Jean-Marie Marbach for La Casa Azul

Really stunning work in this music video for La Casa Azul by Jean-Marie Marbach.

Jean-Marie notes: "I've recently directed a music video for indie Spanish band La Casa Azul (Elefant Records), in which Particular and Form were used for various VFX shots :

Stars, 3D Nebulae and weird space energy ribbons were done with both Particular and Form.

Particles emitted from the characters' hands were done with Particular (I would have loved to try the new motion vector input for this scene, but the shots were already completed when V 2.2 was released).

The flock of birds in the sky was done with particular, with footage of real stabilized birds as custom particles.

The android's transformation was done with Particular, and the footage as a layer emitter, so that the particles could inherit all of the girl's different colors.

The trail behind the crystal ball was done with Particular. Several layers were generated : The main visible particles, and more geometric particle trails used as displacement map, in order to get a more organic look.

Finally, the Earth shot was done with Form. The base Form was set to "Sphere - Layered" in order to get a real 3D Earth. 12 different layers of particles (main land, shore lights, cities, etc…) were generated using 16K Earth maps as layer maps. Additional layers of clouds were added with Particular.

Full video:

TEMPO

In this Red Giant short film, from the creators of Plot Device, a scientist must prevent a new, powerful technology from falling into the wrong hands.

VFX Breakdowns:

Made using Trapcode Suite 12 etc. Check tutorials on TEMPO.

Kiss – A Love Story by RACECAR

Fresh of the the festival circuit, we proudly present the internet premiere of our short film Kiss.

"Le soleil est le passé, le terre est le présent et la lune est le futur."

As Paul Auster once said “The sun is the past, the earth is the present and the moon is the future.” In our first independent short film we explore the consequence of something as innocent as a kiss. A love story between the sun and the moon. We believe that every solar eclipse is the moons attempt to reach the sun...

CREDITS:
Director: Joseph Hodgson & Franck Aubry
Anmation & Art Direction: Joseph Hodgson & Franck Aubry
Production: Racecar - racecar.no
Sound Design: Erlend Elvesveen & Sven Erik Nordset
Sound Mix: Erlend Elvesveen
Music: 'Stille' by Bendik - nrk.no/urort/Artist/bendikmusikk/default.aspx

For more info: kiss.racecar.no

Joseph notes: "We LOVE your Trapcode plugins, couldn't live without them. I think we use them in almost every project we make!

Trapcode plugins were used in Kiss - in the abstract section, when the sun and moon meet as well as in the pre explosion and the full explosion. (Particular the most)"

DreamWorks Animation - Kung Fu Panda 2

Po Finds the Truth – Image courtesy of DreamWorks Animation

This post was written by Sarah Wise for Red Giant's Blog. See original post.

When Kung Fu Panda first hit cinemas in 2008 we fell in love with martial arts misfit Po the Panda and the Furious Five as they fought and defeated the evil Tai Lung. But this year the challenge for the teams at DreamWorks was how to create the second installment and build on the successes of the first film.

In Kung Fu Panda 2, not only have the characters developed, but the film itself has upped its game with more explosions, more chases and more visual excitement – all thanks to the dedicated VFX teams at DreamWorks.

Lead After Effects animator at DreamWorks, Daniel Hashimoto and his close-knit team of AE artists have brought amazing impact to some of the film’s most memorable sequences, using Trapcode Particular and Form. 

Po Finds the Truth (2) – Image courtesy of DreamWorks AnimationDaniel told us: “One of the film’s most dramatic sequences – “Po Finds the Truth” – pulled out all the stops. In this sequence, which involves a village on fire near the snowy woods, Form and Particular were used to create snow, embers, smoke clouds, and a highly-stylized flame effect. The customization and versatility of Particular made it a very powerful tool to have at our disposal. Our Visual Development Artists painted the stylized effects which we wanted to bring to life in the 2D sequences, but not just in 2D, but also in stereoscopic 3D**. And since Particular, Form and Horizon all work within a 3D environment, they were ideal for the look we wanted to achieve.

** Check out Episode 59 of Red Giant TV to learn about using Trapcode Software to create Stereoscopic 3D effects.

Learn more about DreamWorks Animation HERE.

Check out this amazing downloadable preset that tries to mimic this effect.

Cassidy Bisher

Impressive work by Cassidy Bisher. He set out to explore the new .OBJ support in Trapcode Form 2.0 and created this lovely piece.

Cassidy notes:

"Some of the models that were imported into form were designed by Teddy Bodien (my partner). They were then exported to the right format, .obj, by Breyon Bradford (my other partner)

Harry Frank gave us insight on how to prepare the .obj file. The simple solution is to subdivide the 3D object more. Form renders a particle at each vertex. So, if you can add more and more subdivisions (more vertices), the object will have more visible particles in Form. 

People are always asking me how I do my camera moves. For me it depends on what I want to do... do I use nulls and parent the camera to them or use the simple orbit camera tool. Sometimes it's a combination of both. When I first started using AE my mistake was using to many keyframes for the camera position, the animation would feel clunky & awkward. It wasn't until I started using the graph editor in AE to tweak the keyframes in combination with using less keyframes that the animation started looking more smooth, flowing and graceful.

Effects used were: Trapcode Form, Trapcode Lux, Knoll Light Factory (I put a box blur on the knoll light factory layer to make it less harsh and more organic), a 4 color gradient with only around 10 to 20 percent opacity was used on top of all the other layers.

Music Artist: Aphex Twin (Petiatil Cx Htdui)"