Here’s a long-delayed new imago studios reel for 2012. It includes commercial and independent pieces completed both in-house and as a collaboration with various production companies.

This video can also be watched on YouTube and in imago site.

I would like to invite you to visit http://motiongraphs.qubahq.com/ – an online version of an exhibition by Quba Michalski, celebrating over a decade of his work in the field of motion design. Throughout this period Quba created several hundred of videos ranging from small independent pieces to massive visual extravaganzas for some of the world’s most well-known brands. MotionGraphs gives you a rare chance to gaze into the inner workings of his projects and examine in detail the way these selected works were constructed.

Each of the graphs in the exhibition is a visual representation of a single project, rendered using Adobe After Effects flowchart mode. Within the graphs, each box represents a single layer – be it a piece of video, a graphic, effect, camera, light or a simple null helper object. The arrows direct the flow of compositions and demonstrate how these elements nest within and feed one another, producing the final look of the piece.

Just like the projects themselves, each graph has its own style and character. Some are beautifully simple and elegant, while others create a tangled mess of hundreds of elements connected by almost incomprehensible web of interdependencies. On a more personal level, the structures of each graph tell a story of a journey the project went through. The simplest graphs were created when the artist followed a basic, brilliant idea. The tall, symmetrical and repetitive ones were created during less exciting periods. If you see crazy, messy sections full of connections – you can be sure the project went through many changes and patches.

Even the naming conventions change from one project to another. Some are strict and proper. Others – full of silly wordplay and inside jokes. On the most frustrating ones, you will undoubtedly be able to spot the artist cursing through the layer naming, trying to vent his frustrations at a misbehaving element.

Running on Microsoft’s Deep Zoom technology, the page will allow you to smoothly zoom in/out and navigate through the massive graphic using your mouse (scrollwheel works too).

The graphs in the project represent a small selection of works by Quba Michalski. You may view the videos themselves all around this site (qubahq.com). The work is best viewed in fullscreen/presentation mode. You can typically activate it by pressing F11 in PC browsers and Shift-Command-F on Mac, followed by clicking the full-screen button in the lower-right corner of the graphic above. My apologies for the process being so convoluted – I am a motion designer, not a web coder :)

Please, enjoy the show

I just got the word that my reel is featured in the latest issue of Computer Arts magazine (#193, October 2011). It is a great opportunity for all those of you who are too busy (or lazy) to click a link, to be finally able to view this fine piece of edit.

Simply head out of your home, go to the nearest kiosk, newsstand or bookstore, purchase the new issue, go back home and view the reel from the DVD that comes with the mag. If you happen to be living outside of Europe, you may need to do a special order or travel a few thousand miles, too :) Alternatively, you can always get the digital edition, available for Adobe AIR, iOS, Android and Windows 7 phone – though I am not sure if these include the DVD contents.

More details of what else is included in this issue of CA can be found here: http://www.computerarts.co.uk/shop/magazines/computer-arts/october-2011-193. The page features the summary of all the main articles as well as the links to purchase both physical and digital edition.

It is my pleasure to publicly announce that as of today I have changed my official status into Creative Free Agent and I am available for work with all interested parties. For all business inquiries you may contact me directly – the details can be found on the About page of this site.

It took me a while to figure out how to properly title myself and my services. Freelance Director? Motion Design Artist for Hire? Unassociated Writer/Art/Creative/Director? Truth be told, looking back at the past decade, it is much easier to list the things I did not do than all the roles I assumed on all the projects.

I developed concepts, plans and ideas for major TV, cinema, web, multimedia and viral campaigns. I wrote scripts and scenarios as well as did re-writes on existing ones. I pitched and sold the ideas and projects to agencies, creatives, producers, clients, marketing specialists and CEOs.

I storyboarded, art and creative-directed projects. I animated, photographed, directed live shots, stop motion, slow motion, green screen, tilt-shift and any other technique you can think of. I created 2D, 2.5D, 3D (stereoscopic included) content myself as well as supervised teams of various sizes in creating it.

I filmed, edited, composited, created vfx, sfx, music, created interfaces, scripted code, developed techniques and styles, trained teams and individuals, developed systems and pipelines, contributed to industry standard software development – you name it.

The projects I worked on range from independent to commercial, abstract to narrative, artistic to realistic. I worked on overnight express solo jobs as well as on massive projects, directing dozens of people over the course of several months.

I created 2-second pieces with a single graphic element as well as 5 minute long 3D extravaganzas. I worked with small clients and world’s largest corporations, with small studios and biggest agencies, with production companies and with post houses. How else can I sum all these up in a title?

If you need someone to take your brand, product, concept, scenario or project and deliver a completely new level of advertisement – I am the creative free agent, and I want you to work with me.

Hello everyone! Just another update on the state of things regarding new QubaHQ tutorials. As you can guess I have good news and bad news for you (and double good news for myself). Let’s start with the good ones.

New tutorials are on the way. This weekend I am planning to release a new text animator based preset, once again using After Effects’ built-in tools in an unexpected way. Originally I planned to release this preset as a part of larger, paid content, but after careful deliberation decided to throw you all another cool freebie. Follow my twitter for the updates on recording and release. Hopefully this time Camtasia will behave better than on the last recording session.

Now for the bad good other news: I have decided to stop including project files with my tutorials. There are multiple reasons for this decision, so let me just list a few.

Primum non nocere
This Latin phrase, meaning First do no harm is typically associated with medical practice, but I believe, should apply to the teachers, instructors, tutorial makers and all other manner of people sharing their knowledge. Recently I have been doing some research, trying to figure out how many people actually use the techniques I show in my tutorials and I was shocked to discover how many of my viewers don’t bother to take the projects even a step further. Most of them simply load up the supplied project file, change the text (some even don’t), render it out and proudly publish it to the world without a mention of where the content comes from.

The straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back came from a certain individual applying for a job in my studio with a portfolio containing rendered versions of project files from my tutorials (no credit given, of course).

My main goal with the QubaHQ tutorials is to encourage the learning process – to show new, cool and sometimes unexpected ways of using classic tools and drive the viewers towards their own experimentation. Providing them with ready-and-done project file encourages laziness, plagiarism and relying on one-button solutions. Even if it is just the minority of the viewers following such path – I don’t want to be a part of it. Want cool results – I provide the recipe – do the work yourself.

Money
Recently I have seen other people capitalizing on my work without as much as asking me for permission or crediting me. I have seen scripts based on my free expressions and tutorials sold around the net. I have seen templates built from my free source files (with minor modifications) offered and marketed for money. I guess it is all legal, since I release my stuff under Creative Commons license, but it does not mean it is right.

I fund this site from my own pocket as a purely non-profit venture. The money for hosting and bandwidth comes directly from my day job. Over a course of 1 year, that PayPal “Donate” button on the right has been clicked precisely one time. Thank you to the person who decided to make a donation – I am not sure if you would be comfortable mentioning you by name. The total amount of money that came to me costs the same as one copy of the script based on my stuff and would not be enough for a set of aforementioned templates.

For a while I was toying around with an idea of creating a premium, subscription-based system, where some special tutorials and project files would be only available to the paying customers, but I decided to drop it. As long as I can, I don’t want to treat anyone preferentially on this site. (I am kicking around some ideas for a product though).

Time
Recording a tutorial typically means sacrificing a weekend. Considering the fact that as a director and animator I already have many of my weekends busy with work, it is always a big question – should I take a well-deserved break or should I spend this time producing stuff I give away for free?

For some reason I do have this drive to share cool ideas with the community, so quite often I do opt to stay in and work on a tutorial. Dropping the time required to prepare project files will allow me to spend less time on the process, and perhaps do new content more often. I will also be able to stop using CS3. It has served me well over the years, but I think it is time to let it rest. Working with CS5 and CS5.5 is much faster – so again I will be able to cut few more hours off the process. Don’t worry though – any presets I release will be still compatible with CS3 and up.

Meanwhile… I point to weekend and I point to a new tutorial. That is all.

If you are a frequent QubaHQ visitor, you are probably already familiar with the Vimeo channel containing all the tutorials from this site. I have been using Vimeo as my primary video host for two reasons: first being their great video encoding quality, and the second – the fact that I was not allowed to upload content longer than 15 minutes to YouTube.

Today I realized that my account has actually been approved for longer uploads for quite some time, and I am currently in the process of uploading all of the tutorials to my channel. Vimeo will still remain my primary host, but with the content available on both of these major video sites, you now have an option of where and how you want to watch my tutorials… and I have a chance of reaching a wider audience.

You can access the QubaHQ tutorials playlist at: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL38A6A9E1711979BB or subscribe to my YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/q3c

As for the new tutorials – I have some stuff planned, but still no time to actually record anything. Follow, subscribe, check often and you will know when the new content arrives.

For all those of you wondering what happened to the Adventures of the Bici Bee webcomic, I got some news. The series has now resumed, although you should not expect any regular schedule for new episodes. I also decided to filter the webcomic from appearing on the main page of my blog, as most of my visitors arrive to QubaHQ in search for animation and motion graphics content.

You can always check for new installments in the Bici saga by going to: bi.qubahq.com or by clicking the link on the top menu. If you follow me on Twitter, Facebook or Google+ you will also receive updates whenever a new episode is released.

Now go, Bici Bee #150 is out!

Here is my personal reel for June 2011, featuring commercial and independent pieces I have directed, edited, animated and designed in the recent years.

Music composed by Joel Nielsen.

This video can also be watched on YouTube.

Every now and then there is an outburst of tutorials, plugins, presets and rigs for After Effects camera controls. We have sure targets, orbit cameras, simple rigs, complex rigs and tons upon tons of tutorials on this subject. In fact, Rich from After Effects portal recently released a lengthy post over at aetuts+ compiling a list of resources, tools and videos talking about AE cameras.

Personally, I find cameras in After Effects extremely intuitive, easy to use and simple, so I have problems understanding why does this topic tend to reemerge so often. What is your opinion on the subject? What’s your experience with AE cams? Do you think it is a topic worth covering in one of the future tutorials?

Vote in the poll above, and if you have something specific you’d like to see covered/explained – drop a comment underneath this post. You may also want to mention, whether you have experience using real, live cameras or 3D cameras in other programs and what is your experience with them, as compared to AE. How about your orientation in virtual 3D space? It’s a wide topic, so feel free to talk about it :)

I have been using Dreamhost for many years now and could not be happier with the quality of service they provide. I have used many hosts in the past (doesn’t it sound like a creepy sci-fi quote?) and always suffered from messed up controls, poor plans, incompetent support – all that until I switched to Dreamhost. No matter how hard I mess up, what files I accidentally delete and whichever databases I corrupt – they always manage to get my sites back up and running quickly and professionally.

I do however realize that media streaming from QubaHQ can be a bit slow at times. Apparently it varies from day to day and from user to user, but I have received enough complaints to actually take action and do something about it.

It is my pleasure to announce that from now on all the new tutorial content from QubaHQ will be hosted in at Vimeo. All the future tutorials will be published in HD (720p at 30fps) resulting in both much better viewing experience and increased file sizes. Vimeo seems like the best match to host such content. Additionally, the videos will now be viewable both on computers and on all the major mobile platforms, including iPhone and iPad. You will also be able to download and save the entire tutorials both from Vimeo and from QubaHQ.

While I want you to keep coming back to the site, you may now also subscribe to the new Vimeo channel with my tutorials at: http://vimeo.com/channels/qubahq