Category: Mograph Notes

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Mograph Notes

Nutcracker Holiday Animation Notes

I wanted to make another personal project since I haven’t made one in a while and since it’s the holiday season I thought I would make one to fit the season. It just so happens that I made a model and had it rigged just for this occasion.

mecha nutcracker by kidchuckle

About 6 months or so a go I saw this image  by KidChuckle and thought it would be cool to model it in 3D and animate it. Since it was holiday themed I figured I would animated it finally for the holidays.  I decided to clean it up a bit and make it a bit more accessible to animate and tweak the rig a bit. I also change the color on the models to make it a bit more festive.


After my few tweak I built a scene using a simple infinity floor with some Christmas like trees to randomly in the background so that I could blur out the background  to indicate some depth. For the text in the foreground I tried a few options and came up with the one in the video that read the best though composition wise I like the one that had Holiday in the front better.  The ornaments  are from a pack that happen to be a free give away.


The audio is from audio jungle and drove most of my animation as far as a timing. I planed it all out a head of time then re-adjusted it to the audio that I edited a bit. My main goal was to show off the drill which spins a bit and the gun that shoots nuts.

I’ve notice now that I’ve seen it in full quality that I have some flickering issues. Not sure what is causing it exactly but its in my  light multi pass channel.

Categories
Daily 365 Mograph Notes Motion Graphics

Legend of Korra Commercial Trailer

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I have been waiting like many other fans hoping for another next avatar cartoon and when it was announced from rumors to officially a yes even more excited. I have been following a handful of sites and people who always like the show and keep up with the news. So when this trailer was released last week after being viewed at SDCC I was way amped!!!…

I watched it a bunch of times and did the twitter as well. Then I went to sleep thinking about the trailer and what I could do with it. I deiced to make a commercial spot for it, something that would be used on TV in either 15 or 30 seconds. This turned into more of a trailer spot eventually because that’s how my editing and planning lead me to. I also wanted to use a past pretty common motion graphics technique that I had never tried before.

I proceed to begin by getting the highest quality version I could get which my first source, http://www.lastairbenderfans.com/’s video was taken down. But of course something this popular could not be contained and I found a good alternative at 720 HD.

 

I brought it into Premier Pro and proceed to reedit it into 30 seconds. The beginning is essentially the same I just shorten it but after that I just took it as a puzzle and piece it together. I kept in mind frames I wanted to do my freeze frame effect in mind that I though would look cool. I also remembered John Dickinson’s (motionworks.com.au) breakdown on how he approached it, though I made bunch of mistakes anyway(but that’s how you learn).

Once I had a rough idea of how it was going to work I made the clips I wanted to do a freeze frame on a after effects comp with dynamic linking so I could edit it and have flexibility to change it. I sort of designed it half in Photoshop half in AE depending on the clip. Originally I wanted to 5, Korra, her two companions, Mako & Bolin, Amon of the Equalists, and Naga Korra’s animal companion. There wasn’t enough time and there not being good shots of the two boys I took them out.

After the designing the freeze frames I just had to animate them. I also did 4 overall textures that also have slight animations as well that change after a while. I was trying to make the trailer seem more grungy and steampunkish since that is some of the idea behind the series. I think I could have pushed it more but I think it works well with the trailer as is.

Lastly I re-edited the audio in audition, which is a lot better then soundbooth. There is a little click I couldn’t mask completely when I jump the sound the match the footage but I don’t think it’s too obvious if you into the trailer. There was also another beat I wanted to hit but couldn’t quite get it. I had really high hopes going to this and I like the way most of it ended up but there’s a bunch I would have like to do more so it was truly high quality.

So there you go my fan commercial trailer of the Legend of Korra can’t wait for the show to start!!!!

 

 

 

Categories
Daily 365 Inspiration Mograph Notes Motion Graphics

DuckDuckGo + Process from the Pro’s

DuckDuckGo is a new search engine that I have been using for about a week or so now. It pretty useful for get information without having to do a lot of searching courtesy of their “zero click info” box. I have yet to use 100% yet, something’s I still use google for like maps and images but there are plans to implement some of these things.

The idea for this quick logo animation just came to me for looking at their search page at their logo and thinking it would be cool to see it quack. So I decided to make a quick animation that would involve the duck quacking. I did a quick outline that involved the duck duck goose game to tell about the search engine since that where the name came from. Originally I made the re-made the logo then found their forums where they had the Illustrator version…mine was almost exactly the same.

My animation turned out ok I think, I notice now that the Go bounce looks a little off but that may just be because I’m going frame by frame. I used my copy of the The Animators Survival Kit to try to get the bouncing right. I haven’t done a bouncing ball since my third year of college.   I also noticed that the head looks a little too stiff when the duck is quacking I think adding some more movement to the top beak might have made it look even better.

 

 

 

 

 

The second item I would like to share is the process page of capacity If you have watched NBC or Cartoon Network there is a good chance you have seen some of their work. They have been featured on motionographer a few times but for some reason I don’t recall checking out their site. Not sure how I came across their site this time but I started looking through their site and found their gold mine of a process page which has break downs on some of their projects.

Finding out the ideas behind a project is really cool and it’s even cooler that they share their process. It is always very enlightening when you can find out the why behind the what of a project. I listed bunch in my delicious account that I just started using recently. I also listed three of breakdowns in my new fav category I created just for them.  This reminds me of perceptionnyc breakdowns that will promptly be added to my delicious soon.