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First Time With 3D Layers – Criticism
Hey folks… I had two days to get this thing together. I’m looking for comments and criticims. I haven’t really used After FX since version 5.. so, this was my first attempt with 3D.
The entire animation took about 25 minutes to render on a P4 2.8 with 4 gigs of ram.
It’s for a church. Their sermon series. So, there are actually four of these animations. The only difference between each animation is that the last large image and text changes for each animation depending on the title of the sermon that week.
Each of the four “out of the box” images throughout the animation correspond to large 4ft x 15ft banners that were created in photoshop with the same 3D style.
Anyhow.. I ramble. Let me know what you think. And how I might improve things the next time through!
David.
The download is about 2.5 megs. Encoded in with quicktime/Sorenson 3 at half the resolution of the original. There is sound.
https://www.genevange.com/david/fittogrow.mov
or the divx at full res (9 megs)
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12 Replies
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I should also mention .. that the original inspiration for this style was inspired by the opening credits of the television show “Huff”.
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Masterful. The end title should needs to be framed sooner and longer. Otherwise, top notch.
Andrew
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Very nice. The only thing I can’t quite get to grips with is the typeface used. It looks a bit imabalanced because the erosion is so irregular. If it’s an option, I would go looking for another font with similar characteristics but not so strong variations in line width and resulting height of letters.
Mylenium
[Pour Myl
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Thanks very much for your comments, guys!
Andrew – Definitely! I am going to send out a final render overnight to extend the end title. That was bugging me as well! BTW, I have gone through your entire website.. Really great tutorials! I am going to blow up my own head!!
Mylenium – I agree! Whole-heartedly! Before the banners and animation were designed.. the font had already been selected. So, while it looked great in the application that it had initally been used for… It didn’t work well with what I came up with. To me, it looks more like a horror font.. But, unfortunately, there’s no changing it at this point. And.. again.. Love your tutorials! Both the AFX and the Cinema4D!
Thanks again, guys.
.david
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Very nice!
Of course, I have a comment or two:
– right off the top, I expect to see something in the right frame, or the left frame … but am disappointed. I try to see what is in the right, but it’s out of frame before I can. So I look to the left, but it’s not in focus yet … in other words, be conscious of where you want the eye to go. Maybe keep the right frame blurred so we don’t try to figure it out, but sharpen the left frame sooner.
– a few things in a few of the background frames would be nice. It feels a little unfinished.
– the dog could start closer to camera, so the next shot reveals more (relatively)
– my eye is drawn to the waterfall (?) shot at bottom right of the dog … I am disappointed that we don’t actually go into it. Its movement makes it a bit of a distraction.
– the triple plant shot might be more interesting if the image had a little bit of transparency to it. Like vellum? Maybe. The eye is being led out of frame here because we try to see the other plants, but they’re obscured, so we go back to the hero plant, going out of frame — it’s best to keep the eye within the frame.
– once again, motion at the corner takes away from the static shot (the chest) if it draws the eye, use it to lead the eye to the box, maybe by crossing it in front of the box shot, but going out of focus and “passing the torch” (attention-wise) to the box shot.
– the butterflies are neat.All in all, very nice. Good mood, good use of DOF and pacing, good colour scheme (Yay!) and good motion. I’d just lead the eye more deliberately and add a few things in the frames. You could also have really big empty frames in front of your hero (off-center) just to add some size variation.
Good stuff.
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Wow guys! The level of the constructive criticism in here is just fantastic.
Steve. Excellent comments and suggestions. Every single one. You’re right. The animation does show a certain lack of planning as far as focal points are concerned. It’s something that could definitely improve things. If there was time and budget for a V2 of this animation.. I would spend the majority of my time in this area.
Originally EVERY frame was to have some content. Now.. when I actually tried this out it turned out to be a disorganized mess. The eye didn’t know where to go! So.. I stripped most of them out again. I think I could have made it work with content in every frame.. but it would have taken a lot of reorganization and re-positioning of elements. And.. I kinda like it now with most of the frames being empty. BUT.. I agree though.. a few more of the boxes could use content.. unfortunately, lack of time reared it’s ugly head.
Finally.. the frames that have motion content -are- distracting. Especially the waterfall one. It also just feels out of place. I wish I had taken that one out. I tried to move the frames that had motion content in them far enough back so that they’d be blurred out… but, it didn’t help (enough). The motion frames should have been larger, and more the main focal point.. if even for a short amount of time.
And on a personal note. Where do you play squash? I’m in Toronto as well. I play at the Northridge Squash Club in North York!
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I won’t go into too much critisism as most of mine have been addressed as well, I only had one. I really like the color scheme and the pacing. I loved the butterfly! I was confused by the two texts close together at the end. I thought the title was “Out of the Box” then the other one came on and I wasn’t sure which was which. Maybe have the “box” one occurring earlier…. I think this was really well done especially considering the time you had and the level of familiarity with AE. Great work!
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Heh. Time and budget. Say no more.
Regarding squash, I used to play at Mayfair Lakeshore, but haven’t had the time lately. I expect to pick it up again next year. I’ll save this post and get back to you then.
Ah — please send your e-mail address to ads aht reidroberts daht calm, so I can let you know about the fall revival of the Motion Graphics Toronto user group. We won’t waste bandwidth about it here. 🙂
Back to topic …
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Really nice work.
Just to add to the rest of the folks here…
I feel like the shot with the butterfly holds too long once it lands. After that there is no real action (other than scale) so it feels like it almost stops.
Have you considered having the buterfly flap it’s wings slightly after it lands – the way butterflies adjust themselves in real life? That would keep it moving.
Again very nice.
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Aharon Rabinowitz
aharon(AT)yahoo(DOT)com
http://www.allbetsareoff.com
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Creative Cow Master Series DVD
particleIllusion Fusion Volume 1
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nice piece David,
Did you use 3d Assistant to distribute the frames?
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