This one is for you 3D modelers, texture artists, and Photoshop fanatics. Hongkiat.com has published this list of textures, brushes, and tutorials all having to do with metal.
A student just recently showed me this one and I was blown away. (Thanks J.D.!) CG Society put together this great article on a VFX-intensive Snickers commercial produced by BBDO Moscow, Sky Films in Toronto, and a German post facility called Unexpected. The article includes some great info about how they produced the spot, including fantastic breakdowns of the various elements - live action, CG layers, particle systems - that went into each shot.
In another great tutorial, Greyscale Gorilla (aka Nick Campbell) teaches you how to create a stylized 3D car racing scene from a simple 2D photograph using After Effects' 3D compositing tools. This one is long, so it's presented in 2 parts: Part 1 and Part 2After Effects Tutorial - Build a Car Racing scene from Photographs Part 1 from Nick Campbell on Vimeo.
After Effects Tutorial - Build a Car Racing scene from Photographs Part 2 from Nick Campbell on Vimeo.
Science Channel has begun airing a cool new series called "Science of the Movies" that every DV student should check out. Recent segments have included a trip to Panavision for a look inside cameras and lenses and a discussion of film vs. digital with Oscar-winning DP Dean Semler. While it's really made for people who know little to nothing about filmmaking, it still manages to include some really interesting facts for the seasoned DV enthusiast.
CNET's Rafe Needleman has posted an insightful blog post about 3D stereoscopic imaging and its impact on current and future entertainment trends in film, TV, and videogames. Like it or not, it seems 3D is here to stay for the immediate future and will continue to be a growth area in both content creation and emerging technologies.3D is still seen as gimmick by most consumers, but it's becoming more mainstream. That means content producers and artists will be thinking about 3D content more in the near future: Not just how to have it call attention to itself, but rather how to have 3D fade, as it were, into the background of the storytelling.Read the rest here.
Using Simple Shapes and Masks to Make an Entire Animation - How I made ConformNonConform from Nick Campbell on Vimeo.
Here's a brilliant tutorial from Harry J. Frank at Graymachine, combining some very simple and innocuous-seeming effects into a customizable and beautiful text composite. If you're doing any work in motion graphics, this one is a must!
Check out this video from BBC News about their editor Bill McKenna, who was recently named "editor of the year" by the White House News Photographers Association. It'll make you really think about what an editor does during all those hours behind the keyboard.
