Apple Motion: 3D Lava Flow

[@seanmunaco]

Aww man this one hits on probably my 2 biggest hurdles i run into with Motion. Cyc walls and gobo effects. I had a bunch of projects that required a specific pattern laid onto a cyc wall for a BG, I ended up having to build it in blender and importing it into motion as a 3D asset. It worked, but I was torn about just building the entire scene in blender since I was already there. If you remember Simon, I had asked you about a slash of light in a 3D scene a few months back. I tried to accomplish it using this same Gobo effect, but could never get it to look correct with a bunch of USDZ assets built into the scene. Shadows just did not work correctly. I think you’re correct in maybe I hit the ceiling of what motion can do with complex lighting and shadows. It’s just not there, but damnit I want it to be because of how fast I can swap out assets and replace logos on the fly. 😢

[@SimonUbsdell]

Yes, I remember that conversation. It is indeed frustrating that gobo effects just don't work with anything 3D in Motion (including its own 3D Text tool).

[@joshgreenwalt508]

I love these trick videos that are so use case specific but really creative. Seriously underrated and fascinating content, even if I can’t think of a time I’ll ever use it.

[@SimonUbsdell]

Thank you. I didn't mean to get carried away and make this ridiculously OTT scene. I would have done better to show off the individual techniques separately and the possibilities for them. The gobo 'projection' method has lots of interesting possibilities, I think, and I might go into those in more detail some time.

[@AndreLaBranche]

Pretty cool! Using Motion to “fake” an effect that doesn’t exist in Motion, like Blender’s project onto surface (or whatever it’s called) is a great way to build intuition about how the effect works. There’s a compounding nature to it all that gives me new ideas each time you do this - the trick for me is remembering to think about composing the building blocks in interesting ways instead of just using them “as-is”. Kudos!

[@SimonUbsdell]

Thank you!

[@grampsworld]

Simon having a senior moment trying to do a Christmas scene with Christmas tree with twinkling random lights in it? Have you a video in your collection that would give me a clue??

[@SimonUbsdell]

Here's a test project with the lights and a dummy Xmas tree (hopefully you have a better one): mab.to/t/HofjGvYXM1U/eu1