Southern Miss Logo Reveal Title

As I continue to learn After Effects I am obviously trying new things. On this project I decided to work a little bit with sound effects and stock footage to create a neat little title based around the Southern Miss football helmet logo.

I started at Aetuts+ where I found this quick tutorial on a neat logo reveal using the Stroke Effect. It was really easy to figure out to apply to the Southern Miss logo, as I focused it around the yellow outlines. I added a little glow to the moving strokes to give it a bit of flare as it animated on.

I then broke the logo into two parts, having the white interior reveal itself while a light sweep happened across the yellow outline that had come into full view. I'm a sucker for the slightly flashy, so I went with it.

From there, I wanted a cool transition to the second title, the Southern Miss athletic theme for this year, "Rise to the Top." As I sat there pondering where to go, it hit me: "Michael, you need to put fire in this video." So I did.

I took the basics of the Green Smoke tutorial on Video Copilot (a must-see website for all who want to learn more about motion graphics) and applied it to my video, having the helmet logo kind of melt away as the fireball shoots across the page. From there, I finished up with the Rise to the Top logo fading in from the burnt-out area of itself to finish the whole thing off. It was a fun piece to create, and suggestions are always welcome!

A Little More After Effects: Baseball Matchup Graphic

So as I mentioned in my blog post last week, I have been teaching myself After Effects recently. With that I have been creating projects for myself to continue to get accustomed to the program.

I had the above idea one day while fiddling around in the program. As I get more into motion graphics, I'm realizing just how many there are around me, especially being such a big sports fan. With that in mind, I wanted to take a stab at my own matchup graphic. I used the last matchup of the Tennessee Smokies season as a test run since it is where my baseball career has left off at the moment.

I really loved the idea of steel doors shutting on one thing only to reveal another, so I went that route. After revealing the matchup logos, the video felt kind of stagnant, so I added in the team names sliding in from center. Even with that though, the piece still felt like it died after those names finished. To alleviate that feeling, I added a little rotation expression to the logos to keep them moving throughout the piece, thus keeping it "active" for the full duration. I made this rotation happen in 3D space to only further that feeling.

I feel overall that I accomplished my goal with this piece, exploring scene transitions and movement from various directions. However, I am up for suggestions on ways to continue to improve. Thanks for viewing!