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Archive for April, 2010

Working with Shadows Tutorial

Friday, April 9th, 2010

In this tutorial, we’re going to go over all the details of working with shadows. If you ever wondered about how to get shadows to work with your 3D objects, what settings to use, or how to speed up your projects, you’ll want to watch this video tutorial and find out!

Topics discussed:

• Creating a floor to set up the shadows in 3D Serpentine, 3D Warps, and 3D Invigorator.

• Creating a Light, and positioning it correctly.

• Working with Light Intensity, Shadow Darkness, and Shadow Diffusion.

• Setting up the Shadow Quality and Shadow Catcher.

• Optimizing the setup in After Effects for faster previews.

• Setting up lights in 3D Invigorator and working with Shadow Catcher materials.

Click on the image above, or the link below to watch the video tutorial.

Click to watch the Working with Shadows Tutorial

Posted in 3D Flag, 3D Invigorator Pro, 3D Serpentine, 3D Warps, General, ProAnimator, Tips, Tutorials | No Comments »

Around The World In 30 Seconds

Friday, April 9th, 2010

Jay Spring is the Director of After Sales Service for Citizen’s Watch Corporation, in charge of the repairs and technical support for the US. One of his duties is to create training videos for the sales and support departments. The purpose of these videos is to instruct Citizen’s resellers on how to customize and fix their watches. When he was given this duty Jay started looking for new ways to make his training videos more interesting and professional.

“I started learning After Effects two years ago. I was really interested in creating 3D objects but my focus was on learning After Effects and not learning an additional 3D program. I checked out Creative Cow’s forums and found that 3D Invigorator seemed to be a favorite among many professionals, so I decided to give it a try. I purchased it to use at home and was so amazed by what I could do I convinced my company to buy ProAnimator. After a slight learning curve I was animating objects like screwdrivers, hammers and tweezers like there was no tomorrow. Even my wife thought what I was doing was cool!”

“The products were so easy to learn that I’ve had very little interaction with the manuals. I am not the type of person that reads through the manual, even though I should, but I am thrilled that even a 51 year old can learn how to use them.”

Although Jay still considers himself an After Effects newbie, Zaxwerks products have given him enough features to get great results but not so many that his work becomes overwhelming. Recently he was asked to do a new training video which required the help of 3D Warps and ProAnimator.

“I had to create a globe as part of a training video for a new watch were introducing, which displays World Time. By simply watching the short 3D Warps video tutorial from the latest Zaxwerks newsletter, I was able to build the globe I envisioned in literally 30 seconds.”

Jay is taking advantage of all the help that Zaxwerks offers, and he is studying the dozens of training videos found on the Zaxwerks website.

There is no doubt that Jay will use his endless imagination and newly acquired knowledge, to make sure Citizen’s training videos are well worth the time!
“I am sure I’ve simply scratched the surface of what the products are capable of. I can only imagine the possibilities.”