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Filed under: Motion Graphics •Visual Effects •

motion09 in Review

Just some of the speakers at motion09. All photos ©2009 Chelsea Nicole. All Rights Reserved.

Earlier this month, we were happy to participate in our third straight Motion Conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico, with talks on animation, motion graphics, and visual effects. In contrast to many other conferences in this industry that focus primarily on hardware and software, Motion’s focus is more on design. Indeed, the conference this year was divided into three sections: motion{u} on Saturday, which consisted of our all-day After Effects intensive; planet*motion on Sunday, which focused on software and techniques; and motion09 on Monday through Wednesday, which consisted primarily of presentations by artists. With up to three sessions going on at once, and the day sometimes stretching from 9 AM to 11:30 PM, we weren’t able to attend all the talks; here’s some highlights from the sessions we either presented or sat in on:

After Effects Intensive

It’s impossible to teach all of After Effects in a day, so for our one-day intensives we select a variety of topics in After Effects that we feel are important to master - but which aren’t entirely obvious or intuitive. For this session, we focused on Color Management (including how to best create web versions of broadcast animations), Text Animators (it’s all about the selection…), 3D Lighting Tricks (including the use of Material Options to enhance footage, Light Transmission, and a side trip into Puppet tools (a lot of fun), and 3D Integration (focusing on using Maxon’s CINEMA 4D with After Effects).

We trade off during the day, with one of us teaching while the other helps students keep up. For a hand-on class, we prefer to limit enrollment to 8-12 students to ensure we have time to get around to everyone. We were surprised when 15 seats “sold out” before the conference. Then four more called on the Friday before, begging to get in. Then by Saturday, we were trying to find enough tables and chairs to fit 21 into the room! We apologize to those who we may not have been able to get to often enough, but overall the class went really well, with great spirit in the room. Considering this is twice the class size than previous years, it shows that a lot of people are trying to improve their skills as an answer to a bad economy.

Apple Motion Sessions

Everyone who has Final Cut Studio has a copy of Motion, but in the past it seemed that users were slow to adopt it; recently we’ve noticed far more people now use Motion. On Sunday, fellow PVC writer Mark Spencer taught a series of seven sessions on Apple’s Motion that were helpful introductions into the capabilities of the program. Mark made a special effort throughout to translate Motion’s features for After Effects users, which was appreciated (if you find yourself in that camp, Mark wrote an article comparing the two for PVC, and also has a training video on the subject).

Editing & Animating to Music

We both come from musical backgrounds, so it’s only natural for us to rely heavily on the soundtrack of a piece (be it music or a simple voiceover) to help inform our edits and animations. However, very few take advantage of this potential synergy in their own work. In this session, Chris went over the basics of spotting “hit points” in a soundtrack, editing or keyframing based on those hit points, and fine-tuning an animation to better suit the mood of the music (click here for an article on this subject on PVC). At the end, Chris showed how to link animations directly to sound using Expressions, the Trapcode SoundKeys plug-in, and the built-in Audio parameter behavior inside Motion.

Which Text Tool is for You: Motion or After Effects?

Both After Effects and Motion have very powerful text animation engines, which work in surprisingly similar ways. However, there are important differences in how they work as well as what options they offer. Trish compared and contrasted the two in an effort to help an artist choose which tool to use, as well as translate their skills from one program to another. (You can also read this article on PVC to glean some of her thoughts and pick up important tips.)

next page: Crash, Terminator, and opening titles

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