Sometimes it is not necessary to work in three dimensions to convey a message. For instructional animations like the one below that I did for Fender, using 2D animations combined with 3D renderings can be a quite effective way to go.
By combining the rendered IEM parts with animated line drawings, I helped Fender to show in a clear way how to install the newly released Pro Series IEMs.
Can I help you? Get in touch!
The great guys at KeyShot have picked the animation I did for Fender as the ‘Animation of the Week’. Here’s what they say:
“If you follow Esben Oxholm on Instagram or on the KeyShot Forum, you know he produces some amazing work using KeyShot and has done a lot of interesting experiments with different workflows that include KeyShot Animation. Recently, he shared a project done for Fender for the launch of theFender Pro In-Ear Monitors. You can see the renderings on the Fender homepage and the product page, but the animation is what took our breath away.”
Read the original article here and check out the animation I did below:
Animation created for Fender to promote their Pro In-Ear Monitors. A really great example showing the creative advantages of using computer graphics for moving product visualizations compared to traditional photography and filming.
Along with the animation I also did a couple of stills to be used on the Pro In-Ear Monitors website.
In this tutorial I show how easy it is to make specific parts of your rendering glow using photoshop.
Transcription:
Hi everyone. Esben Oxholm here. In today’s tutorial I want to show you how I use photoshop to makes things glow. Like these three buttons here. They could use some glow to look better. If you want to follow along at home you can go to my gumroad page, gumroad.com/esbenoxholm, and download this practice scene package, where this scene 3 is included. Along with the raw rendering directly from KeyShot you’ll get a PSD for the final image with all the post processing that has been done to it. You can go through all these layers by yourself and see how they affect the final image. You’ll also get the KeyShot KSP which includes this scene with all the lighting setup and material setups. You can go into the material graphs and have a look at each material and see how it is set up and so on. A lot of stuff to dig into.
Let’s get into the glow. The first step is to select the material that you want to glow… or to have a glow around. There are several ways to do that. One of them is to simply take the magic wand tool and use that to select the area which sometimes work fine and sometimes does not. You can see here it is a bit tough to get the edges totally clean. It would work but there is another way to do it, if you have outputted a clown pass from KeyShot, you can use that to make clear selections of the material.
With the selection active I go ahead and create a new layer and click this layer mask button to use the active selection as a layer mask. Then I want to fill the layer with a color. To do that I press I on the keyboard to select the color picker. I left click and go for the brightest area on this button. Then I click alt+backspace to fill the layer with the color. So far so good.
The next step is to apply some gaussian blur to the layer. This step is really just about eyeballing the look that you want for your glow. I guess that… or I’m not guessing – I think that something around a radius of 70 looks pretty cool for this purpose. You can see how it is already making a big difference. Maybe I will turn down the opacity a bit. This is actually basically how I make things glow.
Sometimes I add another layer and use a soft brush to paint on top of the glow, to create a more diffuse glow. I turn down the opacity to something like 30. Sometimes I also try out different blending modes and I encourage you to do that as well, to find the option that gives you the best look. I guess this looks pretty cool. Too much diffuse glow.
That looks pretty good. That is how I make things glow. Thank you so much for stopping by and watching this. Please subscribe and like if you think it was helpful and you want to see more of this and if you want to help other people just like you find this resource. Until next time – take care!
Transcription:
Hi everyone. Esben Oxholm here. In this tutorial I want to show you how to create the detail layer that you will find in the post processing in all of my practice scenes. If you are interes you can go to www.gumroad.com/esbenoxholm and download these practice scenes and get the models that has been used, the KeyShot .KSP and the Photoshop .PSD used for all the post processing. Two of them are free or pay-what-you-want and this one comes with the small price of five dollars. Enough with advertising for now. Lets dig in to the actual tutorials.
I got a question about how I created this detail layer that you will find in the .PSD that comes with the practice scene. It is actually quite simple. So just follow along. Here I have the rendering straight from KeyShot and the first step we need to do to create the detail layer is to copy it to a new Photoshop document. So I press cmd+A, cmd+C, cmd+N, click okay, and cmd+V to copy it in. Then I go to image > adjustments and select HDR Toning. What I want to create here is a layer where the details sort of pop. I dont need any colors so I turn down the saturation. I want a lot of details and I want a pretty small radius. The strength – turn it up to something like this. I also want to avoid highlighted areas so I’ll turn the highlight slider down a bit and I also want to avoid completely black areas, like this and this area here, so I turn up the shadow slider just a bit. Something like this, which is what we need for the detail layer.
I click okay. Then I press cmd+A to select the entire image, cmd+C to copy it and then I go back to the original rendering. Here I press cmd+V to copy it in and you see we get it as a layer for itself. I rename it to ‘Details’ and change the blending mode to ‘overlay’. Then I hold in ‘ALT’ and press this mask button, so we actually don’t see anything of it. Then I will take a big and soft brush with the flow of something like 20, make it white and then I’ll simply draw in the areas where I want the details to show more. So around these buttons here and the cracks in the glass and the fingerprints and I turn down the size of the brush a bit and go over the area here and the area on top of this stick. Something like this. Then I will just turn the layer on and off to see how it looks without and with it. There is a huge difference as you see. Typically is a bit too much I think, so I’ll turn down the overall opacity to something like 50 or 60 or whatever you think looks good. That is actually all you have to do to create this detail layer and get your details to pop!
Thanks a lot for watching. I hope you learned something and as always subscribe and like if you would like to see more like this and to help other just like you to find this resource.
PRACTICE SCENE #3 is soon ready. The download is going to include the model as a step-file, the exact KeyShot scene used for the rendering and a layered Photoshop file with all the post processing. Check out the clay/textured renderings below and remember to sign up at https://esbenoxholm.dk/diy/ before 04.04.2016 to get the scene at half the price.
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I recently did a KeyShot webinar, where I gave an insight on my typical workflow when creating product design visuals. I also gave a bunch of KeyShot related tips along the way about features that I use a lot.
The webinar was recorded and can be viewed below. Let me know if you have any questions or want me to help you with a project. I’ll be happy to have a chat with you about your needs.
If your product comes in several colors, the typical way to communicate it is through still images. Each image showing each color configuration.
A different and more dynamic way to show it, is through animation. Either as a part of a longer product presentation animation or as a standalone looping gif.
I have created a few examples to show you what I mean:
The styles shown here is just a fraction of what is possible. If you have an idea that you want me to try out, please let me know.
I’ll be happy to have a chat with you.
Model: https://grabcad.com/library/fender-jazzmaster
I’ve compiled some of my best KeyShot and Photoshop work into an easy digestable 40 seconds showreel. Check it out and share it with someone you think might find it helpful. Please, Get in touch if you’ve got any questions whatsoever.
Design is a job. It sure is… And when starting out as a freelancer or starting up a small design studio, it can be quite a tough job to make head and tail of it all. How do I get clients? How much should I charge? What should I put into the contract? Do I need a contract at all? How should I present my work for the client and how shall I react to not always nicely delivered and constructive feedback? How do I make sure that I get paid for my hard work? Phew…
All these questions and a few more are fortunately asked and answered by Mike Monteiro, the co-founder and design director of Mule Design. In a light and humorous way he shares his experiences and hard learned lessons in order to help the reader avoid doing the same mistakes.
I really recommends this book for all starting doing freelance business of any kind. I’m sure it will save you a lot of time of tedious trial and error. Also, I think companies working with freelancers can learn a thing or two that will help create a successful cooperation.
To get a sense of the author and the tone in the book watch this great speak about getting paid.
