Get the fantastic Making It Look Great training series as downloads! The popular and proven Making It Look Great video workshop series has been designed to answer that question. Throughout these in-depth DVD workshops, professional motion graphics designers demonstrate techniques essential to their daily work and give the design decisions and rationale that support them.
The featured projects are demonstrated step-by-step from start to finish, giving priceless insight into what it takes to design and produce professional broadcast motion graphics.
Making It Look Great 1 with John Dickinson has been available as a download at Toolfarm for a while. Design and Production Techniques for Adobe After Effects and Zaxwerks ProAnimator.
Making it Look Great 2 with Alan Shisko - Design and Production Techniques for Adobe After Effects and Zaxwerks 3D Invigorator Pro.
Making It Look Great 3 with Harry J. Frank - Design and Production Techniques for Adobe After Effects, Zaxwerks 3D Invigorator Pro, Trapcode Particular and Trapcode Form.
Making It Look Great 4 with John Dickinson - Design and Production Techniques for Adobe After Effects, Zaxwerks ProAnimator and Zaxwerks 3D Flag
So why would you want a download, instead of a DVD? Here are a few reasons:
No wait for shipping
No shipping costs, which is especially great to our international customers who can get hit with large shipping costs
Zaxwerks ProAnimator FX is a new plug-in version of the award-winning ProAnimator software which runs directly inside of Final Cut Pro and Motion. Finally Final Cut and Motion users can create true 3-dimensional title and logo animations while working inside of their favorite program!
ProAnimator FX is just as easy to use as the original ProAnimator. The timeline looks like you are editing video more than it looks like you are setting keyframes. Animations are a snap to create and it comes with dozens of presets to get you started.
Buy Maxon CINEMA 4D R10.5 (core) and get the Cinema 4D Module of your choice for just $1,195. The choice of Add-on Modules includes:
Net Render, Unlimited
Advanced Render w/Pyrocluster
MOCCA
Thinking Particles
Dynamics
Hair
Sketch & Toon
MoGraph
This offer expires Monday, June 30th, 2008.
The sale has been very popular so we've decided to extend it by 10 days! Save big on Zaxwerks products through Monday, June 30, 2008.
Bundles
ProAnimator Bundle: Regular price: $1020, Summer Special: $875 (Includes: ProAnimator, 3D Flag for AE, Werks vol. 1 for AE (set of 3 plugins), 3D Warps for AE, Layer Tools for AE, and Reflector for AE)
Pro Invigorator for AE Bundle: Regular price: $820, Summer Special: $720 (Includes: Pro Invigorator for AE, 3D Flag for AE, Werks vol. 1 for AE (set of 3 plugins), 3D Warps for AE, Layer Tools for AE, and Reflector for AE)
Designer Bundle: Regular Price: $540, Summer Special: $465 (Includes: 3D Flag for AE, Werks vol. 1 for AE (set of 3 plugins), 3D Warps for AE, Layer Tools for AE, and Reflector for AE)
Single Units
ProAnimator: Regular Price $695, Summer Special $495
ProModeler: Regular Price $295, Summer Special $229
Pro Invigorator for After Effects: Regular Price $399, Summer Special $275
Classic Invigorator for After Effects: Regular Price $24,9 Summer Special $195
3D Flag for After Effects: Regular Price $129, Summer Special $89
3D Flag for Motion: Regular Price $129, Summer Special $89
Stackwerks for Motion: Regular Price $169 Summer Special $99
3D Flag for Premiere Pro: Regular Price $129, Summer Special $89
Reflector for After Effects: Regular Price $99, Summer Special $79
Layer Tools for After Effects: Regular Price $149, Summer Special $109
Werks Vol. 1 for After Effects: Regular Price $199, Summer Special $139
3D Warps for After Effects: Regular Price $199, Summer Special $139
The sale has been very popular so we've decided to extend it by 10 days! Save big on Zaxwerks products through Monday, June 30, 2008.
Bundles
ProAnimator Bundle: Regular price: $1020, Summer Special: $875 (Includes: ProAnimator, 3D Flag for AE, Werks vol. 1 for AE (set of 3 plugins), 3D Warps for AE, Layer Tools for AE, and Reflector for AE)
Pro Invigorator for AE Bundle: Regular price: $820, Summer Special: $720 (Includes: Pro Invigorator for AE, 3D Flag for AE, Werks vol. 1 for AE (set of 3 plugins), 3D Warps for AE, Layer Tools for AE, and Reflector for AE)
Designer Bundle: Regular Price: $540, Summer Special: $465 (Includes: 3D Flag for AE, Werks vol. 1 for AE (set of 3 plugins), 3D Warps for AE, Layer Tools for AE, and Reflector for AE)
Single Units
ProAnimator: Regular Price $695, Summer Special $495
ProModeler: Regular Price $295, Summer Special $229
Pro Invigorator for After Effects: Regular Price $399, Summer Special $275
Classic Invigorator for After Effects: Regular Price $24,9 Summer Special $195
3D Flag for After Effects: Regular Price $129, Summer Special $89
3D Flag for Motion: Regular Price $129, Summer Special $89
Stackwerks for Motion: Regular Price $169 Summer Special $99
3D Flag for Premiere Pro: Regular Price $129, Summer Special $89
Reflector for After Effects: Regular Price $99, Summer Special $79
Layer Tools for After Effects: Regular Price $149, Summer Special $109
Werks Vol. 1 for After Effects: Regular Price $199, Summer Special $139
3D Warps for After Effects: Regular Price $199, Summer Special $139
I was invited to the June Motion Picture Collective Meeting on plug-ins. It was held at Pratt Institute in New York City.
I got there about 45 minutes early and there was no one there! After about 30 minutes I started to worry that I came to the wrong place. As I was walking around I ran into Wes Plate of Automatic Duck. We chatted for a bit and then people started to roll in.
The pizza, sponsored by Sony, was incredible. Seriously, some of the best I've ever had. I had some veggie concoction, but Michael Vitti, head of MoPic Collective told me they also had some Cajun Shrimp pizza, but they only ordered one pie. Sounds fantastic!
The meeting started with an introduction and then Frank Garfi and Marc Fratto talked about their film Zombies Anonymous. Two words: Gratuitous violence. Their talk was pretty interesting though. They've taken the zombie story and flipped it around, making it a statement about how Arabs were treated after 9-11.
After that, Juan Martinez and Andrew Shipsides talked about Sony's EX Cameras.
Wes Plate from Automatic Duck came up and presented his products. Since there were so many editors in the audience, there was a lot of interest in his FCP products, especially.
My turn. Right before the show began, we were told we have an extra 15 minutes to fill. My presentation was planned to be exactly 20 minutes! Haha. I began asking the audience some questions about editing technique vs. software knowledge and then talked about Toolfarm. I presented Boris Continuum Complete and as usual, people are blown away by the Motion Key filter. I also had quite a bit of interest in the BCC Pan & Zoom filter which gives the Ken Burns style effect. I had a bit of time at the end, so I quickly showed Red Giant's Primatte Keyer, since keying seems to be a hot topic lately.
Next Michael Vitti showed Zaxwerks ProAnimator, then Jason Diamond showed Red Giant Magic Bullet Looks, which is always a crowd pleaser. I can't help but think that Zombies Anonymous could have benefited from a touch of Looks! Jason did a great job of presenting Looks and demo'd with some footage from a music video he had recently finished.
They also had an auction that night with tons of stuff.
Anyway, it was a good meeting and it was fun to get to New York City again. Thanks Michael Vitti for the invitation and the shirt. I love free shirts! It was great to see everyone in NYC, especially my old buddy Jim G. of the Toolfarm Expert Forum and Chris Tack, one of my former students who headed out to NYC after graduation. I also met quite a few new people from the NYC area. I saw Mario Lopez at a hot dog stand too! He's buff!
ProAnimator Bundle: Regular price: $1020, Summer Special: $875 (Includes: ProAnimator, 3D Flag for AE, Werks vol. 1 for AE (set of 3 plugins), 3D Warps for AE, Layer Tools for AE, and Reflector for AE)
Pro Invigorator for AE Bundle: Regular price: $820, Summer Special: $720 (Includes: Pro Invigorator for AE, 3D Flag for AE, Werks vol. 1 for AE (set of 3 plugins), 3D Warps for AE, Layer Tools for AE, and Reflector for AE)
Designer Bundle: Regular Price: $540, Summer Special: $465 (Includes: 3D Flag for AE, Werks vol. 1 for AE (set of 3 plugins), 3D Warps for AE, Layer Tools for AE, and Reflector for AE)
Single Units
ProAnimator: Regular Price $695, Summer Special $495
ProModeler: Regular Price $295, Summer Special $229
Pro Invigorator for After Effects: Regular Price $399, Summer Special $275
Classic Invigorator for After Effects: Regular Price $24,9 Summer Special $195
3D Flag for After Effects: Regular Price $129, Summer Special $89
3D Flag for Motion: Regular Price $129, Summer Special $89
Stackwerks for Motion: Regular Price $169 Summer Special $99
3D Flag for Premiere Pro: Regular Price $129, Summer Special $89
Reflector for After Effects: Regular Price $99, Summer Special $79
Layer Tools for After Effects: Regular Price $149, Summer Special $109
Werks Vol. 1 for After Effects: Regular Price $199, Summer Special $139
3D Warps for After Effects: Regular Price $199, Summer Special $139
Well, the votes are tallied and Trapcode Form is the big winner of the Best New After Effect Plug-in of 2007. Only brand new plug-ins that were released in 2007 qualified, not new versions of older plug-ins. Red Giant Magic Bullet Looks and Zaxwerks Reflector ran a close race.
Zaxwerks ProAnimator Training: Making it Look Great 1 is currently the most popular product in our store. John Dickinson, everyone's favorite Aussie trainer, has created a new training clip that shows you how to work with Zaxwerks ProAnimator and 3D Invigorator Pro.
Zaxwerks ProAnimator Training: Making it Look Great 1 is here! In this in-depth video workshop, look over senior broadcast designer and After Effects expert John Dickinson's shoulder as he guides you step-by-step through real-world techniques for creating an impactful broadcast motion graphics promotion.
Throughout the lessons John not only demonstrates techniques he uses in his work as a broadcast designer, but also discusses many of the design decisions behind the techniques.
After Effects can do so much, but you couldn't do reflections easily. Until now. Use Zaxwerks Reflector to quickly enhance your scene with reflective surfaces. It's as easy as picking a surface (a floor, a wall, a ceiling) and applying the Reflector effect. One additional click will update your scene for reflections. Reflector will work with 3D text, pictures, and movies. Most effects in your scene will be reflected as well. Need a mirror? Use Reflector. Want to simulate a hard wood floor? Use Reflector.
What is the real difference between ProAnimator and 3D Invigorator Pro?
... So I sent an email to Zax to really help us all learn!
Zax says:
In a nutshell the difference is that ProAnimator includes some very advanced tools that help you create animations much faster and much easier than if you used Invigorator Pro with AE's standard keyframing techniques.
With ProAnimator you can create very complicated animations in minutes. If you used AE's keyframes it would take you hours and hours of tedious labor to do what ProAnimator can do in a few clicks. ProAnimator frees a designer from the technicalities of keyframe-wrangling. It plays the animation in real-time and you can make changes while the animation is still playing. As a result you can change-change-change the animation until you get exactly the motion you want, modifying the equivalent of hundreds of keyframes with just a few clicks.
Standard keyframing is similar to building a house out of toothpicks. Everybody tries to build a big house once. But after that you start scaling back your ideas to fit the amount of time you have to work in and the amount of trouble you want to cause for yourself. ProAnimator helps you take the lid off your ideas. You can start thinking of big ideas again and ProAnimator will let you do them quickly and easily. If keyframing is like building a house out of toothpicks, ProAnimator is almost like having a magic genie which will do what you command.
John Dickinson has done some training for Toolfarm's Expert Training Series and has a new series coming out very soon called "Making it Look Great 1: Design and Production Techniques for Adobe After Effects and Zaxwerks ProAnimator". It's the world's only ProAnimator video training. Don't worry, we will announce it as soon as it's ready. I can tell you that it will be available on DVD or as a download, which is great for those of you who are not in the US. Save a lot on shipping! We will break it down into chunks for easy downloading because it's a LOT of training content. It will be incredible. John is a talented trainer. Don't believe me? Think I'm just trying to sell you on it? Watch the promo.
Update: It will sell for $49.95 and is slightly over 2 hours of training.
Jim Geduldick, another of our awesome Forum Experts, and I were IMing this morning. He told me that John's eSeminar was really informative and John did an incredible job. Also, the attendees got 4 hours for the price of 2!
Motionworks' first online seminar "The Doom Promo" will be held on July 14th. This will be the first in a series of live e-seminars presented by Motionworks in association with Zaxwerks, where you will get detailed insight into how John designs and creates various broadcast motion graphic projects. This session will focus on techniques for Zaxwerks ProAnimator and include tips on how to integrate your 3D logos and text with After Effects layers using plug-ins such as Knoll Light Factory and Trapcode Shine. Places are limited so register soon.
Ever needed to make some fabric move realistically in the wind? Zaxwerks 3D Flag is just the tool you need!
I'll walk you through making a T-shirt Blowing on a Clothes Line in the wind in this Toolfarm exclusive tutorial. I use three still images, 3D Flag and a camera to create this clip that looks as if it was shot over the canals of Venice. This tutorial was done with Adobe After Effects 7.0, but you could also recreate this with Apple Motion 3.
Check out the tutorial now!. A free demo of Zaxwerks 3D Flag is available if you don't own it. It's a great little plug-in.
From Zaxwerks blog: If anyone has a current version of any Zaxwerks plug-in that they would like to get running on the Mac under CS3, here are the links. These plug-ins will run in AE 6.5, 7 and CS3. Most of these links are MAC ONLY because only the Mac versions were changed for CS3. The currently shipping Windows versions work fine in CS3 on Windows. The only exception is Layer Tools which had to be changed from a floating window, into a panel for CS3. So there is a Windows and a Mac version of Layer Tools.
The Zaxwerks 3D Warps package contains two powerful plug-ins: 3D Layer Warp and 3D Grid Warp.
3D Layer Warp lets you take exising Adobe After Effects layers and deform them in many ways. Twist them along any axis. Bend a layer around itself. Add arbitrary dimension with a displacement map.
3D Grid Warp provides the same warping controls as 3D Layer Warp in addition to a crisp grid generator. Select your grid style and set your line colors. Animate the lines and the warping parameters to create fantastic backgrounds for your motion graphics.
Advanced material, lighting, and camera controls allow you to create dramatic scenes with ease.
Keith and Alan recorded the podcast live at NAB.... and it's a HUGE Triliogy of HOT shows!
Podcast 2 recorded at the Toolfarm Party on Sunday night at the MGM Grand
Exclusive interviews with the tops in the industry including Paul Babb, President of Maxon (Cinema 4D), Zax Dow of Zaxwerks, Christoph Vonhreim of CHV-Electronics, Debbie Rich of Digital Anarchy, John Dickinson of Motionworks, Niclas Bahn of Noise Industries, and Jason Sharp, President of Toolfarm.
Podcast 3: Live Interviews at the IMUG Media Motion Ball
Interviews Chris & Trish Meyer, Rob Birnholtz from Absolute Motion Graphics, Wes Plate of Automatic Duck, Frank Capria of Xprove, Brian Maffitt of Total Training.
Podcast 4: Interviews from The Promax Digital Cafe at the Empire Ball Room
Exclusive interviews with Carey Dissmore of IMUG, Phil Hodgetts of the Digital Production Buzz Podcast, Barbara Dehart of Telestream, Jason Levine Sr. Worldwide Evangelist of Adobe Systems or something like that... a really long title, and Dan Hatch of ProMax.
There are two ways to listen to the podcasts in iTunes:
Well, it was a long and wonderful week at NAB. I worked on the show floor at the Apple booth. I had a primo spot on the corner of the massive booth, right in the center of all the traffic. Look, I made Apple.com!. (Photo courtesy of Apple.com).
At the Apple booth, I demo'd FxPlug Plug-ins for Motion and Final Cut Pro. I was using a lot of beta plug-ins on Motion 3, which is in beta. Oh, boy.... Motion 3! Now this product is something to get excited about! I've always been an After Effects evangelist, but Motion 3 is going to give AE a run for it's money. I don't think it will replace AE by any means, but let's just say that there is a new kid in town who can play previews real-time, intuitive 3D, mind-blowing tracking and matching (using Shake technology) and has an incredible number of plug-ins that are out or coming out soon for it. I have to admit that I've never really given Motion the chance it deserves, but it ROCKS. I admit, I love it. I'm a convert.
I plan to review some of the plug-ins that I demo'd in the next week or so. I am completely impressed with CHV-Electronics plug-ins. They play real-time and are extremely versatile. A lot of the developers stopped by my station throughout the week. I saw a lot of Christoph Vonhrein, of CHV. He demo'd his plug-ins and really was able to show me the cool things that they can do. They do some mind-boggling effects... with real-time previews. These are probably my favorite FxPlug plug-ins. I had so much fun with them.
The Noise Industries FxFactory also impresses me. Noise Industries took the 2007 Videography Vidy Awards at NAB. Yes, they're that good. If you're using Motion or Final Cut Pro, YOU NEED BOTH CHV plug-ins and FxFactory. It takes a lot to impress me... really it does. I'll get some samples up soon. I highly recommend both plug-in developers products. They're inexpensive and fast!
I showed Trapcode FxPlug betas of Shine, Starglow and 3D Stroke and on a beta of Motion 3. They are basically the same plug-in as their AE counterpart. They are CPU accelerated, as opposed to GPU accelerated like most FxPlug plug-ins, so they were running about 8 frames per second for previews on the dual Intel processor I was running (it had 8gb ram and an ATI Radeon 1900 card). Not real-time but pretty fast. They brought lots of oohs and aahs.Trapcode 3D Stroke in FxPlug is a little different than the AE version. There are no paths in FCP, so they have a work around. There are a ton of preset shapes, plus, Sean Safreed from Red Giant told me that the trick is to save an SVG file (vector file) and drop it into the FxPlug folder. It will then show up in the drop down menu. I didn't try this, of course, because I didn't have Illustrator installed, but it sounded pretty straight forward. The Trapcode plug-ins will ship in a month, when Final Cut Studio Ships.
Zaxwerks 3D Flag was running real-time previews in Motion 3 and people were really impressed with it. I've made curtains and clothes hanging on a clothesline with it. It's also inexpensive and has a good track record, so it's a great tool for the old Final Cut Studio arsenal.
On Wednesday morning of the show, Boris Yaminsky of Boris FX comes up to me and was asking me about their Boris Continuum Complete 5.0 FxPlug plug-ins, which I didn't have on my machine. He comes back 10 minutes later with a drive and gives me a personal 20 minute demo of some of their plug-ins. They're really pretty fast and ran well in Motion 3. They were not quite realtime, but ran about 10-12 frames per second in previews. Not too shabby. They have a really nice keyer. I didn't have the full set, only about 20 of the 180 or so plug-ins that will be shipping, but what I saw was very cool stuff indeed.
I showed DV Matte Blast from DvGarage, which Toolfarm doesn't sell, unfortuately. It's very fast... real-time! However, it doesn't have a lot of the bells and whistles of a more robust keyer. It does what it does well, but if you're looking for something with a light wrap, matte choker and so on, the Boris Continuum Complete Keyer was a really nice keyer. It got in nice and tight around hair and fingers on moving footage.
Another plug-in I didn't have was ToonIt! from Digital Anarchy. Marco from DA came over to my booth and installed it and gave me a quick tour and It totally gives the look of those Charles Schwab commercials. It does run really slowly, but it analyzes pixel by pixel so it's doing a lot of work. Also, it's still in beta, as is Motion 3. The look is perfect. They've got that nailed. I was using the ToonIt! Roto plug-in on some Ducati footage from Apple and it was impressive to say the least. Slow, but impressive. If you've tried to create this look on your own, it's not an easy task. I think ToonIt! is going to do very well in the plug-in marketplace.
Also, Marco from DA gave me a behind the scenes look at the Quartz Compositor and programming that goes into Plasma FX. That was really interesting. I had no idea what goes into the programming of plug-ins. I also had DA Plasma FX on my box, but unfortunately there was an old build installed, not to mention a beta of Motion 3 and things were not working as well as I would've liked.
The CHV, Noise Industries plug-ins and Zaxwerks 3D Flag are available now. The Boris, Red Giant, Trapcode, and Digital Anarchy plug-ins are shipping in a month or so.
Final Cut Server also took a few awards - Television Broadcast Top Innovation Award, Television Broadcast Top Innovation Award and the DV Black Diamond Award. I was so surprised to find out how many people are migrating from their Avids and are going to get Final Cut Server in their post houses.
They didn't show Shake there and several people asked me if Shake was EOL. Word on the street is that in 2008 a new version of Shake is going to blow all of our minds. Hold tight on that one.
Adobe Photoshop CS3 Extended also won a Television Broadcast Top Innovation Award and a 2007 Videography Vidy Award and Adobe Soundbooth CS3 took a DV Black Diamond Award. Unfortunately, I didn't get to check out much of the Adobe stuff. I was at the Apple booth for the entire show. I did manage to see an hour long demo of the new features in AE CS3 and saw some great new features. The vanishing point feature looks really swell. The Beta of AE CS3 is now available here.
No, I didn't see the RED Camera, but there was so much buzz surrounding it. Everybody wants some.
I'll get some photos of the show, the parties and the people I met up this week. Our Podcast guys, Keith and Alan, did a knockout job and got interviews with Chris and Trish Meyer, Brian Maffitt, and so many other well known people in our little industry. They did the interviews at parties in the evening so everyone is relaxed and having fun. Keith played the Chris and Trish Meyer interview at the airport and it's a hoot. That Trish really dished it to Alan. I expect them to be up by Monday, after we've all had a chance to recover. Keith and Alan and I all flew out at 1am on the red eye last night. Alan and I were actually on the same flight. Anyway, I am totally looking forward to these podcasts from NAB.
yesAlan Shisko demos the new Zaxwerks plug-ins 3D Layer Warp. He gives a general tour of how it works. I need it! It looks so cool! He points out the good points and the problem points of the plug-in, so it's an unbiased opinion, which is great to hear. Alan has a really good delivery. I sat next to Alan at the Media Motion Ball last year. He's a really nice guy.
Zaxwerks Layer Tools is an exciting set of plug-ins that enables the motion graphics artist to do things to 3D layers that are usually very difficult and time consuming.
Layer Tools solves the problems facing Photoshop users who try to turn their Photoshop layers into 3D only to have the design fall apart due to perspective.
Layer Tools solves the problems faced by motion graphic artists who need to create perfect match-frames between 3D animation and 2D movie footage.
Layer Tools enables you to rotate, move and scale many layers at once with an ease and flexibility that hasn't been available before.
It looks very cool and I can't wait to try it out! There are images and in-depth information in our Plug-in Finder.
Zaxwerks ProAnimator 4.1.0 has just been released, and incorporates many changes and bug fixes that affect both the Mac and the PC user. ProAnimator is now a Universal application, so for those of you running Intel based Macs, you can now run ProAnimator natively on those Macs.
The 4.1 version is a FREE update to anyone who already owns version 4.0 of ProAnimator.
After that, Juan Martinez and Andrew Shipsides talked about Sony's EX Cameras.
Next Michael Vitti showed 
Well, the votes are tallied and 
