After Effects- Smoke effect

Here, i have followed a tutorial from one of the labs to create a explosion particle effect

After Effects presentation- Bird Flocking

1.Open a new composition and name it “Bird” and set the width to ‘1280’ and Height to ‘720’

2. Then create two white solids for the birds by going to Layer>New>Solid and then create it 300 x300 pixels and name one right wing and the other left wing as these will create the flaps of the bird.

3. Next step is to go to illustrator in order to create the shape of the bird which will be flying on screen. To create the bird, either search for a bird silhouette in Illustrator images to trace it or if you feel comfortable enough to draw it yourself then do so.

4. After finishing the drawing of the bird on Illustrator, using the select magic wand tool, select the bird and click Edit>Copy

5. Go back into the After Effects page and chose the “right wing” solid and paste the bird onto it either by clicking “Command V” or go to Edit>Paste

6. Now hide away the Left wing and delete some anchor points so only half of the bird is visible as we will need half of the bird on each side of the wings. Make sure the centre of the body is on top of the anchor point.

 

 

After effects- Compressing Videos

When i was creating some videos in After effects for my blog, i found that i had a problem with compressing my files without losing the quality

What I learnt in this lab is the importance of importing the edited video into “compressor” before exporting it into the appropriate file. When I edited a video in Final Cut Pro,  I learnt that if I “send to” Compressor, it will open the edited file in the software and then I can chose a format which for example could adjust to iPhone size or iPad size without making the video looked compressed or cut out.

One mistake I made was that when I imported a video I had recorded before into Compressor, it didn’t read it as I didn’t chose the right format first. I then dragged it onto the video file in the top left corner. I then chose the place I would like to export my video to and dragged it again on top of the video file right on top of the word “source”. I can then further modify my video by adjusting the sound compression and bit rates for the footage so no loss less compression occurs.

Compression effects quality of the video by reducing the size of the file so it can be stored in different places. It is also used to work on different platforms and hardware’s. When rendering or compressing, one of the biggest confusion about video is not realising that the file format is completely different from the video format. So you’re always dealing with two formats, not one.

File format is like the box that contains the video, hence the reason why it is called the container, for example, Mp4, avi, mov etc.  On the other hand, the video format is the flavour of compression that is used on the video, for example, H.264, MPEG-4 etc.

The file format mainly decides what type of player will be able to understand and play your video file. The video format decides what type of player will be able to understand and play your video file.

Why do we need to know this?

There is no one format that works on everything:

-Flash works on most browsers but not on the iPhone and iPad.

What does this tell us?

-Before compressing a video we need to know what platform it is going to play on.

-Chose the appropriate file format.

-Chose the appropriate video format.

Angie Taylor

What is typography?

Typography is the combination of selecting the design of the type. This is a combination of the font size, spacing between lines, colour and spacing between letters. By choosing these aspects yourself, you give space to arranging them to suit your specific requirements while allowing diversity. Typography is vital as it alone, should be able to convey the message that needs to be delivered to the reader as it adds meaning to the product being viewed.

What is typeface?

Typeface is similar to a “font” as it is a set of characters that uses a specific style to portray the meaning of a product, similarly to a typography. When considering typefaces, one must consider what the word is trying to convey and what the word actually means. Cultural associations considers which culture, century and location the text is meant to be set in, in order to replicate the style.

What are fonts?

There are several types of fonts; Italics, Ligatures and Special characters. Italics looks very similar to a natural handwriting style as it is slightly titled to one side giving a sift fluent flow. It is mostly used when quoting something in a paragraph in order for it to stand out. It is also used in novels for the letter section as it replicates the human handwriting which adds more meaning to the message.

On the other hand, special characters is where one letter stands out from the rest by size or font style. This is commonly found at the start of novels as the firs letter of the first word.

Lastly, ligatures is when letters are put together and almost look like a shape when joined. This is a problem in some cases and it is harder to read. To eliminate this problem, letter spacing can be increased.

The Anatomy of type:

Size matters; when choosing the size, it is not always up to the user as different fonts are larger than others, depending on the style. The height is generally what changes rather than the length.

Weight problems; again, different font styles have different a weight. “Weight” is considered to be the thickness of the letter. Choosing the “bold” style increases the weight of the letter by making it chunkier in a sense. Letters with a big weight are commonly used to emphasise something or in headings to stand out.

Decoration; some letters depending on the fonts have serifs which add style to different letters. Letters like “I” have pointy edges, or curved edges for decoration.

Letter spacing; tracking involves increasing or decreasing the space around the letters whether they are separated to add meaning or put closer together to convey a message. Kerning, on the other hand, increases or decreases space between a group of letters. In some cases, for logos for example, as part of the design, two letters might be closer to each other and separated from the rest of the text.

Illustrator practice 3

One night i was looking outside my window and the moon was looking very beautiful as it shone across the sky. I decided to take my camera and try get a good shot of it. Surprise surprise, in the photo it looked like a yellow dot in the sky. After a few shots i noticed that there’s a technique that i do not know about to capture this, therefore i took the photo and decided to enlarge it and make it look like ow i saw it in the sky

Illustrator work

In my spare time, i help my brother with his charity ‘Draw a Smile’ and by helping, I have joined the Digital Media team and moved up to running it. As i have a passion for Media, charities and of course helping my brother, i put in a lot of my free time away from university to help grow the charity and get it recognised in order to help the unfortunate. One of the events we were organising recently was an 02 Indigo event for a music concert. I decided to create the logo for this event in Illustrator not only to support the charity but to help me practice and push my limits with features in Illustrator.

Motion Grahics- History

A Brief History of Motion Graphics

I didn’t think that an introduction to the history of motion graphics would teach me anything, however i learnt a lot from this first chapter as it takes you through how  the Production of film evolved since the 80s.

The “thaumatrope” was the first device used to create the illusion of motion by merging to disks that were attcahed to the string on the device. When spun, the device would give the illusion of a motion image.

The first home movie device was known as a “Kinora” which was developed by Augustine Lumiere and it was a 14cm wheel that help several pictures and when rotated it gave the illusion of motion. Only in 1894 did films begin to be projected on a large screen now known as “The Cinema”.

J Stuart Blackton released an animated short “Humorous phases of funny faces” in 1906. It was teh idea of a hand drawing the characters on a blackboard. Single-frame exposures was used to show a new facial expression everytime it changed.

As time passed, filmmakers began to embrace film through animation as a form of art rather than commercial gain. This I believe allowed for a unique variation in styles of film that are shown till this day.

Design Essentials for Motion Graphics- Angie Taylor

Angie Taylors book was a motivational aspect in building up my confidence to draw. Since I was young, my drawings were somewhat, terrible. One quote that caught my attention was, “you don’t need to be really good at drawing, but you do need to be prepared to give it a go”[Angie Taylor, 2011]. Yes, I cannot draw but all drawing is, is a different way to communicate feelings and emotions and an alternative way for one to express themselves. The beauty of drawing is that you can put your own touch to anything you like. For example, taking a simple tree but drawing its roots into ice, expressing that sometimes things dont start out very good and make much sense, but as time goes by, it could grow into something quite beautiful.

In todays society, sketching has become vitally essential as throught several attempts, drawings begin to become more expressive of the emotion one is trying to convey thorough the drawing. Like anything in life, the more practice, the more perfect you become. For most softwares used now, sketching is useful as the first step, for example in 3D Max. Also throught sketching, Angie Taylor makes it clear that light interacts with its surroundings and thsi should still be conveyed through drawings not only photographs. I believe there are no boundries with drawing as every individual can leave their mind to set out the path of the drawing.

Motivation is a factor that seems quite important in the process of drawing. My motivation would be that I need to learn to draw in order to pass this assignment as most modules require a form of ability to draw. I belive that through continuing to draw for my uni work, I will eventually enjoy drawing as a hobby as it has always been something I have wanted to do. Malcolm Gadwell’s book states that “it takes 10,000 hours to study to become a genius”[Malcolm Gladwell, The Tipping Point].