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You could do this with the built in particle effects plus a heavy gaussian blur I'd think.
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May 7, 2015 19:15
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Chitin posted:You could do this with the built in particle effects plus a heavy gaussian blur I'd think. Probably, but it'd require more experimentation time (and knowledge) than I currently have. I played around with Echo and with Time Blend, those gave decent results though the render time on Echo is quite long, and Time Blend is the "twitchiest" drat tool I've ever used (I'm sure I was loving something up, but it'd randomly stop working and I'd have to close and reopen AE to get it back). I ended up animating a Write-On to reveal a ramp with a glow applied underneath and it worked well enough for now.
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May 7, 2015 21:15
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Gunjin posted:Probably, but it'd require more experimentation time (and knowledge) than I currently have. I played around with Echo and with Time Blend, those gave decent results though the render time on Echo is quite long, and Time Blend is the "twitchiest" drat tool I've ever used (I'm sure I was loving something up, but it'd randomly stop working and I'd have to close and reopen AE to get it back). I ended up animating a Write-On to reveal a ramp with a glow applied underneath and it worked well enough for now. I probably should have also mentioned the video copilot one had a free project file. Doh! Well, at least you got something working.
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May 8, 2015 02:33
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Help me break down grids and placement and sizing on motiongraphs. I try to follow thirds, or the perfect triangle, or any and all of them, but my stuff consistently looks crowded, cluttered, OR sparse and vacant. How do you go about setting up your shots? During the storyboard phase, are you mindful of size and placement? Or do you build your stuff, and THEN go back and adjust? This seems like such a remedial question that I should have learned decades ago, but I don't think I'll ever get a grip on it. I know that I tend to keep my subject huge on the screen, I'm not comfortable backing up... maybe that's from my years of designing rock posters or something? Here's a clip I made about 6 months ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmq8Dhqyg60 And here's some screenshots of another clip I just finished. (I can't post the actual clip).     I have this constant obsession in my mind -- frame everything important into the shot - fill the space! I see it, I try to stop myself, but then, the shot looks, well, lovely. I don't think it's BAD in terms of framing the content. But it lacks -- whatever it is -- that makes THIS clip work: https://vimeo.com/108898944 Here's a couple of screenshots from that one.   Is this a matter of sticking to the safe area? IS there an applied standard to proportions and placement in motion design, that I'm oblivious to? magnificent7 fucked around with this message at 18:13 on May 24, 2015 |
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May 24, 2015 18:05
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Well to be honest you're asking a very LARGE question ("what makes my shot look good") and it stretches over various disciplines. Directing of Photography/Cinematography Production/Set design. Color design. Color correction. They're framed up better than your shots, but they have the right supporting structure to give them something to frame. There's detail in their sets (which gives an appropriate sense of scale as well as being just overall more interesting). There's foreground/middle/background sometimes. Gives a sense of parallax and visual interest. Properly balanced objects within the scene. Color themes as well as properly balanced color correction (yours doesn't seem to have much color theory applied. Lots of bland grays and the lighting is uninteresting and everything has kind of a washed out improper contrast feel). I suggest actually studying up on cinematography in film, color theory and basic three point lighting (at least to start out with).
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May 24, 2015 18:27
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Holy poo poo, that video in the OP blew my mind. I have to get in on this, thanks for bringing this to my attention. Is there a way to self-teach yourself to get your feet wet?
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May 24, 2015 21:15
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BonoMan posted:Well to be honest you're asking a very LARGE question ("what makes my shot look good") and it stretches over various disciplines.
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May 24, 2015 22:03
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magnificent7 posted:Thanks for the input. I agree with everything you said. For what it's worth your screencaps of the project you can't post yet seem miles better than the initial clip you posted! So you're definitely moving in the right direction. I'd step back from mographics when you get a change and start studying film a bit more. Check out Every Frame a Painting and other resources. http://everyframeapainting.tumblr.com/
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May 24, 2015 22:33
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BonoMan gave some great answers but I want to add to them.magnificent7 posted:I have this constant obsession in my mind -- frame everything important into the shot - fill the space! Keep in mind that the viewer can only process a little bit of information at a time. If your philosophy is "put everything on the screen and let the viewer sort it out", then you're probably going to create a lot of messy design. The great thing about motion graphics is that you don't have to show everything at once. You can hide things when they're no longer needed, etc. I also think you might be getting hung up on the wrong "rules" (e.g. the rule of thirds, and rule of triangles -- whatever that is). Beware of rules that you've arbitrarily decided are important. When I was studying design I one day decided that choosing point sizes based on the Fibonacci sequence was the most mathematical and beautiful way to set up a type hierarchy. I always ran into problems where my type was either too small or too big but I stuck with it and didn't deviate because I thought the rule must be right and I must be wrong. One other thing I'll point out that's hugely important is unity. Everything should be unified by a consistent color palette and consistent art style. You might consider these things 'the details' and leave them until last, but the details are what will make or break your design. Take away the details and everything falls apart. I'll point out a few missing details that I think are hurting your design below. One big thing you're missing is a consistent light direction. You might be thinking "settle down rembrandt this isn't an oil painting!" but if you're going to have shadows and gradients in your scene then you need to pick a direction that the light is coming from. Your iphone is currently being lit from the direction of the camera, the gradients on the pins say the light is coming from the left, and their drop shadows say the light is coming from above. This is making your scene ugly because the directions of the drop shadow on the phone and the drop shadow on the pins clash, it looks like a mistake, and it immediately kills the illusion of depth. Also, the drop shadows on the pins are way too dark considering how bright the 'room' is. Here's a quick mock showing how making things consistent can improve your design. If you think this looks shittier, then ignore everything you just read I guess: http://i.imgur.com/BSfjxrt.jpg The best piece of advice I could give, though, would be to dissect other peoples frames that you think are good. If you can't tell what's good about them, bring them into photoshop and start changing things. Clone brush out their font and pick something that you would have chosen instead. Desaturate their image, recolor it yourself, and then compare the two. Take things away until you think it starts to look bad, and you'll realize which details matter and which ones don't. I also wouldn't be afraid of copying other peoples work as practice. Literally try to recreate what they've made and you'll get a better feel for the size of things, the colour of things, etc. Basically, build up a library of pretty things in your head and you'll eventually figure out how to make them yourself.
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May 25, 2015 12:40
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raging bullwinkle posted:BonoMan gave some great answers but I want to add to them.
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May 25, 2015 15:27
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magnificent7 posted:stuff  "Ok, so this bus is important. It's the first thing the enters the scene, is a bright yellow color, and fills most of the frame."  "What the hell is this blue car doing blocking the shot?! Clearly I'm supposed to be focusing on the yellow bus! Go away blue car!"  "So wait the blue car was the focus the entire time I'M SO CONFUSED" The ol' switcheroo. I'm curious for what reason that yellow bus is in the shot?
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May 27, 2015 07:53
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That's a stretch Hummer limo. It's there to symbolize American excess and it's reliance on oil.
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May 27, 2015 15:48
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BonoMan posted:That's a stretch Hummer limo. It's there to symbolize American excess and it's reliance on oil.
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May 27, 2015 16:57
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Hey guys, I just posted a freelance motion graphics job in the new work for hire/freelance thread. Thought I would let you know!
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Jun 2, 2015 19:15
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Anyone got a good portfolio presenting app for windows for motion designers? I've ditched my Android tablet and now just using a Surface Pro 3 - just curious if you guys are presenting offline portfolios this way on laptops. Mostly I present with just opening the files but i'm sure there's a better solution out there.
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Jun 10, 2015 06:22
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Hey guys, It's been a long time since I've touched after effects and just decided to jump back in today and make a small little self advertisement for my upwork.com profile (maybe elsewhere too?) I'd love any feedback from more veteran motion design folks around here, or even if you're not! well here it is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78_edcj_obc Thanks!
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Jul 11, 2015 11:40
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real nap poo poo posted:Hey guys, This isn't bad, but it can't replace a good old fashioned reel. It shows you can do some animating, but not really anything on the scope that most reels will show off. If you don't have any reel-worthy material right now, I'd probably work on some personal project/dailies type projects to build that up, even if it's just ~30 sec or so of material. Crossposting from the animation thread, I finished a short(-ish thing)! Digging the combo of graphic type stuff with character animation, and I'd like to do something bigger for my next short. Haven't quite locked down an idea yet though!
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Aug 3, 2015 21:43
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redcheval posted:Crossposting from the animation thread, I finished a short(-ish thing)! Digging the combo of graphic type stuff with character animation, and I'd like to do something bigger for my next short. Haven't quite locked down an idea yet though! Very nice work! Timing, animation, illustration, all really good. Love the jump to the titles 
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Aug 4, 2015 16:56
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I know it's dead around here, but drat, I just blew 12 hours putting this together. Did the music in garageband after trying a million other ways to do it. And now, that song will be glued to my skull forever. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhdAUWv8ta0
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Aug 19, 2015 04:05
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Any of you motion design folks have a great reel, looking for a job at an ad agency/production studio and lookin' to move to SUNNY MISSISSIPPI!?!? Then hit me up via pm or here. We're hiring!
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Sep 9, 2015 17:35
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Hey y'all, have a few questions that I need an AE CC guru for. I'm a strict video editor but I got thrown some templates for simple opening titles and lower thirds in AE and I have no idea what I'm doing. Any help would be really appreciated, I'd prefer to PM if someone wants to help a guy out.
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Sep 12, 2015 00:27
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Does anybody have scripts + storyboards of final projects they could share with me? My producer is killing me with her ideas when she's providing a script and asking for storyboards. For most sentences, she's got 3-5 visuals she wants to include, and I'm just not seeing how to cram them into the short amount of time. Not just visuals... I mean events. For example, (NOT the real script) I get something like this: "Games have been around for centuries, and today, it's as relevant as ever." And her input/idea is this: show cavemen with sticks. then show people in roman times playing a specific game, then show people from the 20s playing shuffleboard, then show a family at home today playing monopoly. YES it's possible to do all that, but, in my mind it'd all fly by so fast, I feel like just cutting the middle ones would improve the overall story. Am I wrong? SHOULD I be thinking about super-fast cuts that jump all over the place? How do you overcome something like this? If it happened just once, I'd think it was catering to the client, but this happens everytime - packing ten pounds into a five pound bag.
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Oct 9, 2015 14:58
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We encounter this all the time. Best tactic we've had is literally doing up a quick sketch storyboard (don't go all out) and scratch VO track and SHOW them how ridiculously paced it is. If you explain it they'll go "yeah yeah yeah but I want it." If you show them they'll go "oh... ok yeah that doesn't work."
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Oct 9, 2015 15:23
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BonoMan posted:We encounter this all the time. Best tactic we've had is literally doing up a quick sketch storyboard (don't go all out) and scratch VO track and SHOW them how ridiculously paced it is. If you explain it they'll go "yeah yeah yeah but I want it." If you show them they'll go "oh... ok yeah that doesn't work."
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Oct 9, 2015 23:59
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You're there to make sure that imagery lines up with script. In your producer's head I'm sure they have a great mental image of how it could work, but because they havent spent x years as a motion designer they don't know how that image ends up in words or on paper in a way that can work on screen. You're totally in your wheelhouse to show them what they can have that will fit their mental image, not necessarily what they think they need to ask for; if they didn't need that expertise they'd have sketched it all themselves and sent it to some far flung outsourcing studio. Show them how it can work! (Or your producer is Michael Bay idk)
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Oct 18, 2015 10:54
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BonoMan posted:We encounter this all the time. Best tactic we've had is literally doing up a quick sketch storyboard (don't go all out) and scratch VO track and SHOW them how ridiculously paced it is. If you explain it they'll go "yeah yeah yeah but I want it." If you show them they'll go "oh... ok yeah that doesn't work." Next question regards app choices during the workflow. I've been building my entire project in After Effects; even when it's a video-heavy project. My reasoning has been that I'm rarely just editing clips together. Often I'm scaling the clips up, panning left to right, etc, and I'm adding text and graphics over the clips. I am positive Premiere should be a part of my workflow, hell I'm paying for it, but I do not understand why it's beneficial to bounce between the two. So here's what I've got to do: Assemble X number of video clips, timed to a VO and music tracks. Some percentage of those clips will need to be scaled up and panned to add more movement to the story. And THEN add graphic elements overlaid. The end result should be something loosely similar to this, but without the layered effect from True Detective. (Just pretend the stock video is plain video, and there's graphic elements dancing over it.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nz2TxhfrZFU Do you think After Effects alone is good enough? Would including Premiere speed up my process at all?
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Nov 7, 2015 19:09
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magnificent7 posted:To come back to this briefly, thanks. It helped, a lot. Using Premiere would greatly help you. I've been doing this for years and STILL fall into that same trap of "eh gently caress it I'll do it all in AE" ... so trust me I know the feeling .But yeah, Premiere would help. So, first, you can do scale and pans in Premiere and if they're really simple it might just be best to do that in Premiere. If not I'd still do the majority of my editing and syncing to the VO/music in Premiere. AE is poo poo for real time playback so you'll save hours doing that part in Premiere and not AE where you're loading crap into RAM Preview every time you want to see something. If you can get your pans and motion scales to work in Premiere instead of AE that will save you even more time. Then you would just export out to AE (through exporting a movie or dynamic linking the AE and PPro projects together... which I rarely do so somebody else can probably give you better advice there) and do your titling there and export via AME. You can also do titling in Premiere if it's pretty simple, but I hate doing titles in Premiere. Hate it. Depending on the length of the project you can export the whole thing or just the chunks that need graphics and round trip it back into PPro (again the dynamic linking would probably the best thing here but I'm stubborn and too old to learn how to do that properly). So, uh, that's a convoluted way of saying "Yes use Premiere for all of your editing needs then go into AE for graphics because editing in AE is sloowwwwww as gently caress and will waste a lot of man hours."
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Nov 7, 2015 19:43
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BonoMan posted:Using Premiere would greatly help you. I've been doing this for years and STILL fall into that same trap of "eh gently caress it I'll do it all in AE" ... so trust me I know the feeling
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Nov 7, 2015 19:51
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Scaling and panning is super easy in Premier, google up any of the "Ken Burns effect" tutorials, that'll give you a starting point (they will be over stills instead of video, but it works the same way), and then with a few minutes of experimenting with it you should be good to go.
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Nov 12, 2015 02:23
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Gunjin posted:Scaling and panning is super easy in Premier, google up any of the "Ken Burns effect" tutorials, that'll give you a starting point (they will be over stills instead of video, but it works the same way), and then with a few minutes of experimenting with it you should be good to go. Thanks for this! I've seen "The Ken Burns Effect" for awhile, and never checked into it. "Pan and zoom? Pssh. Duh that's easy in After Effects. hahaha-lols-maroons." I have so much to learn. Hey speaking of - I love this website (https://www.premiumbeat.com) for the wide array of tutorials and inspirational articles, links to free tempates/extras, etc.: Here's their tutorial on the Ken Burns effect, in case anybody else on this thread is curious. http://www.premiumbeat.com/blog/ken-burns-effect-premiere-pro/
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Nov 12, 2015 18:21
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Has anybody messed around with BlackMagic's Fusion? They've released a Beta, available for Mac so hells yes. But - what the hell? No audio? Is that really a thing? I've been searching their forums, the web, etc. 1. Their manual has no mention of importing audio. 2. Audio comes up on their forum, but only where people are asking if it's a thing. Responses have been, "no it is not." but I want to believe I'm just looking in the wrong places, because their Fusion 8 feature chart includes: Scrub audio and view waveform within timeline: Yes. Soooooo, I'm kind of assuming audio is a thing, if the software shows waveform, and scrubs audio. Anybody have a clue?
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Nov 16, 2015 23:16
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magnificent7 posted:Has anybody messed around with BlackMagic's Fusion? They've released a Beta, available for Mac so hells yes. Audio playback in Fusion was added in the currently available Beta 2 - look for the speaker icon next to the playback controls and right click to select a file. It's still pretty limited at this point but I imagine this is something Blackmagic has an eye on improving since they seem to want to start making some inroads in the motion graphics community with Fusion. As for Fusion in general, I've been playing around with the beta for a couple months and have definitely been digging it. Coming from a Nuke background it's really easy to get into once you know all the equivalent nodes and I'll definitely be using it for personal projects and freelance work in the future.
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Nov 17, 2015 00:34
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Cyne posted:Audio playback in Fusion was added in the currently available Beta 2 - look for the speaker icon next to the playback controls and right click to select a file. It's still pretty limited at this point but I imagine this is something Blackmagic has an eye on improving since they seem to want to start making some inroads in the motion graphics community with Fusion. Or maybe I'm just doing it wrong. Which I could totally get if I am. But let me clarify. My first year with Adobe CC subscription is about to end, and I've heard that the rate goes up from $49 to $70 or something like that. So with that in mind, I'm looking into alternatives. I've got Logic Pro, so I might end up going that route.
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Nov 20, 2015 19:32
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magnificent7 posted:Yeah I saw that, but playing the clip with the audio is jacked; it lags horribly. I'm not sure if the purpose there is to just do amazing motion graphics for the purpose of porting into some other software, (DaVinci?) to align to audio, but it seems like a really huge mistake in development in this day and age to not really plan for audio as a part of your clips. No that's only if you add the Adobe stock plan to your CC sub. You should stay at $50/month and I'm fairly sure you can easily just ask for cheaper and get it.
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Nov 20, 2015 20:14
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BonoMan posted:No that's only if you add the Adobe stock plan to your CC sub. You should stay at $50/month and I'm fairly sure you can easily just ask for cheaper and get it.
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Nov 20, 2015 20:49
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magnificent7 posted:Thanks for this! Thank you for the premiumbeat link. Sounddogs is another one I have used in the past for SoundFX
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Dec 15, 2015 22:21
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This thread's slowly dying... I wonder if everybody's over at the Video Editing thread instead? FEEDBACK REQUEST: I'm working on an auto show with some friends, and I'm doing the opener. After reviewing several auto-based webisode shows, (webishows?) I urged them to take it to the next level up and over almost any other level that exists, just because why not. Since we're on a broken shoestring budget, any real footage is not readily available, so I've done most of it in 3D, then bounced into AE for explosions, text, color-grading madness, etc. Any suggestions to make it even more of moreness? Bearing in mind that the goal is to get that perfect mix of incredible and incredibly not incredible. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONJ1HXm_st8
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Dec 22, 2015 21:25
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magnificent7 posted:This thread's slowly dying... I wonder if everybody's over at the Video Editing thread instead? The track on the explosions doesn't line up properly. Also: try 'screen' mode on the fire; will sit better.
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Dec 23, 2015 17:44
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I also would like some critique. In an effort to keep the thread alive and also in an effort to improve my own work. Tell me why these suck ... First (fan) video attempt. First official video. I did the VFX on this one. Unfinished video for Lux Moderna 2nd Unfinished video for Lux Moderna ... please. *** magnificent7 posted:This thread's slowly dying... I wonder if everybody's over at the Video Editing thread instead? Take the "C"rossthreaded logo off of the car. It really doesn't need to be there and is very distracting. The reverse C on crossthreaded is also unnecessary and weird. I kept reading it as ROSSthreaded with a weird wrench head in front. I realize now it is on the hosts shirts so you can't change the logo but at least take it off the car. For the buildings, use "Kludge city" or something similar, to generate the buildings procedurally. The lighting on the 3d is really weird. Doesn't seem to have AO (ambient occlusion) and that is obvious by the lack of contact shadow under the car. If the car's headlights are on (which they probably shouldn't be) then use spotlights with the cone visible for both lights. Usually you can make the cone visible by attaching a fog shader to the lights. The bump on the ground is WAAAY too visible / high. Turn it way down. The car shader could use some dirt / grime so it doesn't look so perfect / fake. Although I liked the lobster for the absurdity, the self driving car actually bothered me. If only you could make the lobster (or anyone / anything) drive the car. Heheh. Lastly, the explosions are waayy over the top. If you must keep them, use screen or lighten blending mode, which was mentioned earlier. Good luck! sigma 6 fucked around with this message at 05:23 on Dec 24, 2015 |
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Dec 24, 2015 03:12
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Thanks for the feedback, I've updated the clip a lot, the textures were totally screwed on the bldgs, and the asphalt drove me nuts too, and the logo behind the car, and a dozen other tiny things. The lack-of-a-driver thing is driving me nuts too. I'd give anything to put a greenscreened shot of the two hosts into the car. Regarding your Acid Rain video - there's not a lot of composition to the clip - there's layers of stuff, it's all right in the center most of the time, so there's not a lot to do, as the audience, except keep staring in the center, waiting for the next thing to appear/disappear, and maybe that's the goal? But since there's not really a start or ending, it's just kind of there, for 3 minutes. Maybe try layering the clips over time, building up to something, so the video goes somewhere? Abstract videos kill me -- a lot of times I couldn't tell you why I like one, or what makes one interesting... the best comparison I could think of was Crazy by Gnarls Barkley... it's similar in that there's no story, nothing really happening except that kickass watercolor effect, but I think the video builds up to a level of complexity instead of just boom, 3 minutes and then done. But I could be wrong. And relatively new to making this stuff.
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Dec 25, 2015 20:49
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