Another Project using Avid Media Composer 7

Well I've kept Media Composer open to take advantage of the free 30 day trial. So far I haven't had any software updates, power outages or cpu crashes, so here's another project.
This is a decomposition of a scene from the Sci-Fi movie, Corella. It's actually an exercise in using different graphics, transitions and editing techniques in MC.
Everything goes well inside MC but when exporting the results at h264 high quality are very choppy. Which also led to realigning the audio to match the video. Music during demo is 'Piece for Disaffected Piano One' by Kevin MacLeod.

Importing 3D models in After Effects

You can import 3D models into After Effect using Photoshop.
The process is very quick. Kevin P McAuliffe at Creativecow.net demostrates how at:  http://library.creativecow.net/articles/mcauliffe_kevin/Apple-Motion_5/video-tutorial

Though I still prefer using Element 3D to adjust textures and lighting, I could have spent more time in Lightwave and Photoshop to improve the PS model.
This is also my first editing project using Avid Media Composer 7. The opening animated title was created in MC7, as well as editing, transitions etc.
Doing animation and transition are quite easy, just takes a little time making sure you don't miss any steps.
I wanted to fix a few things in After Effects but needed to get the videos done in MC7 before my 30 day trial ended.
The music, "Villainous Treachery - Distressed" provided by Kevin McLeod at http://incompetech.com/

This was an an exercise that I did creating a hand model. I thought it was a good excuse to venture into the seashell tool. The background edifices as well as the shell were all done with it using different settings.
In case you wanted to know, it's a Hand Crab.   

Playing the Catching Game in the Rain

"Playing the Catching Game" video was a self imposed challenge: First, to do the lightning and explosion. Second, to to sync and combine two videos.

Seattle's 12th Man on the Moon

This took longer than expected. I needed to compensate for an older automatic camcorder, no green screen and no lights. I used two layers: one using the luma key to get rid of the outer edge and the other using the roto brush for the inner edge. Everything was composed in After Effects (a little in PS) while final editing and sound were done in Premier Pro. HD
I didn't put some shadows in, but you realize this isn't real, right?

CSS3 Styles

Every time I think I get something down in web design, then add something new, I seem to end back at square one.
Just new puzzles to solve. - And I like doing puzzles, especially when I figure them out.
Still working on why I can't get the padding to work on the AP divs and why I can't get the multiple images to show up.

DVD Transitions

Again, I keep liking AE more and more. And again, there are too many choices to experiment with. I mainly used the scatterize effects.
It was good to get back to Encore. I needed the review.

PS 3D Text

So many ideas to try. I keep trying different looks for my logo. I spent too much time on trying to down load a glass surface.In the end it worked out pretty well.

Taking the Stairs

The image is a section of a staircase, which I then rain it through a number of differt adtions to form larger shapes. Most were simple one or two steps, but a few involved multiple steps. It started with the whells and grew fromthere. The stacks were acheived by adding the mozaic filter and changing the blending mode blending. The smoke took a little bit of thinking and trial and error. I starting using the polarizing filter and blur, but ended up using the blur, transformation, and opacity to get the final results. More than half wy through and too late to turn back, the image reminded me of Blue Meanies. I know only a handful of people who know hwo saves the day. Brian, of course, you're one of them. Craig, you're the other.

This one goes with the 3D Text post but I didn't want you to see it until you viewed the image above.

Website from a Template

The difficult part of making a site from a template is first deciding on what you want to keep and what you don't. I picked this one because of the transparencies involved. The new or unfamiliar elements didn't bother me. They were just puzzles to decipher.
There is one that I'm still trying to figure out. The lower grey div should be a shaded yellow, but I must have deleted something from the original that influences it. I also need to change the company logo on top. If it;s not ther, then I fixed it before the deadline.

Interactive Text

Here is an interactive mask with a thematic text. . A quick little assignment. I'm trying to figure out something a little more complicated, but I think I need to know more code.  Now I can load more Flash projects directly onto the blog.

Shape Shifter

The hard part of making a animated shape in AE is that there is are so many variables from which to choose.  I thought I'd begin with animating a line, but then I decided to end with it.  Every time I work with AE I like it more.
I ended up not doing as much as I wanted to. Needed more time.

Model A

I used html emails awhile ago with some success but also with a limited knowledge to figure out why things would go wrong. I doubt that things won't go wrong in the future, but hopefully I have enough know how to get out of trouble.
The part that took the most time was doing the logo. The design came fairly easy, but Illustrator slowed me down :) Though I do like the way the logo came out.

Popup Movie

Well the tour is complete (for now). I need to add video and animations and of course, fix the shadow on the photographs, which didn't show before rendering.
At this moment, I'm waiting for my movie in AE to render. At this time (6pm on Sunday), it has rendered 446 frames out of 1755 and has taken 4 hours with an estimate of 10 hours and 24 minutes to go. Which means, it should be ready for me in the morning. However, with every frame that it completes, it tacks on another minute to the estimated time left.
I had to to keep fine tuning it, didn't I?

Update: At 4am still only 22 seconds of the 58 done. I put what I had to music and will finish it later.
Luckily all the time I did put in on the assignment paid off. I was able to put another one together in about an hour. This one rendered in 7 minutes.  whewww!

Lesson Review - or Brian-isms
Larger resolution-Longer Render Time
More Lights-Longer Render Time
More Shadows/Specularity-Longer Render Time

Galleria Screenshot

This is the screenshot of my photo gallery using Galleria. It was an easy process for me. I did try something different using CSS3 script. The navbar was a set of boxes the scrolled up/ A nice effect that worked in live view but not in I.E. or Firefox so I didn;t risk loading it. Had trouble with the black area on the right. I switch all widths to 950 px but to no avail. I sleep on it and see if it'll come to me.

3D Coat

This was suppose to be an easy and fun assignment. I bit off more than I could chew. My idea was to have my hippo hanging out of my train (both of which were made in Lightwave.

I ended up learning a bunch. How to prepare the objects for 3D Coat and what not to import without them being  properly made. I did get a cool looking train when imported though I couldn't paint most of it.
Even the hippo had some problems with the face and feet. That's why he's from Bizarro World.
Yes I know they have white skin, but my farmboy hippo has a "farmer's tan".

SLAM Cover

Designing a cover for SLAM
Magazine was another
challenging but enjoyable
assignment for me. I wanted
to do a play on words with
the magazine title,
so I tried two different
designs: one in Photoshop
and one in Lightwave.

Making Custom Brushes

I enjoyed making the two brushes in Illustrator and in Photoshop.The Art brush in Illustrator was a little tricky getting the results that I wanted but the Scatter brush and the PS brushes were pretty straight forward. Plus I'm more familiar with the PS brushes.
The Illustrator design started with the bees brush (and the Art line brush) and ... well one thing just lead to another.

I've been wanting to do an image like the one of the horse in Photoshop. I made the stars, squares and circles brushes and used them to add and subtract from the horse image. I also used some smoke brushes as well as splatter and horse's mane brushes.

Hope you enjoyed them.

Extreme Makeover

This is a video animating the steps used in a glamour airbrushing exercise.
Warning: Not responsible for resulting nightmares.

Using a Tablet in Illustrator

The following is an exercise on using the pressure sensitvity of the pen and tablet to do an illustration. I used Iluustrator, since a program on which I could use more time. Instead of using a sample of different types of brushes, I limited myself to the Astistic Watercolor brushes. I never use that set of brushes and some were pretty straight forward but some had unpredictable results when using different stroke/lines length.