How to create videocopilot evolution animations from scratch
by Adam Tworz
on
Feb 20, 2008 at 8:15:58 am
In plenty of tutorials on videocopilot.net (like this one http://www.videocopilot.net/evolutionvideo/twister_tutorial/index.html) he's using ready made b&w animations from evolution set, telling how to use them ie. how to colorize them or add glow. But what I would like to know is how this animations were created from scratch, ie which application was used and maybe is there any tutorial about doing this kind of stuff.
Re: How to create videocopilot evolution animations from scratch by Adam Tworz on Feb 20, 2008 at 9:16:02 pm
Sorry Glyn, so if you look closely at them you'll see that this kind of stuff is created rather as frame by frame animation than other way. the question is which software was used. you could do that in flash, but is that what he used or was it something else
Re: How to create videocopilot evolution animations from scratch by Jason Milligan on Feb 20, 2008 at 11:16:57 pm
Why does it matter what software Andrew used specifically?
The animations could be created in Flash, Photoshop, After Effects, or any other number of applications with a timeline. Is your question "how did Andrew do it" or "how do you animate?"
Re: How to create videocopilot evolution animations from scratch by Adam Tworz on Feb 20, 2008 at 11:23:51 pm
the thing is that one can waste plenty of time using wrong tools, ie you can drive a screw with a knife but screwdriver is more clever choice in that case. so you can do animation in nplenty of ways even using windows paint and draw them frame by frame. so the question is what is most right tool to do them, let's call it professionals choice, or simple which tool Andrew used
Re: How to create videocopilot evolution animations from scratch by Jason Milligan on Feb 22, 2008 at 12:09:36 am
I'm not trying to facilitate an argument here, but this is a common misconception in art and digital art, "the right tool." The answer is the "right tool" is the tool that works best for you. A lot of people spend a lot of time trying to figure out what ideal toolset they need to make great things and never make anything. Meanwhile, some guy (or gal) with the "wrong toolkit" makes fantastic stuff.
Personally, I would use Flash to create the animation. That's because I'm comfortable in Flash and could do it rather quickly and effectively that way. I know other people who would probably build a layer sequence in Illustrator to accomplish this, or draw them on a light board and scan them into Photoshop. None of us would be right or wrong.
Do you own a piece of software you feel comfortable using that you can use to do this? If the answer is "yes," that is one of many "right tools."
By the way,
if I didn't own a screwdriver, I'd definitely use a butter knife to tighten a screw.
Re: How to create videocopilot evolution animations from scratch by Adam Tworz on Feb 22, 2008 at 11:32:23 pm
yes you're Jason, i totally get your point and i also use flash, but it is sometimes very frustrating let me give you example: scaling down stroke, so if you have some graphic of plenty stroke lines or even if you add stroke to letters (even that simple task is difficult to achieve in flash) and you scale it down it wont be looking good so first you try to convert this stokes to shapes and then in plenty of cases some of strokes will convert good but some of them get totally distorted. sure you can make it right in illustrator and then import back to flash but it get tiresome, other hands creating animation in illustrator using layers seems to be a little bit overkill so what i was looking for is some tool combining reliability of illustrator and easy going of flash
Re: How to create videocopilot evolution animations from scratch by Nate Hanson on Feb 22, 2008 at 5:09:41 pm
I was able to create one of those animated flourishes from scratch. I used Illustrator to design the flourish (there is a spiral tool that was helpful). I made the flourish white on a black background.
In After Effects, I imported the flourish image and used a stroke effect to "reveal original" so that the flourish animated into existence. It turned out pretty decent.
I was able to add a nice glow effect and make multiple copies of the animated flourish and the result looked similar to some of his Twister demonstrations. I think his were animated more smoothly, and I think his were a higher resolution...but mine didn't cost me a thing and I'm pretty sure I could improve mine if I tried again.
