Lights title reveal

Long time no see!

So, today I have finally set forth to create something fresh. I have followed a tutorial on glow and light effects here from Video Copilot.

This is a potential title for a friend's portfolio site. I animated it so it would loop. This way it can be fitted into a header or similar.

Expressions, particle effects and other awesome stuff

Wow I love this Tutorial (Video Copilot)! It's so cool.

http://www.videocopilot.net/tutorial/the_ring/

You can do so much more with expressions, than you could when fiddling around with keyframes.
This tutorial uses expressions, particle effects, optical flares and a lot of tint and colouring effects I didn't know about. When combined with the Trapcode Particular system and video copilots Optical Flares some of the steps in the tutorial can be omitted or created easier and even cooler effects can be achieved.

Offset Expression

This is a pretty cool tutorial on Video Copilot: http://www.videocopilot.net/tutorials/3d_offset/

By using a time remapping effect in combination with a slider control, several layers or compositions with  animations can be offset. This relieves hassles of rearranging layers and keyframes of each separate layer. This would have been handy to know before I did it manually for my latest project :P

Stars/particles form text

Amazing!! After two days of looking I think I finally found a way to make a night sky make text by sucking all the stars into one place, forming the type.

I am using the Trapcode Particular plug-in for the paritcle effects and this tutorial:

http://library.creativecow.net/articles/mylenium/particular_fae.php

Also if anyone is struggling with the Particular plug-in here are a few basic training tutorials that I have found (including one that might explain the stars to text):

http://www.youtube.com/user/creativecowofficial

Sun Flare

This is a video I created as part of my optical flares training for work. Trying to understand the Video Copilot Optical Flares plug-in.

I am using a series of layers with flares applied to them. The moon/planet is a flattened texture applied to a CC Sphere (perspective effect), creating a 3D effect.

Birthday Card

I have realised that I haven't been posting much since the end of uni so I decided to share my recent creative outburst. It's a birthday card I have made for a friend. Most of the artwork is mine, with a few exceptions.

I decided to go for a comic style. I don't think this was for a particular reason. The line on the front of the card "no chick-flick moments" is a quote from the TV show Supernatural and holds personal relevance, as do the images on the inside of the card. It was printed on A5 230gsm card. I created the front of the card completely after an inspiration I had found online.

The breasts are from a zombie cheerleader by Sam Gross, found here.

The controller I used was found on google here.

And the Voldemort image was taken from here.

Business Cards

These are my newest business card designs. I am putting a QR code on them linked to my www.sgreel.blogspot.com showreel page. I don't know if the code is not perhaps too small to scan. I will have to test print them before I am going to print them on cards. I want to use moo.com to get them printed, as I like the rounded edges. They are a bit more expansive as vistaprint, but it will looks nicer and to be honest I don't need 250 cards. I still have my last batch I received for free and it's outdated by now :/

click on images to enlarge

Showreel

I have been working hard on my final year honours project and barely had time to tend to my portfolio blog. I have, however, taken the time to create a personal showreel that can be found under www.sgreel.blogspot.com and a showreel for the Cinesite Internship application which can be found here www.vimeo.com/geracsso/cinesite. Both showreels feature my most recent work and are therefore quite similar but the Cinesite one concentrates on 3D modelling and animation whereas my personal showreel features more motion graphics pieces. I am aware that they are quite short but in my opinion short and snappy is better than dragging it out for the sake of having a long showreel.

The breakdown for the showreel can be found on the right hand link panel of my showreel page or directly under this link: Showreel Breakdown
It explains what I have worked on for each piece and showcases each video in full length in its original state (including audio etc.).

Motion Graphics

Here are some of the pieces that I created using After Effects. Some have a story behind them, some are just simple media tests to see what I can do with the software. In most cases I have followed tutorials on AE Tuts +, Video Copilot, Vimeo Video School or Computer Arts and added some personal touches. Creature Lightning is a completely original piece. If you want to find out more about the individual works, head over to my Honours Project Blog and have a look at my media testing posts: http://geracssohonours.blogspot.com/search/label/Media%20Tests

Soil Project (4) - Finished Product

The project has been finalised at the beginning of July, but I didn't have a chance to post the results since then. To understand the renders you might want to look at the matrix first. This is basically a table of the amount of each content, depending on the amount of the other contents. The height of the blocks symbolises the amount of that content in relation to the other contents.

Matrix

Image Gallery