Simon Ubsdell
6
COW Coins
Forum Replies Created
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[Mathieu Ghekiere] “I actually am very happy with FxFactory.”
Can I second that?
As far as I’m concerned, FxFactory is probably the most reliable plug-in platform there is and they take support very seriously indeed – they’ve been in business for a long time and have many very happy customers.
If you have you any problems at all, please do contact them directly – they are really quick to respond and are generally really good guys.
Every plug-in in, whatever the host application and from whatever distributor, is a potential issue, depending on an enormous range of factors, especially when Apple keep shifting the goalposts without necessarily telling everyone what’s actually going on.
There are some very unscrupulous and slipshod plug-in distributors and developers out there, but FxFactory are really not among their number.
Disclaimer – as a developer, I distribute through FxFactory and find them incredibly knowledgeable and adaptable and always trying to improve their service. And believe me, I am very quick to criticise!
Simon Ubsdell
hawaiki.co -
Thanks, guys 🙂
Simon Ubsdell
hawaiki.co -
Great job. That looks really cool as far as the animation is concerned.
The only thing I’d say about the overall look is that the design of the logo makes it look as though it’s being viewed from above at an angle so I’m getting visually confused about it’s relationship to the wood which is viewed flat on.
Which means that from a photorealism point of view I’m not being 100% sold on the idea that the logo is being branded into the wood.
Maybe the logo design is just on a slant so it’s giving a false impression, in which case my point is irrelevant. But if this isn’t the case I would try and line up the viewing angle of the wood layer (by rotating it backwards on X) to make it match.
I’d maybe even consider adding some shallow depth of field so that the table foreground and background are out of focus with the middle ground where the logo is as the only fully sharp area.
Just an idea … I’ll shut up 😉
Looks great otherwise.
Simon Ubsdell
hawaiki.co -
I’d say that looks really very nice – conceptually I’m finding it hard to buy a branding effect that just slowly materialises out of nothing rather than being stamped on in the usual way but I’m sure there are reasons why you need to stick with this.
Are you using the crystallise idea to expand the edges? If so you might just want to exaggerate that for more of an effect or maybe use more instances of it.
Using the Color Burn blend mode is going to help the burn effect of the edges so try using that if possible.
What I did, as you may notice, was to treat the expanding edges separately from the main logo and use the alpha of the logo to isolate them. That might help you here, especially since you are dealing with a PSD with its own details rather than the solid black that I was using.
You’ll also notice that I used the Wave filter with a very small wavelength on one of the layers which helps create an effect that matches into the wood grain. Again you might find that helpful. I picked up that tip from this nice little Photoshop tutorial:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUJxsdmR-Ik#aid=P-VjNjkDUD0
I also used the inner shadow idea mentioned there, which I created with a black solid and a couple of masks because of course there’s no built-in inner shadow in Motion.
Here’s another quick test I did where I used a high contrast B&W version of the wood texture as a luminance mask for the expanding sections which I think helps the look:
Simon Ubsdell
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No problem.
Hope you can make some sense of my Motion project. Let me know if you need any explanation.
Simon Ubsdell
hawaiki.co -
Hi Matt
Sorry, I probably didn’t explain any of that very well.
Here’s a download link for my (very rough) project file which might help:
https://tokyo-uk.com/downloads/BrandingIron.motn.zip
You’ll need to replace the wood background with your own texture but otherwise it should work – hopefully.
Let me know if you need any more help with it.
Simon Ubsdell
hawaiki.co -
Another way of doing it, rather than using the Matte Magic filter which might not give you enough control, is to use a Gaussian Blur on top of the Crystallize filter and then use a Levels filter and animate the White In value of the Alpha channel.
You can get q pretty nice organic growing effect that way.
Here’s a really rough test to show you what I mean:
Simon Ubsdell
hawaiki.co -
Try using the Crystallise filter (with the Speed set to zero) to roughen the edges of a copy of your logo or text or whatever.
Then use the Matte Magic tool to erode the result – if you then animate the erode back down to zero, you’ll get a nice growing organic edge.
Use a couple of layers with different settings and colours.
Try using something like the Smokey Variation particle emitter (or your own variant of it) to create the smoke. In the Emitter controls set the Shape to Image and the Arrangement to Outline and add your logo to the image well.
It’s a good idea to add camera shake to simulate the effect of the brand hitting the wood, but then you probably know that.
Hope that helps a bit.
Simon Ubsdell
hawaiki.co -
[Bruce Breidbart] “One thought I had was to analyze the movement, that didn’t work so well.”
It’s not something you can successfully track with Motion, I don’t think, although Mocha might be able to handle it.
[Bruce Breidbart] ” So I key framed every X rotation & X and Y position. It was impossible for me to see exactly how much to rotate each keyframe, hence my problem. “
While that would seem like the perfect solution, it will always result in a jerky movement. You need automatic interpolation rather than any manual adjustment – even if you got every frame “spot on”, the resulting movement wouldn’t appear smooth on the run.
Your best bet is to set a keyframe for the start and end and – by trial and error, I’m afraid – work out the interpolation method used in the original animation.
If you set both keyframes to bezier you could probably go into the keyframe editor and tweak them to match as you view the composite.
It might even be that a straight linear interpolation is what works best and was what they did originally in the movie. Not having got the live action plate in front of me, I can’t tell you for sure, sorry.
EDIT – you talk about keyframing the Y position – but you really shouldn’t need to be doing this.
Simon Ubsdell
hawaiki.co -
One of the main differences is that Gareth was rotating the licence plate only through 60 degrees not the full 180 that you are attempting – that’s one of the reasons it looks more interesting cos you’re seeing more geometry in the background. With a full 180 you don’t get to see anything interesting behind the plate.
Simon Ubsdell
hawaiki.co