Just an experiment on Cinema 4D. One of the few things I've done without a tutorial recently... The program is so complex so I figured the more time I spend messing around on it figuring out bits and pieces, the easier and more familiar it'll become. Tutorials practically move your mouse for you and therefore don't always actually help you learn the ins and outs of a program very efficiently. This was basically just different shapes and textures and lighting. Nothing too complex. Some shapes glow, some are transparent, some reflect, some rough, etc.
I wanted to try something new with After Effects, so I decided to give kinetic typography a go. It's incredibly tedious. A total time consumer. I've spent a while on this on and off. Came back to it yesterday to finish it up. This is just a minute of the original 3 minute video. I chose this video because, well, you have to use words or lyrics (usually) and because it involves parkour. I also think what Daniel Ilabaca is saying is relatively true and agree with his ideas and mindset.
This was how it was made: -Choose a video (Choose Not to Fall - Daniel Ilabaca) -Create a background (I chose a white background with a slight vignette) -Choose a font -Type EVERY word of the part you're doing as individual Text Layers -Position, re-size them, etc. -Set them to appear as they say each word -Add an effect to the more important words -Create any interesting graphics etc. in other compositions -Add other graphics, position them -Create Null Object Layers and make them the parent layer of sets of words/graphics -Animate Null Object Layers to move into the frame etc. bit by bit -Add credits
So yeah. I think that was everything. This is what it came out to be:
So...Graphics and animation are pretty cool, too. So why not give them a try? I used a program called Cinema 4D to make this one. It's an audio reactor (as usual). I'll try and do something different next. But there are so many different possibilities when it comes to this, and it's easier becacuse you'll end up with the same goal, rather than a completely open project.
This thing took a while considering I haven't really used this program much before. Tutorials are the best things ever in terms of anything video. Sometimes the tutorials length are one of the main factors of time. This tutorial was about 45 minutes, so it took a while. I used a tutorial from Greyscale Gorilla. I'll definitely do more stuff from their tutorials. They have the coolest stuff.
Steps (simplified):
- New project
-Create sphere
-Create texture for sphere (reflection, etc.)
-Add cloner, make about 50 spheres
-Add music effector
-Set music effector to track
-Customize settings for effector for LONG time
-Choose colors
-Add delay effector to cause spheres to remain reacted for a few extra moments
-Duplicate spheres and cloner to create background particles
-Eliminate reactors for background particles
-Customize settings of background particles to make them resist falling
-Add vignetted background
-Add lighting
-Export as .mov from Cinema 4D(oh my was this annoying)
-Move into After Effects
-Re-add audio track
-Export as .mov from After Effects
-Upload to YouTube
So this is how it turned out. Alright, I suppose. Definitely gonna learn more of this program and upload more videos of it soon.
Also: hopefully before holiday break, a few friends and I will finish a parkour video. Finally. The first. You shall see.
Did another thing on Trapcode Particular. Woah. Super duper cool. I'd say this is probably the most complex thing I did so far with this set of plug-ins in the Trapcode Suite. I did some stuff I haven't done before. Liked the look of it., but it's somewhat difficult to tell it's an audio reactor until later...I'll learn eventually.
Well alright. The list on this one might take a while. After all, the tutorial in itself was 40 minutes so...
(Simplified)
-Make a new comp
-Choose background color, add a ramp effect (the darkening color from top to bottom)
-Add a vignette
-Make a new comp
-Add soundtrack/song
-Duplicate twice, add High-Low Pass effect (seperates track into the high and frequencies)
-Add Trapcode Particular effect to High Pass or Low Pass (can't remember)
-Adjust settings so there are more particles so it looks like a line
-Change colors of particles
-Adjust velocity of particles with expresssions
-Adjust x and y rotation of particles with expressions-Duplicate entire Trapcode Particular
-Adjust duplicate so it's opposite of first one.
-Add lights to cause shadows on the particles
-Export
-Upload
and yeah. That's about it. Satisfied with the result. It'd be cool to actually use this for something, not just a test. I have a friend that's learning to make dubstep that might be able to use this for his songs he says. Other than that, I don't know where to go with all these...oh well.
A test of another After Effects plug-in, Trapcode Form. People must be getting bored by now. wow. But they're fun. So put up with it.
I chose a track I liked to make an audio reactor to, and boom. Made this with the influence of a tutorial.
- Choose a track: "Take A Walk" by Passion Pit (The M Machine Remix)
- Make a background, add a bit of clouds, lower they're opacity.
- Make a sphere, customize it.
- Set sphere's audio reactors (disperse, sphere size, etc.).
- Duplicate layer, shrink it a bit.
- Add an effect to make the particles in the sphere look a bit liquidy.
- Add Trapcode Shine effect to make spheres have a blue-ish aura thing. To, well...make them shine.
- Make particles using Trapcode Particular that go up.
- Make particles that go sideways that are different color.
And that's it I believe. Cool story, right? Totally.
So, as usual, I was messing around on After Effects recently (today) and decided to do something new. I made a title sequence after going through a huge list of tutorials. I found an interesting one, and attempted to create something similar. I added the logo of a great company (that's run by people i know in real life) and here's how it turned out! I sent it to the head of the company, and he said he'd use it in the intro of their videos.
I made this all in After Effects and used the plug-in Trapcode Form (a great set of plug-ins the Trapcode Suite is). I had to make about 10 layers:
- vignette layer for background
- particle layer
- layer with text "Amiercan"
- layer with text "Parkour"
- layer with logo "APK" with string dissolve
- layer with logo "APK" with particle dissolve
- solid white layer with a wipe
- another layer with a wipe
- and a few more that I forgot
Oh yeah. I did another test of a plug-in for After Effects. It's called Plexus.
It connects dots and lines. "Wow. Stupid." you might say.
FALSE. It's so cool. Just look at it. Look.
So basically. i made a circle shape. Added a fractal reaction. Messed with that to make it look cool. Duplicated it, made it smaller. And then made it spin along the x-axis for the whole video. Woah.
Then, I added two audio reactors. Made them into circle point things. (Didn't know I could do that.)
Lastly, I made some small thing on Trapcode Mir (last week's test) and used Trapcode Shine to make it shiny and bright. I think that spins too. Maybe. Not sure. Did it a few days ago.
I've recently discovered many plug-ins for the editing program Adobe After Effects. A lot of them are really interesting, but also complex. Today, I decided to mess around with a plug-in called Trapcode Mir. It generates these 3D geometric designs that you can animate in many ways. You can color/texturize it with a random picture or video. It's pretty insane. Here's a video of what I came up with in an hour or two after the first time I forgot to save it even once and the program crashed. Editing is quite RAM and computer memory intensive, and at timse can slow your computer to the speed of a sloth.
To do this entire thing I had to:
- Install plug-in to After Effects
- Make a new project
- Make a new composition
- Add different layers
- Find a color gradient/texture
- Find a song
- Apply the effect
- Mess around with settings for a while to learn what they do
- Keyframe settings to animate the design
- Export from After Effects
- Upload to Youtube
- Find out the audio is too low and HD is amazing
so...yeah. I'll test a few more plug-ins when I have the time. Which means the end of the school year because CAP is a load of work at times.
