Creative COW Forum Host, Web Writer, Contributing Editor
Jon Okerstrom
Iowa City, Iowa USA
I'm a television news manager and journalist by profession and freelance motion graphics designer by avocation.
Some
of my work ends up on local television or in print but a lot of it is
simply for fun. Pushing pixels with software including Adobe After
Effects, Zaxwerks 3D Invigorator and Zaxwerks ProAnimator gives me a
creative outlet I really enjoy. I feel the same way about helping
people to get the most out of Zaxwerks software on Creative Cow. The
thing I like about Zax Dow is his passion for making very complex,
powerful software easy to use. His focus on the user experience and
elegant design is a lot like Apple -- another company I admire a lot.
I've been
at this since the Stone Age of Commodore 64 and Mac SE30 computers,
it's amazing to me how far the hardware and software have come. And as
I look forward to Adobe's CS3 Suite and the new Intel-based Macs, I'm
glad to say the future just keeps getting brighter.
You can find Jon Okerstrom hosting in Creative COW's
Zaxwerks forum.
In this tutorial, CreativeCOW leader and TV news guy, Jon Okerstrom takes a look at 3D Layer Warp -- one of two new tools from Zaxwerks called 3D Warps. Follow along as Jon creates a paper airplane and shows other fun things you can do with this great new tool.
Imitation isn't just the sincerest form of flattery. When it comes to After Effects, building on shared techniques is a great way to push the envelope. Consider Andrew Kramer's recent tutorial on simulating raytraced reflections posted on the COW.Andrew's technique for simulating raytracing is really cool and it works for all sorts of things. Except for 3D. When Jon Okerstrom watched Andrew's tutorial, the first thing he thought of was Zaxwerks Invigorator and ProAnimator. Jon's tecnique follows. Download the demo and follow along.
The following article by Creative COW leader Jon Okerstrom contains his impressions of NAB, from a newbie's perspective. Buried in the story are some tidbits about the upcoming release of ProAnimator 4 (really cool stuff!) and some other hints of things to come.
Invigorator is known around the world as the king of ''flying logo'' animations. No one does it better or faster. But Invigorator is capable of a lot more than that. A question posed by a user in the COW's Invigorator forum proves the point. The challenge: how to create a 3D crown. The solution: Use a custom edge and a transparency map. Jon Okerstrom shows you how in this project. Download the files and follow along. You'll need Zaxwerk's Invigorator.
In this tutorial, Jon Okerstrom uses Adobe Illustrator and Invigorator Pro AE to demonstrate how Invigorator Pro AE can accomplish a 3D write-on effect.
