Tuesday, November 11, 2008

On Artbeats.com: Panning & Scanning

An update to the time-honored Anchor Point trick for moving around an image.

It’s great to have a source image that is bigger than the final frame you need, as it gives you additional flexibility to reframe it through position and scaling. You can also animate these parameters to fake pans and zooms. We’ve done this for ages with high-resolution still images; cameras such as the RED now allow you to do this with moving footage, even in hi-def projects.

The problem with this “panning and scanning” technique is that many use the Position parameter in programs such as After Effects to perform it. However, when you then change the Scale parameter as well, the image will appear to drift, as it does not scale around the center of your composition; it scales around the center of the now-repositioned source file. Therefore, you want to animate the Anchor Point - not Position - to perform these types of moves.

We just wrote an article for Artbeats.com going over this technique, including an extension where we use Position in conjunction with Anchor Point and Scale to push in and pull back around a focal point that may not be in the dead center of the frame. In this way, you can perform moves in After Effects that would have driven you crazy trying to perform in camera on the set.

Click here to download the PDF of “Pan and Scan” from Artbeats.com.

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Friday, November 07, 2008

After Effects Error Codes

Wonder what those cryptic numbers mean? Here’s a few clues…

Occasionally, After Effects has a hiccup. When it does, it often displays a dialog box with occasionally clear, occasionally cryptic text, as well as a series of numbers. Understanding exactly what these are telling you can help you diagnose the problem and at least work around it, if not cure it.

Lutz Albrecht (aka Mylenium) has created a useful page that goes through the logic behind these codes to help you narrow down where the underlying error may be. He is actively trying to expand and refine the list, so if you encounter an error in After Effects, email him the information so he can fold it in.

(By the way, Lutz also wrote one of the best overviews of the new features in After Effects CS4 that I’ve seen - you can read it here.)

Motion Graphics •
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Thursday, October 23, 2008

Recently Added: Article on Texture Mapping in 2D

An old column on one of our favorite techniques.

I love the look of weathered, distressed objects. In 3D programs, this is accomplished through texture mapping and “surfacing” techniques, and this is one of my favorite areas of 3D to explore.

It’s not too hard to move some of these 3D techniques over into the 2D world, and add similar disressing and weathering to text and other layers in programs such as After Effects. In this classic column, we go over some of these techniques, including the use of blending modes, displacement mapping, and “grunge maps.”

Click here to jump straight to 2D Texture Mapping.

That column was written back in 2000. Last year, we updated it on Artbeats.com: click here for a PDF of an update of this article; click here to see how to use Displacement Mapping to map text onto moving footage. And by the way, one of our favorite grunge map libraries continues to be dvGarage’s Surface Toolkit - rumor has it that most of it was shot by Alex Lindsay at Alcatraz prison…

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Tuesday, October 21, 2008

On Artbeats.com: Using the RED One for Stock Footage

Some of their lessons learned shooting with the RED.

When we heard that Artbeats were shooting stock footage with their new RED One camera, we were curious to know what they had learned, including issues such as lenses (they ended up getting a Nikon mount and using SLR lenses while waiting for RED to produce cost-effective PL-mount lenses in greater quantity), image latitude (they feel the RED rolls off highlights and shadows better than their Sony F900R, giving a more filmic response), workflow (they transcode RAW files to DPX film-format files for processing in After Effects), and the such.

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Saturday, October 04, 2008

Recently Added: Columns on Enhancing Footage

A pair of classic columns on enhancing and colorizing sub-standard footage.

We were recently asked by a reader to re-post a column we wrote for DV Magazine over nine years ago on enhancing subpar client and archive footage. It’s an ageless topic, as even in this day of cheap high-definition cameras, we all still have projects where we have to use less-than-ideal sources. As we were posting that column (Spinning Gold), we realized it referenced a second column on simple color treatments. So we’ve re-posted both of them online here at PVC:

• Spinning Gold
• Getting Behind the Color Wheel

We hope you find them useful. Feel free to share your own techniques and recipes in the Comments section. If there’s enough interest, we’ll update these with some additional techniques.

Motion Graphics •
Pre-Production • (0) Comments • • Permalink

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

On Artbeats.com: Article on Type Basics

Things your mother didn’t tell you about creating nice text.

Every month, we write a Tips N Tricks article for our friends at Artbeats.com. This month we wrote a basic introduction to using text - including a few simple rules of typography that many miss, plus a more subjective discussion about choosing the right fonts for a job. (This is obviously a companion for the piece on Font Resources that we just posted here on PVC.)

Click here to download a PDF of “Type Basics” from Artbeats.com.

Editing •
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Monday, September 08, 2008

Font Resources

A compendium of resources for finding, buying, using, and being inspired by fonts.

We love fonts. We rank font selection right up there with choice of music and color scheme when it comes time to design a spot. Therefore, we’ve amassed quite a large font library over the years. Which then begs the obvious questions:

• Where do you get your fonts?
• How do you keep them organized?
• What are some good design resources to inspire the use of fonts?

We’d like to share with you a few tools, links and lists we’ve found to be handy over the years.

Motion Graphics • (0) Comments • • Permalink

Friday, August 29, 2008

After Effects Tips - Installment 2

Learn something new everyday…

Here is a second installment of random tips for working more productively with Adobe After Effects CS3, including the best place to find Help information (surprise: It’s not the Help file installed on your hard drive alongside After Effects...). Please feel free to add your own questions and alternative solutions in the Comments field at the end.

Motion Graphics •
Visual Effects • (1) Comments • Most recent comments by: Todd_Kopriva, • Permalink

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