This next tutorial I do will hopefully be about Red Giant’s Psunami Plugin for After Effects. I want to clear things up, show you guys how I work with the plugin etc. I will also be mentioning some more resources after you watch my tutorial to go to to learn more. This should be coming sometime this week or next week. I will also be discussing a little into the difference between Psunami and Realflow. Cheers till then!
Monthly Archives: January 2012
New Logo – Coming Soon!
Posted by dorian
on January 25, 2012
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Golden Material Tutorial
Posted by dorian
on January 21, 2012
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In this quick tutorial, I am going to show you how to make a golden material inside of Cinema 4D. Heres how to do it:
Step 1:
Create a new texture:
Step 2: Color the Texture
This can be tricky to get right on the first shot, so just try it until it looks right, for me its this:
Step 3: Make the reflection have color.
This reflection color should be sort of red white as showed below.
Step 4: Make the reflection look right, again for me its like this:
Step 5: Make the color look right:
Step 6: Specular Color.
This one can also be tricky, but I’ve found that a white-red color seems to work the best:
Step 7: Inserting an object.
Now that you’ve made the material, lets apply it to a cube in our scene:
Step 8: Making a floor.
Make a new floor by hitting the “floor” button:
Step 9: Setting up the Render.
Go into the render settings and apply “Ambient Occlusion” and “Global Illumination.” Also be sure to add a light now, so you cube can be seen:
Step 10: Setting up floor material
Now its time to set up a floor material. Mine is simple and looks like this:
Step 11: The final Render:
I’ve added a few spheres into the mix to give the cube something to reflect. They all share the golden material meaning that they all reflect each other. Here’s the final render as well as a list of whats in the scene:
Gold Logo
Posted by dorian
on January 21, 2012
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Looking forward to 2012!
Posted by dorian
on January 21, 2012
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I know that we are almost a month into 2012, but I wanted to get a list of things I am excited about, that are coming out this year.
CS6: This is pretty major. Lots of new changes coming to CS6, especially photoshop 3D functionality. I am personally excited to see what they do with AE in CS6, and I’m hoping to see some more “real” 3D integration.
Element 3D: We rarely see this barrier broken, but now more then ever before, it will be. Element 3D allows for real 3D reflections (not ray tracing but still very cool). This plugin is doing some ground breaking stuff! Promised to be delivered and published by the end of 2011, is now going to happen somewhere in the near to close future. You can see an awesome screen shot here, or check out the video!
I’m also looking forward to a 4K canon DSLR that isn’t $20,000. Read the press release on it. (It isn’t the C300).
The last thing I’m looking forward to, is seeing what you guys make! So just leave a comment with the video/photo link in it.
Have a great 2012! I know I will!
Cool Script!
Posted by dorian
on January 21, 2012
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Here is a sweet script I found for AE, it costs money, but I can tell you, that it is worth it, if you have texting or an iPhone. If you don’t not so much.
What the script does is it can send an email, shoot a text or iPhone notification when your AE comp is done rendering! All you have to do is put something in the render queue and hit go on BG Renderer.
Why I like it:
The reasoning behind this is simple. Rendering can be the worst part of the job, and due to this, you may want to do something else while it renders, this script allows you to do just that! It not only emails you, but can send SMS and iPhone notifications. Allowing you to take a walk and come back when its done!
Overall this is worth the money.
New Tutorial – Creating an Odometer, Simplified!
Posted by dorian
on January 19, 2012
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In this quick tutorial I explain the very basics of how to create an odometer in After Effects.
For more information, or to see my sources follow these links:
http://library.creativecow.net/articles/rabinowitz_aharon/Odometer_1.php
http://ae.tutsplus.com/tutorials/motion-graphics/stylize-a-simple-3d-odometer-in-a-few-minutes/
http://allbetsareoff.com/tutorials/creating-an-automated-odometer-part-2/
The expressions used are:
// thousands
slider = thisComp.layer(“Null 1″).effect(“Slider Control”)(“Slider”);
myDigit = Math.floor(slider/1000)%10;
previous = slider%1000/1000;
myVal = myDigit + linear(previous,.999,1.0,0,1);
y = linear(myVal,0,10,1500,0);
x = value[0];
[x,y]
// hundreds
slider = thisComp.layer(“Null 1″).effect(“Slider Control”)(“Slider”);
myDigit = Math.floor(slider/100)%10;
previous = slider%100/100;
myVal = myDigit + linear(previous,.99,1.0,0,1);
y = linear(myVal,0,10,1500,0);
x = value[0];
[x,y]
// tens
slider = thisComp.layer(“Null 1″).effect(“Slider Control”)(“Slider”);
myDigit = Math.floor(slider/10)%10;
previous = slider%10/10;
myVal = myDigit + linear(previous,.9,1.0,0,1);
y = linear(myVal,0,10,1500,0);
x = value[0];
[x,y]
// ones
slider = thisComp.layer(“Null 1″).effect(“Slider Control”)(“Slider”);
myVal = slider%10;
y = linear(myVal,0,10,1500,0);
x = value[0];
[x,y]
Enjoy!
Photoshop Lightroom 4 Public Beta!
Posted by dorian
on January 13, 2012
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As of yesterday, Adobe has released the public beta for Photoshop Lightroom 4! You need a Adobe account to download this beta, but if you already do you can download it here.
Now I will be doing a more in depth post about this in the near future, I just need some time to mess around with it myself. Stay posted!
Podcast?
Posted by dorian
on January 12, 2012
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Match Moving
Posted by dorian
on January 9, 2012
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Match moving is the term VFX artists use to describe putting “things” that aren’t originally in the shot, into the shot. If you can imagine a moving or panning shot, you need the “things” to stay in the same place, assuming they are not moving, or if they are moving, then matching them not only to their own movement, but also the movement of the shot. These “things” can be footage, 2D layers (text, solids, etc.) or even 3D.
The difference between match moving and motion tracking is the dimensions the shot is tracked in. Match Moving is 3D tracking, while motion tracking is 2D. Meaning that 2D can only point to X and Y, while match moving can use X, Y, and Z. This allows for objects to be placed into the shot and have an X position, (horizontal) and a Y position, (vertical) as well as a Z position (depth).
Match moving is often applied to shots in movies and you would never even know that they were there unless they told you.
Many 3D programs allow for match moving, even Blender the free open source 3D program now has a match moving feature now built into the most recent solid build of Blender (Blender 2.61).
For serious match movers, there is another option, its called “Boujou” and its $10,000. Now, there are other options of the software available, you can rent it for one month for $2,000. But if you’re not a millionaire, there are still other options for other software.
Here is a full list of software that will do 3D match moving arranged by price (lowest to highest):
Blender 2.61 (free)
Voodoo (free)
3DEqualizer (contact sales team for pricing information)
Maya MatchMover (comes with maya – from $3,495)
Syntheyes (from $399 – 32bit)
PFtrack (from $3,300)
Boujou (from $2000)
NukeX (from $8000)
Video Trace (Looking into this, post coming soon)
Camera Tracker for AE (from $250) – (this is the best deal I have found so far, and its pretty cheap, and full featured).