Category Archives: Blog
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Crowd Control Kicks Off the Teen Choice Awards
3 commentsRecently, our friend Harry Frank, of GrayMachine.com, used Crowd Control to kick off Fox’s Teen Choice Awards. You can see the clip being used right here, in the first few seconds. Yes, that vector-like artwork is actually a video clip that Harry manipulated in Adobe After Effects to work with the color palette and style [...]
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After Effects New York – August
1 commentLast week we had our 25th meeting of After Effects New York. I’ll say this with out hyperbole – it was awesome! First up was Mixtape Club. - http://www.mixtapeclub.com Too technical for the arts, too creative for the sciences; Chris Smith, Jesse Casey, and Michelle Higa knew they had to work together as soon as [...]
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The iPhone 3GS as a Camera
8 commentsI know things have been quiet here, but I can promise you we’re working on some big stuff. But even I need a vacation once in a while – so me and the family headed down to Florida for some R & R. Anyway, today I found myself surrounded by a flock of pink flamingos. [...]
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Motion Tracking and Stabilization in After Effects
3 commentsIf you’re doing any motion tracking or stabilization work, I strongly recommend you check out Pete O’Connell’s NEW Creative Cow training DVD: Motion Tracking and Stabilization in After Effects. Pete previously did a fantastic training DVD called Advanced Rotoscoping Techniques for Adobe After Effects. I could sit here and talk about how these DVD’s teach [...]
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The Daily Show
12 commentsI’ve been doing this animation thing for a while, and while I’m not a fantastic artist, my one saving grace is that I work fast. Really, really fast. At least I thought so until I went to the Daily Show with John Stewart (my favorite show, and the only reason I take a few minutes [...]
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After Effects and Tron 1.0
12 commentsWatching the promo for Tron Legacy got me all excited and a little nostalgic. So today I played around in After Effects with Trapcode Particular 2, and came up with this. I smell a tutorial. End of line.
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Tron Legacy is Coming!
1 commentDamn! This trailer for Tron Legacy (AKA Tron 2.0) was released a few days ago, and I was too busy to notice. Why didn’t any of you tell me?! This is the sequal to a movie that got a generation of people buying computers, frisbees, and hockey equipment all at once (or was it just [...]
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The NY Yankees and Mets Call in Crowd Control
3 commentsI have founded my career and reputation on helping people. When we built the Crowd Control Library of Pre-keyd Alphastock Footage, it was an extension of that. It’s not something we can give away for free (except that we do), but we’ve tried our best to make it easy to buy and use so that [...]
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50% off Crowd Control
2 commentsIn honor of Harry Frank’s Particular 2 crowd scene tutorial, we’re giving 50% off Crowd Control so that you can re-create the effect. UPDATE: The sale is over. Use the code “particular2” when purchasing credits, and get half off the price. BTW – these are the 5 clips Harry used: # 00036_002_10 # 00155_001_58 # [...]
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Crowd Tutorial Coming Soon!
9 comments…But not from me. This one is from my good friend, Harry Frank of GrayMachine.com. Next week’s episode of Red Giant TV promises to be an amazing one – it covers creating a crowd with Trapcode Particular 2.0. Building off of Harry’s work in the tutorial, I created this scene: A still image doesn’t do [...]
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Particular 2 Presentation + Tutorial
12 commentsAENY Aharon Rabinowitz introduces the new features of Trapcode Particular 2 from AENY on Vimeo. On June 25, 2009, I gave a presentation at After Effects New York on Red Giant’s Software’s Trapcode Particular 2 (not yet released). It included a 20 minute overview of some of the new features, as well as a 20 [...]
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Peel-Away Vortex Transition Coming Soon
8 commentsHoo-Ah! Just finished recording the Peel-Away Vortex Transition tutorial for Red Giant TV. Hope to have it edited and up for next Tuesday’s episode.
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After Effects New York – Ocean Water Presentation
10 commentsSo… good news and bad news… The bad news first. The screen capture we did at After Effects New York, did not work out well. Now the good news… Today I sat down and gave the same presentation to… my computer. I just re-did the presentation – no editing, no planning, no nothing. It’s recorded [...]
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After Effects New York Wrap Up
10 commentsAlright – I am heading out the door for the weekend, but I wanted to do a quick wrap up of what I covered in my After Effects New York presentation: 1. Creating an Ocean Water Effect – using only tools found in After Effects CS3+ and no footage, I showed how you can create [...]
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New Ad for Crowd Control
No commentsJust completed a marathon animation run to complete this 30-second commercial for Crowd Control. I did it in After Effects in under 2 days, pretty much from scratch. Believe it or not I spent more time on that logo build than on any other single section. Tried so many different things… With the exception of [...]
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After Effects and Rendering for Flash with Alpha Channel
5 commentsI was asked this question this week, and wanted to share the answer. Question: When I render particles with an Alpha Channel and import that into Flash, there is a dark halo or weird edges around the particles, which makes compositing impossible. I am rendering out as an FLV with Alpha. What am I doing [...]
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Grayscale Gorilla
11 commentsHi folks – I just got turned on to a great site – http://greyscalegorilla.com/ – The site belongs to Nick Campbell, a photographer and very talented motion graphics artist. You can see his reel here. Nick also creates tutorials, but what makes him stand out is his helping others to find inspiration through themselves. He [...]
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After Effects New York – This time I mean it!
2 commentsOK – the plan is that this month at AENY, I’ll be presenting. Unless someone comes up with a holiday I never heard of, or a meteor hits Manhattan (And I’ve seen enough movies to know it can happen) – I’ll be there. Next meeting: Thursday, June 25, 2009 The Time: 6:45 PM – 9:00 [...]
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Present yourself Professionally – Use BCC!
12 commentsI know this isn’t about animation, but let’s talk business and the web, and presenting one’s self professionally when reaching out to large number of people at once… When you do a mass email, don’t share people’s private info – And that includes their email address! Use BCC instead of CC to hide their contact [...]
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On being “The Man” and After Effects with H.264
7 commentsRecently, I was told that, with the launch of a big product like Crowd Control, I went from being just a guy to being “The Man.” Sooooooooo not true. I only own a small island. (you know I’m kidding right – if you live outside NYC, there’s a 99% chance your home is a lot [...]
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Good Bye, Old Friend
4 commentsA while back I did some animation training in NC for the Carolina Hurricanes. No – not the hockey players – the animation team that puts all of the cool stuff up on screen at the games. During that 3 day period, I came up with the Jumbotron Tutorial. Alas, my good friend the JumboTron [...]
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A great tutorial on Red Giant TV
3 commentsNo – not one of mine. This one comes from Rob Birnholz of Absolute Motion Graphics. Episode 20: Creating a 3D Picture Montage with Trapcode Particular In this Episode, Rob Birnholz shows you a great technique for quickly creating a 3D picture montage with Trapcode Particular. It takes just minutes to set up, but can [...]