Andy Ford
2
COW Coins
Forum Replies Created
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Like Andrew suggested, there’s always the tie a camera to a weather balloon option…
This is a good question. I used Google maps for some Tampa aerials when I did something similar to this, but it wasn’t for commercial use. These copyright laws are changing everyday… as an aside, I just heard now there’s a movement from New York to ban cover bands! I do know that the technology used to implement and show a user Google maps is copyrighted. My guess would be that the company taking/providing the satellite imagery, which is most likely Navteq, wouldn’t want you taking their images for commercial purpose. I actually know some programmers that work for commercial sites that do aerials and mapping…it’s a big business and I don’t doubt that they keep an eye out for stuff like this. I would suggest asking these companies before you proceed.
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Aharon video tutorial on Magnifying will help you learn more about Bulge and other tools.
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I haven’t checked out this video yet, but I plan too because I like Aharon’s stuff. I’m just glad this is being addressed. I’ve seen many awesome video projects and motion graphics go down in flames because of the inability to present it appropriately on the web. Paying attention to the looks of the final delivery medium can’t be an afterthought.
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Nice intro, hunterchristy. BTW, all Macromedia stuff is now Adobe (although the purists may resist calling it that for a while longer). I’m a firm believer in using the best tool for the job, but when it comes to learning programs such as Flash and AE, sometimes you have to use what you know best. If you are far better in AE making an intro that you want, you can import it into Flash, convert the video, and make a custom player (which is pretty easy to do with little to no Flash knowledge). The draw back here is you can’t do things like Skip Intro and other cool Flash features (you could, but we’re going on the assumption that there’s little to no Flash knowledge). So, you solve that problem by making sure there’s the essential video control buttons (stop, mute, volume, etc.) for those website visitors that don’t like sounds on websites (you know you’re out there). The potential pitfall here is making sure your video looks clean and crisp. On the flip side, you can do the intro totally in Flash. Now whether you can do effects as easily as in AE depends on your Flash skill level.
Saying that, if you need specific AE help with something you are planning, ask away. But I would suggest the Flash forum if you’re going that route.
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Sounds like you are talking about a write-on effect, like Stroke. This effect uses masks for each stroke and animates your drawing underneath the masks to make it look like it’s being drawn on by hand. I’m pretty sure there’s a tutorial on this effect, and also one on using the scribble feature if you want your sketching to look rougher. Both might be by Aharon.
You can make your complete sketch that you want drawn on in Photoshop, and then bring it into AE and mask the strokes and use the stroke effect if you want the solution to be “outside of using the pen tool or paint.”
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I suppsoe you could just mask a “drop” shape in a solid layer. Then use lighting effects to make it look more 3D. The splash can be made the same way. Or, maybe you’ll find Photoshop easier to work with to make the images for that.
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Is this just one drop at a time onto paper? Or like a barrel of acid falling? For things that are one drop, I like to make my own drop and splash pics in photoshop. There are many ways to do smoke, I would suggest searching for that to see which method is right for you and your level, but fractal noise is a good place to start. CC Burn is pretty decent, you may want to colorize the burn area. I suspect your problem is making this look like a chemical burn, and not a regular burn. You coudl even use liquify to distort the paper near the drop, esp if there is writing or text on the paper that woudl prolyl warp a little before beign totally eaten away by the acid.
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I think you should put more time into exploring the Advanced lightning effects. You should be able to get mroe than one line of lightning, there are many options to branch this effect and increase the intensity. Or pre-comp several layers of lightning together. Trapcode plugins, such as shine, will enhance the effect. Toss a glow on. I think Particular might even have a default star shape setting, which if you make really small could look like sparks. Or, you can have some flashes (basically small white solids with corresponding linear wipes going outward) to make the initial hit look more real, or “sparky.”
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Yes, Roland is correct. I would also add that if you think it is “too much” to have the big shatter pieces and small shatter pieces layers, you can mask one to stop the spread. I think this is an easy task for a beginner if you don’t feel like tweeking all the effect settings that you may not yet be familiar with. Perhaps mask the big shatter layer a certain radius from the center, and have all the smaller pieces still flying out (as they probably would go father than big pieces in reality).
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You definitely need another gig stick of RAM regardless. By default, PCs utilize 2gb RAM to an app and Macs 3gb of RAM to an app. This is before it goes into your page file/virtual memory (which you should also check the size of). Is your processor the AMD X2 4200 (dual core)? Even if it’s not, that is probably not the bottleneck unless you are running more than several background apps. Also, as you know, uncompressed heavy effects-loaded renders are going to take some time.