After quite a long lapse in posting to my Clever Tagline channel, I finally managed to squeeze in work on another short HitFilm tutorial. This one is in response to a question from last fall on the FXhome forum, where a user asked how to make a curving 3D arrow over a map. After a quick think, I came up with a surprisingly easy solution,Read More »Tutorial: Curving 3D Arrows in HitFilm
You buy a car, but don’t follow recommendations on the proper types of fuel and oil to put into it, or keep it regularly maintained. It’s not going to perform well. You build a garden, yet ignore basic care and feeding instructions. Your garden won’t last very long. You use professional editing software, but disregard recommendations on how to best “feed” the program. You’re notRead More »“I shouldn’t have to…”
I gotta give major props to the folks at FXhome, makers of HitFilm VFX and editing software. Not just for the updated software (which I still haven’t had time to touch since it’s release a couple days ago), but for the new short showcasing what can be done with HitFilm Express. When this short was posted, I was in the middle of a busy workRead More »New short by FXhome also works as a silent movie
My third tutorial for ProductionCrate.com went live a little over a week ago. I was issued the challenge of turning text into smoke, and with the help of several ProductionCrate assets — mostly from the small mist and smoke collection — I came up with this: I’m a little behind in sharing these tutorials I’ve done for ProductionCrate, as well as others I’ve been invitedRead More »Text to Smoke using HitFilm Express
A fitting metaphor Almost everyone familiar with the Olympics knows about the Olympic flame. Once lit, it is never put out. The torch that bears the flame is simply passed between runners in a long relay, until the final runner uses the torch to start the flame in the event arena. So what does this have to do with tweenMachine? Sadly, more than I’d hoped.Read More »tweenMachine: Passing the Torch
I do a little work on the side for a friend who runs a horse ranch offering trail rides, riding lessons, etc. I’ve had random thoughts in my head about animating the ranch logo, and finally sat down and cranked this out in a few hours. Sound effects credits available on YouTube.
“How can I customize the button values?” This is, by far, the most common question I’ve received about my little tweenMachine tool. While the default values may work well as you’re getting used to the tool, or perhaps getting used to using breakdown poses for the first time, there might come a time when you’d like to tweak those values. If that time is now, read on.Read More »Tweaking tweenMachine’s Buttons
Now that I’m finally getting back into a regular tweenMachine development schedule, I want to make sure that every tweenMachine user knows what’s happening with my little breakdown baby. So far I’ve been spreading the word via Facebook posts and Twitter updates (which can often go unnoticed), and keeping my fingers crossed that people share news about updates with friends and colleagues. However, pretty much everyoneRead More »Introducing the tweenMachine Breakdown
If you installed Maya 2016 Extension 2 and tried to use the Python beta version of tweenMachine, you probably noticed a runtime error that pretty much stops it in its tracks. Without getting too technical, it appears to be a bug with the Python version of one of Maya’s commands. I’ve submitted a detailed bug report to Autodesk, and hope that they fix it soon. InRead More »tweenMachine and Maya 2016 Extension 2