Character Animation Courses

Learn how to bring your artwork to life with Angie Taylor’s character animation courses at Creative Cabin.

  • Discover methods for setting up artwork for animating in Adobe’s new Character Animator software.
  • Learn the principles of animation and how to apply them to your characters.
  • Learn useful scripts and add ons for Adobe After Effects, including DUIK, Puppet Toolsand Head Rig.
  • Find out how to compose a scene and a storyboard and get hundreds of tips and tricks for making compelling and enjoyable character animations.
  • Enjoy focussed attention from our trainer on our unique, one-to-one character animation courses.

Book now to hold your place at the special introductory price of £249.95 per day.

More about character animation courses at Creative Cabin

At the Creative Cabin guests can enjoy custom, one-to-one, Adobe software training from a professional industry expert.

In this indyllic location near Brighton – Angie Taylor creates her own motion graphic designs and animations from her studio in the Creative Cabin.

Creative Cabin

In between freelance jobs she offers this lovely self-contained studio/ apartment to other designers, editors and artists who need a quiet, inspiring place to work, learn and relax.

Benefits of one-to-one character animation courses

Angie Taylor’s courses are one-to-one and totally unique. There’s only you and Angie in the Cabin so you get her complete attention for the entire course – unlike corporate training courses where you often have to share the training with several other delegates.

Employers!

You can have employees trained individually for less than the cost of a group training course at a dedicated training centre – making sure they learn exactly what the techniques they need. It’s more cost-effective than you may expect.

No need for all of your designers or editors to be out of the office on the same day, leaving you short-staffed. Send them to the Cabin one-at-a-time for the individual training they need.

Go at your own speed

With a one-to-one training course at the Creative Cabin you can explore the software at your own speed while Angie guides you and suggests best practices with the software.

Work on meaningful projects and files

Angie provides well-designed, structured training exercises for you to follow that will get you up to speed in no time. If you prefer you can bring along your own projects so you and Angie can work on those together.

Solve problems and come up with solutions

Problem-solving and coming up with new ideas is Angie’s speciality – she loves to suggest ways to improve and refine your workflow to get the very best from your software.

Be trained by a working designer and author

Angie only offers training for a few days every month. When the Cabin is not being used for training Angie creates motion graphic and animation projects from the Cabin for her own clients who she works for on a freelance basis.

Over the past 20 years Angie has trained hundreds of motion graphic designers, video editors and artists on software applications such as; Adobe After Effects, Premiere Pro, Photoshop, Illustrator and Maxon Cinema 4D.

Angie is a published author with five books published on the subjects of Adobe After Effects and motion graphic design. She is also an author of training courses at Lynda.com.

Make your training a vacation

The Creative Cabin is situated in an idyllic spot near Brighton in the UK with panoramic views across the English Channel.

All training packages include accommodation in the private, comfortable self-contained studio apartment – this is yours for the duration of your stay. Kick back and relax when you’re not training, enjoy some home-cooked food while watching movies on the HDTV or playing Playstation games. The more adventurous guests may want to take a trip into the centre of Brighton to unwind in style.

Accommodation

Designers and Artists can rent the Cabin for as little as £99.95 per night. It is a completely self-contained studio apartment with sleeping area, shower room, kitchen and work area. Find out more about the facilities here.

Training packages

At the Cabin Angie offers customised, one-to-one training courses, tailored to suit each individual’s needs. Previous clients include designers from BSkyB, ITV and Barton Willmore.  Find out more about these affordable courses near Brighton and to view course outlines, please visit the Training page.

Booking the Cabin

Please use the Contact page to contact Angie for more details about course content and availability. If you’re interested in booking the cabin accommodation,  training or a package that includes both, please book here.

NAB 2015 Presentations by Angie Taylor

NAB 2015 Presentations by Angie Taylor

Well, it’s that time of year again, NAB 2015 is just round the corner. It’s the event of the year for our industry. The who’s-who of the broadcast industry gather together in Las Vegas for this massive trade show, conference and countless parties. It’s a great opportunity to meet old friends, make new contacts, learn new techniques and see new products and technologies on show.

 Interview with That Studio

Come to the That Studio booth, in the Plugin Pavillion at 1.15 on Wednesday to partake in the audience. I’ll be interviewed by the lovely Kanen Flowers about my relatively new venture The Creative Cabin. I’ll also be giving away some free Creative Cabin products!

Sessions and Demo’s

This year I’ll have a varied schedule – speaking at the Post Production World Conference and also doing software demo’s on the trade show floor. If you want to learn my latest tips and techniques and see new content from up and coming video tutorials, there’s plenty to see.

RE:Vision Effects Inc.

Booth SL5807

113a0a1dddd380aa6fe1c7022ee0dc81I’m proud to say I’ll be working the trade show floor on behalf of RE:Vision Effects Inc. Who make Academy Award winning Plugins for After Effects, Autodesk Systems, Avid Systems, Final Cut Pro, Fusion, genQ, HitFilm, Natron, Nucoda, Nuke, Premiere Pro, Resolve, Scratch and Vegas Pro.

I’ll be showcasing all of their plugins, in particular my personal favourite RE:Flex that I used on the Chris Cunningham’s Rubber Johnny music video. You can find us at booth SL5807. I’ll be there Monday from 2-6, Tuesday from 3.30-6 and Wednesday from 9-1.

Boris FX

Booth SL4225

This year Boris FX will be teaming up with their friends at Imagineer Systems to present awesome new time-saving technologies and vfx tools jointly developed for the first-time by the Boris FX and the Imagineer teams. Swing by thebooth SL4225 on Tuesday the 14th April at 12pm midday to see my talk about creating 3D titles right inside After Effects. See how to us Boris FX 3D plug-ins with the built in 3D Camera Tracker inside After Effects to mimic famous movie titles.

Post Production World Conference

South Upper Hall

I’ll also be speaking at the Post Production World conference during the week. This premiere technical training program is produced by Future Media Concepts.  Click here to review the full schedule of this year’s Post|Production World offerings.

I have two sessions at this event this year;

Building After Effects Templates and Source Elements

Tue. April 14| 2:00 PM – 3:15 PM | N252

Designers can make extra income by designing templates for other designers. Websites like Adobe Exchange and VideoHive make it easy to market and sell them. In this session Angie Taylor will share tips and techniques for building solid templates and source elements for After Effects and Premiere Pro. She’ll also share information about how to protect your content legally and make money from it online.

This session will feature workflows in After Effects, Premiere Pro and Illustrator.

By the end of this session, attendees will know how to….
• Design templates that are useful and practical
• Organize template projects so they are easy to use
• Create expression controllers for adjusting template elements
• Lock and hide and add notes to project elements
• Create accounts to market and sell templates
• Make additional income by selling products

Get More from Cinema 4D Lite & After Effects

Wed. April 15| 3:30 PM – 4:45 PM | N252

The Cineware plugin allows users to integrate Cinema 4D, 3D objects and scenes into your After Effects projects. Angie will look at the many creative ways this powerful software combination can work. You’ll pick up all the skills you need to feel confident with Cinema 4D Lite as well as see some inspiring ideas to drive you forward. The session will finish with Angie showing you how you can use classic camera moves from famous movies in your 3D scenes.

By the end of this session, attendees will know how too…
• Build models from primitive objects Cinema 4D Lite
• Apply and modify materials in Cinema 4D Lite
• Animate properties in Cinema 4D Lite
• Make use of free content in Cinema 4D Lite
• Incorporate your 3D objects into After Effects
• Recreate classic camera moves with the After Effects 3D Camera Tracker

Conference: Post|Production World

Registration Package: A Post|Production World registration or SMART Pass will get you into these sessions. Please check here for registration prices.

 I hope to see some of you there. I am quite short-sighted so often don’t recognise people from a distance so please make sure to come and say hello if you see me.

Cinema 4D Lite Tutorials

Cinema 4D Lite Tutorials

Cinema 4D Lite Tutorials from

Up and Running with CINEMA 4D Lite for After Effects

with Angie Taylor

Intimidated by 3D modeling packages? Dip a toe in the water with CINEMA 4D (C4D) Lite, a slimmed down version of CINEMA 4D included with After Effects CC. Motion graphics designer Angie Taylor shows you how to build a complete sequence in C4D Lite, progressing from initial object modeling, to animation, lighting, camera rigging, texturing, and final render. Plus, learn to animate text, create random movement with wiggle expressions, track cameras in live-action footage to add new 3D elements, and light your scene. Angie also round-trips the project files to After Effects for visual effects and color correction. With over 100 videos, this course allows you to explore almost every aspect of 3D motion graphics creation, within this accessible introductory tool.

Topics include:

  • What is CINEMA 4D Lite?
  • Understanding the CINEMA 4D Lite and After Effects CC workflow
  • Editing primitive objects
  • Spline modeling with NURBS
  • Animating with keyframes
  • Using Xpresso to link properties
  • Importing music and soundtracks
  • Creating and animating cameras
  • Working with text
  • Scripting
  • Creating and applying materials and textures
  • 3D camera tracking
  • Compositing layers
  • Lighting with visible lights and ambient occlusion
  • Adding visual effects in After Effects
  • Rendering in After Effects and the Adobe Media Encoder

What is CINEMA 4D Lite?

Using the Picture Viewer in CINEMA 4D

Linking body parts using object hierarchy

Adding surface detail with a Relief object

Understanding coordinates

Understanding rotation

Keyframe interpolation

Creating multiple cameras in CINEMA 4D Lite

Creating a wiggle expression

Casting shadows on layers in CINEWARE

Multipass compositing explained

Layer styles

Up and Running with CINEMA 4D Lite for After Effects

Up and Running with CINEMA 4D Lite for After Effects

Up and Running with Cinema 4D Lite for After Effects

Intimidated by 3D modeling packages? Dip a toe in the water with CINEMA 4D (C4D) Lite, a slimmed down version of CINEMA 4D included with After Effects CC. Motion graphics designer Angie Taylor shows you how to build a complete sequence in C4D Lite, progressing from initial object modeling, to animation, lighting, camera rigging, texturing, and final render.

Plus, learn to animate text, create random movement with wiggle expressions, track cameras in live-action footage to add new 3D elements, and light your scene. Angie also round-trips the project files to After Effects for visual effects and color correction. With over 100 videos, this course allows you to explore almost every aspect of 3D motion graphics creation, within this accessible introductory tool.

Topics include:

  • What is CINEMA 4D Lite?
  • Understanding the CINEMA 4D Lite and After Effects CC workflow
  • Editing primitive objects
  • Spline modeling with NURBS
  • Animating with keyframes
  • Using Xpresso to link properties
  • Importing music and soundtracks
  • Creating and animating cameras
  • Working with text
  • Scripting
  • Creating and applying materials and textures
  • 3D camera tracking
  • Compositing layers
  • Lighting with visible lights and ambient occlusion
  • Adding visual effects in After Effects
  • Rendering in After Effects and the Adobe Media Encoder
Getting Started with After Effects Expressions

Getting Started with After Effects Expressions

Getting Started with After Effects Expressions

Even if you’re not comfortable with scripting or coding, you may still want to take a look at expressions. They are like little scripts that trigger changes to layer properties, and they can save you time, make your work more flexible, and open up new creative possibilities.

In this course, motion graphic designer Angie Taylor shows you how to make Adobe After Effects expressions work for you, starting with building expressions with the pick whip. Then she introduces JavaScript-based math expressions, which allow you to adjust timing and movement, and her favorite “no brainer” expressions, such as property linking and connecting camera focus to layers. Plus, discover how to react to sound, play with color, format text, and link 2D and 3D properties.

Topics include:

  • What are expressions?
  • Creating and applying expressions
  • Linking expressions to layers with the pick whip
  • Simplifying expressions with variables
  • Working with JavaScript math functions
  • Creating looping animations
  • Randomizing values
  • Converting expressions to keyframes
  • Creating keyframes from audio with expressions
  • Controlling 2D effects in 3D space
  • Converting color from RGB to HLS
  • Formatting strings and text
Paper Folding Animation

Paper Folding Animation

After Effects tutorial:

Create a 3D paper folding animation

Build a trick paper-folding animation from still images in After Effects.

Paper Folding Animation After Effects

Approaches like this are really useful as they allow you to create footage and a quirky paper folding animation from very few source files. All I’ve used here are five images of these models – and one audio track. Here’s a three-part tutorials series that I’ve created at the Digital Arts website. Click on the links below to go to the Digital Arts website. Following these links is the movie showing the effect that you will create.

Part 1 – After Effects tutorial: Create a 3D paper folding animation

BFolding Paper Animation in After Effectsuild a trick paper-folding animation from still images in After Effects.

Part 2 – After Effects tutorial: Automate cuts to sequence comps in After Effects

Discover a simple way to automate the process of cutting a sequence of comps together on the Timeline in After Effects, and apply 3D lights, cameras and effects to all of them.

Adding 3D object to After Effects with CinewarePart 3 –After Effects tutorial: Add a 3D object to a comp in After Effects using Cineware and Cinema 4D Lite

Use Cineware to add a real 3D object to your After Effects scene and apply 3D lights, cameras and effects to it.

 

Up and Running with Illustrator CS6

Up and Running with Illustrator CS6

Up and Running with Illustrator CS6

In CS6 Adobe Illustrator is more powerful than ever before, and in this course Angie Taylor shows just how easy it can be to use. Get a tour of the interface, gain an understanding of the workflow, and be introduced to core techniques like working with artboards, understanding layers and objects, and making and moving selections. Angie also shows how to create images from shapes, apply color, reshape paths, and save and export artwork for the web, print, or animation.

Topics include:

  • Setting up a new document
  • Navigating within the workspace
  • Understanding layers and objects
  • Creating images from shapes
  • Applying color
  • Using the Appearance panel
  • Creating shapes with the Blob Brush and Eraser tools
  • Working with the Pen and Pencil tools
  • Tweaking, exporting, and saving artwork
Elgato Thunderbolt Dock

Elgato Thunderbolt Dock

The Elgato Thunderbolt Dock really is a desk-changer! It’s not often I write blog posts about hardware but this little gadget has eased my worklife considerably over the past few weeks and I’d like to sing it’s praises, perhaps it can help ease yours too. It’s a simple, elegant little box that allows you to connect multiple devices to your laptop or desktop computer via one Thunderbolt cable. Simply connect your chosen machine to the back of the box using the supplied Thunderbolt cable. The back has HDMI for connecting your external monitor. I use this to connect my NEC MultiSync PA271WB 27 inch LCD and get the full 2560 x 1440 resolution display fed from my humble 15″ Macbook Pro. It also adds an extremely useful Gigabit ethernet port to my MBP so I don’t have to rely on wireless for networking – this is invaluable for me as I live in an area where we still have ADSL broadband – frustratingly slow and unreliable. thunderbolt-thunderboltdock-plentyofpower There are also other thunderbolt ports and a couplf of USB ports on the back fro connecting other devices. The box has power too so can be used to charge up your iPod or iPhone as well as powering bus-powered devices such as hard drives. There’s also a free utility that, when installed, provides your Mac support for high-powered USB. At the front end is another USB port and Stereo audio in and out ports. These are useful for conference calls but I can alos use these to do some quick screen captures for my tutorials. Just attach a decent pair of headphones and my Countryman mic and I’m off! If I need more control over my audio its easy to connect my USB Pre 2. Sometimes the simple things are the best and this little unassuming box is really the best. Previously I had a spaghetti-pile of cables running from the desk to my Macbook Pro. Each time I went there I had to plug and unplug various peripherals. Now my life is simpler and uncluttered, just one simple elegant cable is all I need. I’m a happy geek!
Kinetic Typography Techniques with After Effects

Kinetic Typography Techniques with After Effects

Kinetic Typography

Kinetic typography is an art form that combines text and motion to express ideas in the form of animation designed to accompany spoken word or music. Join author, and motion graphic designer Angie Taylor as she shares her considerable knowledge of this form.

Work along with her in this unique course as she builds a complete kinetic typography project from start to finish. Along the way, discover how to create and animate text layers directly within Adobe After Effects using animators and 3D features, set up Photoshop files for animating in After Effects, and use a variety of effects and techniques to create numerous text animation styles within a single project. The course also offers lots of tips and tricks for animating 3D cameras and lights and using expressions and scripts to simplify the processes involved.

Topics include:

  • Working with audio
  • Preparing source files
  • Structuring your After Effects project
  • Working with shapes and effects
  • Optimizing performance
  • Animating text
  • Creating 3D animation
  • Using expressions to create motion
  • Rendering your final movie