the Audio Waveform effect.

Watch tip (8mins, 10MB)

After Effects: Effects A-Z: Arithmetic

John Dickinson — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 10:55:30 +0000

In this Adobe After Effects: Effects A-Z tip, special guest presenter Harry Frank of Graymachine demystifies Arithmetic and offers ups some creative uses for this little known effect.

Watch tip (5mins, 11MB) Download project

After Effects: Effects A-Z: Angle Control

John Dickinson — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 10:37:22 +0000

In this Adobe After Effects: Effects A-Z tip, special guest presenter Maltaannon explains some techniques for using the Angle Control effect with basic expressions

Watch tip (9mins, 11MB)

After Effects: Effects A-Z: Alpha Levels

John Dickinson — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 10:19:25 +0000

In this Adobe After Effects: Effects A-Z tip, special guest presenter Topher Welsh covers the basics of using the Alpha Levels effect.

Watch tip (3mins, 8.5MB)

After Effects: Effects A to Z – Advanced Lightning

John Dickinson — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 21:54:38 +0000

In this Adobe After Effects: Effects A-Z tip, special guest presenter Eran Stern demonstrates the basics of using the Advanced Lightning effect.

Watch tip (7mins, 17MB)

After Effects: Effects A to Z – Add Grain

John Dickinson — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 22:51:24 +0000

Have you ever looked in the Adobe After Effects Effects menu and wondered what some effects are used for? In this extended series of tips take a voyage of discovery as we uncover every default effect that ships with Adobe After Effects. Each week myself and other guest presenters from around the globe will take you on a whirlwind tour through an effect, starting right here with the Add Grain effect. Watch tip (5mins, 10MB)

After Effects: Working with Duplicate Text

John Dickinson — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 10:44:45 +0000

In this video tip learn how to work faster and smarter when using duplicated text layers.

Watch tip (5mins, 40MB)

After Effects: Paste at the current time

John Dickinson — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 07:55:20 +0000

In this 4 minute video tip learn about precomposing, versioning and the must-know shortcut for copying and pasting. No more pasting layers the hard way.

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Cinema 4D: Footage with an Alpha Channel

John Dickinson — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 08:28:43 +0000

In this 3 minute video tip learn how to import footage with an alpha channel, apply it to an object in your scene, and have it play back in the timeline. Watch tip

Cinema 4D: The Vibrate Tag

John Dickinson — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 09:30:47 +0000

In this 2 minute video tip see how the vibrate tag can be used to add automatic animation and save time when working in Cinema 4D.

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After Effects: Looking Through Lights

John Dickinson — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 21:49:04 +0000

In this 3.5 minute video tip learn how you can look through a camera linked to a light and see exactly what the light is pointing at, making lighting your After Effects scene easier and more intuitive.

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Cinema 4D: Lighting using Link Active Object

John Dickinson — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 20:38:54 +0000

In this 2 minute video tip learn how you can use the Link Active Object command to take control of lights and make lighting your Cinema 4D scene easier and fun.

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Title and Action Safe

John Dickinson — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 08:59:24 +0000

Title and action safe guides are used to ensure that important content isn’t placed outside the viewable areas of a television screen. If you’re creating a project that will be seen on both 4:3 and 16:9 televisions, the best way to ensure that 4:3 viewers don’t miss any of the action is to use guides with a 4:3 safe zone. Up until After Effects CS4 I used a Photoshop file created for that very purpose, but now 4:3 safe guides are included as part of the built in title/action safe guides. So if you’re like me and you care if 4:3 viewers miss out on the full experience of your work, be sure to use these guides.

The shortcut for toggling Title/Action Safe Guides is to hold down the Option key (Alt on Windows) and click the Grid and Guides button at the bottom left of the Composition panel.

After Effects: Deleting the Preference file

John Dickinson — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 21:50:10 +0000

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.

After Effects: Leave Color

John Dickinson — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 11:29:06 +0000

In this 2 minute video tip, check out how to use After Effects’ Leave Color effect to create the look where you footage is made black and white, leaving only a single color, made popular by the film Pleasantville.

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