Tiling Strategies In The 21st Century

And I'm not talking kitchens! Seamlessly tileable images are an important part of motion graphics design. If you’re looking for a way to create your own using Adobe Photoshop, then this short video tutorial is for you. I cover two different methods for creating the tiles using two very different source images. I then show you how to quickly and easily use the images in Adobe After Effects. I've posted this one to the PVC blog, so click HERE to watch the tutorial.

Framing Keys

This little mini-tutorial covers some fairly rudimentary strategies when it comes to selecting keyframes, creating consistent acceleration/ deceleration profiles (eases) and moving layers (with their entire motion path) when keyframes already exist. Yep, it SOUNDS like After Effects 101 type stuff, but you may find that there are a couple of little tricks in here that even more experienced folks might not know about.

Take a look at the tutorial (Quicktime, h264, 4:44, 9 mb) HERE.

Lookin' Great

Coming a bit late to this particular party, and I'm sure that many of you are already aware of this, but my colleague Maltaanon released the 'Making It Look Great 5' training package through John Dickinson's Motionworks site recently.

I'm in the midst of going through the tut's, and M does a really great job describing some very sophisticated techniques. This release differs somewhat from the earlier tutorials (including mine) in that he doesn't walk through the creation of one, massive project. It's divided up into 10 'micro tutorials' (although 'micro' might be a bit of a misnomer: some of the tut's are quite involved!)

I'm working through the 'Gyro' tut right now, and I've already learned about five new things. That's one of the great things about After Effects: no matter what your skill level, there is ALWAYS something new to learn or discover.

So, props to Maltaanon. This is a very worthy training package.

Back to it!

Yes, it's been awhile since my last post (I'll explain why shortly), but I'm now back to it!

There have been a number of changes in my life of late, both personally and professionally. I won't bore you with the juicy personal details, but as far as work goes, there's no denying that times have been challenging and, by all accounts, will remain so for the foreseeable future. I've been pretty lucky with clients in my freelancing business, but even so I have chosen to take steps to diversify my holdings and leverage my skills.

As you may already know, I was fortunate to have been asked by John Dickinson last year to create a training package for motionworks.com.au. I will also be posting to Pro Video Coalitions 'Motion Graphics & Viz FX' channel. And I've got one other project (or, more properly, several) that I will be announcing shortly.

So. Back to blogging. And I do have a request: coming up with ideas for relevant blog posts can be a little tricky. I have a number of posts in the wings, but please, do let me know what you'd like to see!