Quba HQ

MotionGraphs

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.

Continue reading…

QubaHQ Tutorials: June Trailer

I have big plans for QubaHQ Tutorials in June. Over the course of the last few days I thought up and implemented four new techniques that I will share with you over the course of the coming month. Well, at least I hope to be able to push all the content out in a span of 30 days.

Check the rest of this post for the teaser trailer, as well as a short explanation of things to come.

Continue reading…

Tutorial: Scrolling LED Text

In this After Effects tutorial I will show you how to create your own highly customizable LED screen effect, ready to convert any text or image into pixelated goodness. The video covers the setup, expressions and usage of this versatile preset.

The preview video below shows but one possible way of using the Scrolling LED Text and the tutorial concentrates on the effect itself, rather than the setup of this particular scene.

Preview video uses a photograph by LonelyBob licensed under Creative Commons. It also features 5 notes from the Solitary Wasteland track on the Flower Soundtrack by Vincent Diamante and a sample from Pac-Man by Namco. This tutorial was made possible by the espresso coffee maker gifted to me as a wedding present.

Running time: 47min
Difficulty: Medium (quite a few expressions)
Required tools: After Effects (CS3 and above)

Continue reading…

Adobe Creative Suite 5 Reveal

So it is done. Adobe officially introduced the world to their Creative Suite 5 today. You can watch the unveiling show at http://cs5launch.adobe.com/.

There are quite a few interesting features in this release, from the impressive content-aware tools in Photoshop to all the new stuff in After Effects. While all these new functionalities are welcome, CS5′s greatest improvement over the previous versions will definitely be the performance boost in many key applications.

Personally, as a motion designer, I feel web and content management (again) received too much attention as opposed to the video tools, but hell, just the fact that AE will now use all of my system memory makes it a worthy release. There is no point in me outlining all the new features and improvements in Creative Suite 5 when all the information is available on Adobe’s site. Head over to http://www.adobe.com/products/creativesuite/ to learn all about it.

Adobe Creative Suite 5 in English is expected to ship mid-May 2010. Other localizations to follow.

After Effects CS5: What’s New

The official unveiling of Adobe’s Creative Suite 5 is still several hours away, but it seems some websites already jumped the gun and released a whole bunch of details regarding this highly anticipated release. Here’s what we know so far.

It’s been a public knowledge that AE CS5 is going to be a 64 bit application only, so no news here. 64bit architecture is going to allow After Effects to use all of the system’s memory resulting in longer cached preview sizes as well as improved handling of high resolution animations (no more crashes when blurring huge layers). In addition, the AE engine had to be rewritten for the new architecture and the new one supposedly gained up to 200% performance increase.

But you already knew all that. Juicy fresh stuff after the break.

Continue reading…

Tutorial+Preset: SplatterType

If you are sick of the April Fool’s day silliness all over the net, I have some seriously cool stuff for you today. SplatterType is a custom preset I have developed recently that will allow you to create amazing ink and paint splatter animations with just a few clicks.

Updated! Please read the update info underneath the videos and use the preset instead of the project files!

Much like my previous tutorial, SplatterType relies only on After Effects text animators and does not require any additional plugins (3rd or even 1st party). Robust set of controls make it highly customizable, while the expressions work in the background to do all the hard work for you.

Whether you’re after a dark, grungy look or happy-go-lucky colorful design, whether you’re compositing 2D, 3D, mattes, transitions, you name it – this little free preset will let you spend time on creative choices rather than tedious keyframing. Enjoy!

Running time: 35min
Difficulty: Easy
Required tools: After Effects

Continue reading…

Knoll Chromatic Lens 2 for VC Optical Flares

One of the most frequently (over)used After Effects lens flares is undoubtedly Chroma Lens 2 preset available in Knoll Light Factory Pro. As many other motion designers I, too am guilty of using this effect in a few projects too many.

As I am currently migrating my flare workflow to Video Copilot’s Optical Flares plug-in, I decided to re-create this client-favorite preset inside the VCOP.

Continue reading…

Volumetric Clouds in After Effects? Yes We Can!

This is just a little teaser snapshot of the After Effects timeline of the latest project I am currently working on. The NDA prohibits me from sharing too many details with you, but I can disclose the fact that I decided to make some volumetric clouds in a software completely unfit for this purpose.

Not the smartest idea, but hell, if it can be done – why not.

Continue reading…