Creating Motion Graphics

Welcome to the Creating Motion Graphics blog on ProVideo Coalition! We’re very happy to be here, and look forward to using this new forum to share with our fellow motion graphics artists tips and trends that we think might be useful or intriguing. We will also be posting an archive of many of our past articles and columns which contain a wealth of advice and techniques. And on occasion, we will be posting our musings on the state of the industry (such as in the rest of this entry, past the “more” jump).

It’s been awfully quiet around here lately...too quiet. But you know why: It’s the week before NAB (the National Association of Broadcasters) Convention, the largest annual industry trade show for those of us in North America), and we’re all hunkered down either a) finishing projects before NAB, b) getting our presentations ready for NAB, c) making out our shopping lists for NAB, or d) all of the above.

As Imagineer is fond of one-word names that all start with “mo...”, it can be hard to know or remember which tool does what. Below is some text I lifted out of an email by Ross Shain (VP of Sales, Eastern Region) to an After Effects list explaining the differences, with links to a comparison chart. It is particularly relevant as Imagineer Systems has been offering some deep discounts on some of their highly-touted tracking and rotoscoping tools; I just posted a News item on them extending some of these discounts until the end of March (click here to view).

In short all our products use a unique 2.5D planar tracking technology that allows you to motion track objects with blur, noise and go offscreen. Simply, the planar tracking technology is hands down more powerful than any point tracking system out there. The technology is then implemented into the products in various ways.

• mokey - removal tool - automates complex compositing techniques to remove unwanted elements from screen. Great for rig, scratch removal, stabilization etc....
• monet - placement station - compositing tool to track and insert elements with luminance passes, mesh warper and lens distortion correction.
• mocha - tracking and roto utility. Motin track and roto. Export the data or mattes to almost any app including AE, Flame, Smoke, DS, Shake, Fusion (adding Nuke soon), etc.
• motor - same as mocha but limited to rotoscoping
• mocha-AE - not a plug-in but a stand alone tracking utility that exports tracking data as AE keyframes. Corner pin with perspective or transform, scale, rotation. Copy and paste to AE layers. Increases AE’s capability as a vfx compositor!

There is some overlap between products but many users have found that with mokey and mocha their bases are very covered. Here is a link to a product comparison chart.

For more questions, please contact us off the list.

US eastern region:  rosss @ imagineersystems.com
US western region: billyw @ imagineersystems.com
Europe/Asia and others: pjc @ imagineersystems.com

If you need more information, here is a link to tutorials on their products.

The two most-watched cable channels in our household are CNN and Speed (guess who watches which). Speed just started a new game show called “Pass Time” where several of the bumpers as well as in-show inserts exhibit the maddening two steps forward/one step back staggered motion of fields that have been reversed (maybe they thought it was a “look”...). CNN isn’t immune to this either; through the years some of their graphics have also exhibited this reversed-field judder.

This prompted us to upload an updated version of a classic column we wrote on interlacing, field rendering, and separating fields; you can find it here. But like any good motion graphics designer who tries to reverse-engineer any graphic they see on television, this has led us to speculate what might have been at the root of this particular problem.

Stu Maschwitz (he of The Orphanage, Magic Bullet, and The DV Rebel’s Guide fame), is one of my go-to resources when I want greater insight on digital film production workflow and its corresponding correct practices.

He recently wrote an excellent article on his ProLost blog about Digital Cinema Dynamic Range, in the context of learning how to use a RED One camera in way that would give him the same latitude of exposure control that we would expect when working with film (or other digital cameras).

Click here for the short version
Click here for the long version (and you really should read the long version – it’s very instructive)

We’ve all been there before: We really need a particular source image to realize an idea. And we don’t have a copy of one ourselves. But look - there’s one on a web site! Or a client gives us one that they picked up “somewhere.” Or there’s a book lying around the office that we could scan. And if anyone involved feels a twinge of guilt, someone else tries to excuse it as “public domain” or “fair use.”