Introduction:

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Like a lot of motion designers I spend many hours trying to accomplish complex animations in a short amount of time, while attempting to optimize my workflow within After Effects, Photoshop, and Illustrator. This tutorial utilizes Trapcodes Particular, which is one of After Effects more popular 3rd party plugins. Creating an animation like a flock of birds is very versatile and is a great filler animation which can add a lot of style to a piece. You can also adapt this technique to create other flying creatures…. perhaps a flying skull with flapping wings?

Here’s a short clip of the Go Media promo reel that utilizes the bird animation that you will learn to create. (To view the entire promo reel, click here and scroll down to the bottom of the tutorial).

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/LdC5vVI6VDg" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

What you’ll need:
A working knowledge of Adobe After Effects
Trapcode’s Particular Plugin
Adobe Illustrator.

So what we are going to do is create a flock of birds in After Effects using Trapcodes plugin, Particular.

1. Open up After Effects
Create a composition called “bird.” Set your composition settings to something similar to this:

2. Set up your Wing Layers
Once you have your composition set up, create two new solid white layers both about 300×300 pixels. Name one of them “right wing” and the other “left wing.”

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In today’s world, there are so many artists out there looking to get noticed. With design software readily available, everyone is a designer these days. But to those designers serious about getting your name out there, here are 6 essential tips that will ensure some more exposure and more sales.

1.) Write articles and tutorials

One thing’s for sure, people love to learn. And learning for free! Writing good articles and tutorials will drive traffic to your website and get yourself some exposure. It helps establish yourself as an authority on the subject and builds trust and loyalty. Don’t make the mistake of writing an article about cliche subjects that have been covered many times before. Choose a niche. Write a unique article about how to get your work published in magazines and publications for example. Which leads me to my next tip:

2.) Submit work to magazines, books, and other publications

If there was an article out there with tried and true methods of getting published, you know it would be hot. First of all, your work needs to be good. And it needs to fit the publication’s criteria. But keep your eyes peeled for “Calls for Entry” and Submissions. Every publication needs content, so find their editors and submissions contact information and show them what you have got. At worst, your stuff will be rejected. But even then, they at least saw your work! If you can get published, that’s a huge amount of exposure.

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The folks at Motionographer and I came up with an idea for a simple contest: Make a 1280×1024 wallpaper (.jpg or .gif) using at least one element from this sampling of the Go Media Vector Packs. The prize for the winner (to be judged by our experienced team of wallpaper connoisseurs) gets the Ultimate Vector Pack, which includes 28 sets of vector art (448 total pieces).

What to Do
1. Download the sample file here.
2. Make a 1280×1024 wallpaper (saved as either a .jpg or a .gif) containing at least one element from the sample file.
3. Send it to contest@motionographer.com.

Deadline
All entries must be received by 11:59pm on Friday, March 9th.

What You Win (If You Win)
1. Go Media’s Ultimate Vector Pack
2. A post on Motionographer.com featuring your winning design and linkage to your site (optional)

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After many sleepless nights, we’ve finally released our 4th set of our Vector Packs. We think you’ll love them. In the set you get:

• Currency Flourishes
• Shattered Glass
• Urban Elements
• Bugs and Insects
• Medieval Weaponry
• Shields
• Arrows

All very cool and useful stuff. For those interested, check out the link here:

http://www.vectorpacks.com

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Our good friend Justin over at Cartoon Smart just put out his latest video tutorial. This time he’s showing everyone how to make slick title and bumper animations in Flash. He even used our vector packs!

I’ve bought a few of his video tutorials and I was seriously blown away at the amount of detail he goes into. He’s a funny dude, so he also keeps you entertained while you learn. I still can’t believe this guy puts out new tutorials every month!

Here’s the link:

http://www.cartoonsmart.com/title_animations.html

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