Chris and Trish Meyer are After Effects’ experts who were writing about After Effects long before I’d even heard of the software. Along with Brian Maffitt from Total Training I consider them my mentors and, thanks to yearly visits to NAB, my friends. If you weren’t aware, Chris and Trish post regularly at the ProVideo Coalition and recently added [Read more]
Merry Christmas and a motion graphics–filled new year to all Motionworks visitors. Thanks for your support in 2008, we’re looking forward to a big 2009 and hope you have a great one too.
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Rotoscoping is something I love to hate – I love the results but hate doing it. Well not exactly hate but you know what I mean; have you ever heard someone say “man I love rotoscoping” or ”gee, I can’t wait until the weekend so I can do a little rotoscoping”. Nope, it’s one of those tasks that’s a drag, but worth it in the end. [Read more]
When working in the world of motion, time acts as a continual constraint against our approach and workflow. It acts as the major limitation to our practices within the commercial realm. Deadlines exist, corners need to be cut, chopped and even recycled when necessary. Time is a necessary measure and with adequate time-saving measures in place [Read more]
My buddy Aharon Rabinowitz has moved on from Creative Cow and is now hosting Red Giant TV, a brand new tutorial hub for Red Giant Software. Aharon will be adding one new tutorial every week to help us create some cool motion graphics and visual effects and get the most out of our investment in Red Giant plug-ins. Check out the beta here.
Yesterday I had a surprise visit at Foxtel by Ian Haigh, a fellow Sydney-sider and the creator of the very cool Ease & Wizz scripts for Adobe After Effects. I had no idea Ian worked just up the road from me and as it turns out he is a 10 year veteran of After Effects. So what is Ease & Wizz? According to Ian’s website, “Ease and Wizz is a set of expressions [Read more]
Making It Look Great 5 (MILG5) is now available for download. This is the biggest, most jam packed MILG release so far, with over 7 hours of After Effects tips and techniques from the master Jerzy Drozda Jr. (aka. Maltaannon). Whether you’re an After Effects beginner or expert you’ll learn valuable techniques that will make your work look great. [Read more]
The so-called global financial crisis seems to have hit some countries harder than others. Here in Australia it’s in the news almost every day but apart from a diving share market and dollar value, reduced business and consumer sentiment, and the threat of increased unemployment, so far things seem to be generally unchanged. My job seems as busy as ever, with plenty of work coming through the door. How has the crisis affected you? Have you lost your job? Are you freelancing and finding it harder to find work? I’m curious to know how the motion graphics industry is being affected around the world.
Psunami 1.3 was recently released by Red Giant Software after their recent acquisition of Digital Anarchy’s After Effects plug-ins. A recent project required this style of FX treatment, and I have been thoroughly impressed with this plug-in, both in its ease of use, potential for creative extension and use in non intended ways. [Read more]
Last year I had to sell all my studio equipment, including my trusty PowerMac with all its lovely RAM. The only computer I have presently is my trusty PowerBook G4 with 1 Gig of RAM. Lest you feel sorry for me, don’t. Rendering may take a lot longer than it used to, but this little power house has helped me produce some wonderful motion graphic designs. [Read more]
Welcome to the new, bigger, badder Motionworks website. Thanks for your patience while we’ve been getting everything in order. As you’ll notice we’ve undergone quite a transformation, or as I like to say, Motionworks has grown up. I learned a lot about blogging and websites in general in the 4 years that Motionworks 1.0 was online. [Read more]
Making It Look Great 5 hosted by Jerzy Drozda Jr (aka Maltaannon) is almost here. The following is a list of all 10 tutorials included in the workshop, with Quicktime movie examples. This training is over 7 hours long and is packed with After Effects techniques, tips and tricks. More details soon. [Read more]
We are working hard on Making It Look Great 5 so I thought I’ll let you in on a little status update. We are already halfway through. If everything goes well we should be releasing it in no more than 6 weeks. Unfortunately I became very sick and sometimes I have to give my plans up, go to the doctor and lay in bed for a few days. But I’m not giving up, oh no. [Read more]
Trapcode “Horizon” is a camera-aware color gradient and image mapping plug-in for Adobe After Effects. It’s a straightforward utility plug-in generating a background that corresponds to the After Effects camera’s viewing direction. The camera position has no influence on Horizon, you could say it always uses an infinite distance to the camera. [Read more]
Recently I was watching that terrific iPod Nano Ad when I noticed what to me looked like a mistake. Now this wouldn’t have been noticeable had I not happened to be stepping through frame-by-frame but you can clearly see the talent’s arm has been chopped off for a few frames. Now this is not a criticism because no one is perfect [Read more]
My buddy Maltaannon from Polygon Studio has just released a brand new custom effect for Adobe After Effects for creating beautiful and convincing light wrap effects. Light wrap is the effect where colour from the background image is mixed in with the edges of the foreground image, creating a realistic composite. [Read more]
I work in Television as a News Anchor. In my spare time and off hours, I study 3D motion graphics by reading, doing and visiting great sites like Motionworks. JD’s latest post on his newest boxing promo sparked a question that he asked me to post here. By way of background, one of my goals working in daily TV news is to keep things looking fresh. [Read more]
Okay so we’re getting a good idea of what Adobe After Effects plug-ins each other uses on a regular basis. It’s quite understandable that so many of you use utility effects like Curves and Levels, and 3rd party effects like Particular regularly, which is such a versatile plug-in. Now let’s share thoughts on effects we avoid, prefer not to use [Read more]
Okay everyone it’s confession time, answer the following two questions:
1. Which effect included with Adobe After Effects do you use the most?
2. Which 3rd party plug-in for Adobe After Effects do you use most?
For me it is a close contest between Fast Blur and Curves… with Curves probably the winner. I had to think hard about No.2 [Read more]
