VFX Community Hot Spots
Today we’re living in an interesting time. We’re witnessing first hand that our culture is evolving by breaking old traditional routines and creating new modern ones. What do we mean by this? To name a few we have online banking, Redbox, Email, FaceTime, 3D Movies, and of course GPS. The point is that our culture has evolved so much in the past 15 years alone that it’s hard to keep track of all the new trends. One of those culture points is Visual Effects (VFX) which has exploded onto the big screen in hit films such as The Avengers and in TV series like HBO’s hit series Game of Thrones.
The Abyss (1989)
I can remember back in the day where VFX was only used for key moments in movies and instead relied heavily on set designs, matte paintings, and Special Effects (i.e. explosions and the use of stunt doubles). Some classic examples in the 80’s/90’s was The Abyss, Terminator 2: Judgement Day, and Stargate (some of my favorites). The great images you remember from those films were the VFX: the water face, the T-1000, and the stargate opening into another world. Today it’s the opposite. We’ve been heavily saturated with VFX that sometimes we forget on how beautiful the artwork can be. The film Gravity (2014) is a crowning jewel of how far VFX artists have come, hence why they swept the technical categories in this years Oscars. What’s also odd is that we give credit to filmmakers who don’t want to use Computer Graphic Images (CGI) and instead want to use the “real thing”. Best example of this is Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises climax sequence where they used hundreds of extras for the police fight scene in taking back Gotham. It’s odd because that’s what they had to do from the early days of filmmaking up until the late 80’s (1963’s Cleopatra anybody?). Whereas the majority uses CGI for crowds or large masses of people.
Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)
Coming full circle, we’re literally living in the age of VFX/motion graphics. It has become so saturated that there are a plethora of information on the web that anyone can create stunning effects, no matter how big or small their budget is. Although it can be very intimidating to some because of the vast knowledge that is out there. It can be overwhelming, we’ve been there. So that’s why we decided to list our go-to websites that we not only learn great techniques, but also help us be inspired to achieve our desired goals in our projects. We hope that you visit each and every one that’s listed if you haven’t already. You never know what you’ll discover.
Stargate (1994)
Each site is listed in alphabetical order and have a rating up to five stars (◊). Our rating is based on benefit, products, tutorials, and content. It’s purely subjective.
The List
AE Scripts – ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊
This site is awesome for artists that want to improve their VFX/Motion Graphic arsenal when it comes to pursuing their career. Just like a mechanic needs his/her tools, you’ll acquire 3rd Party Plugins and Scripts that help you stand out amongst the rest to get a potential gig. There’s no better site than AE Scripts when it comes to stellar scripts. Depending on your budget, there are multiple different types of scripts that are very robust and amazing.
Recommend: Rowbytes Plexus 2, Motion Boutique’s Newton 2, and Ebberts + Zucker’s TypeMonkey.
AE Tuts Plus – ◊ ◊ ◊
I like to coin this site the wikipedia of VFX. There’s so many tutorials on this site that it can be very overwhelming. Recently they re-designed their site to make the navigation more user friendly which is a huge plus. But like I said, it has EVERYTHING! Tutorials for Photoshop users, Illustrator, After Effects, Cinema 4D, InDesign, you name it, it’s there. So if you’re looking for inspiration to do your next movie, or just learn a new technique, this is your site. They also offer a Premium Membership for a decent price to have access to more advanced tutorials.
Creative Dojo – ◊ ◊ ◊
When you get the hang of using 3rd Party plugins or just navigating in After Effects, you’ll want to learn how to work faster with less clicks of the mouse. That’s essentially what VinhSon Nguyen’s Creative Dojo website provides. If you’re still confused on what scripts are, click here. Nguyen creates these guys from scratch and they’re essentially useful in your daily workflow. What used to take five clicks now becomes one if you implement his scripts. The cool part is that it’s free on his site, however if you can at least pay $2.00 (which he asks for each script) then please do. With stunning tutorials and pre-keyed elements to boot, his site is also a must if you want to become quicker in creating your projects.
Recommend: Dojo Toolkit, Dojo Sharpener, and Dojo Text Generator.
Dan Stevers – ◊ ◊ ◊
Dan Stevers has definitely made a name for himself in the Christian world doing outstanding motion graphic work. You can find some of his work on popular sites such as Sermon Spice and Worship House Media. His portfolio contains a lot of artistic designs and showcases his work by making tutorials so that you can learn for yourself. Churches are utilizing video and motion graphics more than ever before so if you’re still looking for employment and haven’t tapped into the Christian market, you’ll be surprised in what you’ll find.
Recommend: Paint it Black Pro
Digital Tutors – N/A
Talk about a user-friendly website. These guys have a vast database of awesome tutorials that can help you learn very tough software programs, i.e. CAD, Maya, Mudbox, and ZBrush. These tutorials are coming from professionals that are already in the industry. We discovered this site while we were looking for ways to help us learn how to use Autodesk Maya and 3Ds Max. The cool thing that we like about these guys is that they offer courses to help curve your particular interest in what you want to achieve. We haven’t purchased a membership yet, hence why we haven’t rated the site. However we wanted it to make the list because you definitely should check it out if you want to go to the next level in which ever software you’re learning. We hope to utilize these guys this coming fall in 2014.
Lynda – ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊
Lynda.com is probably the closest thing that reminds us of school. Maybe it’s supposed to feel that way when you visit so you can succumb to that “student” mentality. We love and fully support Lynda. Similar to the previous guys (digital tutors), Lynda is probably the least “sexy” out of our entire list. It doesn’t have the flashy techniques or the explosive “Wow how do you create that” tutorials. What it does offer is the basic knowledge of how to do the grunt work: the principles of every product. Very crucial. Sometimes we see a cool graphic and are like “Yes, I want to create that in After Effects”, yet we don’t know how to save our project. It’s best to learn the tools of the software first before rising past that glass ceiling to have our creativity explode by making awesome graphics. Highly recommend it if it’s in your budget to purchase a membership. We began back in January 2014 and up to this post we have learned a plethora of knowledge that we’ve taken great leaps forward in our career.
Red Giant – ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊
I really enjoy Red Giant and their products, but I have to rate them as my second favorite on this list. They make really awesome 3rd Party Plugins and have fun digital shorts that they post on their website. Their go-to product is Trapcode Suite, which we highly recommend. Particular is an amazing, robust plugin that can create stunning VFX. They recently launched Universe, a subscription based hub of all of their fun AE gadgets which is where the VFX community is leaning towards (subscription based). These guys are extremely talented and is a must visit.
Recommend: Trapcode Particular, Universe, and Magic Bullet Looks
Video Copilot – ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊
Oh Andrew Kramer, how we look up to you. Favorite site on the entire list. Not only are these guys amazing at what they do, but their personalities are contagious. Every time Andrew (yeah we’re on first name basis) creates a tutorial, you get to learn awesome techniques all the while having a great time listening to his jokes. What’s also nice is that Andrew tries to utilize all of AE’s effects instead of using additional 3rd Party Plugins, which can be costly. If you just want to see tutorials that display cool techniques, this is the place. We’ve been following Video Copilot since 2009 and its our top site that we visit daily. We own 75% of their products and have downloaded the majority of their tutorials. In a nutshell, without VCP, we’d be paddling up a creek without a paddle.
Recommend: Optical Flares, Element 3D, and MotionPulse Blackbox.
So that wraps up our list of inspirational sites for visual effects. We hope you find this useful. Again, don’t be overwhelmed by the vast knowledge that is out there, you won’t learn everything. However, look to it to be inspired and find the techniques and products that you want to be really good at. The more you work at it the better you’ll be. Besides, the rate that these companies above are working at, most of the stuff they’re selling is so good that what was hard two years ago will be easy today. So don’t sweat it, push forward and hope these sites help you out as much as they’re doing for us.
Cheers!
-Post dedicated to Brandon Kimber, guru and origin of our inspiration-
