ANgiE tAYLoR 🧷

Tag: Design

FREE After Effects Stereoscopic 3D Workshop
In this week’s newsletter I’ll be giving away a complete workshop about using the Stereoscopic 3D workflow in After Effects CS5.5 (offer ends 26/09/11). That’s four chapters – a total of 16 training movies absolutely free to subscribers of my software tips and tricks newsletter. Sign up today to make sure you don’t miss out. The lovely people at video2brain have created this workshop for me if full, fabulous HD quality for your viewing pleasure. You can find out more about their high quality productions here. Any the wonderful team at Artbeats have donated some fantastic Stereo 3D footage absolutely free so you can build this opening title graphic sequence is glorious Stereoscopic 3D.
- In the “Introducing Stero 3D” chapter you’ll find out what stereoscopy is, why those funny glasses are used to view S3D and how After Effects re-creates the illusion of depth for 3D broadcasts.
- In the “Faking 3D tracking” chapter you’ll discover how to combine 3d animated elements with Stereo 3D video footage from Artbeats.com. I’ll show you how to track the footage in 2D and then “fake” 3D tracking by cleverly combining the tracking data with additional 3D animation. Once the shot is designed you’ll add 3D cameras and lights that will help the text combine well within the shot and and add effects to bring it all together.
- In Effects, Transparency and Style chapter we’ll add effects, blend modes, and layer styles to the graphic elements so that they appear to blend into the shot.
- Finally in the Stereoscopic 3D workflow chapter you’ll build a Stereo 3D rig that automates the comp structure required to create an anaglyphic image for 3D broadcast. We’ll look at the effects you can use to adjust the settings so that they are just right for your individual needs. We’ll also look at ways of adding even more depth and realism to the scene with Depth of Field and Motion Blur effects.
August 23, 2011
Post Production Magic

Join Red Giant for an evening of inspiration

I’ll be speaking at Red Giant’s FREE Post Production magic event in September. Here’s the blurb! Event Registration is available now on the Adobe website.

When a group of amazing animators get hold of a projection system, you’re either going to get an evening of inspiration or a cheeky light bulb joke. Post Production Magic is your event for awe-inspiring work by After Effects gurus Angie Taylor, Simon Cam of SuperGlue, Ernesto Rogata of BSkyB and colourist and trainer Simon Walker.

These artists show you how popular Red Giant tools like Magic Bullet Suite and Trapcode Particular and Trapcode Form open up big creativity on a small budget. Experience the best of design, animation, colour grading and visual effects created in After Effects and Premiere Pro, along with a networking and cocktail hour. Hosted by Red Giant and co-hosted by Adobe Systems, the event will be streamed live by Adobe and held at state-of-the-art Ravensbourne University in London (www.rave.ac.uk).

Angie Taylor (www.localhost:8000)

In her session Angie will share tips and tricks for creating cool and quirky motion graphics in Adobe After Effects and will show how she uses Red Giant Looks, Particular, and other Red Giant effects to give her animations a more distinctive style and pull her compositions together.

Angie Taylor is an art director, motion graphic designer and author. She enjoyed a fourteen year career producing animation, visual effects and motion graphics for television, film, video and the web. During her career Angie worked with D-Fuse designing animation for cutting-edge Beck DVD ‘Guero’ and provided animation for the controversial Aphex Twin / Chris Cunningham collaboration ‘Rubber Johnny’. She also provided visual effects on the John Williams-directed “Hibernation”, winner of six awards at international film festivals, including ‘best short’ award at the 2005 Manhattan, Rhode Island, Edinburgh and Zagreb Film festivals. Examples of her work were regularly broadcast on the BBC and Channel 4 in the UK and across Europe.Angie also works in the software industry as a software specialist, regularly touring with companies including Adobe and Apple. Angie delivers software demonstrations and seminars on digital filmmaking and animation processes at international trade shows and conferences including NAB, IBC and Macworld. She also provides bespoke training and consultancy to a wide range companies including; BBC; Channel 4; Channel 5; Carlton; HTV; B Sky B; MTV.The author of three successful books. The “Creative After Effects” books (version 5 and 7), published by Focal Press, and a third book, “Design Essentials for the motion media artist” which is also published by Focal Press. Angie is also co-author of “After Effects CS5 Learn by Video”, published by Peachpitt in association with Adobe Press. Angie also produces high quality online training workshops with video2brain, Europe’s premier source for video training since 2002.

Simon Cam, Superglue (www.wearesuperglue.com)

Superglue’s projection mapping project for Toyota’s “Get Your Energy Back” campaign (http://www.vimeo.com/16466136) was a highly creative and technical challenge, utilising numerous different production techniques. The animation featured 2D, 3D, keyframed animation, dynamics, particle systems and more. Compositing, VFX and general pipeline management was performed in After Effects, whilst 3D work was created using Autodesk Maya and Maxon Cinema 4D. The team made extensive use of both Trapcode Form and Trapcode Particular in bringing to life the ‘hybrid energy’ that was the key part of the campaign’s message.

Superglue is an award winning, London-based production company specialising in innovative digital projects. The team comprises a dynamic mix of production, post and digital brains working across live action, visual effects, 3D and motion graphics. Superglue operates across the modern media spectrum, creating moving image for everything from banners to broadcast.

Ernesto Rogata, BSkyB

Ernesto will talk about the daily challenge of integrating text and other graphic elements in exciting and innovative ways in sport pieces, stings and short title sequences – usually with little time to complete the job. He will share some simple techniques to create motion graphics using After Effects and Red Giant plug-ins.

Ernesto Rogata is an award-winning senior video editor at BSkyB in London and has worked in post-production for 20 years. His professional role covers four areas: editing, grading, creating motion graphics and training.

Simon Walker, (www.simonwalkerfreelance.com)

Simon will show the grading secrets of Plot Device, a new short film produced by Red Giant, and will demonstrate how Red Giant’s Magic Bullet Suite brought to life a varied series of genres… as well as a hoard of zombies!

Simon is creative director of WiltshireVideo.com, makes online grading and editing tutorials at www.simonwalkerfreelance.com, and is an instructor for the International Colorist Academy, iColorist.com. He is an Adobe Certified Premiere Pro Instructor and trains industry professionals in editing, motion graphics, colour grading, audio sweetening, and (excitingly!) video compression.

Here’s a link to Event Registration on the Adobe website

Ravensbourne

6 Penrose Way
Peninsula Square
Greenwich
London
SE10 0EW

Weds 7th September 2011

6.30pm for drinks and networking

Presentations from 7.00pm to 8.15pm

Networking til 9pm

August 10, 2011
Post-Digital Aesthetics make a welcome return

I’ve been speaking at events for a long time, in fact I can’t believe how long, after fifteen years now I’m classed as an industry veteran! (I’m not sure whether to be happy or sad about that one!). It’s been great to be in this position as I’ve seen the industry develop both technically and in terms of design. I’m happy to say that I’m beginning to notice a change. We are now entering a new age where technique is gradually becoming less prevalent – aesthetics and messaging are being rediscovered as the most important aspect of our work as designers. My friend, Birgitta Hosea (now a Doctor of animation!) has coined a new term to mark this era, “the post-digital aesthetic age”.

During most of my career as a motion graphic designer I’ve witnessed so many projects that are led by technique or by the latest “how cool is that” type-of-effect. “How did they do that?” is all fine and dandy for your average man in the street, or for those concerned with visual effects or the more technical aspects of production. But for artists, designers, philosophers thinkers and appreciators of fine art it and design, I’m afraid it just doesn’t cut it every time. We like substance as well as style. Why did they do that is just as important as how, please don’t let us forget the saying “just because you can, doesn’t mean you should!”

I’m going to be teaching on the Graphic Design and Illustration courses at Brighton University this year and am so excited to be going back into an academic environment. Of course I’ll be teaching digital software techniques, I’m there to provide guidance to the students from the perspective of a motion graphic designer. But I’m also looking forward to emphasising to them the importance of the core design skills they’ll need to set themselves apart as artists and communicators. I’d love to hear the views of others on this subject. How do you ensure that the technical aspects of your work as a designer/ illustrator/ artist don’t dictate the content or quality of your work? Answers on a well thought out and constructed postcard please! 🙂

July 1, 2011
20% off new Todd Kopriva After Effects workshop

This week I’m giving a 20% discount to anyone who wants to buy the fantastic new workshop on Motion Tracking & Stabilisation by Todd Kopriva which is now available to buy from my video training store. Just enter MOTION into the Coupon Code box when buying from my shop. It’s valid till July 15th 2011.

If you want to check out some free samples before buying there are some links to free sample movies here, including; An Overview of the mocha-AE Interface and Workflow, Overview of Warp Stabilizer Effect and more details about the Warp Stabilizer controls and workflow

This workshop covers all the tools and techniques used for motion tracking and image stabilization in After Effects, including the point tracker, the Warp Stabilizer Effects, and mocha-AE. The contents of this course include:

Introduction
This chapter introduces you to motion tracking and shows you frame-by-frame how manual motion tracking works.

Motion Tracking with the Point Tracker
Once you determine what kind of motion you want to track, you’ll need to decide what you will apply the tracking data to. This chapter explains your options and shows you how to remove tracking markers when you’re done.

Motion Tracking with mocha-AE
This chapter walks you through using mocha-AE, a standalone application that can export tracking data for use in After Effects.

Stabilizing Motion
Ever been frustrated working with shaky footage? This chapter shows you how to add stability to your projects by using the new Warp Stabilizer effect.

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. This course also includes project files so you can follow along and try out new techniques as you learn them.

June 17, 2011
12 rules of animation

Digital Arts has featured – 12 Rules of Animation – an excerpt from my “Design Essentials for the Motion Media Artist” as their feature article this month. The article is now FREELY AVAILABLE on the Digital Arts website.

Animation as we know it has been around since Horner invented the zoetrope in 1834. Since then animators have developed rules of animation that help us to draw viewers into the world we have created. From Disney classics to the latest stereoscopic 3D productions, we’ve plundered them all to find the 12 key techniques you need to master to be a top-flight animator.

Some of these rules are based on real-life physics, and others on observations and reactions. They provide a set of invaluable ‘tricks’ for animators that have been proven to work in almost every situation.

In the article I delve into the world of animation to pick out the 12 rules of animation that every animator and motion graphics artist must know. Drawn from the forms 150 year history, you’ll learn a wealth of dos and don’ts that will help you produce more engaging projects, whether you’re working in 2D, 3D, graphics, stop-motion or a mixture of them all.

You can pick up both printed copies and digital downloads from the Digital Arts website where you can also find some of my tutorials, tips and tricks.

I’ll also be talking about some of these golden rules of animation in my “Dynamic Text Animation for Motion Graphicswith After Effects” presentation at the Production Fiesta in London on May 6th.

In this session, I will share an in-depth look at the options for working with text in Adobe After Effects. I’ll show examples of successful motion graphic designs and will discuss the components of design that make them work. In this session you’ll earn about the rules of typography and how to apply the rules of typography to your designs to make them easier to read and more dynamic. I’ll also take an in-depth look at the typographic controls available in After Effects and will also show you how you can use hand-drawn text to bring a unique aspect to your designs.

I’ll also be presenting four other sessions at this event which you can find out about here. If you want to register for a full day of valuable creative sessions by me and all the other speakers you can do so here on the Eventbrite page. I hope to see some of you there, please make sure to say hello if you can make it along.

May 28, 2011
Speaking at Flash on the Beach 2011

I was very pleased to get a call from John Davey, the organiser of the amazingly successful and entertaining “Flash on the Beach 2011” conference, asking me to speak at his event.

It’s an annual conference, held in my home town of Brighton. Bringing together the best designers, developers and minds in the Flash, design and web community, it’s a conference with a difference. It attracts an interesting and diverse mix of people and is focussed on the work that we do as well as the tools that we use.

I’ll be doing a session on creating Kinetic Typography animation in Adobe After Effects CS5.5. I’ll be featuring a breakdown of a real-life art project that I worked on in collaboration with Artist Richard Walker titled “That Day”. In this session I want to focus on the design process and demonstrate how After Effects allows creative flexibility throughout a project. For my more geeky attendees, don’t worry! I’ll also share plenty of my software tips and tricks as well as important techniques for structuring projects and optimising workflow in Adobe After Effects.

I’ll also feature some extracts from my book “Design Essentials for the Motion Media Artist” and will be giving away a copy of it, plus a copy of my “After Effects CS5 Learn by Video” training DVD. There are always lots of great parties, dinners and other networking events structured around Flash on the Beach and you’re guaranteed to meet and interesting and eclectic mix of creatives and geeky types. So why not book a place now, it sells out fast every year!

May 28, 2011
Free video training & discounted classes
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I’m giving away lots of goodies this week. In this blog I’m offering you some free sample movies from my ‘2D Character Animation in After Effects’ workshop from video2brain. I’m also pleased to announce some fantastic discounts on my training courses in London in March.

A one-off funding offer means that there’s currently a massive 80% off my Photoshop and After Effects courses at the Bridge Training. You can find out about these offers here. Just to give you an idea of the sort of savings on offer, my After Effects training 2 day training courses (Fundamentals, Intermediate and Advanced) have been discounted from the usual price of £504 to the incredible price of £108 for anyone based in the London Westminster area. Please contact The Bridge Training here to book a place.

I’m so excited to be able to introduce a set of video training products specifically aimed at character animation in Adobe After Effects CS5. I’ve included a link to a free sample from this workshop here, just click on this link to watch it in HD. There are also some other free videos available here.

As a freelance illustrator and motion graphics designer, I use After Effects every day to create artwork and animations of various styles. As a result, I’ve developed some powerful techniques for creating quick but compelling 2D animation, and in this workshop I share them with you. You’ll learn how to import layered files and paths from Illustrator into After Effects and how to animate flat vector artwork in both 2D and 3D space.

Topics covered include:
- Setting up After Effects for creating 2D character animation
- Using input devices to capture motion and apply it to your characters
- Creating animation and lip-syncing with audio files, using expressions and scripting to make the process easier
- Applying grouping techniques and using parenting to create hierarchical animations
- Following the best working practices for outputting your animations for the web, TV, and mobile devices
All this is presented in a series of short, focused, and solution-oriented videos that steer clear of technical jargon. Whether you’re a motion graphic designer, animator, storyboard artist, video editor, or illustrator, if you want to create 2D animation from flat, vector-based artwork, this is the workshop for you.

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. This course also includes project files so you can follow along and try out new techniques as you learn them.
February 24, 2011
A busy After Effects week

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Wow, what a busy week. I’ve just finished the first day of Broadcast Video Expo 2011 where I’ve been presenting After Effects and the Production Premium workflow on the Adobe booth. It’s been great being back with the Adobe UK team again and seeing lots of friendly faces.

I’ve also got a brand new product released today. My new Character Animation with Adobe After Effects workshops with video2brain are now on sale. You can check out some free sample movies here by clicking the link. Enjoy and please let me know what you think.

Happy Keyframing!

Angie

February 15, 2011
‘Sculpting’ paths in Adobe Illustrator

Here’s another free tutorial from my first venture into making video tutorials for Adobe Illustrator. My tutorials are probably what you’d call non-standard! I’m not going to teach you how to ‘the cool look’ that we’ve all seen a million times before, that doesn’t really interest me, and there are plenty of other websites that will whow you those techniques.

What I hope to do with my tutorials is to teach you new and interesting ways of using the tools creatively. How to ‘think’ with the software. It’s then up to you to add your own style to what you’ve learned to conjure up something unique.

This tutorial focusses on Adobe Illustrator’s amazing reshape tools that can help you create more organic-looking drawings in Illustrator. These include Warp, Pucker & Bloat, and Wrinkle. In this movie you’ll use the Bloat tool to add muscle to your character, create hair with the Wrinkle tool, and use the Warp tool to transform primitive shapes into more realistic and organic body parts. Enjoy!

January 31, 2011
Basics on Solids in Adobe After Effects

When designing motion graphics in Adobe After Effects there are times you just need to create a plain old layer to apply effects to. Solids are just right for this purpose, and for lots of other uses in After Effects.

This video is aimed at a basic level. It shows you how to create solid-color layers and walks you through some of their uses.

You can find more free videos like these from our After Effects CS5 Learn by Video product on the video2brain website. Please enjoy them – happy keyframing!

January 26, 2011
Animated Character Design in Adobe Illustrator
I’m very pleased to offer my readers a couple of free tutorials from my very first video2brain workshop on Adobe Illustrator. This workshop will teach you how to use Illustrator’s tools and features to prepare 2D files for animation in Adobe After Effects.

You’ll learn how to make the most of Illustrator’s drawing tools and Autotrace feature, and to how use Live Paint and Kuler to recolor artwork. You’ll also get tons of tips and tricks for giving artwork a hand-drawn look and find out how to set up layers, aspect ratios, and transparency options for importing into After Effects.

I’ll share many of my techniques for using Illutrator’s extensive drawing capabilities to create characters for animation. Topics covered include:
- Setting up your workspace for video and animation
- Working with Autotrace, Live Paint, and Kuler
- Using multiple artboards for creating storyboards
- Taking advantage of views and workspaces
- Drawing freehand in Illustrator using a variety of tools including the new improved Eraser tool and the Blob Brush tool
Whether you’re a motion graphic designer, animators, storyboard artists, video editors or illustrators, if you want to create 2D animation from flat, vector-based artwork, this workshop will be an invaluable resource.

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.

Click here to get an overview of the workshop and download free tutorials using the following links;

Working with Live Paint

Working with the Brush Tool
January 19, 2011
Hand-drawn animation with After Effects Paint tools

Week four of 2011 brings my fourth FREE Giveaway Tutorial.

This tutorial comes from my Adobe After Effects CS5 Learn by Video DVD from video2brain.

The paint tools in After Effects are usually used for cloning or filling in mattes, but they can also be used to create stop-motion-style animation. In this movie you’ll see how they can be used to create a stop-motion style without the need for painful frame-by-frame tweaking of keyframes or drawings.

In this Jumpstart tutorial I’ll show you how to create a little animated stickman, creating a looping walk cycle. I hope you can use the tips and tricks from this tutorial to create your own unique twist on my idea. If you do please come back here and post a link to your creation, I’d love to see it!

There are a few Jumpstart tutorials included with the Learn by Video DVD. These are designed to give you a quick overview of a particular technique. The DVD also contains many more detailed tutorials, designed to take you through techniques and tech you After Effects using a more detailed step-by-step approach. I hope you enjoy watching them as much as I enjoyed making them.

Happy Keyframing!

January 18, 2011