Thunderdan's Motion Graphics

Sundance

2012-01-27T18:42:00.003-07:00

Last week Lime had a booth at Sundance which gave us the opportunity to market ourselves to filmmakers and others in attendance. For the event I was given the opportunity to make a video with several different title sequences to show off what we can do. Unfortunately I only had a week and a half to work on it but I think it turned out very nice. We took the theme from some obvious films which are well known and made new titles for them. They do not go any further than bringing in the title but it gives a good idea of the different directions we could go.

Branding, Tech and Marketing

2012-01-27T18:36:00.003-07:00

Lime decided to have us make some videos that could go up on our new website which would explane what we can do for our clients. These three videos are the result. This is what I was working on from mid November or so through the end of December.

Feel free to check out our website

Dead Drop

2012-01-27T18:28:00.000-07:00

This is a promo video for a game we are making for the iPhone. It looks like it should be a fun game. The video was sure fun to work on. It was great to get back into Maya and make the city. This video took a lot more compositing. It was a bit tricky to use the sketch textures to make the city have the look it does. I think the final result was worth it.

The List

2012-01-27T18:26:00.002-07:00

On the heals of our success with the Scan video (a few posts back) we got another client who wanted their own video with live action footage and graphics worked in to it. I had the chance once again to work on motion tracking and compositing graphics into the footage. Keep an eye out for the graphics I added, they're very subtle!

Ha, just kidding. Those billboards were not there to start with!

Connection Compass

2012-01-27T18:05:00.000-07:00

I guess it has been a while since my last post. Sometimes I have to wait a while before posting the projects I do at work. I tend to then get behind on what I can post. I worked on Connection Compass several months ago and is the first of many backlogged projects that I will be posting. One of the great things about this project was that I got to do do pretty much everything except design the logo and a few of the icons.
I started off creating an animation of the logo very similar to the way it looks at the end. Once that look and style was approved I drew up a quick story board for the full video. The full production took about 60 hours. I hadn't really ever tracked my hours before so it has been interesting since working at Lime to see how much or little goes into some of these videos. This particular video was a pretty quick one overall.

Ruta 2010 opener

2011-12-15T20:36:00.000-07:00

This is a project that has been in the works for over a year. A friend of mine from work shot a television show and wanted help with the graphics. The main part of that was the opening sequence. I haven't done too many full projects on my home computer and this one taxed it pretty far. The scene with all the houses going up the hill took a lot of processor power to render. I really like the finished product. I like the wall which adds a lot of texture. Without that texture I would have to add more detail to the individual assets which would have added a lot more work and render time.

Scan Video

2011-11-12T18:45:00.001-07:00

This was a really great project I got to work on at work a little while back. We have a great video team who shot some really nice footage. This was really the first spot that I can think of where I had the chance to add graphics in live action footage where the graphics needed to be part of the footage and not just over lays of information or titles similar to what I would do at BYU Broadcasting. I guess the Imagine spot (2 posts past) had some of that but it was a little different being all 3D that was integrated.

The biggest thing for me with this spot was the chance to learn Mocha. Almost each scene with graphics needed the footage to be motion tracked for the graphics to work with the scene. The movie trailer replacing the poster and the several iphone screen replacements utilized this a ton. My favorite part is the interactive magazine. That would be pretty cool to have. Also, QR codes are awesome. I liked them before working with scan so it fun a fun thing to work with. We have nearly finished a second video for Scan so keep an eye out.

Cinder & Ella

2011-11-02T22:08:00.000-06:00

Well this has been an ongoing project to say the least. Not that it means it was not a good experience but since I was working on it outside my normal job it didn't get as much attention. I had the opportunity to build this video from the ground up. All the graphics were drawn and designed in Photoshop while I did a lot of tweaking on them in After effects, which is where I did all the motion. I was going for a story book feel to the way the story is presented.
The subject for this video is a book that my cousin wrote. You can learn more about her and the book by visiting her blog.
http://lemoninkwell.blogspot.com/

This is Melissa's first published book and I am really excited for her.

Imagine Spot

2011-08-12T18:27:00.000-06:00

As I promised in my last post here is the "Imagine" sports spot I have been working on. This has probably been the most involved project for me to date. As you can see in my previous post, I had the opportunity to go to the Motion Picture Studio here in Provo for the shoot. That was a great experience. I gained a greater appreciation for the whole filming process. I also gained a greater appreciation for the post production process. I spent the last 3 weeks working with the footage that was shot to create the promo down below.
I keyed out the green screen and created the visual effects for this promo using After Effects and Maya.
Usually I work with footage that has already been color corrected but not this time. The task that took the longest for this spot was the 3D work in Maya. I created the whole back wall, curtains, bookcase and chair in maya. I used a spotlight in maya to project the football footage onto the wall and then rendered it out and composited it into the original footage with after effects.
I will say thank you to Micah for finishing the final edit before taking off for a couple of weeks. Also the sound engineers did a great job with the audio.
There are two videos below. The first is the final product. The second the the original edit without any graphics. It is basically where I started from. I have woven some of the final product in between to highlight the differences.There is no audio on the second video.

Final

Original

On a different note, today was my last day at BYU Broadcasting. It will be interesting to explore new avenues out there.

Cougars on the Loose!

2011-07-22T21:44:00.000-06:00

This is the second football spot I have worked on this summer. For this spot I got the chance to dust off some of my drawing skills. All of the graphics were drawn on a wacom tablet in photoshop, then put to motion in after effects. Other than the script and audio I pretty much did everything which doesn't always happen with these kind of spots. The pacing is certainly different than most sports spots. Cougars on the Loose is more mellow and more about reminding everyone that we are now independent in football. I had a great time working on it.

Coming up next is the third football spot. I am really excited for this spot because we got to have the video shot specifically for this promo at the Motion Picture Studio here in Provo (usually we have a big pile of pre_shot video from past games to choose from). We had some professional filmmakers do the shoot while a coworker and I will do all the post production work. My coworker will be doing all the 3d motion tracking and most of the keying (getting rid of the green screen so that it can be replaced with other stuff). I will be responsible for the 3d environment used to replace the green screen footage.

Below are some pictures from the shoot.

Media Day!

2011-07-12T22:27:00.000-06:00

So today was media day at BYU Broadcasting. It was a big deal for the whole independence thing with the football team. For the big event our department had to make several promos which were to air throughout the day. I think a couple aired before today as well. This means that a couple weeks ago it was really busy for me since there was not much advanced noticed that these promos needed to be done. So what you will see here are a mix of some which I had a little more time to work on and some that had to get finished quickly to make it on air.
These first two promos were made to highlight the event surrounding media day. They had to be created very quickly. They were both made in about two days. Thankfully our creative services team designed a very nice logo for media day and so that helped. Other than that I used a lot of footage we already had and the information is presented in a straightforward way.

The next video is the first in a series of promos I am helping to create to promote the new season of football coming this fall. I spent a lot more time on this and we just finished it up so it could air on media day. Look for more of these football spots to come. I am actually working on one now which will look like a motion comic (or something like that).

Next is a promo for our new website which is going live in the near future, byutvsports.com. It is very straightforward but it took a while to create all the videos (there are tons of duplicates if you look closely).

Finally, there is never a better time than a a day like media day to promote the Fall schedule. This spot is designed to show off three new shows premiering this fall on Byutv. I think that while I may not be drawn into a lot of the programing, the channel is coming a long way. The production value seems to be increasing and Byutv seems to be more open to branching out its programing to a broader audience. Hopefully this will continue.

Sports Sponsors

2011-06-17T23:46:00.003-06:00

Underwriting spot to get sponsors for BYU sports on Byutv. The first pass was made by a coworker and it looked really good. After he left for an internship it was realized that we couldn't use video or images of current athletes per NCAA regulations. We can use them to promote sporting events, just not specifically to get sponsors. It fell on me to redo the promo. Since most of our footage of past players was shot before we used HD I decided to get pictures from byu photo of past athletes. It is great because even though the images are old, they still look great and have more than enough resolution. I tried to come up with an interesting way to present the images since there is no motion inherent in them.

Temple Square!

2011-05-26T08:57:00.000-06:00

I have had the opportunity to create some underwriting spots for templesquarehospitality.com. There will be four of them all together. For these two, I put together the images entirely in photoshop using pictures from the client and creating the rest from textures I got off cgtextures.com. I seriously love that website. Once the image was ready with the pictures and text I brought the one large image into after effects. From there I added a vignette and camera with some depth of field and animated the image. I wanted the spot to feel as though the viewer was looking down at a table with the pictures randomly laid out across the table at a wedding or reception. I think it worked pretty well. The one problem I seem to continue to have with the depth of field is the banding that will sometimes occur when I get too close to an object.

Lion House

Joseph Smith Memorial Building

Gold and Silver

2011-04-19T15:58:00.000-06:00

Gold_Silver_Phone from Dan Brown on Vimeo.

I always chuckled at those commercials trying to get you to buy gold, well here is my version. Chuckle away.

Pandora's Hope

2011-04-03T18:46:00.002-06:00

This is an underwriting spot I made for a company which sells a router uniquely design to block pornography and ads. I spent quite a bit of time on it. One of the things which took a lot of time was the 3d elements. It takes a while to create 3d object in After Effects but I think the effort was worth it. Other than the logo and web browser, everything was created and animated in After Effects.If you are interested in the router the link below will take you to their website.

http://pandorashope.com/

Birthdays and Tournaments

2011-02-24T19:34:00.002-07:00

Kid's Club Birthday Spot

This was quite a different project for me. I was told they needed a new birthday spot and that it wasn't a huge priority so I worked on this project in between other promos that had higher priority. I wasn't given much direction on this spot either so I decided to try something I hadn't done before. All the graphics were created by myself right in after effects with the exception of the 11 logo at the end.

WCC Tournament Spot

For this promo I created the first half with the camera zooming towards the earth in after affects. The maps and clouds were put together in photoshop for that. A coworker of mine edited together the basketball footage along with the music. I used mostly existing elements at the end promo. Just had to make them move and dance around a little bit.

Latest promo!

2011-02-10T12:40:00.000-07:00

And the award goes to . . .

2010-11-25T11:00:00.001-07:00

This spot was made so that anytime KBYU wins any kind of award they can announce it on air quickly. I used Maya to create the wall and fireplace with the textures made in the hypershade and rendered with Maya as well as some help from a coworker on the lighting. The name of the award and video is interchangeable so that it can be updated quickly

It's that time of year for family, friends and . . .

2010-11-21T14:25:00.002-07:00

This was a really fun spot to work on. One of my coworkers created most of the graphics used while I created most of the motion. When we started this the inspiration behind it was the old 1966 Batman cartoon intro. I think it turned out a bit quirky and fun.

The christmas decorations come out earlier and earlier each year!

2010-11-06T09:24:00.004-06:00

I had a lot of fun with this promo. I created almost all the graphics and composition in photoshop first and then created the motion in After Effects.

Pencil Tests

2010-11-03T23:26:00.004-06:00

I was looking through some old files of pencil tests I did in school. I thought this was a fun way to put them together.

This semester's going fast . . .oh wait, I'm not in school anymore!

2010-11-02T17:23:00.004-06:00

It has been a fun month at work. I have had the chance to work on some fun projects. Below are two videos that I worked on. Thanks to a coworker for modeling the robot in the first video.

HD Transition Spot from Dan Brown on Vimeo.

Kyiv Temple Opening from Dan Brown on Vimeo.

Sneak Peek

2010-08-03T17:19:00.003-06:00

Sneak Peek Wrap-around from Dan Brown on Vimeo.

This is a wrap-around I created the graphics for. The first part is placed at the beginning of the sneak peek and the second part at the end of the sneak peek. I was really going for a fun texture with this one. The problem is that in standard definition, a lot of that texture is lost. I am having a lot of fun at work with motion graphics lately. It's nice to have the opportunity to be a little more creative.

kbyurewards.onebigplanet.com

2010-07-22T10:03:00.002-06:00

KBYU Online Rewards Program from Dan Brown on Vimeo.

Another promo I just finished working on.

More motion graphics from work!

2010-07-20T06:36:00.003-06:00

Promo for BYU TV Website from Dan Brown on Vimeo.

Promo for KBYU Website from Dan Brown on Vimeo.

Promo for The Food Nanny Web App from Dan Brown on Vimeo.

These are promos I created the motion graphics for at work. I used Photoshop to set up all the graphics and After Effects for the motion.

Rhino Texture

2010-04-05T17:11:00.006-06:00

Rhino Texture from Dan Brown on Vimeo.

Here is the Rhino texture I have been working on all semester. While there may be a few last minute tweaks this is pretty much finished. The render here is a little dark, I'll try to render out a new one to show it off better.

Monkey

2009-10-20T00:10:00.003-06:00

Monkey_turn_table from Dan Brown on Vimeo.

Here is a 3D model I am working on for our film. He is getting pretty close to being complete.

Rhino Texture

2009-09-01T20:47:00.003-06:00

Here is the Rhino texture I have been working on over the last month (when not at my job). There will most likely be a major overhaul on in in the near future but it has been a good experience to work on it.

End of Summer

2009-08-26T13:05:00.007-06:00

I've been able to work on some fun projects here at work this summer which have given me really good experience with After Effects and Final Cut Pro. One of the projects I have been working on is the next phase of getting to know BYU TV International which follows the cube videos that I posted just a little while back. These new promos introduce the viewers to BYU's campus through some very beautiful photographs I got the rights to use for this project from BYU Photo. I got enough to make at least 5 spots (maybe 6). Each spot has a theme such as "Seasons" or "Night Shots" to showcase the campus through a different lense. These 3 are pretty much complete with the exception that I may update the audio in the near future. The format of each is the same but the pictures are different.

Enjoy

Living Legends

2009-06-17T17:24:00.004-06:00

So this is another video I have been working on at work. Between programming on the various BYU Broadcasting channels there can be large gaps in which small fillers are be used to fill up the time. One of the ways in which this is done is to take a performance we already have filmed of one of the many groups at BYU and cut it apart into smaller segments which can be broadcast independently of one another. When this happens we create bookends which is an opening and closing video to slap on either end of the performance. These videos are the bookends for a Living Legends program that I am creating fillers out of for BYU TV International.

BYU TV International Somos "We are. . . "

2009-06-12T14:50:00.003-06:00

Working at BYU Broadcasting

2009-06-12T14:42:00.004-06:00

I am going to some of the stuff I have been working on at my job. I get to play with After effects and Final Cut Pro amongst other things. Enjoy!

Pink bunnies in Africa

2009-04-18T12:11:00.002-06:00

So I had to do a "Creative Assignment" for one of my classes which generally involves a 2-3 page write up. My TA gave us the option to create an image or something else rather than a paper if we wanted to. Uh lets see here . . . write a paper or play in Photoshop for a while. Right well it wasn't a hard decision. Since we had to keep with one of the themes we had been talking about in class I decided to use surrealism. I can't remember that I have ever attempted one before so it was an interesting experience with strange results. I decided to recreate a scene from the short animated film we are working on called Izzy. This is a scene where Izzy is giving us her interpretation of Africa, which involves cute little pink bunnies running around every where. Take that and throw in some surrealism and you have the image above.

Bushes!

2009-03-18T13:27:00.003-06:00

These are some tests of some bushes I have been working on for our class film.

Lots of Big Rocks

2009-01-30T21:55:00.003-07:00

So here are a number of rock shaders that I built over the last month for the current senor film. I didn't want to put each one up seperately so I waited until they were all done and made a little video to show them off. I didn't model the rocks or light them. I pulled the lights from the ones created for the film as well so you can see the colors that they should really be. Of course most of the time thee rocks will be blurred out in the background of the film.

Robot on a diving Board

2008-12-18T15:53:00.002-07:00

This is the final product of a semester long project to create a character from scratch and take it all the way through to animation.

Disc Brake

2008-12-02T14:39:00.003-07:00

Here is a shader I have been working on for a while now. I actually modeled this one as well. The first image is the color map I created to give the model its color and I created 3 other similar maps, one for the displacement and the other two for the specular (eccentricity and rolloff). The maps are created at 2048 x 2048 but will be reduced to 512 x 512 for the film.

Big Rock

2008-11-20T09:48:00.003-07:00

Here is a shader I worked on all Wednesday. I didn't model this rock but it was interesting to find some images to bring together to give it the look it needed. I am sure I will still need to touch it up a bit.

Crate Finished!

2008-10-29T21:48:00.003-06:00

I was able to finish the crate today and here is the final result. I pulled the saturation way down on the color of the wood so that it would have a much more weathered look (to fit with the aesthetics of the film). I also added some nails and the displacement map.

Shaders

2008-10-29T00:52:00.004-06:00

Since most of the models are done I am now working on shaders. This is a crate that another guy modeled and I am creating a shader for. I found some nice images of boards on the web and played around with them a bit and came up with this. Now I have to do a few other things like add some nails, give an older more "worn" look and create some compeling displacment for the model.

Some Models

2008-10-22T16:38:00.006-06:00

1-2: Disc Brake

3-4: Hub Cap
5-7: Small Rocks

Finished Lime

2008-10-15T18:52:00.001-06:00

Here is my finished lime. I've spent who knows how many hours on it and could spend that much more without being fully satisfied. I like it though and the process in creating the shader has taught me a lot about Renderman.

Robot shader

2008-10-14T22:38:00.003-06:00

Similar to the Lime in my last post this robot is far from finished. This is however a procedural texture I created in renderman.

In the Limelight!

2008-10-09T15:45:00.003-06:00

One of my classes this semester is a RenderMan Shading \ Programing class. For this assignment we had to create a photo realistic image of a fruit or vegetable. While I am not completely satisfied with my lime so far I feel like I need something to post and all the projects I am working on right now are taking some time. It surprised me how complex RenderMan is but also suprised at the things you can do with it once you get to know some of the tools. Once this is finished I'll post a turn table of it to show off the whole thing.

Robot Modeling

2008-09-24T17:22:00.002-06:00

Since the semester is in full swing there is a lot going on. This is a robot I am modeling for a class. Keep watching over the next couple months to see it textured and animated as part of my class. Everyone in class was given the same page with a front and side view of a robot and so while we started with the same design they are all very different.

Small Rocks

2008-09-19T15:07:00.003-06:00

So I just started working on the current senior film (which our class will be doing next year) and my first assignment is small rocks. There are large rocks, medium rocks and then there are small rocks. Next time you watch a computer animated film and you see the beautiful sets just remember that someone had to model and texture every single thing in it. The first part of this assignment is to sketch out some concept rocks and then they will be approved to begin modeling. These are the sketches I turned in and we'll see how it goes from here.

It has LAYERS!

2008-09-14T18:33:00.003-06:00

For our Shader class we had to draw out a fruit or vegetable which we plan on creating in Maya and ultimately coming up with a photo realistic render from renderman. I decided to use Photoshop since I wanted to practice my painting skills in that program. I really could have spent a lot more time but that wasn't much of an option. In terms of me using the tools to create the image I thought it went all right, in terms of really making it look like an onion, well..... maybe it's a new type?

Concept Design

2008-04-21T11:08:00.006-06:00

These are some images I created for a concept design assignment. This is my first try at concept design and I really enjoyed the challenge. There was a lot more work involved that I thought there would be and I learned some new tricks in photoshop.

New Animation!

2008-04-14T04:20:00.002-06:00

So this is my final project for both my 3-D animation and after effects classes. The 3-D part of it took a long time and therefore is pretty short where as the rest took time but not nearly as much. I've learned quite a bit in both classes and it's exiting to look back after a year in the program and see how much I have learned.

Explosion

2008-03-13T14:23:00.002-06:00

This is the second part of the assignment. The main criticism I received was that the plume of smoke was to symmetrical. I agree and will keep that in mind for future projects.

A flame to Remember

2008-03-11T12:35:00.002-06:00

This is an animation I did for a Technical Director project. The flame loops so I looped it 3 times here to demonstrate what it should look like.

Dynamics

2008-02-21T00:37:00.002-07:00

We have been getting into dynamics in Maya this week and here is a quick shot at some balls rolling down a ramp.

Jack in the Box

2008-01-30T10:42:00.000-07:00

Here is my first attemp at a keyframe animation using Maya 2008! Enjoy.

Fun with photos!

2008-01-23T16:46:00.000-07:00

Here are a couple images I created using my new Wacom tablet and a couple photos. Just having some fun and experimenting a little.

My roomates and I

My brother and sister

Insect

2007-12-11T17:36:00.000-07:00

I am glad to see this project wrapped up. The insect assignment is the big project for sophomores in the animation program here at BYU. Along with showing off the final images that I came up with I will post some of the images that were created along the way to demonstrate the evolution of my insect.

So here is the concept drawing that I drew to give me direction while creating my insect in Maya. I thought that it was a fun design. I was really excited about creating the Armadillo style plates on the back. I envisioned the insect in mid jump.

So here is a profile shot of my insect after I had completed the modeling, thrown some textures on and created some large blades of grass for the backdrop. While much of the original concept can be seen in this shot quite a bit has changed as well. One of the first things I changes were the limbs. I actually modeled out the arms and fingers very similar to the way they are represented in the concept image. I decided that I wanted to go more with a "crawler" feel to the insect rather than a quick jumping little guy. I actually just took the hand that I had modeled and copied it several times to make those creepy little legs. I also disliked the way the head looked with the way the body turned out so I decided to make the head more of an extension of the plated body. The little tentacles at the mouth opening help to give the insect a very creepy feel. Here you can see some initial bump maps and color maps. I used the bump map to add additional sections to the plating on the back and scales to the underbelly. I also stated throwing some colors onto the objects to decide on a color scheme.

This image really starts to show off the lighting I intend to use. I always get excited when I render out shadows. They can really add a lot to an image. I also took my bump map and color map into Photoshop and merged them so that while my bump map remained the same the color map darkened and lightened closer to the way the bump map looked. This gives more contrast to the plating. This also shows how horrible the plating on the head looks which really bothered me. I modeled some twigs so that the little insect would have something to hold onto.

Now I really got excited with this rendering of the insect. My biggest problem up to this point was that I didn't have a very good texture for the shell. I liked the way it looked in terms of shape but not so much the feel of the material itself. While I was trying to create a texture for the end of the tail (the blue part) I found one that I thought would work great on the plating. I really think it works out. I also changed the material from a Lambert to a Blinn shader and reduced the reflectivity to zero which gives it a lot more highlight and pulls the insect out from the background. I also fixed the problem with the head plating by redesigning it so that it fits better with the overall mood of the design. Another big step I took to create a better image is that I utilized depth of field to really help the insect to be the focal point.

So here is first image I am turning in. There were a few more things that I did to make the image more readable. First off I re-colored and texured the legs to be more in line with the plating rather than the belly This really makes them more visible and the viewer has a better idea of what is going on. The second thing I did was reframed the insect a little so that the branch in the left hand corner would not be there and it would therefore not distract the eyes away from the insect.

This is the second image I will turn in for the assignment. I really liked the way the plating turned out and so this shows that off better. Below is a closer look at the plating and the bump map texture.

My Teapot

2007-10-20T16:46:00.001-06:00

I am pleased to post my first blog. I guess a teapot is the quintessential first assignment and so here is my teapot.