A little fiddling and brushing up on my trigonometry got me to the following expression that works much better than auto-orient plus allows some easing into and out of sharp corners for a more natural motion. A little fiddling and brushing up on my trigonometry got me to the following expression that works much better than auto-orient plus allows some easing into and out of sharp corners for a more natural motion.

This expression assumes the default orientation of the object you want to orient is 0° North (pointing up.) You’ll need to adjust it otherwise. Next step I think I’ll try to roll this into a plugin if I can figure out the AE plugin SDK.

cbaristo over on Simply CG had this post explaining the method: MAX object position to AE layer position using RPF files Thanks, cbaristo!

Here’s the method:

1. From 3dsMax, render out to RPF format your main scene camera with Z-Depth as one of the data options checked in order to get camera information into AE. Take a note of your camera focal settings as you’ll need to match them in AE.
2. Create another camera in 3dsMax and parent it to the object you wish to track so it will inherit all it’s transformation and rotation animation data. You could center the camera at the object’s pivot or place it on a face if you want to composite an image onto that surface.
3. For this second camera’s render, hide and turn off everything except the camera (turn off all the lights, GI, raytracing, etc.) and set the render dimensions to 1×1. All we need is the camera data. Again render to RPF with Z-Depth checked. All done with 3dsMax
4. In After Effects, import both sequences and place as layers in a composition.
5. Select the main render sequence and then go to Animation | Keyframe Assistant | RPF Camera Import. A new camera gets created. This will be your scene camera. You may want to rename it so you don’t get it confused with the next camera we create. Open the properties for this camera and set them to match the camera properties in 3dsMax. This is important to match the perspective.
6. Select the secondary camera sequence (1×1 pixel render) and do the same thing. Delete the secondary camera sequence since we don’t need it anymore.
7. Create a new null. Copy all the keyframe data from the second RPF camera that was created and paste it into the null. Delete the secondary RPF camera.
8. Turn your null into a 3d object and parent any other layers to it in order to composite them with the 3d object.

That’s it! You could do this with any number of objects quite easily.

Good meeting and looking forward to the next one. Lloyd Bagtas posted some pics on his blog.

The group meeting had a great turnout at PopArt’s offices with around 30 people in attendance. Strong showing for the motion graphics presence in Portland.

I ended up winning one of the raffles from local sponsor Red Giant Software getting the Magic Bullet Suite! Looking forward to the next meeting. If you’re in the PDX area and would like to know more, check out the group here.

[See image gallery at mindfury.com] I won’t go into all the arguements for it’s use. They are many and valid up to a point, especially if you’re a lazy designer. Using Helvetica is like buying a Civic: safe, reliable, and good; but unimaginative, unexciting, and far too ubiquitous. The percentage of designs I’ve seen over my career with Helvetica as the main typographical element is probably close to 80%. Far too much in my opinion.

Where is the creativity? Where is the craft, the careful selection of that perfect font that often occurs with the serifs? There are many, many incredible sans fonts available that do as good or better job as Helvetica and are likely far more appropriate to the design. Helvetica has become the me-too design element which is surprising in an industry that values uniqueness and original thought. It’s almost comical how generational waves of designers are indoctrinated in the cult following of this font. Almost comical, but actually sad.

Like it or not, Helvetica is a victim of it’s own popularity. It’s become the average, mediocre, nondescript, and so very blah. Don’t get me wrong, it does have it’s uses. The beauty of the creative industry is that it does produce some truly brilliant people who find ways to invigorate tired clichés into masterpieces. With Helvetica though, it’s become a monumental task to achieve.

No doubt there are legions of designers quaking with rage like Christian apologists over my blasphemy of the sacred font. However, I’m not advocating avoiding Helvetica altogether. Just want you to try and find another sans font that amazing design before giving up and going with that comfortable, worn, and tired blanket that is the most perfect of fonts, Helvetica.

[See image gallery at mindfury.com]