I got really inspired by a motion graphic by Patrick Clair explaining the Stuxnet virus. In that anim there is a particle effect that I wanted to see if I could setup using afx and particular. Anyways this is what I came up with. This quick test got me exited to do more !
Here is a workflow you can use when you work on something that should have rotational symmetry, for instance a car rim. A simple way to make this workflow more practical when working in Illustrator is to use an instance that you copy and rotate. This way you can work on one piece and have it all update.
To set this up in Illu CS5:
Learning / experimenting with Mari PTex. The great things with PTex is that you do not need to fiddle with UV layout and that you could have different resolution on a a per face basis. See the image. In the lowrez parts the PTex res is 16×16 and the higher is upto 1024×1024. This possibility to get super high detail in texture without giving the whole model the same level of detail is really awsome. I am new to both Mari and PTex but it feels really exiting !
… oh and by the way it is not the official Mari logo, just something I threw together in PS to have an image to paint through !
I am new to the texture projection painting tool Mari by the foundry and I really like it. It feels somewhat intuitive and is really responsive. One cool feature I wanted to try out was the displacement preview shader module.
But when I tried to add that module to my shader I didn´t find that in the list. After consulting the support at the Foundry I found out that this feautre is not supported on the following graphics cards:
NVIDIA Quadro FX 3800
NVIDIA Quadro FX 3800M
NVIDIA Quadro FX 4800
NVIDIA Quadro FX 5800
I asked if support is planned, but I havn´t heard back yet. I will post asa I get an answer from the Foundry.
I am currently working on a motion design project and we have the need to combine 3d and graphics. I have been using After Effects for many years so I am quite comfortable in that environment. I have recently picked up nuke and I am super impressed with the workflow and the general idea behind Nuke. The node based channel system together with a solid 3d environment is really something. One big drawback if you want to use nuke in motion graphics is that you cannot import vector graphics like .eps or .ai. This is kind of a big deal. So I think the main part of the job will be done in AE. The main drawback in AE is that the “3d” capabilities is really poor. You can do nice looking stuff, but the workflow and the interaction with the 3d is not good. There is also not possible to import 3d models. You can go through PS and import an obj file but this is really not ideal. So I want better 3d in AE and vector image import in Nuke !
I talked with support at the foundry today and asked if they are planning import of vector images. As far as he knew, there are not any plans to do this. So it is up to us to express this need ! He wrote a feature request on my behalf so that was nice. If enough people ask for this and Nuke get more used in motion graphics we will probably gt this feature.
I attended my first webinar at filmmakingwebinars.com. If you have done any Nuke learning the name Steve Wright is probably not unfamiliar. You can download and stream how many tutorials you like, but I liked the fact that I was sharing this learning moment with others. It gives you this warm social feeling to know that we are watching this thing togehter right know. It is probably the same mechanics behind the fact that TV is still popular regardless of the possibilities to watch anytime. Of course the combination of anytime and specifictime is best of both worlds. I will definitly view more of theese webinars. And now it is time for some esotericism: I liked that cornerpin parallax stunt steve pulled on the cloud flyby.
Hugs !