Category: Blogroll

Illustrator CS6 – Learn by Video

I’m very pleased to announce that my new workshop – Adobe Illustrator CS6 – Learn by Video – is now available to buy directly from the web store on my videos page. I’m also featuring some free example movies from this workshop right here so you can try before you buy.

Newsletter subscribers can also benefit from a 20% discount code off the price of the entire workshop so if you haven’t already subscribed you can do so now to take advantage of this and other special offers only available to my subscribers.

This Learn by Video course offers in-depth training on the interface, workflow, and features of Adobe Illustrator CS6. Amongst other things you’ll learn my own techniques for drawing characters including my “Illustrator” superhero. Here’s the intro movie where I tell you more about the course.

The contents of this course include:

Introducing Illustrator CS6
In this chapter you’ll be introduced to Adobe Illustrator — what it is and what it does — and get an overview of what will be covered in this course. You’ll also be taken on a tour of the new features in Illustrator CS6.

Illustrator Fundamentals
This chapter explores two concepts that are crucial to an understanding of how Illustrator works: the difference between bitmap (or raster) images and vector images, and the concept of paths.

Exploring the Illustrator Interface
In this chapter you’ll learn how to work with important elements of the Illustrator interface like panels, the Application bar and frame, artboards, and workspaces.

Navigating and Using Views in Illustrator
Being able to easily move around your documents and see them in different ways can be a big help in your work. This chapter will explain how to navigate in Illustrator CS6 and use the different viewing and screen modes.

Working with Documents
This chapter shows you how to efficiently create, modify, and view documents. You’ll learn how to use templates, guides, grids, Adobe Bridge, and more.

Creating and Working with Shapes
Shapes are a very important part of Illustrator, and in this chapter you’ll learn about the various tools available for creating and modifying shapes.

Transformations
You can transform objects in a variety of different ways in Illustrator CS6. This chapter shows you the various methods that can be used to transform and modify objects, including how to use the Transform panel.

Understanding Objects and Layers
This chapter shows you how to select and modify objects in Illustrator CS6 and explores the multitude of options you can use to create artwork. We’ll look at saving selections, grouping items, layers and stacking order, and Isolation mode.

Drawing
Drawing is at the heart of the work you’ll do in Illustrator. In this chapter you’ll learn all about the tools, techniques, and features related to drawing in Illustrator CS6.

Using Symbols
Symbols are a handy feature in Illustrator, and in this chapter you’ll learn how to create them, move and rotate them, adjust their size and color, and apply graphic styles.

Color
Color makes a big difference to the appearance of your artwork. In this chapter you’ll learn how to work with color-related features in Illustrator like the Colors panel, swatches, gradients, Live Paint, and more.

Typography
In this chapter you’ll learn how to add text to your documents, format that text, create styles, and more.

Working with Images
In this chapter, you’ll learn how to place graphics and see all the tools Illustrator offers once they are there to help you get great results in your designs.

Working with Effects
With effects, you can apply a look to a path that doesn’t alter the path at all. It will print like what you see on your monitor, but in reality, it’s all just an illusion…a very powerful, editable, printable illusion that can be saved as a PDF, placed in Photoshop and InDesign, and more. You’ll learn all about this incredible technology in this chapter.

Graphs
If you have information you want to convey as a graph or chart, Illustrator has the tool. The chart and graph tools in Illustrator aren’t new, but they are very powerful and allow you to present data in a more interesting way, as you’ll see in this chapter.

Beyond Illustrator
Eventually there will come a time when you want to save your Illustrator work as a PDF or in one of the common web file formats, or output it for use in an animation. The videos in this chapter will show you how.

Project Explorations
In this chapter you’ll apply the skills you’ve learned in this course to some projects that give you an idea of just what Illustrator is capable of.

Closing Thoughts
In this chapter you’ll get a brief recap of what’s been covered in the course and a few final thoughts from the author.

The lessons are wrapped in a feature-rich interface that lets you jump to any topic and bookmark individual sections for later review. Full-Screen mode provides a hi-def, immersive experience, and Watch-and-Work mode shrinks the video into a small window so you can play the videos alongside your application. Also included are exercise files that give you an easy way to try out the techniques you learn and a 48-page guide containing supplemental material.

Click here to subscribe to my Newsletter and enefit from a 20% discount code off the price of the entire workshop.

July 7, 2012
After Effects CS6 New Feature Highlights

Well, it’s finally been announced and I can talk about it, my After Effects CS6 new feature highlights. My dear friends at Adobe have once again pulled it off and produced a great update to my favorite software application – After Effects CS6! Rather than bombard you with loads of text I’ve created a movie to highlight my favorite new features, you can watch that movie here.

If you want more information about After Effects CS6 features not covered here Todd Kopriva has produced two great free training workshops in conjunction with the lovely people at video2brain.

After Effects CS6 New Features Workshop includes one hour & forty-five minutes of free movies covering the new features in more detail.

There’s also a fantastic new version of Premiere Pro on the horizon. If you want to find out about the new features, check out Todd’s two hours of free training movies here.

April 12, 2012
Chocolate Flavored After Effects Presets

As a special Easter treat I’ve created a set of free, chocolate flavored After Effects presets for the readers of my blog and newsletter, I hope you enjoy them. Here’s a little taster of what’s included in the pack. The download link is available here Angie_Taylor_Easter_Presets .

April 6, 2012
Mask Interpolation Tips
Masking is one of the features of After Effects that I get asked about the most during my After Effects training courses. People seem to have lots of problems animating masks in After Effects and I’ve noticed a few forum questions about it recently so I thought I’d provide some quick mask interpolation tips and links here for you today.

In one of my previous newsletter (you can subscribe here) we looked at how you can adjust the first vertex of a mask to help control the animation.

Here’s an excerpt from my Creative After Effects book that shows how to use Auto- Trace and Smart Mask Interpolation to help animate complicated Mask shapes.

I also have a brand new course in my video store from the amazing Jeff Foster. Advanced Compositing, Tracking, and Roto Techniques with After Effects has amazing tips, here are some free excerpts;

Roto-Painting Mattes

Basics of Match-Moving

Multiple Moving Elements/Layers

Check out our subscription offers for free access to all Jeff’s courses plus mine and all the other trainers at video2brain.

And here are additional tips that can help you when animating masks.
- Remember that you can apply motion blur to a masked layer, at a low setting this will also add a little more smoothness to the interpolation.
- When animating anything in After Effects, but particularly mask shapes, it pays to always start by setting the extreme points of the animation. For example, if your animation is 10-second long, set a keyframe at the very beginning and another at 10 seconds. Then go in between to 5 seconds and make any necessary changes. Once this is done, go to 2.5 seconds, set a keyframe there, then to 7.5 seconds and set another there. Continue positioning the Timemarker half-way in between the pairs of keyframes to set new ones until no other changes are necessary. Using this method will ensure that you add the least amount of keyframes necessary for the animation, the fewer keyframes, the less work it is to edit!
- Here’s a link to the Masking section of the After Effects Online Help.
March 11, 2012

Creative Graphic Design: Essential Typography

Making good decisions is essential in typography — choosing the right typefaces, fonts, sizes, spacing and so on — can have a major impact on the quality of your designs. In this one-of-a-kind workshop, art director, illustrator, and motion graphic designer Angie Taylor introduces you to the essential principles of typography.

After exploring the terminology, history, and anatomy of traditional and computer-based fonts, she brings you all the way up to the present day by looking at how text is formatted in today’s creative applications.

You’ll also learn specific software techniques for creating your own lettering from hand-drawn text, animating text on a path, using operators and effects to customize existing fonts, working with 3D text, and more.

This workshop covers many aspects of typography, from its history and terminology to how it is handled by modern software. The contents of this course include:

Introduction
The Introduction chapter sets the stage for the whole course. Your trainer, Angie Taylor, will introduce some of the typographic concepts that will be covered in the following lessons. She’ll also share the story of what inspired her to become a graphic designer.

The Essence of Typography
This chapter examines the fundamentals of typography, looking at the history of type and how it influences the terminology we use to describe the anatomy of type.

Typefaces
This chapter focuses on typefaces. It begins by examining the categories of typefaces and then compares some examples from each of the categories so that you are better able to recognize the differences between them. You’ll also discover how certain characteristics and cultural associations can influence the meaning of a particular typeface.

Fonts
Typefaces usually include several fonts with different weights and characteristics. In this chapter you’ll learn about these and the differences and similarities in size, weight, line, and detail that you should be aware of when choosing fonts. We’ll also look at special characters that are included in fonts, such as ligatures.

Spacing
The space between letters, words, and lines of text is just as important as the characters themselves. In this chapter we’ll start thinking of negative space as a shape and look at ways of adjusting this space to balance text correctly.

Formatting Text in Adobe Applications
Most Adobe design and video applications have similar typographic controls. In this chapter we’ll look at the different tools that are available for editing your text and apply some of the concepts we’ve discussed in earlier chapters.

Working with Type in Photoshop
This chapter focuses on the (somewhat limited) text features available Adobe Photoshop. You’ll also learn about some complementary features like layer styles that you can use to personalize your design and add pizzazz to your text.

Working with Type in Illustrator
Illustrator is Angie’s favorite application for designing text, and here’s why. In this chapter you’ll get a ton of creative tips on ways to take a standard, classic font like Helvetica and customize it to get a variety of different looks.

Motion Graphics in Adobe After Effects
In this chapter we’ll focus on creating text for your motion graphic designs. You’ll see how After Effects handles text imported from Photoshop, how to make text move along a specified path, and how to apply effects. We’ll also look at the multitude of text animation presets that you can apply to your text.

The lessons are wrapped in a feature-rich interface that lets you jump to any topic and bookmark individual sections for later review. Full-Screen mode provides a hi-def, immersive experience, and Watch-and-Work mode shrinks the video into a small window so you can play the videos alongside your application. Also included are exercise files that give you an easy way to try out the techniques you learn.

Download a PDf description of this course

January 31, 2012
Upgraded Video Streaming

New video service is faster and more responsive

As you may know I have a video store on my page where you can watch some of my training videos completely free of charge with new upgraded video streaming.

If you like them you can buy entire workshops or sign up for a subscription via this introductory pricing offer. With a subscription you can get access to the entire video2brain library of courses from me and other trainers.

You can check out some of the other trainers profiles here. there’s some phenomenal talent at video2brain, that’s why I love working with them. It’s so inspiring to work amongst a team of people with such a vast selection of skills.

We rolled out some major upgrades to our streaming video servers today. More details will be coming soon, but for now, give our new and improved online experience a spin with this free lesson from my Essential Typography course, on the subject of inspiration. For the most immersive result, be sure to click Full-Screen Mode in the lower-right corner of the player.

January 19, 2012
Happy 2012 – More free downloads

Well another year almost over. I’m looking forward to 2012, hoping that it’s a better year for our industry and for all my friends. I have a couple of exciting bits of news to share and more free downloads so here’s my final blog for the year.

Mark Coleran, a good friend of mine and an extremely talented designer is giving away the entire LayerLab collection of After Effects template projects free. Layerlab was a resource for After Effects designers that Mark worked on a few years back. The project was put on hold while Mark pursued other career options. He’s now made a very kind gesture of giving these projects away for free. You can also check out Mark’s blog and portfolio here.

I have a new workshop out in time for the new year. Creative Graphic Design: Essential Typography – Principles and Techniques for Working with Text is a workshop with a difference. Making good decisions in typography — choosing the right typefaces, fonts, sizes, spacing and so on — can have a major impact on the quality of your designs. In this one-of-a-kind workshop I introduce you to the essential principles of typography.

After exploring the terminology, history, and anatomy of traditional and computer-based fonts, I take you all the way up to the present day by looking at how text is formatted in today’s creative applications. You’ll also learn specific software techniques for creating your own lettering from hand-drawn text, animating text on a path, using operators and effects to customize existing fonts, working with 3D text, and more.

There are several free movies you can check out here. If you like what you see, here’s a special discount code for you if you’re interested in buying this course; Coupon Code: ETYP20 Discount: 20% Expires After: 29-Feb. Just enter the code during checkout to get 20% off the advertised price.

Inspiration

Word Spacing

Using Clipping Masks in Photoshop

Layering Effects

Animation Speeds and Durations Onscreen

December 31, 2011
Winter Sale!

In my winter sale there’s 30% off all Wacom workshops in my store.

This offer includes volumes 1, 2, 3 & the Master Collection. To find out more you can read about them here and then check out the courses here and even watch some free preview movies to get a taster of what’s on offer. (Any links highlighted in black are free to watch.) If you decide to buy then just use the Coupon Code WACOM30 when checking out from my video store for 30% off any of the four Wacom courses or the entire Master Collection.

This offer is good through to the end of 2011. With all video2brain courses you now have the option to have them delivered to you on DVD. At the checkout you now have a checkbox option to add a disc for just $6.99 (this price includes manufacturing and shipping costs.)

December 23, 2011
Share training for free!
Share training with a friend
The folks at video2brain are making last-minute gift buying easy for us! From now through the end of the month, any courses or subscriptions that you buy will come with a special code you can use to share that same training with a friend for free.
- Buy a workshop for yourself, give the same workshop to a friend.
- Buy a subscription for yourself, give your friend access to over 500 hours of training and more than 135 courses!
Here’s how it works:
1. After you make your purchase, we’ll send you a PDF that includes a unique activation code that’s good through January 15th.
2. Send that PDF to your friend.
3. When they go to http://video2brain.com/en/code and enter their code, they can log in to video2brain or create a new video2brain account and have their new training added to their account on the spot.
So spend less time shopping this year, save on wrapping paper, and give the gift of video2brain.

Happy holidays and have a great New Year,
-from me and your friends at video2brain
December 23, 2011
Happy Holidays After Effects Presets

Well, it’s that time of year again – time for my gift to you – free, festive, After Effects animation presets. It’s my way of thanking everyone who has supported me throughout the year by buying my books and tutorials. I’d also like to thank everyone who’s helped spread the word by sharing my free tips and techniques on Twitter, Vimeo, Facebook and Google Plus.

Here is a free After Effects project, complete with animation presets, expressions and some custom vector artwork. Download Winter Holiday After Effects Presets.

This project is not intended as a finished design piece but rather as a way of presenting a few little ideas I’ve been experimenting with. I’ll provide you with the ideas, it’s your job to take these experiments & make them look cool! Please post them on my Facebook page if you do use them in a project you’d be happy to share.

It contains some interesting techniques to help add a little festive cheer to your seasonal animations. All the effects used are native After Effects plug-ins so no extra software is required and it was created in After Effects CS4 so can be opened in any version from CS4 upwards.

It includes a couple of particle animations. One using a custom snowflake-shaped layer as particles, creating a 3D snowstorm with CC Particle World. The second uses Particle Playground’s Persistent Property Mappers to make particles of snow stick to layers as they fall from above. I also use these to create a wind effect to blow the particles around as they fall.

The third composition features some cool expressions that create a realistic blinking effect on some 3D festive lights. the 3D lights were created in Illustrator. I’ve even included the Illustrator file so you can see how it was created. Enjoy and Happy Holidays!

December 22, 2011
Bargains & “Free Stuff” for Designers

There are bargains & “free stuff” for designers and VFX artists right now in the Holiday sales.

I know that may of my readers are students and professionals who are just starting out in their career. Many of you may not be able to afford the full cost of commercial software so these sales give you a chance to make big savings.

For those who are really finding the financial crisis too much there are also some freebies here! I found this article about some of the free plug-ins for After Effects here at Filmmakeriq.com. It lists many of the free AE plug-ins you can download to make yourself feel like you’re getting a holiday treat! AE Tuts also have a list of free plug-ins here.

My friends at Artbeats have a massive 50% off all of their HD footage through to December 30th. Some collections are selling for as little as $100 so it’s worth a browse to see if there’s any footage you need to keep your library up to date. Their footage is Royalty Free so once you’ve bought it you are free to use it as many times as you wish.

If you’ve ever wanted to get up to date on third party plug-ins for After Effects and other software applications, now is the time to “get legal” as there are deals out there that will be hard to beat. Red Giant has a secret “one day sale” which they announced yesterday. Sadly the secret nature of the sale meant I wasn’t aware it was happening in time to include it in a blog till today but there are still 5 hours to go, it runs till 4pm GMT on December 14th. It includes must-have plug-in packs for every motion graphic designer and visual effects artist as well as individual plug-ins from the Magic Bullet Suite, Trapcode Suite and Red Giant’s own great suite of tools.

Toolfarm are also running a sale right now in tandem with the Red Gaint sale so if you have an account there, or would like to set up an account with the number one reseller of all things After Effects, now is a good time to set up that profile! They also have some freebies for the holidays so it’s definitely worth signing up.

Digieffects also have a sale on with plug-ins selling for as little as $49 in their winter sale.

Of course if you want something completely free there’s my “Style Eyes” Collection for Genarts Sapphire which is still available.

Happy Holidays people! 🙂

December 14, 2011

Racing Stripes	Fantastic Voyage	Liquid Caramel	Fruit Slices
Rediffusion Orbit	Woven Thatch	Mesmerising Needles	Steel Silk
Silky Lines	Camoflagery	Guernica Geometrics	Liquid Sixties
Heat Rings	Alien Groove	Blue Steel Shutters	Corrugated Steel Waves
Hypno Ripple	Graph Paper	Sunburst	Firewall
Wavy Grasses	Painterly Puddles	Mercury Rising	Dee-groovy
Wonka Lollipop

Category: Blogroll

New video service is faster and more responsive

In my winter sale there’s 30% off all Wacom workshops in my store.

Here’s how it works:

There are bargains & “free stuff” for designers and VFX artists right now in the Holiday sales.