Free Tickets to “Pause: Ideas in Motion”

UPDATE: Tickets are all gone, congrats to the winners.

I’ve got some free tickets to giveaway for some lucky readers. Insane score, these tickets are valued at $199 - if you are going to be in NYC on November 10 - 11, don’t miss this bus. If you can’t make it to the conference, please don’t try to win them, you’ll make someone else miss out.

The first 3 readers to email chris *at* chriskelley *dot* tv the answer to which year did COSA create After Effects will get a free pass to Pause: Ideas in Motion - the premiere motion graphics conference in the States, and in my opinion the world.

What is Pause: Ideas in Motion?

Pause is an event that’s all about mograph. Theory, technique, concepts, you name it. The lineup of presenters this year is ridiculous: Hillman Curtis, Chris Milk, Mark Romanek, BTRY, Brand New School, BUCK, Digital Kitchen, GMunk, Hush, Joseph Kosinski, MK12 and UFO. Doesn’t get much more exciting than that.

PAUSE NYC is open to anyone who works with 3D and motion graphics technologies — whether After Effects, Combustion, Maya, Motion, or a combination of these and other bold new toolsets.

PAUSE - Dates, Times and Location:
November 10 - 11, 2008, 9 AM - 6 PM
BMCC Tribeca Performing Arts Center
199 Chambers Street #110SC
New York, NY 10007
http://www.pausenyc.tv

Follow The Mograph Blog on Twitter

So due to my semi-inconsistent posting, I want to try and make it as easy as possible for everybody to get updates when I add stuff around here.  In honor of that, I created a Twitter account for The Mograph Blog to tweet out updates when I post new articles.   The Twitter account will be solely for update notifications on this site, and will be used for nothing else, so don’t worry about any spamminess.

You can follow the Twitter account here: http://twitter.com/themographblog

Also, if you’re not already subscribed to the RSS feed, you can grab that here: http://themographblog.com/rss

Linking Particles to a Null with Particular

Back from the dead!  Thanks for stopping by, here’s a new one for you that I think you’ll find very valuable if it’s not already in your workflow.   I use this literally everytime I’m moving particles on a path, I find the technique much better than emitting particles from a light.

Linking your particle simulation directly to a null also gives you the ability to link multiple simulations to the same null and gives you the flexibility to really create some killer simulations.

Enjoy!!

Downloads:

blue_line.ffx

Cinema4D Layer Browser Trick

First thing is first, sorry for going so long without a post. Life has been pretty crazy lately (in a good way) and I’ve neglected some important things and people unfortunately, one of them being TMB. Not to worry, here’s a tip that hopefully will excite you as much as it did me.

The Layer Browser (LB) in Cinema4D is a killer tool, and is super helpful for scene management. Within the LB you can do cool stuff like turn off hypernurbs, exclude your layer from the Object Manager, and nest layers together in a hierarchy. But one thing that can be a pain is adding a huge nest of objects from the Object Manager to a layer. (Picture to the right is a faux unwieldy Object Manager, I realize that it’s not the LB. Keep reading)

Shame the Old way

The old way I used to accomplish this was to select the parent object, right-click->Select Children, then right-click again and Add to Layer. Sure that seems pretty easy, but it’s too many unnecessary steps - Maxon has given us a great little trick to circumvent that process.

Cheer the New way

All you have to do is hold down the Control key (NOT the Command key on a Mac, but the CONTROL key) and drag your desired layer on to the top Parent object…. BOOM! Cinema automatically applies your layer to every child in your hierarchy. Sweet.

Little work flow enhancements like this add up. Imagine how many menus and right clicks and window openings you do throughout the average work day. It’s a lot. If you can shave even 2 or 3 seconds of little things like this, it may be the difference between getting your render to the client in time or making up an excuse so your producer doesn’t eat your brains.

Stay keyframey San Diego.

Top 10 Semi-Underground After Effects Hotkeys

I’m a hotkey fanatic, in case you haven’t noticed. Yesterday Aaron Knapp dropped a shifty unknown-to-me photoshop hotkey right on my head, so in honor of that, here are my top 10 favorite underground* After Effects hotkey combos.

1. cmd+up / cmd+down with layer selected in timeline

   What it does: Selects the layer above/below

   I use this hotkey a lot when I am in tight, nudging layers around with page-up and page-down and don’t want to go back and grab my mouse to select another layer. Bonus Tip: if you hold down shift you can select multiple layers like this.

2. shift+scrollwheel while cursor is in timeline

   What it does: scrolls the timeline left and right

   I like this one because if I’m in super-animator-mode, and I don’t want to be breaking my focus looking for that damn scollbar or zooming in and out of my timeline, I can just use this baby. Wacom users, sorry you’re out of luck unless you have a fancy pen with a scroller. Bonus Tip: Use option+scrollwheel to zoom in and out… best of both worlds!

3. EE (tap twice)

   What it does: reveal any expressions on a layer

   I’m a big expressions user, so it’s a pain in the ass to be tracking down expressions and having to twirl down the expressions window all the time. EE, and you’re ready to code.

4. cmd+option+shift+E

   What it does: applies the last used effect

   This one is just handy, there’s not any particular time I use it more often.

5. cmd+option+zero

   What it does: brings your render queue to the front

   This one I love too, because I like a really clean work area and I don’t enjoy seeing my Render Queue all the time. Personal preference, but the render queue is for rendering times only, otherwise I don’t want to see it.

6. shift+cmd+E

   What it does: removes all effects from selected layer

   What do you mean the client doesn’t like my exorbitant use of Shine and Starglow‽ This is my creative vision we are talking about here!! FINE! I’ll just delete everything!

7. cmd+option+shift+v

   What it does: toggles selected layer visibility

   Couple this with the Bonus Tip from #1 and you’ve got yourself a pretty nifty workflow.

8. shft+F9 / cmd+shift+F9

   What it does: toggles easy-ease keyframe in/out

   I’m actually surprised at how few people I see use this hotkey. It was one of the first ones I learned in After Effects and I use it all the time. I’ve seen way to many people using the right-click menu to set their easing. Another way I know not many people use this, is everytime I sit down at a new studio running OS X, and I hit cmd+shift+F9, Expose’ gives me the middle finger and I have to go to the OS X prefs and turn it off for the 5 millionth time.

9. option+dbl-click any keyframe

   What it does: shows the keyframe velocity dialog

   Maybe it’s the programmer in me, but thinking in numbers instead of battling the f-curve editor in After Effects is just faster for me. Over the years I’ve gotten pretty good at knowing exactly what numbers I need to use to get the visual I want, and this is the quickest way to get it. Also, this is GREAT when you are trying to smooth out keyframes with secondary motion, it’s much easier to pop this dialog open and set your speeds for in/out equal to each other, then it is to try to match your curves in the pseudo f-curve editor.

10. cmd+j / cmd+shift+j / cmd+shift+option+j

    What it does: toggles resolution Full/Half/Quarter

    Another one of my faves to finish off the list. I like to work at low resolutions whenever possible, but sometimes you need a quick hi-res preview to see how things are going… use this to go from quarter to full and back to quarter in the blink of an eye! Bonus Tip: cmd+option+j will throw you into your last used custom resolution mode.

So, there it is. 10 of my favorite After Effects hotkeys. I could go on for days, but I think there’s a Dunbar’s Number for learning hotkeys in one sitting, so I’ll leave it at this for now.

What did I miss? What are your favorites? Leave ‘em in the comments!
Free themographblog.com t-shirt** to anybody that can name a hotkey that I didn’t already know - I’ll be honest I swear.

*underground status is derived from the following equation: (FrequencyOfUse/NumberOfUsersThatKnowItOutOfOneHundred)*100…. ok not really

**I don’t have any TMB t-shirts, so you can’t actually win one. But I will bow down to your uber-hotkey authority.

New Icons for Net Render!

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe said, “God is in the details” (although some in the design crowd incorrectly attribute it to Hillman Curtis). Details matter, especially in software design. Good little things like Adobe changing the “image sequence” checkbox default to “checked” when importing image sequences, go a long way. Then there are other little little things that drive me crazy. For example: Maxon not giving NET Render Client and NET Render Server their own icons. And what do we do when something doesn’t exist? We create it. So here you go, new icons for NET Render Client and NET Render Server, free as can be.

Download Icons

Included in the zip file are my original PSD files (created in CS3), 48×48 png, 32×32 png, 16×16 png (yuck) and ICNS files for Mac users. You are free to change, re-distribute, whatever you want - except sell (duh) or pass off the originals as your own creation (wickety-wack).

Installation

If you are on OS X, read this article on installing new icons. The .icns file you want to replace is c4dapp.icns. If you want to try the ol’ Get Info->Paste trick, you can try that, but it’s infamous for not actually changing your icon permanently. On Windows, read up on your options over here at the iconaholic.com help section. Since I included the .PSDs, you have the ability to create whatever you may need.

Notices

1. Before you go replacing anything, backup your old files. It’s not my fault if you mess something up.
2. The C4D Logos were obtained from the Maxon site HERE.
3. The little character in the header image on this post was grabbed from HERE, I did not create the character, I don’t know who did, but good job.
4. Just like with the Plugin Cafe RSS Feeds, I have no affiliation with Maxon. I just use their software.

Nesting Cameras in After Effects Using Expressions

I use this technique in a lot of my projects, and I have seen others use it too it’s a pretty common task - but what I don’t see very often is people using the activeCamera property. If you don’t use activeCamera and instead write your expressions with hard-coded layer names, you’re bound to break your expression somewhere down the line. This video will show you how and why to use activeCamera when nesting AE cameras into precomps.

Cinema 4D Hotkey o’the Day

In Cinema 4D, you can nudge forward and back in your timeline using the ‘G’ and ‘F’ keys, respectively. This is the equivalent of using ‘Page-Up’ and ‘Page-Down’ in After Effects.

GET DEM KEYFRAMES!

Coming Soon - cut a new video last night covering using nested cameras with expressions in After Effects, should be able to post it up by tomorrow morning so stay tuned.

RSS Feeds for Plugin Cafe

The other day I was poking around in the Plugin Cafe forums and I saw somebody request RSS feeds for the forums. Later the same day, I asked a question regarding a little plugin I’m writing to help improve the 3D pipeline over at one of my favorite studios. (Why would I do such a thing? Oh yeah, it’s all part of being versatile)
Anyway, after receiving a very thorough response from the community over there (including Matthias from Maxon), I decided to go ahead and fulfill the RSS Request, as there had yet to be a response on the issue (I’m sure Maxon has their little noses to the grindstone improving openGL support on the mac, etc…)

So without further ado, you can get your Plugin Cafe RSS feeds at:

http://chriskelley.tv/plugincafe/

Keep reading to find out more about how I create the feeds.
Continue Reading…

Loop Particular the Right Way

Download the After Effects file for this tutorial:

I’ve seen this question floating out on the web a few times, and I personally run into it often when I’m working on broadcast stuff. Most of the time I see people recommend just fading your particles off, or crossfading between to layers, but I don’t like that. Here is a video about my workflow on how I make Trapcode Particular loop “the right way”.