omino pixel blog

pixels, motion, and scripting
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recent posts
AE: Projecting a Movie Onto a Complex Surface
// Sat 2009.05.23 23:31 // {after effects pixel bender}// [ ]

This is a rendering simulating an image projected onto a simple 3d scene. There’s nothing too exotic about it, except that the projection was done in 2d, in After Effects.
And… here’s a moving sequence of the same scene. With old family movies.

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AE: Fake Spotlights
// Sat 2009.04.18 17:04 // {after effects}// [ ]

Here’s another variation on additive lighting tricks…
This one is a little experiment using After Effects’ spotlights on still images which have been rendered with similarly-located light sources.
Here’s one of the several still images.

And here’s a short movie showin a little more of the procedure, and some results.

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Snagging Video from Home Dvd’s
// Tue 2009.04.7 21:05 // {qt_tools}// [ ]

My dad recently transferred all his (our!) old 8mm movie reels to dvd. We’re talking 1957 to 1972 for this first batch. He sent me copies, three dvd’s worth.
It was pretty painless; he used yesvideo.com, which distributes through Costco. I think the pickup and delivery was at Costco. Quality seems a bit blurry, but maybe [...]

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houdini
// Sat 2009.04.4 10:49 // {houdini}// [ ]

Lately been trying 3d apps, looking for my next toy.

Quick recap of 3d software that I’ve used or recently tried:
LightWave. Fluent. This app has everything except proper instancing. Crufty bizarro-world interface… and yet, gets the job done. Expressions and scripting available.
modo. Fluent. Smooth as silk. Clean and modern UI. Like lightwave, but from this universe, [...]

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AE: Compositing Lights
// Wed 2009.04.1 07:21 // {after effects}// [ ]

Long, long ago I saw an article or talk by Paul Haeberli, of SGI. Oh, he covered many interesting and clever graphics tricks. One of them was the idea of “synthetic lighting”, or, “doing lighting in post”.
He has a page about it, here.
The idea is pretty simple. If you have images (or animations) of individual [...]

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AE: A Stupid Text-Control Trick
// Tue 2009.03.17 00:27 // {after effects}// [ ]

Here’s a little movie that demonstrates a text track being used to “trigger” the opacity of another track.

one-part.mov

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AE CS4: Pixel Bender Quick Notes
// Sat 2009.03.14 14:20 // {after effects pixel bender}// [ ]

Here are some super short notes about using Pixel Bender inside of After Effects CS4. This post is just another dicing of the available info culled from the After Effects help, and the Pixel Bender Developer Guide.
But it’s the stuff that I most needed to get started, as well as a handy copy-and-paste source for [...]

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After Effects CS4: Ultrabrief First Impressions
// Fri 2009.03.13 22:15 // {after effects}// []

Joy!
I finally have returned from several months away, back into the usual routine. My fresh copy of After Effects CS4 was waiting! (Thanks so much, you know who you are!)
Verrrry brief first impressions.
Darker, Darker
I love how each successive version is a bit darker, more mysterious looking. It’s just like Luke Skywalker, remember how in the [...]

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AE Feature Request (Dear Adobe)
// Sun 2009.01.11 02:00 // {after effects}// [ ]

Update: Dear Adobe — please acquire and incorporate ObviousFX’s Copy Image plugin as part of After Effects proper.
The plugin, available for Mac and Windows, adds an Edit menu item, Copy Image, which copies the current composition image to the clipboard.
Thanks, ObviousFX and thanks, Rich, for pointing it out for me. Great stuff.

Original post:
Hopefully, someone will [...]

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AE: A Snowflake
// Sat 2008.12.27 10:05 // {after effects extendscript}// [ ]

download snowflakeSteps.aep
Featuring: Bevel Alpha, omino kaleidoscope, and animated paths.
Sounds like the USA has had a heck of a Christmas weather run! Folks taking their vacations on airport waiting benches, and so forth. In particular, Seattle, home to After Effects. Where I am, it’s 7:33 pm, and I’ve just returned, sweating, from a nice bowl of [...]

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