Tutorial: Use ReelSmart Motion Blur in After Effects

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This is one of my first video tutorials. I am gonna re-upload them to vimeo to make them accessible for mobile and tablet devices and maybe some of you can take something away from that. It was originally uploaded at John Dickinson site motionworks.com.au and with over 15,000 views quite popular I guess.

There are a lot of questions, answers and comments on the blog post already. Have a look there if something is not clear. Otherwise ask here, at motionworks or on vimeo.

MoGraph Resources

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Over the years I found some good resources online for various things that can be helpful as a motion graphics designer. One of the most common things I search for are textures and it's always handy to know a website that offers images you can use for your commercial projects. Here is a list of website I know that are offering free or cheap resources for your everyday design work. I would love to see this list grow over time so please feel free to send in any sites you're using: hello@stuckindigital.com

Disclaimer: Please check the license on everything you're using. Not everything is free for personal and commercial use. I am not responsible for illegally used resources and be aware that a license can be changed by the license holder. If you have doubt please contact the responsible website and ask or don't use it at all.

Textures:

cgtextures.com Probably the most popular texture site out there. Great pictures organised in Categories. Some are tiled, huge or come in a set. Sign up for 15MB free per day.

texturelib.com Another website with high resolution textures. You only get one free per day.

openfootage.net Textures, Clouds, HDRI Panoramas and time-lapse footage.

creativebloq.com 40 Free textures

abduzeedo.com Free texture packs on abduzeedo.com The textures are coming from different sources so check the license for every image.

textureking.com Quite a lot of textures in different categories. Thanks to twistedpoly for the tip.

Fonts:

dafont.com Great font website. Watch out for the comment on the right side if its free for commercial use.

fontsquirrel.com A really good site to find high quality, commercial-use free fonts.

fontspace.com Another website for fonts. Check out the comment below the font if you're able to use it commercially.

fontscafe.com Free fonts from Fontcafe.

behance.net Free fonts on Behance. Please check if they are free to use on commercial projects.

 

3D models:

thepixellab.net: The Pixel Lab not only has some nice model packs for cheap, they also have some C4D freebies

viz-people.com: Recently discovered. Some 3D models, people & kids cutouts & Sky backgrounds

c4d.visibli.com: Free Cinema 4d models,Scripts, Textures and tutorials Please check the rights on every item you're downloading and make sure you're allowed to use it in your commercial project.

turbosquid.com: You can find some free 3D models here.

Plug ins:

c4dtools.net: Cinema 4D plug ins. Some of these scripts & Plugins are for free, some of them are really cheap and helpful.

nitro4d.com: Quite a lot of freebies, donationware and tutorials. Definitely worth checking out.

AE Scripts: Largest community around After Effect scripts and plug ins.


Tutorial: Falling Cubes in Cinema 4D

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This is my first video tutorial I have ever recorded and I thought I will link to it from this blog again. I am to re-uploading my old tutorials so that they don't get lost. I still get quite a few hits on this one so I figured it must be something people are interested in. So here we go.

And here is the old description: 

Today I will show you how to set up an particle system which will works with the new MoGraph2 dynamics to create falling cubes. We are using the new version of Cinema 4D 11.5 for that. If you have the particle/dynamics set up in the way I did it in the tutorial you are able to use almost every object as an particle.

I tried to achieve that effects with the previous version of Cinema 4D but failed because of the old dynamics system. I did some test with Thinking Particles and that's the way to do it if you're not calling 11.5 your own or if you need more control over your particles. If you know any other way or if you are an expert in Thinking Particles let us know in the comments below.

Take a closer look at Matthias Muellers videos here

As this is my first tutorial I would love to hear your comments about it. Suggestions, feedback or improvements are welcome. Write a comment or send me an Email. I am not sure if I'll record video tutorials frequently so I used the trial version of iShowU. Sorry about the watermark.

Today’s Inspiration: XGames, Dark Lens, MoStyle

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I recently saw Bucks work on the X Games 2012 Trailer and really liked it. Great integration of illustrations into live action footage with a unique style to it.

Dark Side of the lens is around for a while but I really love it. It has a lot of feeling and melancolia to it. From the stunning cinematography to the music and the voice over, everything just fits. Put on your best pair of headphones and hit play.

And here is a recommendation for everyone who uses Cinema 4D. Mostyle.TV is a tutorial series hosted by Kay Tennemann, a german motion graphics artist from Hamburg. The video above is a quick teaser to one of his tutorials (link). This one is in english but unfortunately some of his older stuff is only available in german. But still: Have a stroll through his vimeo account and I bet you can learn some stuff.

Tutorial: Project Organisation & File Structure

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In this tutorial I am talking about the project structure I am using on my project. It's based on the structure from my old work at Fluid Post. I think it's pretty handy and helps me to keep organised.

I hope you can take something away from this tutorial. I am not saying this setup is perfect and there is always room for improvement. Let me know what you think.

Download the Project structure here:

Inspiration: Fishing, Aliens & Dubstep Robots

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Today I want to share three videos I discovered over the last couple of month which I think are inspirational, clever and nice to look at. 

"Ending Overfishing" has not only an important message but also a quite unique look. I have seen a similar style before but the way they used low poly models with shiny and reflective materials and a nice and subtle animation style makes it stand out and fun to watch.

 

"In search of humans" is a small little teaser trailer for a movie I definitely want to see. The modelling and the compositing are excellent. Check out OddBall Animation vimeo page for more videos.


"Machine Gun" takes a dubstep track and Transformers footage and creates a really well edited movie. Keith Carunida just nailed the timing, feeling and detail. You can tell that it was a lot of work to put this piece together but it's worth it. My favourite part is at 1:30. Just brilliant.

 

Freebie: XPresso Mograph Text Object

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This is a really easy and hopefully useful XPresso setup I put together the other day. I was always a bit annoyed that you have to rename the MoGraph Text Object separate from the actual text it's saying.

So this MoGraph Text object updates itself automatically with what ever you name it. Just name the object in the object viewer and see the result in the view port. If you want to save this object as a preset just go to you object manager, highlight the object, File, Save Object as...

The idea came from one of Robert Legers Cinema 4D XPresso tutorials. If you're interested in learning XPresso jump over to motioneers.net and check out Roberts XPresso lessons.

Inspiration: Phil Borst

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We did a bit of research for a bigger project that's coming up in the next couple of weeks and we came across some really talented guys with amazing work but one name kept poping up: Phil Borst (vimeo)

I really enjoy his refreshing style and the detailed and subtle animations. In times of MoDynamics and plug ins that do the job for us it seems that we keep forgetting how much better it looks if you do some good old manual animations. I am guilty of using bounce and wobble expressions to put some extra life into my animations. It's probably time to ditch them once in a while and spend some time doing it the "old" way.

Phil was nice enough to upload his project file for mork. So you can have a look how much work he put into this.