Quba HQ

Morhipo ads and how MovieType saved my skin

I remember the first time John from Motionworks shown me a beta version of MovieType. Pretty cool – I remember saying – I’m sure it will be useful to the people who do lots of 3D text, but not really something I would use in my projects.

While I was certainly impressed with both the idea and the implementation of MovieType, I really did not think I’d ever have any need for it. My motion pieces rarely, if ever, use 3D typography. I may throw an After Effects 3D text layer here and there, but that’s pretty much it.

And then came the Morhipo.com gig.

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Reel 2011

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.

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Fiat 500

I told you I was busy :)

This project started its life as a simple storyboard for a 2D piece based on photographs, delivered to us by the agency. The main brief was to show off different customization options for Fiat 500 using series of cuts. Right from the beginning I knew that the key to making the car look attractive in the commercial was in adding that one extra dimension, so we decided to upgrade the ad to a full 3D.

While the team was working on the car models, I rigged up yet another of my patented After Effects expression rigs (basically my own version of Trapcode Echospace) in order to easily create and animate the flower designs originally designed by the agency. The rest was a pretty standard editing, compositing and beautifying process, resulting in the ad you can see below.

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Valentines 2011

Here comes another improvised collaboration between me and Bora. I had some more shots from the previous set and decided to put together this little cheerful St. Valentine’s day piece for all of you.

Most of the work was done in After Effects, with the exception of the 3D heart, created in Cinema 4D. With love,

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Are After Effects cameras difficult to use?

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?

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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 :)

iDoF Camera Rig: Community Update 1.1

You simply got to love the Internet, and the motion graphics community. Less than a day has passed since the release of our Cinema 4D Camera Rig and we already have an update!

Mdhamiri a Nkemi, one of the site’s visitors decided to clean up the rig a little bit and add some new functionality. I liked it so much, I decided to share it with all of you as an official community update 1.1.

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Preset+Tutorial: C4D DoF Camera Rig

A program of choice to many motion artists, Cinema 4D has a rather counter-intuitive method of producing depth of field. Both the camera controls and the way in which C4D handles depth maps can be a cause of major headache, especially for the newcomers to this program.

With the coding support from German motion artist and art director, Derya Ozturk, we have been able to construct an improved camera rig for Cinema 4D that should help you eliminate needless frustration, and get the results you need with just a few clicks.

Please note that while the tutorial will teach you how to use the preset, it will not show you how to construct the demo scene seen in the preview video.

As much as I would like to credit the awesome flute player who provided the audio for this preview, I was unable to locate the “patient zero” among dozens of videos around the net using this jingle. Whoever you are, kudos and don’t ever stop trying!

Code by Derya Ozturk
Concept and math logic by Quba Michalski

Running time: 46min
Difficulty: Easy
Required tools: Cinema 4D
Optional software: After Effects, Frischluft Lenscare plug-in

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Tutorial: Procedural Disintegration

In this long-delayed tutorial I will show you an efficient method for disintegrating/dispersing a 3D layer into particles. The method shown here has been optimized to produce maximum amount of particles at lowest computing cost (more stuff flying around, faster renders).

Originally planned to be released in June 2010, this tutorial concludes the four-part series including: 100% Accurate Reflections, Automated Light Rig and Light Wall.

Running time: 70min
Difficulty: Medium
Required tools: After Effects, Trapcode Particular
Optional plug-ins: VC Optical Flares (or similar)

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I need a hand with the next tutorial…

Quite literally, I need a hand with the next tutorial for QubaHQ. To be precise, I am looking for a CG artist who could provide me with either a render, realistic illustration or a 3D model of a human hand in two forms: normal and skeleton only.

Why? Quite simply, because I am bored of using text layers for every effect in the tutorials, and would like to do something special for you guys this time.

If you are willing and able, simply reply to this post – if you are a registered user of this site, I will look up the e-mail you registered with and contact you shortly. The images used in the next tutorial will also be distributed with the project file, so please make sure you own the rights to them and are OK with giving them away for free (no budget on this gig, except for credits).

Hope to hear from some of you soon!

Bici Bee #146: UVs

This one goes out to all those of you who ever encountered problems adjusting the UV coordinates on a 3D model. My apologies to all the non-geek viewers.