Newton for After Effects

Newton is an awesome plugin for After Effects that simulates 2D physics. As someone who has worked with 3D programs such as Cinema 4D where simulating physics is very smoothly built in and advance, this plugin is a great crossover. Instead of key-framing a ball bouncing for example and trying to make it look as real as possible, Newton allows you to tweak real world physics properties of your objects and simulate real physics. It is great for having things that react to gravity such as objects falling. You can set objects as static and all objects will collide with each other automatically, which is very handy. The plugin has tons of possibilities, which I look forward to exploring, and I have been using some on my third project.

The program is $250 but you can get a free trial and try it for yourself. Here is the website, and here is where you can download it. I highly recommend you check it out.

Cinema 4D

Cinema 4D is a similar program to Maya. It is not as mainstream as Maya, but has some features and usability benefits I have not found in Maya. Coming from Cinema 4D it was difficult learning Maya. I felt like someone had hid and relabeled all my tools. But I'm glad I am relatively comfortable with both.

While I have only barely scratched the surface in my Maya class, I can tell there is a difference in the workflow between the two programs, and I vastly prefer the Cinema 4D flow, at least for my purposes. Like After Effects, I feel like everything I do in Cinema 4D is reversible and less permanent than in Maya. For example in Maya, to boolean two objects, you align the two, click them in the right order, and hit boolean. This permanently modifies the geometry and you are set. In Cinema 4D, you drag a boolean folder-like object into your objects list (called the outliner in Maya). You then put the two objects as inside the boolean folder. They instantly subtract but when you move the object that is subtracting around, it adjusts the boolean live and can be adjust later. This is one of the many easy of use benefits I have found in Cinema 4D over Maya.

Cinema 4D has its own Andrew Kramer-like site called Greyscale Gorilla. They make plugins, and downloadable lighting and texture setups as well as offer many easy to follow tutorials. Cinema 4D is around $3,695 but offers a student program, although it is elaborate to enroll in. I highly recommend the program.

Check out Cinema 4D

Check out Greyscale Gorilla

The Evolution of My Animation Skills

Flashback to August and our first class, I was excited to learn about Motion Graphics and Animation but admittedly, quite overwhelmed. I had never touched After Effects before, let alone Maya or Cinema 4D. The first few classes I was able to keep up with the basics. Quickly, though, I found myself trailing behind--not because I wasn't capable of what we were doing, but simply because the keyboard commands and programs as a whole were so foreign. 

It was a tough start getting going but the key is practice. I know that sounds redundant and obvious, but as your basic knowledge grows the better you're able to understand more complex concepts. 

Now, I'm much more confident in my skills. I'm able to watch simple animations and figure out at least conceptually how it's done. My knowledge in regards to the many different effects these programs offer has grown immensely and keyframing is now second nature.  

Just take a look at how my name animation has evolved.

My point in writing this is to encourage any newcomers who might be taking this course next semester, or someone who maybe has interest in the topic but finds the idea daunting. Do I see myself becoming an animator in the future? Not particularly. But I think the skill set you gain in understanding this type of media is incredibly useful no matter what branch of production you find yourself in. 

Happy Animating!

Roller Coaster Tycoon VFX

A YouTube channel I've been watching for quite some time now, AndrewMFilms just released a video I really enjoyed, A Fun Day in Roller Coaster Tycoon. AndrewMFilms periodically creates short videos like the one featured here, which always involve an impressive amount of high quality VFX, usually involving lots of CGI too. This particular video is based around the popular theme park simulation game "Roller Coaster Tycoon".

A Fun Day in Roller Coaster Tycoon

What I love about this video, is that it was filmed around a theme park, and only used After Effects and Cinema 4D. It's quite inspiring to me, to try and create something similar. I love how they've simply added and modified pre-existing rollercoaster's to create some cool and funny effects. Check out the making of video, shows some good insight.

Making of

The Rolling Stones

As a kid of the '90s, it's safe to say that Rock 'N Roll was a key element of my childhood. Whether it was Boston, Aerosmith, Led Zeppelin, or The Rolling Stones, I found a genuine love of the best classic rock songs. I remember watching old music videos on television and wondering how it was physically possible to create riveting visual effects. In an effort to help celebrate the 45th anniversary re-release of the Rolling Stones’ seminal album, ‘Sticky Fingers,’ Trunk Animation creates a lyrical video for an acoustic cover of the hit, “Wild Horses.”

The finalized video, created using Cinema 4D and After Effects, ultimately utilizes the track's gentle feel to create the pace, while the animation design evokes the song’s lyrics. Trunk Animation’s Layla Atkinson developed the artwork for the video using elements from the booklet, including fingerprints and smudges from each of the band members. Trunk Animation also manipulated multiple photos of the band, and degraded in Photoshop, in order to fit into the overall look and feel of the finished video.

It's an awesome work of art and definitely deserves a watch.

Special Effects and Fan Films

Special Effects often shine their brightest when used by passionate amateur filmmakers doing what they love. YouTuber Andrew McMurry showcased his special effects skills in his recent video, Fallout vs Skyrim. 

In his video, McMurry pits together characters from Fallout 3, a sci-fi video game, and The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim, a fantasy video game, in a battle to the death. The games, both products of Bethesda Game Studios, have long been in the center of debate as to which is the best RPG, and this video is the latest entry in that debate, with Fallout's guns and tech winning out over Skyrim's swords and magic.

Other than just being a fun video for video game fans, this video showcases some of the impressive effects you can pull off with the various 3D software that McMurry utilized, like After Effects and Cinema 4D. McMurry posted a video demonstrating the effects that created for his video, including dust, lightning, and glitch effects, teleportation, and a dragon.

Seeing what a skillful YouTuber can do with special effects and 3D is exciting for any aspiring artist in today's filmmaking scene.

Element 3D

Want to make realistic objects in After Effects that are truly 3D? Now you can, and it's never been easier with the Element 3D plugin! Created by the guys over at VideoCopilot.net, Element 3D pushes the boundaries with all the things you can do in After Effects. 3D objects, 3D text, 3D environments; Element 3D does it all, and it does it incredibly easy!

So how does it work, you might ask. Well, it's a lot simpler than it might first appear. First, let's talk about Primitive Objects.

Primitive Objects are just what they sound like, objects that are, well, primitive! Inside the primitive objects folder, you'll find an array of cubes, spheres, cones, pyramids, etc. all available with the click of a button. Once you create a primitive, you can use other primitives to help shape the object you wish to create. But what if I want to create something more fancy than just a cube? Well......

For all of those who are artistically gifted, with the click of a button, you can import 3D objects from many different 3D softwares. I don't remember which ones Element supports, but I do know it supports Cinema 4D files and 3DS Max files. Along with that, you can also import .obj files, which are universally used in many different programs. Great! We've got our objects, but it's all gray... Now what?

Welcome to the Material Editor! Element 3D comes packed with many preinstalled materials for you to apply to your objects. You can also create and edit materials very easily. So let's say we made a rock in Cinema 4D, imported into Element, and have a rocky material you want for the rock, what now? Simple, just drag the material onto the rock and you're set! You'll then be able to edit things about the material in the bottom window, to make things unique about that object.

I wanted to write this week's blog post about Element 3D because it is by far my favorite plugin I've used in After Effects! If I want to make something looks nice and pretty, and make it 3D, I quickly rush to Element, because I know I can make some awsome things.

Grimm Morphing Effects

One of current television shows that I enjoy is NBC's fairy tale retelling known as Grimm. While the rival fairy tale show Once Upon a Time from Disney focuses on a retelling of its trademark characters, NBC's version focuses mostly on a retelling of The Brother's Grimm tales in a detective format. The main aspect of this show that I have come to enjoy are the morph effects the various characters go through into their various wessen (fairy-tale creature) forms. In each episode there is is always a guest star brought on for the episode that is usually a new type of wessen we haven't seen before. The part that I have always found fascinating is analyzing types of creatures these actors play, and seeing how well their wessen forms blended with the human forms.

According to HIVE FX the process for creating these character forms is usually some thing like this: "Most creatures begin as photos of the actors taken from every angle. Next, the photos are used to create 3D replicas of their heads using tracking points as a reference. Pixologic's ZBrush is used for 3D sculpting, and models are rigged and animated in Maya. Cinema 4D is used for hair, surfacing, lighting, and rendering"(Maxon). "Most creatures begin as photos of the actors taken from every angle. Next, the photos are used to create 3D replicas of their heads using tracking points as a reference. Pixologic's ZBrush is used for 3D sculpting, and models are rigged and animated in Maya. Cinema 4D is used for hair, surfacing, lighting, and rendering"One innovative thing that this show has done as far as visual fx, has been the way the artists blend their human and wessen morphs by moving the various shapes that make up both versions of the character's face and adjusting the individual layers with each difference in between forms to match the displacement between forms.

As of this point, if the session this week is any indication I am light years from even being ready to touch this level of animation and graphics. But this is an aspect that I would like to touch on given the chance. The things that appeals to me the most the idea of designing a various species for this world. While my drawing skills are currently need improvement, I could see myself working the concept design of some of these characters. (after several how to lessons of course)

After Effects used on Iron Man

    In college we're always learning how to use new programs. I've always been interested in knowing what professionals are using these programs and how are they using them. Well I did a quick search on what movies used After Effects as part of their creative design and Iron Man 3 was one of the first movies to pop up. Was I surprised? No way, there are no limits in adobe after effects so I would be surprised if movies didn't used this program. After Effects was used to create the HUD (head up display) of Iron Man.

 Watching the video gives you a glance of the work being done and if you pay close attention you will see a ton of layers listed in the after effects program. It just goes to show you how extensive a project can be and how advanced After effects is.

   It's both exciting and challenging learning how to work with after effects. I know the if I acquire the necessary skills in after effects I can create awesome work and obtain money doing something that is pretty cool and can possibly be seen be hundreds or thousands or even millions of people.

Here's the link that shows the video, as well as other videos. Click here.

Sci Fi Nerd

Hey everyone,

 I am very excited (and terrified) to be in MG&A this semester. I've always been interested in Science Fiction films ever since I was really young and I've always wanted to have animation and VFX in my movies. In fact, my mom took me to see The Matrix at a theatre when I was 8 (even though it was rated R, she went and saw it first, just to make sure it wasn't too scary......thanks Mom!) and after I walked out, I pretty much knew I wanted to make movies, somehow, someday. It might seem a little old and cliche at this point since it became such a cultural landmark like 15 years ago........but right from the very first frame, they start off with my all time favorite credit sequence. I used to dream in the same shade of green. So iconic, so good....

The main reason I'm in MG&A this semester is because I was fortunate enough to help my friends Blake Horn, Zeke Spector, and Ally Cunningham make their thesis film last semester called ASH. Unfortunately, I can't post a link as it's being sent to film festivals, but if you haven't seen it, I highly recommend you snag a copy of this year's Best of Park DVD and give it a watch. It's a fantastic beautiful film.

Anyways, on ASH I worked as a grip on the set and saw the process of building the sets for the interior of a spaceship and then helped film all the miniature versions of the spaceships in front of green screens in Park. It was interesting because we would have to light each shot in relation to where the sun was and where the planets and spaceships were in relation to another. We also did lots of cool camera moves so the ship would move along the Z-axis with the miniatures hanging from C Stands, suspended by fishing line against an evenly lit green screen. Blake then composited all of this footage with matte paintings of Earth and space that Ethan Burnette made in Cinema 4D. And then I bugged Blake to let me watch him make holograms and zero gravity effects in AE and asked him what I should do to learn all of this stuff so I could make a Sci-Fi film for my Senior Thesis. He told me about Arturo's class, said he walked into MG&A terrified of motion graphics but worked hard and set aside time everyday to practice and eventually enabled himself to make ASH. I really hope to do something similar for a film I'm making called Nirvana.



Another big inspiration of late that I saw was a film called True Skin, very very VFX heavy short film....heavily inspired by Total Recall, Enter The Void, Blade Runner, District 9 (the type of films I'm obsessed with.) Check it out. I really hope I can do stuff like this in the near future. 10,000 hours right?

 Ok, just one more link. The title sequence for Enter the Void. Genius. Another example of something I'd love to make.

Enter The Void Title Sequence

I can't wait to work hard and learn as much as I can from this class and all of my fellow classmates. Cheers y'all!

Spy vs. Guy

Red Giant is a plugin and software company that creates software for filmmakers and visual effects artists (Among other things, they are the company behind Trapcode Particular and the Trapcode Suite). For the past few years, they have been creating short films to demonstrate their products.  This is their most recent, demonstrating among other things, their new product Bulletproof.  The short is very well done, funny, and displays some very good visual effects.  Even better, they have included a behind the scenes showing how they achieved their results, as well as the programs they used.


I really enjoyed the short, and it was a great bonus to see behind the scenes as well.

After Effects CS7 Sneak Peeks

The NAB Tradeshow (National Association of Broadcasters) starts tomorrow, which means that for the past week or so, we've been getting hints of what is to come in After Effects CS7.  Here are some of the most exciting features to look forward to.

After Effects + Cinema 4D

image credit: Motionworks

One of the biggest surprises has been a new level of integration between AE and Cinema 4D.  Cinema 4D is a fully featured 3d modeling and rendering system, like Maya or 3DS Max, that has been used in conjunction with After Effects for many years now.  However, for the next release, the After Effects team has joined with Maxon to integrate the to programs even more fully.  Users will now be able to import projects from Cinema 4D directly to After Effects, without rendering the scene beforehand.  This will allow for editing right inside After Effects, and full integration with the built in After Effects cameras.  Furthermore, a Lite version of Cinema 4D will be shipped with After Effects.

Refine Edge Tool

image credit: retooled.net

This is another welcome addition, that continues to push frame by frame rotoscoping into the past.  The roto-brush tool, already a tremendous time saver, will now have tools to automatically deal with highly detailed and fuzzy edges, such as hair or leaves.  This will be a huge advantage over traditional rotoscoping techniques, as these kinds of edges are where rotoscoping started to break down.  In fact, this might be the tool I'm most impatient for.  It would have been extremely useful for our last project!

Other Improvements

There is a whole list of smaller things that have been improved, such as the Warp Stabilizer, the addition of snapping in the viewport, a new search feature for missing footage and other media, and optimizations to both the 2d and 3d tracker.  Needless to say, After Effects CS7 is looking to be an exciting release, and I'm sure we'll hear of more new features as the release date approaches.  You can watch a video demonstrating some of these developments, as well as sneak peeks of other CS products here 

Realflow

I was looking into some programs that have more specific uses in the motion graphics world, and I came across a program called Realflow, which simulates the flowing of fluids for animations. It seemed pretty cool to me, and the price was pretty reasonable at a mere $3,995! More information can be found here.

Regardless of whether or not I'd ever be able to afford this program, I thought some of what it did looked pretty interesting. I saw this video where a guy used the program along with Cinema 4D to create his own short Nike commercial in his spare time. Programs like these are really amazing when you think about how perfectly they imitate something as complex, yet simple, as liquid flowing.

Greyscale Gorilla - Monster Bash

So far, I've spent all of the semester posting each week about as many After Effects videos and tutorials as I possibly could. This week, I've decided to broaden my horizons, and with the use of Greyscale Gorilla, I discovered some pretty cool animations that people created using the program Cinema 4D, instead.

From what I can tell, Greyscale Gorilla is essentially the Video Copilot of Cinema 4D, as they have quite a bit of information on the program, as well as contributions from readers, and for Halloween, they had a competition among their followers to create a five-second "Monster Bash" animation. Here is the winner:

For those interested, the runner ups can be found here.