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AE 3D elements…
I wanted to thank Creative Cow for all the great tutorials. The video below was created entirely based on tutorials here on Creative Cow. I wasn’t happy with all the shots… I still don’t have camera animation to a satisfactory point, but you’ll get the idea.
I green screened myself (guitar player) and 3 other people for the audience. I shot front and back for me and the audience memebers to be able to allow for the different camera positions. Everything else was created entirely in Photoshop and After Effects. The stage came together quite nicely.
There were a couple shots that turned out great! Some that were kinda dull. One that I was proud of was where we had me on a swivel and turned me 90 degrees in front of the green screen. I was then able to animate the camera in an arc from the side of the stage to the front following the rotation of that footage making it look authentic.
The stage, trusses and speaker stacks were all done in Photoshop and saved as psp files. I used Trapcode LUX for the stage lights and the spot lights. I used shine during the guitar solo.
Let me know what you think… just don’t slam on me too much. I’m not an After Effects pro!
Rock on,
ED
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5 Replies
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I bow. Thanks for letting us see what you’ve been up to. I get to send this link off to many friends who just don’t understand 3D execution.
A comment on an editorial decision: your solo performance goes up by several notches at 1:50 but you elected to obscure your fret and picking skills with those lovely golden light effects. I’d have rather seen your hands at work and saved that effect for the drum beats at 2:45 for a nicely audio-motivated closer.
But, dude, I stand in awe of the passion with which you attacked the project and the mastery of many of AE’s more complex functions.
bogiesan
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Impressive Ed.
Like Bogie, I would have preferred that the Trapcode light effects not be used when you were going into some of the more intense passages of the playing — so that you could see the finger action — but other than that, a pretty remarkable job.
I am sure that Bill O’Neil looks at this and feels like a proud Dad seeing one of his boys do well.
Too bad you don’t live in California, as our home has what Kathlyn and I jokingly call “The Man Cave” where I have my drums and all of my music gear. You look like you’d be a lot of fun to jam with.
Rock on you crazy diamond.
Ron Lindeboom
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You nailed it… the article Bill did on the Big Ten was the big inspiration for this project. As I read his article I was inspired to give it a try.
As far as the editorial comments… I’d have to agree. I got caught up in how pretty the Trapcode Shine was and didn’t think to pull back enough to highlight the fingers more. Part of my problem with AE is that I’ve learned a lot of its capabilities, but I haven’t gotten that extra dash of magic you get from doing it regularly. Just because you have a paint brush, paints and a canvas doesn’t make you an artist.
I think someone with a better eye for the various shots and overall composition could have taken the set I built and made it look like a million bucks. It’s kind of frustrating; I generally only get into AE when I’m working on one of these projects. So, I start out rusty trying to remember everything and in the end of the process find that I got too caught up in the mechanics of what I was trying to do instead of what I was trying show.
Thank you Ron & Bogie! I appreciate the comments!
Rock on,
ED
PS…
Just for kicks I added my first AE music video below from about a year ago. It also used the 3D elements just not nearly so elaborate. My drummer and Bass player couldn’t make it to the shoot, so I just popped in stills of them. -
[Ed Gilbert] “I got caught up in how pretty the Trapcode Shine was and didn’t think to pull back enough to highlight the fingers more.”
One of the things that you could do in this instance is to use the blend modes to overlay yourself playing into the shine clip. Add a layer of the exact same footage of you playing the guitar (but without the shine technique) at the exact timecode number so that it lines up perfectly, and play with some intense contrast effects on the upper layer (the one without shine) and then try different blend modes on that layer to see how the layer interacts with the one below it (the shine layer). If you get it right, you can then keep the light effect and get your hands and action back.
Just a thought.
Best regards,
Ron Lindeboom
Creativity is a type of learning process where the teacher and pupil are located in the same individual.
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Great work. Just watch those camera angles. There was at least one shot in which your audience looked like cardboard cutouts (for the briefest of moments).
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