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.

So, what will you see here in June?

Automated, synchronized 3D lights color control
An expression driven After Effects rig allowing you to quickly and easily create 3D scene lighting using pre-defined color map. You will be able to either maintain full manual control, or set it to automate the changes in lighting.

3D light arrays driven by animated texture maps
Derived from the previous rig, this setup will let you control large arrays of lights (110 in the trailer) using animated color/intensity map, similarly to the much simpler effect seen in Scrolling LED Text tutorial.

Pixel-perfect procedural layer disintegration
Who does not like breaking stuff into tiny-tiny pieces (or using time-reverse, creating animation elements from particles)? I am going to show you a very cool technique letting you turn your layers into sand, smoke or any other type of particle, while maintaining very high level of precision and control.

100% accurate floor reflection rig
Reflecting simple elements is quite easy. You can do it manually or use any of the plugins available for AE. How about reflecting more complex scenes, such as a particle simulation? Yes, it is possible and yes, it is quite easy once you see it done once.

Download the QubaHQ: June Trailer (30MB MP4)
http://video.qubahq.com/tutorials/QubaHQ_JuneTrailer.mp4

Music used in this trailer was composed by Joel Nielsen for the upcoming Black Mesa Half-Life 2 mod.

The QubaHQ: June Trailer can also be watched at Vimeo and YouTube.

A few days ago I published a post entitled Volumetric Clouds? Yes We Can! featuring the screenshot of the After Effects timeline containing over 550 layers used in creating (among other things) fake volumetric fog/clouds.

The project is now complete, but since it is still not cleared for air, I have another teaser for you all – a video of the entire animation in wireframe mode.

The final composition clocks at 933 layers (excluding a whole bunch of pre-composed material).

In case you wonder – no, I did not manage to find a way to render After Effects wireframe mode. I simply programmed a simple macro on my keyboard that advances the frame by one, takes, saves the screenshot and then loops to repeat the steps again.

Music by Kult (Nie żyję ponad stan from the album Poligono Industrial).

The re-design of channel identity for S’NEK was one of the largest projects imago undertook. S’NEK (Turkish for “Fly”) is a youth-oriented digital satellite channel owned and produced by Digiturk – Turkey’s largest satellite TV operator. Since its launch, the channel’s image suffered from poor identity package, bad logo, and inconsistent on-air graphics, created in-house on minimal budget.

In a quest for better ratings and overall improvement of the channel, imago was commissioned to completely re-design the look and feel of S’NEK and to give it a new identity.

We started with the channel logo. The old one (author unknown) had several serious problems; It was very detailed (more of an illustration, rather than a logo), did not convey any message, had poor color choices and overall “cheap” feel to it. Since the channel existed for several months we could not completely break away from its current look. The new logo had to preserve the continuity in the channel ID and to build upon already established image.

Our main objective was to create a symbol which would be memorable, energetic, modern, and yet simple enough for anyone to remember and draw. Secondary concern was to allow the fly image in the logo to morph into different shapes, representing various thematic blocks of programming. After several iterations, we arrived at the final version, featuring a tri-color (black, white and red) emblem built from basic geometric forms and a bold logotype. While the symbol is based on round shapes, the type we picked is highly angular, strong and striking. Through the contrast between the two the logo gains internal energy and power.

S’NEK: Bumps (logo morphs)

A week before the new identity went on-air, all Digiturk channels started airing promotional teaser videos. Meanwhile, the stickers with logo morphs were planted around the city of Istanbul and S’NEK website fell under (a fake) hacker attack. Giving the audience enough clues to wonder, but not revealing what’s coming, generated a lot of buzz and attention.

S’NEK: Teaser Videos

Creating line-up and promo templates was one of the most difficult aspects of the entire project. Since S’NEK did not have software and hardware supporting complex on-air, template-based live renders, we needed to design the whole thing using After Effects. At the time, S’NEK did not have operators skilled enough to entrust with modifying relatively complex compositions. We had to find a solution for that as well.

We developed a drag-and-drop system in which the After Effects operator neededs to simply import necessary footage, type in the text in several boxes and adjust a number of sliders. The program takes care of the rest through series of complex expression scripts reading the data from the “Edit” composition and applying necessary changes to the “Render” part of the project. All the crucial animation elements are locked and hidden away from the operator. Once the information is typed in, text layers adjust their content, background boxes change the length accordingly, clocks animate into correct digits, etc. The entire final animation is generated procedurally, based on the basic initial input.

S’NEK: Line-Up: “Today” Template

S’NEK: Line-Up: “Weekdays” Template

S’NEK: Line-Up: “Weekends” Template

Client: S’NEK
Identity Design: Quba Michalski
Design, Scripting & Animation: Quba Michalski
Music & SFX (Stage 1): Ferit Özgüner
Music & SFX (Stage 2): Dağhan Kök (Retronic)
Tools: Photoshop, Illustrator, Corel Draw, After Effects

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