Tag: animation
-
Adding surface detail with Relief Object in Cinema 4D
This tutorial is about adding surface with a Relief Object in Cinema 4D in Cinema 4D
-
Using the Picture Viewer in CINEMA 4D
Using the Picture Viewer in CINEMA 4D
from Up and Running with CINEMA 4D Lite for After Effects
-
Cinema 4D Lite Tutorials
Cinema 4D Lite Tutorials from
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
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
-
Design Essentials for the Motion Media Artist
Design Essentials for the Motion Media Artist – who is this book for?
This book was written for people I meet at trade shows and seminars who say “I’ve learned the software but my designs still look terrible. What am I doing wrong?”
This book is also for you if you’re a student or are new to motion graphic design. While teaching design students I found it frustrating recommending ten books to each student to cover the basic design principles for the foundation year of their degree course in Graphic Design. The university library never had enough books. The students couldn’t afford to buy the books they needed. Ironically, they only really needed one chapter from each to provide what they needed to get started. If only all that information could be provided in one book!
What will it teach me?
The book is designed as a one-stop, getting-started guide for anyone new to motion graphic design who wants to get the basic principles under their belt so they can get started quickly, making better design decisions as they work through the chapters.
After reading this book you’ll feel comfortable with the basic concepts and principles of design, animation and editing. There’s a chapter on drawing that teaches you the importance of “learning to see” through fun drawing exercises. Among other things, you’ll learn how to choose color combinations that work and how to create convincing and compelling movement in your animations. It will also help you choose fonts that work and improve composition with balance and elegance.
Inspiration
At the end of each chapter, a well-respected creative professional will talk about how their work incorporates some of the principles taught in the book. This helps you see the importance of these principles and to understand how they eventually become second nature to artists and designers.
Learn from some of the top people in their respective industries. The book includes “Inspiration” sections written by graphic designer and creative director Malcolm Garrett and musician Joan Armatrading amongst others. The Foreword to the book is written by commercial director and photographer, Rob Chiu (AKA The Ronin).
Where will it take me?
“Design Essentials” confidently points you in the right direction on the road to becoming a better designer and animator. The book presents the principles of design in an engaging and inspiring way. Each principle is explained in plain English with illustration, and photography where necessary. As well as mastering the fundamental concepts and principles of motion graphic design, with my creative approach to teaching, you’ll learn how to manipulate and bend the rules to create something unique that will also achieve your communication goals.
Once you’ve finished reading this book you should have the confidence to implement what you’ve learned to your motion graphics projects. There’s also an extensive Recommended Reading List on this website that will help you decide where to go next so you can increase your knowledge of these basic principles even further. There’s also a page featuring links to all the external resources mentioned within the pages of my book.
- My “where to go next?” Recommended Reading List.
- Resources and links referred to in the chapters of the book.
- Links to other useful training materials such as a blog & tutorials.
- You can buy my book from Amazon or any other good bookstore.
- Reviews of “Design Essentials for the Motion Media Artist”.
-
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;
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.
-
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!
-
After Effects Light Wipe Tutorial
After Effects Light Wipe Tutorial
There was a a question today on Creative Cow about how to create a light wipe effect in After Effects. I wanted to help so I decided to put together a quick After Effects Light Wipe tutorial. This tutorial includes an After Effects project and an eight-minute video tutorial where I explain techniques used.
Here’s the original question from Danielle Masek;
Q: I have a vector object (some wings) which is black right now, and I would like a light ray to start bursting through the center, change to a vertical line “ray” and move both right and left concurrently, revealing the wings; however, the wings won’t now be all made up of light, instead the light rays will reveal the wings’ outline, which will now be outlined in a backlit glow. I hope I’m explaining this clearly. Will I need trapcode for this? Something else?
A: Here’s a little movie that will help you and others I hope. You’ll also find the project files to follow along Wings reveal.aep.
-
Typography Video Training
Creative Graphic Design: Essential Typography
– a typography video-training workshop on the principles of designing text.
I’ve just finished recording my latest workshop with the fantastic team at video2brain. It’s a workshop with a difference.If you want the salient points delivered to you quickly so you can get on with your work, this product is perfect for you. It’s a series of short videos that form an educational and enjoyable workshop that you can sit back and enjoy – imbibing my knowledge as you go!
It’s based upon the Typography chapter from my book, Design Essentials for the Motion Media Artist. Not everyone likes to read books or needs the level of detail covered in Design Essentials so this provides an alternative.
It provides a quick-reference guide in the format of a video presentation. All the essential key principles of Typography that every designer needs are covered. And it won’t bog you down with too much detail (that’s what the book is for right?) it’s fast-paced and illustrated throughout with helpful animated diagrams and examples of work.
Learn about the history and anatomy of type as well as the terminology used to describe the components of text. Discover the difference between typefaces and fonts, glyphs and characters, serifs and sans serifs, kerning and tracking, leading and baseline shift. Find out when and why you would use specific fonts based on aesthetics, cultural associations and characteristics.
This workshop expands on the content of the book with additional software exercises to improve your typographic software skills. You’ll learn how to apply the principles of typography in practical ways to graphic design projects. Software exercises will show you how Adobe’s Character and Paragraph panels can help make the most of your text, creating unique and exciting effects.
I’ll also teach you lots of neat tricks like animating text along paths in After Effects and making text write on the screen. In Illustrator we’ll use operators to customize lettering, giving it a hand drawn look,. We’ll create 3D Text in Photoshop and add Layer Styles to brighten up our graphic designs. In InDesign you’ll make the most of its powerful Open Type features such as ligatures, glyphs and other special characters.
With this comprehensive typography video training workshop you can simply sit back and watch as I present the principles for you. If you feel like following along, all the exercise files are provided. The videos are short and easily digested and you won’t get bogged down with technical jargon as I explain difficult concepts using easy-to-understand, real-world terminology.
If you’d like to be notifies when this title becomes available please click on this link.
-
Wacom Masterclasses
I’m pleased to announce the release last week of the new Wacom Masterclass series of workshops. I’ve worked with Wacom tablets for years and love the creative flexibility they provide to my work. In these tutorials I share some of the techniques I’ve learned over the years.If you want to check out some free lessons from these workshops please use the highlighted links listed below. Subscribers to my newsletter qualify for a 20% discount on this course through to the end of December. You can sign up for my newsletter here.
Wacom MasterClass Vol. 1: Photography & Image EditingJoin Angie Taylor and Steve Caplin for this multifaceted collection that includes a basic course covering the tablet’s tools and settings as well as lessons on beauty retouching, optimizing your architectural and landscape images, and image retouching with Photoshop’s healing and cloning tools. You’ll also get crash courses on Adobe Photoshop Lightroom and Apple Aperture, designed to get you working right away. Each class features lessons with picture-in-picture live footage of the artist working with their pen and tablet, enabling you to see and learn from their techniques up close.
Wacom MasterClass Vol. 2: Digital Drawing, Painting & Illustration
Join Angie Taylor, Daniel Lieske, and Uli Staiger for this information-rich collection that includes a basic course covering the tablet’s tools and settings as well as lessons on drawing and painting in Photoshop, photo illustration, and drawing in Illustrator. You’ll also get a crash course on Painter, designed to get you working right away. Each class features lessons with picture-in-picture live footage of the artist working with their pen and tablet, enabling you to see and learn from their techniques up close.
Wacom MasterClass Vol. 3: 3D & Motion DesignJoin Angie Taylor, Uli Staiger, and Daniel Lieske for this unique collection that includes a basic course covering the tablet’s tools and settings, an extensive video tutorial on motion design with After Effects, and crash courses on 3D with Photoshop, SketchBook Pro, and ZBrush, designed to get you working right away. Each class features lessons with picture-in-picture live footage of the artist working with their pen and tablet, enabling you to see and learn from their techniques up close.
Wacom MasterClass Complete CollectionThis exceptional value includes all of Volumes 1–3 of the Wacom MasterClass collection, including lessons from artists Angie Taylor, Steve Caplin, Daniel Lieske, and Uli Staiger. In addition to a basic course covering the tablet’s tools and settings, you get training on everything from beauty retouching and painting in Photoshop to drawing in Illustrator and motion design with After Effects. The package also includes crash courses on Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, Aperture, Painter, SketchBook Pro, ZBrush, and 3D with Photoshop, all designed to get you working right away. Each class features lessons with picture-in-picture live footage of the artist working with their pen and tablet, enabling you to see and learn from their techniques up close.
Free Movies to watch:
Pressure Sensitivity
ExpressKeys Overview
Drawing with Sketcbook Pro’s Brushes
Hiding the Veins with a Color Layer
Lens Correction
Cloning in Perspective with the Clone Tool
Drawing the Mushrooms in Photoshop
Distorting the Lens View
Working with the Blob Brush Tool
Creating a Complex Object from a Grayscale Image
Rotoscoping
Polysculpting -
Happy Halloween Everybody
After Effects CS5 Presets for Halloween
Cartoon castle and bats I’ve created some special little Halloween Software Tricks and Treats for you to use in your work. This download contains an After Effects CS5 project and artwork needed to create some spooky Halloween graphics for your projects.
Pumpkin Particles falling I love creating ideas and techniques for the community. In fact I’d love to dedicate more time to creating ideas, tips and tricks for you and make it a full-time venture. However these things take quite a long time to produce so I’m currently trying to fit these in-between paid freelance jobs.
I’ve been trying to figure out ways to make this pay without having to charge people a fixed price for these. I’d also like to avoid having advertising on my site to earn income. So, as an experiment, I’ve included a free download link to the project files and a Donate button. I’d dearly love to prove that a business model, where people volunteer to pay what they think something is worth can work.
If you find these presets useful and would like to support this risky venture please donate what you can afford, even $1 would make a difference and would be gratefully appreciated. This will help me dedicate more time to this project and continue to improve the website’s offerings. Thank you!
Angie_Taylor_Halloween_Presets folder
These designs use the Trapcode Suite of plug-ins and Magic Bullet Looks. If you don’t own these plugins you can download free trials here from the Red Giant website
In the future I intend to provide privileges and special offers to those who contribute to this project.
Thanks so much for your support!
