I have been hard at work these past several days weeks months. My collector’s edition Starcraft 2 box is sitting right next to the computer, but I still could not even find time to finish the campaign (not to mention the multiplayer).

I usually manage to shell out half an hour a day or so, to watch some replays (comentated by Husky and HD Starcraft) of top tier players. This is my impression of how my game would look like.

Believe it or don’t, but there is actually a new episode of Bici Bee for you :) I just had this idea in my head for weeks and had to get it out somehow.

Thanks to Simeon for reminding me about Bici!

The project I am working on at the moment kept me out of the studio for most of the time recently. While I was away though, I did not want the computers to stay idle, so I set up some calculation-intensive experiments to render during my absence. Here’s one of them.

I have come across a fantastic Cinema 4D plugin called Xbreaker created by pariah Studios. It allows you to shatter pretty much any geometry into tiny pieces with just a few clicks. Add some physics, shaders, a bit of post in After Effects – and you got yourself a nice little visual experiment.

The thing took forever-and-then-some to render, mainly due to my lack of knowledge in render optimization. Still, I think it was better than having the computers off.

Good Times with Xbreaker (click to play)

Music by Nine Inch Nails (Track 9 from the album Ghosts I).

Download Xbreaker (32 and 64 bit):
http://www.pariahstudios.co.uk/xbreaker/

The video is also available at Vimeo and YouTube.

Hello everyone! Yes, it is here – a long-delayed new tutorial from the June series. It’s been around 6 weeks since the previous tutorial, but I have been incredibly busy building a new kick-ass hi-tech intro for the tutorials… No. Not really. The truth is I have been working on multiple commercial projects and could not find any time off for neither leisure nor tutorials. As for the intro – I knocked it together in a few minutes at 4:00AM last night.

This tutorial is a hybrid between the Automated Light Rig and Scrolling LED Text. We will be building an animated image map driven light array that can be used for for either cool light effects or easily controlled particle emission.

While the entire project can be completed within After Effects, I will also jump into Cinema 4D every now and then and show you a very easy way for creating quite complex light arrays and importing them back into AE.

Music used in the trailer comes from Beck’s Cellphone’s Dead from the album The Information.
Music in the intro comes from… here.

Running time: 73min
Difficulty: Easy-Advanced (depending how much you want to learn :)
Required tools: After Effects
Optional software and plug-ins: Cinema 4D, Trapcode Particular, VC Optical Flares (or similar)

Preview video:

Light Wall: Preview (click to play)

Tutorial:

Light Wall: Tutorial (click to play)

Download the files associated with this tutorial below:

• Project File
  (includes Automated Light Rig project, presets and other assets)
  http://downloads.qubahq.com/tutorials/QubaHQ_LightWall.zip
• Tutorial (184MB MP4)
  http://video.qubahq.com/tutorials/QubaHQ_LightWall.mp4

The preview video can also be watched at Vimeo and YouTube.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

I found this one on a Turkish t-shirt site geyikadam.com. It is so spot-on, that I decided to translate it into English and share with you all.

If you have ever worked on a commercial design project, you should get a good laugh out of it.

Mona Lisa Revisions

And now I gotta get back to my own project revisions.

Original design and t-shirt (in Turkish):
http://geyikadam.com/ajans-ortami-ve-tasarimcilar-icin-2-tisort-satista/

I usually like to build my compositions vertically, placing most of the data in a single timeline. It works most of the time, although sometimes results in skyscraper monstrosities like the nearly 1000 layer project I talked about a while back.

The ad I am working on right now required a different approach. I had to create pre-comps of pre-comps of pre-comps of some more pre-comps, constantly burying and digging up various elements. A timeline screenshot would not do it much justice, so I decided to share with you the flowchart view of the project.

If everything goes according to the production schedule, I will be sharing the result with you in about a week or so.

By the way, I know the “Yo dawg” Xzibit meme is old news, but regardless, here’s the best one I heard so far:

Yo dawg, I heard yo and yo dawg like yo-yo’s, so I put yo dawg in a yo-yo, so yo can yo-yo yo dawg while yo dawg yo-yo’s.

Braaaaaaaains….

I know many of you are still waiting for me to complete the two remaining tutorials promised for June. It seems however that it is going to take a while longer. Summertime is usually a very slow commercial season with not many TVCs being produced, so I naturally assumed I will have tons of free time to work on the tuts.

Things tend to work out not according to plan, though. I am still completely swamped with the projects for various clients and new ones just keep on coming. My current estimate is that I will be able to catch a break and record the next tutorial probably within 1-2 weeks, but only time will show if that’s realistic at all.

QubaHQ tutorials are quite important to me – just so you know, I have decided that I will not play a minute of Starcraft 2 until we get the next one online. And that’s a big commitment for me :)

Header photo by Ajfraser

Here is a sequel to the gnctrkcll / Cornetto: text+talk ad released 7 days ago. Since it is a tag-on companion piece to the original ad, not much has changed in the department of decorative elements. You might notice, however, that the main character now got a girlfriend.

This one was produced in 4 days, right after completing the gnctrkcll: Kurucesme series. I would have posted it earlier, but I first had to catch up on sleep :)

gnctrkcll / Cornetto: 1+1 (click to play)

Client: Turkcell / Algida
Agency: Leo Burnett
Directed by: Quba Michalski
Design: Çiğdem Keresteci
Animation & Compositing: Quba Michalski
Photography: Bora Sübakan, DEPOgraphy
Character Design: Meni Tzima
Character Animation: Cave VFX
Tools: Photoshop, Illustrator, After Effects, Cinema 4D

Original post on imago website:
http://imagonewmedia.com/project.php?code=GNC1

Also available in HD at Vimeo.

This project is a not-so-distant cousin of gnctrkcll / cornetto project, and was produced over the weekend break between the two parts of its bigger relative. The main concept remained the same – a stop-motion actor, t-shirt with a character, busy background.

The character was, again, designed by Meni, but this time we were delivered ready frames from the agency and did not have much input on what it does. Instead I focused on creating a small library of cell-shaded 3D elements, later used to liven up the scene.

A quick explanation about what are these three clips all about: In Turkey films in the cinema are always split into two parts, with a 10 minute intermission inserted in the middle of the movie. The three animations below are played before the start of the film as well as in the beginning and the end of the intermission.

gnctrkcll: The Film is Beginning (click to play)

gnctrkcll: 10 Minute Break (click to play)

gnctrkcll: The Film Continues (click to play)

As stated earlier, this project is much simpler than the other ones, but for two days of production – I think we did well :)

Client: Turkcell
Agency: Leo Burnett
Directed by: Quba Michalski
Design, Animation & Compositing: Quba Michalski
Photography: Bora Sübakan, DEPOgraphy
Character Design: Meni Tzima
Tools: Photoshop, Illustrator, After Effects, Cinema 4D

The first video is also available in HD at Vimeo and YouTube.

If we were to say just one thing about the making of this ad, we’d describe it as an extreme exercise in hardcore project management.

We were approached by Leo Burnett with two frames of a character design art, a concept for an ad with an animated t-shirt and 6 days to air time. We took the bait. Now, less than a week later, we are happy to present to you the latest ad for a joint promotion of Turkcell’s gnctrkcll and Algida’s Cornetto.

gnctrkcll / Cornetto: text+talk (click to play)

The tight deadline really pushed our two-person studio to the limit. We have worked with a Greek character designer, local photographer and cell animators, while juggling 3D elements delivered to us by two other studios responsible for the brand identity. The project was a mix of editing, keying, rotoscoping, tracking, cell and particle animations.

Behind the scenes, we were also simultaneously doing pre-production work on the sequel and three shorter spots for the cinema – the animations we started working on as soon as the final render of this one left the studio.

Client: Turkcell / Algida
Agency: Leo Burnett
Directed by: Quba Michalski
Design: Çiğdem Keresteci
Animation & Compositing: Quba Michalski
Photography: Bora Sübakan, DEPOgraphy
Character Design: Meni Tzima
Character Animation: Cave VFX
Tools: Photoshop, Illustrator, After Effects, Cinema 4D

Original post on imago website:
http://imagonewmedia.com/project.php?code=GNC1

Also available in HD at Vimeo and YouTube.

…and here is the sequel: gnctrkcll / Cornetto: 1+1