Old news here, but my buddy Ben just found out that mfactor did those sweet lower thirds on Fox's NFL sunday. Unfortunately, the site is all flash so I can't link to any of there work directly. But check out it.   Read More

Anamorphic Lens flares galore. I (much like sports graphics) am a huge fan of lens flares. So, seeing something like this, that uses them elegantly, is great. I especially like the tiny pieces of particulate matter floating around each scene. Nice stuff. Read More

Really nice process from Justin Bates. Check out his site. I love these kinds of "how-to" or "our process" videos. What the technical term for that? Check out Justin's C4D section for some great thinking particles inspiration.  Credits: Design and 3D Visual Effects - Justin Bates Senior Flame Visual Effects Artist - Matt Butcher BskyB Creative Read More

Sorry I haven't posted in a while. In the down time, Adobe officially released CS4. So, over the next week I'll be posting new features in CS4 that can be of some use for creating sports graphics. 3D objects in Photoshop & AE. (Linked video may require flash video upgrade) While 3d postcards are nothing new in AE, importing .obj (and a few other flavors) into AE is. In a round about way of importing into photoshop and then opening your psd with "live ... Read More

Sorry for the lack of updates lately, I've been busy at my day job. I've re-designed Bridges Media Group's website using some of the knowledge I picked up here at GraphicsMafia (they both run on wordpress). So it is with full disclosure that I'm posting our website, we've done a few sports related projects (which flash by pretty quick in the Demo Reel) but we currently don't have any sports related featured projects. Why would I post something un-related to sports? ... Read More

Is it just me or does it seem like After Effects gives you more useless error messages than any other program. Every time I use after effects I feel like I'm moments away from either a crash or a prompt to press "ok" to a dialog box of jibberish. I found that mographwiki has been collecting user submitted AE messages. My personal favorite is the now classic question mark. Nothing else... just a question mark and an "ok" button.  But it's not all ... Read More

Congratulations to all the winners from the Idea Conference. Thanks to everyone who came out and attended any of the classes. Especially those who had kind things to say about my Beginner Photoshop/AE class. I thought I'd post some of the content from that class. Here is the above headshot used in the advanced tips and tricks class as a photoshop CS3 file. After Effects Sheep Noise : In the effects controls of a layer with an effect applied, shift click name of the ... Read More

Here is some great work from Gkaster. Thanks for the contribution. I'm told he's a fellow C4D user. As a novice user myself I'm hoping I can get him to share some of his secrets. I love those reflections, I'm guessing he used the advanced renderer. Read More

I've been a long time fan of Lloyd Alvarez, actually of the scripts that he writes on AEscripts.com. Specifically the background renderer that has found its way onto every AE workstation I come in contact with. I had to buy him a beer (or six).  Looks like Lloyd worked on the ESPN News re-brand with Trollback. (Via motionograher.)   Read More

I love looking for inspiration in boards. Too bad this piece isn't an animation.Usually you get to see a pure idea before is passes through the various levels of approval. Where everyone from the account team to the client's 5 year old daughter get to decide how to "enhance" your idea and fill in all that "blank" space with more "creativity". As if creativity is a quantity and simpler design isn't negative space. Anywho, I've had Jon Saunders bookmarked in my boards folder and ... Read More

I love this piece by Carlo Vega and Adam Gault. Roman, when are we going to see some white sox stuff that looks like this? Read More

I know I've been posting some older stuff, but a lot of this I just want to catalog onto the site. Stuff like this Exopolis piece that I know we've all talked about for a while. Anywho, shoot me some fresh links. Read More

Nice spot for the NBA featuring Steve Nash. Very simple and clean. Just like the other spots for NBA's "where amazing happens" campaign. I could see this spot being played during halftime on the big board. Read More

I'm still organizing the site and something like this post should probably be in a different column, but I wanted to let everyone know that a motion graphics opportunity has recently come up. It would be perfect for someone just out of school (or close to graduation) who needs some real-world work on their reel. It's not a paying gig, but your work would be seen by every post-production company in Chicago. I'll say that again... YOUR work would be seen by EVERY ... Read More

With the Pro-Bowl behind us, the football season is at a close. And so too, are the NFL motion graphics posts. But I think we'll be seeing some new baseball stuff pretty soon. If anyone has any examples of work they'd like to post, shoot me an email me. In the mean time, here is a nice show package for ESPN's Ruleta Rusa by nailgun. Read More