Using Flip Tool

   Recently, I noticed how important was to flip an image that we're working on (even sketches) during the process. Flipping, both vertically and horizontally, bring us some advantages because you begin looking to your image in a different way. It's easier to identify imperfections and other problems, like proportion, unbalance, etc.

   Flip Vertically

   "It's easier to see the image as an abstracted arrangement of shapes." by Noah Bradley

   Flip Horizontally

   "Great tool to get a fresh eye and perspective of the whole thing." by Noah Bradley
   And basically if you have an image that works on both sides, you'll have a strong image.

   If you're using Photoshop you can reconfigurate the keyboard shortcuts, to make it easier to use the tools, because none of them came configured on the programs' default. I use it on the following way:

Flip Canvas Horizontal > Ctrl + F
Flip Canvas Vertical > Shift + Ctrl + F

   To reconfigurate the shortcuts just go in Edit > Keyboard shortcuts... and search the tools that are in Image > Image Rotation.

About the Composition Studies

   Who still doesn't know Noah Bradley should! Not only because of his excellent works but also for his inspiring and teaching competence. Recently I saw a demo video of the first week, of Noah's Art Camp, that he made available for free, which theme was "studying from the masters". In the video he talks about how to extract the most from these masters, doing composition studies, color studies and rendering studies.

   On this post we'll see a little bit of how important is, and how to do, these composition studies. It's incredible important to do these studies to understand, in terms of composition, how and why a good image is good, besides understanding how the elements are arranged to create a strong e appealing image!
 
   I summarized the most important things that he said about:

   - First of all, know what you're after before you begin. (What are you looking for with these studies? Learn composition? Color? Rendering?)
   - Study the artists that you like and appreciate, to extract the most from them, while enjoying doing it.
   - Focus on getting great and cool shapes/silhouettes.
   - Breakdown the image using at most 4 values.
       If you have to use more, you're probably not seeing as simple as you should
   - Try to be as accurate as possible.
   - Don't trace.
   - Don't focus on making really detailed. In other words, don't go much further, otherwise you'll be rendering.
   - It's better to have a good arrangement of shapes than knowing what each thing are.

Additional information:

   - These studies are also a great opportunity to experiment and learn a new medium, as an example, in traditional: watercolor, acrylics, oil, etc.
   - Flip canvas horizontal and vertical, during the process. We'll se more about it in a future post.

   That's it, be sure to chek out the demo video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQfF-P70V2Q by Noah Bradley

Creating GIFs

   If you think creating some small animations, it's possible to create them on Photoshop. It isn't the ideal, but it's possible. Aside from its usifulness, it's very simple to create them! I've been using it to demonstrate a little bit of my illustration's process.

   Here it goes how it works:

- Enable the window "Timeline" in Window > Timeline, if it's not enabled yet
   Here is the place you'll be creating your animation's frames. The system is similar to the layer's window.
- Create a new frame clicking on the icon to the left of the dump icon.
  You can copy and paste frames through the options "Tab", which is the icon the upper right corner of every Photoshop's window.
  To change the frames' exposition time, just click on the down arrow present in all frames.

   This is the basic you should know to create an animated GIF on Photoshop. You can explore other possibilities going on "Tab" of the "Timeline" window, like the "tween" (which is quite simple, because it doen't create other inbetween drawings, but it'll just use the existent drawings and modify their opacity in other new frames).

   Finishing the animation, just export as a GIF:

- Go in File > Save for Web... and click on Save...

   That's it! Have fun creating animations!

Exporting Maya camera to After

    This is a simple method that we used in our experimental project, that shows how to export the camera from Maya to After Effects.
    This method is very useful when we want to avail the movement of Maya's camera into After Effects, to make compositions, for example. Because with this export of the camera's information, we have a very accurate depth reference of the elements that were in Maya, through the use of locators/Null objects.
    The procedure seems long, because it involves many steps, which can be interesting also to be seen individually (they are marked in orange). But it is quite simple:

   After we have the camera movement, first of all we must configure the Maya, to be compatible with AE:

- Go to Display Render Settings window (fourth clapperboard, in the top right)
- In Render Using, change to mental ray
- In Common, on Presets de Image Size, change to the video format that you want to use

   Other needed configuration, is to change the unit of the Maya to AE's unit:

- In Window > Settings/Preferences > Preferences, go to Settings
- And in Working Units, on Linear, change to milimeter

   Also we need to create keyframes on every frame of the Maya camera's movement:

- Go to Edit > Keys > Bake Simulation

   Now, we need to create landmarks (locators), that will help in depth reading on AE:

- Create a locator in Create > Locators
- Position the locator holding the "V", to align with the object
- Duplicate and position, repeating the procedure (if there are other elements involved)

   But to AE recognize the locators, we need to change the name of all locators to NULL:

- Select all locators (it's easy to select them all with the Maya Outliner)
- Go to Modify > Search and Replace Names...
- In Search for:, put locator
- In Replace with:, put NULL
- Click in Replace

  That done, we just need to export to .ma.

- Select the camera that you want to export, and the locators (remember that with the Outliner, it's more practical)
- Go to File > Export Selection (on box)
- In General Options, on File typ:, change to mayaAscii
- In Include Options, only marks the Channels
- Click in Export Selection and define the output

   And import this .ma archive to AE:

- Go to File > Import > File... and search for .ma archive that you exported
- On the Project tab it'll apear two elements: a composition and a folder
- Click twice on composition, to see it
- Notice that inside there are the NULLS (they're the locators tha we created) and a camera
- If we move the Time Indicator, we can see the camera's movement

   After that, to make sure that our AE's camera movement matches the Maya movement:

- On Maya, generate a playblast
- On AE, import this playblast and drag it to the layers of the composition
- Increase size with the Scale, selecting the playblast layer and pressing "S"
- Increase it to match the composition size

   Done! Now if we move the Time Indicator, we'll see that the movement matched perfectly.
   Remember that if something has not been so clear, for lack of something visual, this video tutorial that I used is very good, and explain it all.

http://cg.tutsplus.com/tutorials/autodesk-maya/quick-tip-exporting-3d-camera-data-from-maya-into-after-effects/ by Jostein Finnekasa

Pen Tool Selection and Action

   Recently I returned to use this method, which is basically a creation of a selection with the Pen tool.
   For those that don't know, the Pen Tool is a tool that enables the creation of more accurate and elaborate curves. You can see it in many softwares such as Photoshop, Illustrator and After Effects.
    This method can be very useful when you want to make a specific selection, which you hardly could do with other forms of selection (Lasso Tool, Polygonal Lasso Tool and Magnetic Lasso Tool), because you can edit the points you make , turning them into curves.
    The problem is that in Photoshop, when we create a shape with the Pen Tool, we just creates a "path" and not a selection. So basically we just need to turn it into a selection.

   The steps are very simple:

- Create your "path" or shape with the Pen Tool.
- If the window "Paths" isn't enabled, enable it on Window > Paths
- Notice that inside the window "Paths", there is a layer "Work Path"
- To transform our shape into a selection, just click in "Load path as selection" (third icon from left to right, at the bottom of the window "Paths")

   It's a very easy and practical procedure. But to not make this process every time, we can create a shortcut that does it for us. 

   For this, we should create a command, by an Action:

- Create a "path" with the Pen Tool
- Enable the window "Actions" on Window > Actions
- Create a new command in "Create new action" (fifth icon at the bottom of the window "Actions")
- In "Name", name it the way your prefer (per exemple: pen_to_path)
- In "Function Key:", you put the shortcut that you'll hit to execute the command (in my case, I set to press "F2")
- Then click in "Record"
- Notice that the second icon turned red, which means, that it's going to record everything you do from now on
- On window "Paths", click in "Load path as selection"
- Then drag the layer "Work Path" to the dump, because we won't need it anymore
- On window "Actions", click on the first icon at the bottom, to stop the recording

   Done! Now we have an Action, that will make all the procedure for us, when we hit the hotkey.
   If something hasn't been very clear, for lack of something visual, this video tutorial is very good. I used and it explains everything we saw here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUG26N-YKrM by Matt Kohr