TED Talk: The Power and Beauty of Organic Design

The annual TED (Technology, Entertainment, and Design) conference is a place where Big Thinkers gather annually to inspire and be inspired. I’ve been going through their online archive of talks for my own amusement and education, and sharing with you ones I found to be particularly interesting and relevant.

This week I’d like to share a talk by “Captain Organic” Ross Lovegrove of Studio X in Notting Hill, England. He is the celebrated designer of objects such as the iMac, Ty Nant water bottle, and Go chair. Ross is a proponent of what he calls “fat free” design that draws inspiration from natural forms - not just organic blobs in the name of nature, but shapes, processes, and sensibilities derived from the inner logic of natural objects. Although this talk is focused primarily on industrial design, those who are designing logos, 3D objects, or who just want to be inspired about someone deeply passionate about his field should enjoy it.

This talk is part of TED’s series Design Like You Give A Damn. Some who commented on the talk found Ross to be impractical at best and arrogant at worst; I found his laser-like focus on his ideals to be energizing.

Migrating After Effects Between Macs

With the recent announcement by Adobe that After Effects CS4 will not run on PowerPC-based Macs, some users are thinking about upgrading their hardware. With new hardware comes the question about how to get all of your software moved over. In the old days, you might consider just dragging folders from one drive to another. Sadly, that often doesn’t work anymore.

Spotlight: Fox Sports HD

For our next project spotlight, we’re going to look at a Fox Sports HD promo animated by Joost Korngold of Renascent. This spot fuses organic movement with the high-impact 3D Fox Sports is known for. Joost, as well as Fox Sports Creative Directors Josh Nichols and Mark Denyer-Simmons plus Senior Vice President and Creative Director Robert Gottlieb, were kind enough to spend some time answering questions and revealing how this spot unfolded.

TED Talk: Using Biology to Make Better Animation

The annual TED (Technology, Entertainment, and Design) conference is a place where Big Thinkers gather annually to inspire and be inspired. I’ve been going through their online archive of talks for my own amusement and education, and sharing with you ones I found to be particularly interesting.

This week I’d like to share a talk by Torsten Reil, originally of Oxford University and now of NaturalMotion. He and his team started from the point of view that most animation in computer games that were based on motion capture or manual keyframing were too simplistic, repetitive, and predictable. So rather than try to guess ahead of time what actions would be needed, and creating or capturing those actions, they went about simulating a human nervous system, wired it up to control a skeleton and muscles, and then gave it artificial intelligence. They used a form of simulated genetic evolution and mutation to teach it how to at first walk, and then react to external forces (such as being tripped or shoved). This system is now being used not only in computer games such as Grand Theft Auto IV, but also in movies for virtual stuntmen - or perhaps most famously, in battle sequences in Lord of the Rings: Return of the King.

This movie from TED - originally recorded five years ago - was the first public demonstration of the technology. Watching how their creations learned and then reacted was initially humorous, then breathtaking, and then actually somewhat disturbing; I highly recommend watching it (if you’re impatient, start around the 3 minute mark or so).

If you want to see where the technology is now, visit the NaturalMotion to learn more about their endorphin Dynamic Motion Synthesis simulator which can bake animations, and their euphoria real-time AI engine, including a good demo movie the gives you an overview of the technology.

TED Talk: How creativity is being strangled by the law

The annual TED (Technology, Entertainment, and Design) conference is a place where Big Thinkers gather annually to inspire and be inspired. I find many of the talks relevant to how we think about motion graphic design.

One of the boundaries we must design within are the legal restrictions on the content we might want to use. I’ve written a bit about this previously in blogs on the Public Domain and music licensing. Although I personally believe very strongly in the preservation of the rights of content creators - after all, it’s how people like you and me make money -
Larry Lessig makes an impassioned presentation on how he wishes copyright law would make room for “(re)creation” using previously-created, potentially copyrighted content - think mash-ups (and make sure you watch the three examples that start just past the 8 minute mark; each one is more humorous than the previous one*). If creativity is too restricted, he fears we may become a “Read Only” culture where we only consume, not create.

Click above to watch Larry Lessig’s presentation; click here to see the high-res MP4 version. It will be time well-spent.

(*After watching these examples, I feel compelled to mention how useful it is to master “time remapping” in programs like After Effects. Click here to download a PDF of a tutorial we wrote for Artbeats on the subject; click here to read one Mark Christiansen wrote. Time remapping is also covered in Chapter 27 of our book Creating Motion Graphics, and Lesson 7 of our book After Effects Apprentice.) Also read this article on Artbeat.com on how to smooth out the differences between frames after you’ve changed a clip’s speed.

After Effects CS4 Will Be Intel-Only

Just a quick note that Adobe has confirmed that the next version of After Effects will not run on PowerPC (G5, G4, etc.) Macs. The reasoning is given here on Michael Coleman’s blog (he’s the product manager for After Effects).

We’re among those who have been hanging onto our reliable old G5 workstations; this news is dragging us into the 21st century. Fortunately, Apple has made it a bit easier by offering refurbished Intel MacPros from their online store at some very attractive prices, complete with warranty and free shipping. We just received a pair of 3.2 GHz 8-cores (while we were at it, we got a pair of new Cinema displays as well - we had both been using original 22” Cinema displays; Trish paid $4k for hers when it first came out - but it’s been worth it), and might order a third machine soon for the music/podcast studio. Click here and scroll down to see the current models on offer; they do come and go (I’m a bit bummed we didn’t jump on a cheap 2.8 GHz 8-core that was up there this weekend). They have a lot of Intel-based MacBook Pros up there as well.

Part of this upgrade has meant dealing with new RAM configurations, among other things. We’re in the middle of a bad-RAM story; I’ll post more on that after we have a resolution (and try a different vendor for our third machine).

XScriptorium: New AE Script/Expression Resource

I completely understand that expressions and scripting in After Effects can be intimidating to users of a more artistic bent. And you can certainly create great work in AE without using expressions or scripting. But every now and then - more often than you might expect - knowing just a little can save you time in creating repetitive, tricky, or precise animation. I liken them to having the ultimate unpaid intern hanging around studio. Fortunately, there are several free web resources available that allow you to dip your toe in these waters.

The latest is Ole Sturm’s XScriptorium site. It has just launched in public beta, and contains a lot of content from the AE online help file (you use Help, don’t you?), but already shows some very nice organization and a few expressions described clearly from a “so you want to do this” point of view. It is based on code contributions from users; not just Ole. He also allows you to “tip” the expression or script’s creator should you find their contribution useful. Check it out.

In this vein, make sure you also check out the established sites MotionScript.com by the friendly guru Dan Ebberts (which is as much about learning how to write expressions and scripts as it is a resource for useful expressions), and AEnhancers, a moderated forum on scripting and expressions with multiple contributors.

And of course, our own books Creating Motion Graphics and After Effects Apprentice have introductory chapters on expressions. In particular, check out the bonus chapter on CMG’s DVD-ROM which is a rather detailed resource for writing more advanced expressions, with examples.

A few hours spent learning “just enough to be dangerous” will more than repay you in time saved, I promise.

TED Talk: Where does creativity hide?

The annual TED (Technology, Entertainment, and Design) conference is a place where Big Thinkers gather annually to inspire and be inspired. Fortunately, TED tapes their presentations, and has been making an effort to post their huge archive of talks for free on the internet.

While browsing these talks, I was particularly taken by Amy Tan’s presentation on “Where does creativity hide?” It’s a humorous review of her own creative process. Although she comes from a different field (she’s the novelist behind The Joy Luck Club, The Kitchen God’s Wife and The Hundred Secret Senses), I found it very entertaining as well as insightful, as it bounced from personal creativity to deciding to what we’re going to do with our lives, using her mother, advanced physics, and world events as touchstones. I hope you enjoy it as well.

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