Mogra
I’m finally bringing this project to a close. I took the chance and Rendered out both the long (2:37) & short (1:03) version. No comp crashing from over heating and BG Render let me know while I was out that it finished.
The short is hosted on my Vimeo while the long is on my Youtube.
I think the short version is better, even though you can’t read it I think it flows better.
Today I had some slight technical problem with my computer randomly shutting off due to overheating. I will probably be calling tech support. With that in mind I took it easy on my comp tonight . I decided that I would go through all of the effectors in cinema 4d and see what they do. I used a platonic as my shape to primitive to deform and just went through the list.
The hardest one to figure out how to use was the morph effector, which I still didn’t actually see substantial results with. The only other one I didn’t use was smoothing since I didn’t really have a dense enough and didn’t want to push my comp rendering that.
Still working on the animation from the other day but maybe this will help.
I have two items for today. First it just some simple 3d text. I found or re-found this cool font called killogram. I just wanted to see how it would translate into 3d. Not so well…I need to do adjusting of adjusting kerning and the paths of the font. I did most of it in illustrator and some more in cinema. Still a cool font and I tweaked the G a bit. Might some how use it for a name plate animation or some thing.
The second this is my attempt at trying to figure out this one effect in Sean McClintock‘s Friday Afternoon in the Universe. I really like this animation overall, the tempo, the music, dialogue, and animation seem to feet well together. I also like the retro-esque feel to it.
The effect I was trying to recreate starts around 17 seconds in and end at 22. I’ve added a few images below. 
So it’s not exactly a new Motion Graphics thing, but it is a nice effect. I have not clue what software they used but since I use Cinema that what I use tried to use to create the effect. I also wouldn’t doubt theres a tutorial for this some where but it’s alway good to try to figure it out first. As you can seem from my result above I didn’t quite get the effect.
I sort of got a sphere to form around another in a circle although it doesn’t look as nice at the one in the video. I used a surface effector to wrap a plane around a sphere and scaled it to grow it around. Which work for the most part. Then I used a wind(right circle) and a formula(left circle) effector to try and create the waving grow. Doesn’t look right at all.
It doesn’t come together, just overlaps and then I tone it down with the keys. Not quite sure where to go from this. I tried a bunch of other options wrap but it didn’t really look like it grey from a point just unwrapped from the middle. I’ll have to give it another shot before I go to the forums or something.
The thickness is also missing but that could be fixed by using a flat rectangle box with a color edge. It slowed down the view port a lot so I used the plane for testing purposes.
So today I decided to work on the woot minions again to try to re-time it for readability. This brought some what straight forward although I did have to go into some precomps a couple levels deep to move key frames. This brought the overall time to about 2 min. and 30 seconds or so.
I did a simple image transition using a gradient to animate the text in since it wasn’t editable text. This force me to set key frames for each line. I though about making an expression but there didn’t seem to be a consistent height to use for some reason. So I wound up just setting it for each set of text.
I think it’s kind of boring having to wait for the text to appear. I tried to time it out to what it should take to read leaving some room at the end. If I had the original files I think I would animate more to make it more interesting. Also a voice over might help too. The music helps some what, but I couldn’t find any as good as the short version. The song I choose from http://www.incompetech.com is cool for a while but gets repetitive after a while. I tried to loop the other song I used but it didn’t sound right.
This is the small version for now since the larger one will take a while to render. I will update it when it finishes…
Edit: apparently I forgot audio… so the next one will have the sound too…and better quality
This is my final version for the QR Code Dunny that I was working on. I render this one out with a linear profile from cinema 4D which initially was very dark but I remembered reading a blog post about linear work flow from heloluxx.com. (Which has a load of stuff for learning Cinema 4D. ) So I was able to switch over the project profile and everything look alright, some what.
I did some color correction and tried to make have some color so it wasn’t so plain with just black and white. In addition I added some sound and time remap effects that work together. I think it make it seem kind of cool and ominous.
The music I found just Googleing monolithic , which brough me to Dr. Mabuse – Monolithic. It a pretty cool experimental video by Angelique van Grootel. Not sure why I originally thought monolithic since I forgot the definition but after look it up it makes sense. Music by Dr Mabuse.
I used the spy photo preset from all bets are off production for the time remapping. originally I was doing by hand(mouse using time remapping but them I remembered this preset).
The dunny model is from http://soulkreig.deviantart.com/art/Munny-DIY-3D-Model-192341036
Well today I was a little busy, have some deadlines coming up but there is no excuse for not being creative and there is always time for some creativity.(Its also a render night)
So today I will share 2 sets of pictures I took with my android phone when I went into NYC on the path. Nothing to spectacular just some images of the train station at Christopher street. I have been playing around with color shift, feature on camera360 app that allows you to easily take any color out or leave in of the picture. This of course can be easily done in Photoshop or a similar program but I think the appeal is being able to do it on the fly. This could would be helpful if you needed to spec something out real quick. I don’t think these applications, at least no on a phone, will replace taking a bit of time and adjusting some curves and levels. But it is fun to play around with.
Now for someone with real photography skills I would like show two cool images from Jordan Matter’s photo series Dancers Among Us.I found out about this on Designers Couch in their Inspire Log.
This photo series taken in NYC that started in 2009 is a whole bunch of images taken in various place in the city with professional dancers. The images are all great, and truly inspiring that shows the dedication they have to their craft. The photographer as well has great dedication to taken these photographs in paces where he was not exactly welcomed.
What I really like is that he all so tells about his process and his inspiration about how the project came together on his website in the Dancers among us section. His process was pretty much just show up to a cool place with a dancer and find something iconic to NYC to take a photographer in front of. Through the behind the scenes video you get a peek of what is was like to be there with all the people. His artist statement explains in more detail about the project and how it was made for his children. I think the first line sums up the project perfectly which is
“BE passionate joyful euphoric intense desperate present ALIVE”
So this is the animation I’m making for the QR Code Dunny I worked on a while ago. The render will take to long so it’s just a preview for now. My original design had them bunch together and at diffrent angles, but that looked odd to me with every thing floating, moving and intersecting so I went with the floating ring look. Pretty standard I suppose but it’s ok.
I was able to achieve the spring effect using the spring connector in cinema 4D v12. It took me a bit to figure it out simply because I was trying to create the effect using one spring which would tip the box over with anything added on top. I tried aiming multiplier springs at the corners which helped but not much them. Then I realized I could just use invisible walls on all four side, higher in the back to keep the dunny from falling back sometimes. After that is was just tweaking every thing. Might do some more before the final render.
I was sketching (or attempting ) some logo designs based around the letter m when I started doodling this character head that came out of a M. I also think I was subconsciously influenced by megaman and some of other cartoon.
So I decided to scan it into my comp and out line it in illustrator and translate in into 3d. A simple task one might think but no so since the m shape is quite hard to get it to place right on a circular surface and conform right. I tried a number of things including projection and deformer but it looked off. So I when with a loft and make the second copy of the spline smaller. The I adjust the points on the front one to bend in. It still had some issue if you bent it to far but I was able to get it to a decent place.
The body Pez part just came about since I need something to put the head on. It’s mainly made of a bunch booles like the head with some extrusions. I was even able to find the pez font to add-on the side. Booles work well but some complex items like sphere give you weird edges like around the eyes, which I need to fix. I was lucky enough to actually have a pez dispenser which helped a lot even modeling this simple object.
The lightning I was going for is similar to the product displays on the pez website.
Overall I think I got somewhat close, the bottom body is off and doesn’t pick up the specular quite right. Also I think the M head covering isn’t picking up light right or is just to white to pick much up. I used soft boxes from http://www.creatingfilm.com/ renderkit. Also looking at it now I think I should have added some ambient occlusion. It look to strong when I tried it and my original reference was a lot more washed out.
This is my result for the expresso task 5 from robertleger.net. I was able to have all of the required functionality plus I added a spline warp that gives it path follow capabilities. I have also included the file below if anyone want to check it out and use it. I made a screen cast of it in action which is taking a while to upload so when it’s done I will add it to this post.
G2BProductions Xpresso task 5 Final
Day 3 of weekend animation for Woot Minion. The tweaking adjusting of the animation went pretty smoothly. I fixed a bunch of little things that I think bring the animation together well. I didn’t run into any major hiccups like the other day with expressions. I made all the arrows animated with the tip leading it on the path. I noticed on some part it creeps ahead of the tip but I adjusted it for most and hopefully the speed makes it unnoticeable to most.
This is the final day of my weekend animation. I plan to work on it some more but not as a daily project. I will post it when it’s official finished. My goal is to time it out so it is almost completely readable. “Almost” because I timed it out to be about 3 1/2 min but my track will only goes to abut 2:25. I though of looping parts but it just sounds odd and monotonous.
I also plan to share it with the people at woot when it’s officially finished to see what they think. Hopefully they don’t try to sue more anything for copyright something since I did do this without permission…
Edit: Damn I notice some things wrong with the ligntning and the light bulb. I will have to remember that for the true final version.