Maya's Dark Theatre Show
Sebastian's Anime-inspired Video
Zach's Water Droplets
Candice Text Animation
Friday, March 12, 2010
Accessibility options! Zooming into screen
I try to teach my classes so everyone can see what my little mouse cursor is doing.
This movie shows how to set up both Mac and PC so you can do the zooming in thing I do when I teach at Pratt and NYU!
And learn about Mouse Finder/Mouse Locator here: Mac only, unfortunately:
http://2point5fish.com
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
More Tutorials!
style="font-weight:bold;">The Basics
Film scratches
Create Colorful Confetti
Shatter glass
Making a crowd
And the famous ones:
Video Copilot
Maltaanon.com
Greyscale Gorilla's Blog & Tutorials
Film scratches
Create Colorful Confetti
Shatter glass
Making a crowd
And the famous ones:
Video Copilot
Maltaanon.com
Greyscale Gorilla's Blog & Tutorials
Tutorials for particles & sound
When I see stuff like this I want to be a particle.
Trapcode Training video tutorials
How to use the Cycore effects that ship with AE
Trapcode Particular: create an illuminating light painting effect
AE tuts on Toolfarm Website
Particle Playground basic tutorial
Audio to Sound Waves
More Soundwave stuff
let yourself feel. from Esteban Diácono on Vimeo.
Trapcode Training video tutorials
How to use the Cycore effects that ship with AE
Trapcode Particular: create an illuminating light painting effect
AE tuts on Toolfarm Website
Particle Playground basic tutorial
Audio to Sound Waves
More Soundwave stuff
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Letter to a recent college grad
Congrats on graduating college. And to put it in the words of one of my best clients/colleagues, "Sure, there's a recession going on. But the way I see it, it's up to me whether I choose to participate in it or not."
To answer your question, "What path did you take after you graduated, did you launch into having your own studio right away?" – I'd say that my career path was a bit winding. At the end of college (Rhode Island School of Design, degree in 2D Film Animation), recruiters from Nickelodeon came to campus and reviewed my portfolio. Short answer–they didn't like it. Not to let that discourage me, I re-vamped my portfolio over the next month, contacted the people who had come to campus to let them know I took their advice, and got a few interviews. I called people, showed them my work, and got more interviews. I got a couple offers, & ended up working at Nickelodeon for 2 years on a TV series.
TV series work takes a special brand of creativity, to keep things fresh and interesting with the same darn characters and terribly similar situations from episode to episode. Lacking that, I got bored. After the series wrapped, I moved on to education graphics (gag, really ugly stuff), video editing, producing for animation studios (which i loved), and eventually landed in grad school at NYU. I don't recommend it, I was at the Center for Advanced Digital Applications, and while I made some awesome contacts, I could have just networked and learned the material on my own and saved the money.
Throughout grad school I freelanced, and eventually started a small studio with 2 friends. They dropped out (1 now lives & works in LA as a motion graphics and compositing artist. The other went on to direct a series for Disney), I stayed. It's sort of a "virtual studio" in that I work out of my apartment with a couple interns who come in a couple days/week, and the rest telecommute via AIM and FTP. I've taken some on-site work doing rotoscoping and motion graphics, one of which lasted 9 months, but mostly I do a big variety of character animation (2d), motion graphics, digital compositing, video editing, and software training. I use Adobe After Effects, Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash (but no programming), Apple's Final Cut, Shake and DVD Studio Pro.
I teach at a couple of schools, NYU and Pratt mainly, to have a steady income to rely on when client work is low. Currently, I'm creating a tutorials website, teaching After Effects at NYU, and working on a short film about a woman who did 1 new thing every day for a year: a compositing and animation extravaganza to present what could be mundane material in an extraordinary way. Her exploits ranged from changing a lightbulb (!) to racing a baby (?) to winning 25K on "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" (whoa!). Her blog: http://jen365.blogspot.com
The key, I think, to having a successful animation career is to be very honest with yourself about what you do and do not want to do. And to be flexible to change those ideas when you feel like it, and to learn the new skills to match. And to love it enough not to ever, ever give up, even when a client is a jerk, even when a former student surpasses my skill level, even when I have to scale back my spending a whole-lot in response to tough economic times. I maintain a huge network of professional friends and contacts, try to be friendly and helpful to anyone who needs it, and have a lot of fun doing what I do. You can check out my work at http://www.nikebackyourblock.com (I did the animation & digital compositing for the video promo), and my reel is at http://antidotefx.com/kalika.mov
I'm sure a lot of people have told you that your best asset from college is your friends and colleagues. Stay in touch with them, and appreciate that you have been through many unique experiences together and can hopefully grow those experiences outside the protective walls of college.
Please let me know if you have any other questions or would like to get together at some point. I'd love to see your work!
To answer your question, "What path did you take after you graduated, did you launch into having your own studio right away?" – I'd say that my career path was a bit winding. At the end of college (Rhode Island School of Design, degree in 2D Film Animation), recruiters from Nickelodeon came to campus and reviewed my portfolio. Short answer–they didn't like it. Not to let that discourage me, I re-vamped my portfolio over the next month, contacted the people who had come to campus to let them know I took their advice, and got a few interviews. I called people, showed them my work, and got more interviews. I got a couple offers, & ended up working at Nickelodeon for 2 years on a TV series.
TV series work takes a special brand of creativity, to keep things fresh and interesting with the same darn characters and terribly similar situations from episode to episode. Lacking that, I got bored. After the series wrapped, I moved on to education graphics (gag, really ugly stuff), video editing, producing for animation studios (which i loved), and eventually landed in grad school at NYU. I don't recommend it, I was at the Center for Advanced Digital Applications, and while I made some awesome contacts, I could have just networked and learned the material on my own and saved the money.
Throughout grad school I freelanced, and eventually started a small studio with 2 friends. They dropped out (1 now lives & works in LA as a motion graphics and compositing artist. The other went on to direct a series for Disney), I stayed. It's sort of a "virtual studio" in that I work out of my apartment with a couple interns who come in a couple days/week, and the rest telecommute via AIM and FTP. I've taken some on-site work doing rotoscoping and motion graphics, one of which lasted 9 months, but mostly I do a big variety of character animation (2d), motion graphics, digital compositing, video editing, and software training. I use Adobe After Effects, Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash (but no programming), Apple's Final Cut, Shake and DVD Studio Pro.
I teach at a couple of schools, NYU and Pratt mainly, to have a steady income to rely on when client work is low. Currently, I'm creating a tutorials website, teaching After Effects at NYU, and working on a short film about a woman who did 1 new thing every day for a year: a compositing and animation extravaganza to present what could be mundane material in an extraordinary way. Her exploits ranged from changing a lightbulb (!) to racing a baby (?) to winning 25K on "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" (whoa!). Her blog: http://jen365.blogspot.com
The key, I think, to having a successful animation career is to be very honest with yourself about what you do and do not want to do. And to be flexible to change those ideas when you feel like it, and to learn the new skills to match. And to love it enough not to ever, ever give up, even when a client is a jerk, even when a former student surpasses my skill level, even when I have to scale back my spending a whole-lot in response to tough economic times. I maintain a huge network of professional friends and contacts, try to be friendly and helpful to anyone who needs it, and have a lot of fun doing what I do. You can check out my work at http://www.nikebackyourblock.com (I did the animation & digital compositing for the video promo), and my reel is at http://antidotefx.com/kalika.mov
I'm sure a lot of people have told you that your best asset from college is your friends and colleagues. Stay in touch with them, and appreciate that you have been through many unique experiences together and can hopefully grow those experiences outside the protective walls of college.
Please let me know if you have any other questions or would like to get together at some point. I'd love to see your work!
Friday, December 5, 2008
Week 13 notes
-Production process
-Requirements for your final
Homework:
-present your final project idea and work in progress
-Title page with Elevator Pitch statement
-Idea boards: color, type style, references, texture
-Color palette
-Reference movies: have your YouTube links ready and cued!
-Style frames: 3 frames of what your animation will look like
-Finish the in-class Affirmation Animation (I know, it's like so 80's gay)
Also next week:
-learning DVD studio pro
Production process/Workflow
This applies to animation/editing/comp/motion gfx
-important to know what your client wants
-4 D's:
Duration: how long is the final project going to be?
Due-Date(s): when do they want it delivered. Intermediate due-dates: rough-cut, fine cut before sound mix?
Delivery format: tape? data disc MOV? FLV? SWF? playable DVD?
Dollars: what is their budget?
Animation project: what style?
Animated stills: slideshow, animatic
Multiplane animatic: layered file that you're doing 3D-ish moves on
Cutouts: parenting, transform properties in AE or Flash
Animated masks: cutouts on crack
Flash (drawn): almost like drawing on paper
Drawn animation on paper: composited, colored, with sound means more complex
3D in Maya, XSI or 3DMax
Ask them: what do you like?
If they say, "I don't know!"
-Show them stuff.
-A variety of styles: A music video, motion graphics commercial, character animation, short narrative edit. No more than 5 QT movies with selections totalling no more than 2 minutes.
-can be from your portfolio
-can show professional examples make it clear you didn't do that.
-make sure you've done that technique before.
-have your URLs ready, and know where to cue the movie.
Style/Design: The Idea Board
-idea boards: based on what's out there. 1 for each major aspect of the project.
-If motion graphics: 1 for color, 1 for title design, 1 for lower 3rds, 1 for transition gfx, 1 for end credits
-If film/commercial video: 1 for art direction, 1 for photography style, 1 each for color treatment, grain, effects, costume.
Making idea boards:
Open PS, File/New/Preset US Paper, 11inx8.5in, 150 dpi
Content for idea Boards:
-for these, you can scan images from magazines, grab stuff from web, google images, iStockphoto.com
-scanning from a magazine: if there's black type on the reverse, put a black pc of paper behind the page b4 scanning.
-grabbing images from the web, Apple-Shift 4
Style frames:
It's a glorified storyboard
1-In AE, make something cool looking
2-set your zoom to 100% and your resolution to Full
3-Comp/Save Frame As/File
4-Select all layers (Ap A), UU to see all we changed from defaults.
5-keyframe everything
6-move to another time in timeline
7-repeat steps 1-6 again
Open all those in PS, drag them into a 150dpi image, and label what is happening.
Once you have your idea boards, your styleframes, your Titlepage (should include elevator pitch) all labeled as to what they are, save as PSD file and TIFF with no layers.
-Close all open documents, just open those TIFFs
-File/Automate/PDF presentation
This saves your images as 1 big PDF that you can scroll thru in Preview.
-Requirements for your final
Homework:
-present your final project idea and work in progress
-Title page with Elevator Pitch statement
-Idea boards: color, type style, references, texture
-Color palette
-Reference movies: have your YouTube links ready and cued!
-Style frames: 3 frames of what your animation will look like
-Finish the in-class Affirmation Animation (I know, it's like so 80's gay)
Also next week:
-learning DVD studio pro
Production process/Workflow
This applies to animation/editing/comp/motion gfx
-important to know what your client wants
-4 D's:
Duration: how long is the final project going to be?
Due-Date(s): when do they want it delivered. Intermediate due-dates: rough-cut, fine cut before sound mix?
Delivery format: tape? data disc MOV? FLV? SWF? playable DVD?
Dollars: what is their budget?
Animation project: what style?
Animated stills: slideshow, animatic
Multiplane animatic: layered file that you're doing 3D-ish moves on
Cutouts: parenting, transform properties in AE or Flash
Animated masks: cutouts on crack
Flash (drawn): almost like drawing on paper
Drawn animation on paper: composited, colored, with sound means more complex
3D in Maya, XSI or 3DMax
Ask them: what do you like?
If they say, "I don't know!"
-Show them stuff.
-A variety of styles: A music video, motion graphics commercial, character animation, short narrative edit. No more than 5 QT movies with selections totalling no more than 2 minutes.
-can be from your portfolio
-can show professional examples make it clear you didn't do that.
-make sure you've done that technique before.
-have your URLs ready, and know where to cue the movie.
Style/Design: The Idea Board
-idea boards: based on what's out there. 1 for each major aspect of the project.
-If motion graphics: 1 for color, 1 for title design, 1 for lower 3rds, 1 for transition gfx, 1 for end credits
-If film/commercial video: 1 for art direction, 1 for photography style, 1 each for color treatment, grain, effects, costume.
Making idea boards:
Open PS, File/New/Preset US Paper, 11inx8.5in, 150 dpi
Content for idea Boards:
-for these, you can scan images from magazines, grab stuff from web, google images, iStockphoto.com
-scanning from a magazine: if there's black type on the reverse, put a black pc of paper behind the page b4 scanning.
-grabbing images from the web, Apple-Shift 4
Style frames:
It's a glorified storyboard
1-In AE, make something cool looking
2-set your zoom to 100% and your resolution to Full
3-Comp/Save Frame As/File
4-Select all layers (Ap A), UU to see all we changed from defaults.
5-keyframe everything
6-move to another time in timeline
7-repeat steps 1-6 again
Open all those in PS, drag them into a 150dpi image, and label what is happening.
Once you have your idea boards, your styleframes, your Titlepage (should include elevator pitch) all labeled as to what they are, save as PSD file and TIFF with no layers.
-Close all open documents, just open those TIFFs
-File/Automate/PDF presentation
This saves your images as 1 big PDF that you can scroll thru in Preview.
Spell-Check!
-Spellig coutns
-Copy your text from photoshop into TextEdit or Word and spell czech it.
-or type it into Google!
AFX 3D
3D: enable 3D by turning on the sugarcube icon in the timeline. Don't turn it off.
3D we have 3 axes: X Y Z
X goes left to right Red
Y goes up and down Green
Z goes front and back Blue
Wotate tool (hotkey W) to rotate around the skewers.
-in Rotation tool options on top toolbox, turn the "Orientation" to "Rotation"
Y door-hinge
X flip-book
Z clock
Name Affirmation in-class project:
-Type the first 3 letters of your name.
-Duplicate this 2 times, draw-a-box with the rectangle tool around each letter.
-Use the Solo switch (little O next to Eyeball in Timeline)to make sure your rectangle masks are good.
-Animate each letter disappearing using 3D rotations X and Y and opacity animation 100% to 0%.
-Select all your keyframes by selecting all layers and hitting U, drawing a box around all them.
-Moved keyfr to 2:00
-Layer/New/Null, align this with word on left side.
-Parent all your layers to the Null
-At time 1:00, turn on Position stopwatch on Null.
-At time 0, move Null all the way Right so all letters go offscreen.
-At time 1:00 type last letters of name
-Align with current letters.
-ApR: show rulers, drag from ruler to get a Guide line.
-Draw a box with rectangle mask tool around the last letters of your name. Have bottom of box align with base of letters
-Keyframe Mask Path and Position at time 1:15
-At time 1:00, use my Pan-behind tool (letter Y) to move my letters down in a PeekABoo
-Copy your text from photoshop into TextEdit or Word and spell czech it.
-or type it into Google!
AFX 3D
3D: enable 3D by turning on the sugarcube icon in the timeline. Don't turn it off.
3D we have 3 axes: X Y Z
X goes left to right Red
Y goes up and down Green
Z goes front and back Blue
Wotate tool (hotkey W) to rotate around the skewers.
-in Rotation tool options on top toolbox, turn the "Orientation" to "Rotation"
Y door-hinge
X flip-book
Z clock
Name Affirmation in-class project:
-Type the first 3 letters of your name.
-Duplicate this 2 times, draw-a-box with the rectangle tool around each letter.
-Use the Solo switch (little O next to Eyeball in Timeline)to make sure your rectangle masks are good.
-Animate each letter disappearing using 3D rotations X and Y and opacity animation 100% to 0%.
-Select all your keyframes by selecting all layers and hitting U, drawing a box around all them.
-Moved keyfr to 2:00
-Layer/New/Null, align this with word on left side.
-Parent all your layers to the Null
-At time 1:00, turn on Position stopwatch on Null.
-At time 0, move Null all the way Right so all letters go offscreen.
-At time 1:00 type last letters of name
-Align with current letters.
-ApR: show rulers, drag from ruler to get a Guide line.
-Draw a box with rectangle mask tool around the last letters of your name. Have bottom of box align with base of letters
-Keyframe Mask Path and Position at time 1:15
-At time 1:00, use my Pan-behind tool (letter Y) to move my letters down in a PeekABoo
-Type as separate word-objects the words that will turn your name into an affirmation.
examples: Kalika parties well. James makes a great turkey dinner.
-To make them separate word-objects, type a word using the Type tool and then hit Enter.
-Set anchor point using Pan-behind (Y) tool.
-Separate letters using Masks as needed for your animation.
-Animate words coming together one at a time, to create your "Affirmation Animation."
Typography reference:
Motionographer.com's Cream of the Crop
Paper magazine
Barnes & Noble Union Square: layout ideas from graphic design magazines
AIGA
Typography reference:
Motionographer.com's Cream of the Crop
Paper magazine
Barnes & Noble Union Square: layout ideas from graphic design magazines
AIGA
Screenings:
What Barry Says
The Hush Sound
Pulp Fiction
Who's on First?
V for Vendetta
I encourage you to:
-Think outside what's been done before: Do something Different. We are tired of the same old crap.
What Barry Says
The Hush Sound
Pulp Fiction
Who's on First?
V for Vendetta
I encourage you to:
-Think outside what's been done before: Do something Different. We are tired of the same old crap.
Give us new & unique work.
-Be clever
-Be creative
-Be Yourself! Make this project your own.
-Be clever
-Be creative
-Be Yourself! Make this project your own.
Week 12 notes
Outputting a high-resolution format from QT Pro:
Open your movie in QT Player Pro
Export: Movie to QT Movie
Use: Default Settings
Click the OPTIONS button
This opens a new window.
From the top:
Video: Compression Animation
Keyframes All (how many frames are perfect: higher # means that many are crap betw frames. every 100 means it's only perfect 1/100 frames.
Depth Millions
Quality Best
Size: Dimensions NTSC 720x480 4:3
(if using 16:9 footage (widescreen) please check the box next to "Preserve Aspect ratio using" and choose "Letterbox" from the dropdown)
Only check the "Deinterlace" if your final format is Web or CD-Rom
Sound: Format Linear PCM or Apple Lossless
Channels Stereo LR
Rate 48
Quality Best
Sample Size 16
Uncheck "Prepare for internet streaming"
what it means?? you can watch the 1st part of your QT while the 2nd part will load
Open Final Cut
-Reset Scratch Disks, set them all to FCP folder within your project folder.
-Save your project also to the FCP folder
-Copy/move all your editing clips (stuff you'll be putting into your FC timeline) into Capture Scratch Folder
-Drag those things into Bin window
-Drag your footage into the Timeline
-Will prolly give you an error, saying "Do you want your sequence to match your footage" and you should say Yes.
Saying No will lead to render.
-Unlink selection by clicking the small button in the upper RH corner of the Timeline.
Looks like a link, not Snap.
-Select and delete original audio
-Drag in new audio
To see waveform in FCP, go to Sequence/Seq Settings.
-Timeline Tab, chose "Track Display/Show Audio Waveform"
-Lock your audio tracks in the Timeline so you don't accidentally mess them up.
-On timeline, set in and out points for where i want the clip to last. (i for in, o for out)
-Cut your video for what action should take that amt of time.
double-click the video, go to Motion tab in clip viewer. Time Remap section, and change Duration part TO MATCH the in-out length.
Review of AE retiming
Apple's Motion software
-starts with Welcome screen
-Start with a New Project
-Preset: NTSC DV
Window/Timeline
On left,
Filebrowser: select stuff from your computer to import.
Library: Filters, Behaviors, Particles live here.
Inspector: tells us about what we have clicked.
To change colors, swivel open your particle in the Timeline till you see the "3-star symbol" and click that.
-Go to Inspector and change colors there in the Particle Cell tab, under "Color Over Life"
File/Export
Export: Qt movie
Use: Lossless + Alpha
Check the box next to "use play range"
Click OPTIONS
Go to output Tab
Resolution Full
Color: Color+Alpha
Say NO to premultiply.
Use 29.97 fps
Quality Best
Field Rendering.
Open your movie in QT Player Pro
Export: Movie to QT Movie
Use: Default Settings
Click the OPTIONS button
This opens a new window.
From the top:
Video: Compression Animation
Keyframes All (how many frames are perfect: higher # means that many are crap betw frames. every 100 means it's only perfect 1/100 frames.
Depth Millions
Quality Best
Size: Dimensions NTSC 720x480 4:3
(if using 16:9 footage (widescreen) please check the box next to "Preserve Aspect ratio using" and choose "Letterbox" from the dropdown)
Only check the "Deinterlace" if your final format is Web or CD-Rom
Sound: Format Linear PCM or Apple Lossless
Channels Stereo LR
Rate 48
Quality Best
Sample Size 16
Uncheck "Prepare for internet streaming"
what it means?? you can watch the 1st part of your QT while the 2nd part will load
Open Final Cut
-Reset Scratch Disks, set them all to FCP folder within your project folder.
-Save your project also to the FCP folder
-Copy/move all your editing clips (stuff you'll be putting into your FC timeline) into Capture Scratch Folder
-Drag those things into Bin window
-Drag your footage into the Timeline
-Will prolly give you an error, saying "Do you want your sequence to match your footage" and you should say Yes.
Saying No will lead to render.
-Unlink selection by clicking the small button in the upper RH corner of the Timeline.
Looks like a link, not Snap.
-Select and delete original audio
-Drag in new audio
To see waveform in FCP, go to Sequence/Seq Settings.
-Timeline Tab, chose "Track Display/Show Audio Waveform"
-Lock your audio tracks in the Timeline so you don't accidentally mess them up.
-On timeline, set in and out points for where i want the clip to last. (i for in, o for out)
-Cut your video for what action should take that amt of time.
double-click the video, go to Motion tab in clip viewer. Time Remap section, and change Duration part TO MATCH the in-out length.
Review of AE retiming
Apple's Motion software
-starts with Welcome screen
-Start with a New Project
-Preset: NTSC DV
Window/Timeline
On left,
Filebrowser: select stuff from your computer to import.
Library: Filters, Behaviors, Particles live here.
Inspector: tells us about what we have clicked.
To change colors, swivel open your particle in the Timeline till you see the "3-star symbol" and click that.
-Go to Inspector and change colors there in the Particle Cell tab, under "Color Over Life"
File/Export
Export: Qt movie
Use: Lossless + Alpha
Check the box next to "use play range"
Click OPTIONS
Go to output Tab
Resolution Full
Color: Color+Alpha
Say NO to premultiply.
Use 29.97 fps
Quality Best
Field Rendering.
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