Storytelling with motion - 3ds Max Tutorial

- [Instructor] Now still images can certainly tell a story. But motion can add a lot more to your project. So let's talk about storytelling with motion. Now motion adds another dimension to your composition and that dimension is time. So let's take a look at an example. Here we have a nice composition. We have a sense of depth. The trees provide some nice light and shadow. But we can also add the element of time. Now if I play this, you'll see that as the camera moves, the trees create what's called a "reveal." The camera moved past the trees and added a layer of visual interest to the shot. We revealed the building. Now when we add motion to our project, we can do a lot of things. We can direct the eye to part of the scene. We can reveal new elements in the scene or hide them. We can also bring images to life. We can make the trees move, for example. And we can add visual interest overall to our projects. So let's take a look at some examples. Here we have a simple scene. And when this animates, or moves, we can see we're revealing additional parts of the building. Here we use motion to direct the eye towards an area of interest, in this case the building. Even a mostly still image can benefit from a little bit of motion. So here we have a mostly still image of a kitchen. And again, as the camera pushes slowly in, the kitchen becomes a bigger part of that composition. Now even moving something as simple as a camera lens can create visual interest. In this case, we're shifting focus. Right now the foreground is in focus, but as the camera lens moves deep background is in focus. And again, we've just shifted our composition so that something else is prominent. Now in addition to motion within the shot, We also need to consider motion across multiple scenes. Now when we move across multiple scenes we need to do a couple of things. One is avoid jump cuts. And that means cutting between things that are too visually similar. We also need to match our motions across cuts. As well as consider using transitions instead of cuts. So let's take a look at these. Now first we have jump cuts. Now a jump cut is essentially cutting between things that are too similar. And that will create visual confusion. Now typically this is when we cut between two close-ups, so instead of cutting between close-ups we may want to cut cameras progressively closer or progressively further away. So cut from a close-up to a medium shot and then back to a close-up. We also need to consider just what we have in the scene. So we want to make sure that we cut between different shapes, compositions, and outlines. Now here we have a simple example of a jump cut. If we cut from something like this to something like this, it's going to appear to be a bit of a jump. Now that's a bit of a problem. And why is that? And that's because these two are visually similar. The camera is the same distance and the objects are similar shapes. Now we can offset this by adding in a third shot. In this case, we will cut wider and then closer. So we cut to an establishing shot of the building and then back in. And this can soften that jump cut. Another way to do it is just to cut between things that are visually different. So in this case, we're cutting from one part of the building to another and then to another. And each composition is different enough so that we don't get a jump. Now we also need to consider matching our motion. We want to make sure that our motions flow properly over a cut, so we don't want to cut from say, a strong right motion to a strong left motion. We also don't want to cut from strong movement to still motion. All of these will create visual confusion. So one way to do this is to slow out motion before a cut and to also use transitions to help soften a cut. So let's take a look at an example. Here I have a building. And so we're going to move the camera and then cut. Now that was a very abrupt transition. Now why did that happen? That's because we have what's called a "motion mismatch." In the first scene, we had the camera moving to the left. In the second scene, the camera is moving to the right. And shifting between these two over a cut is just a little too abrupt. Now how can we solve this? Well, one way to solve it is by a slow in and slow out. So we will slow out the camera before the cut and that should ease the transition. So here's the same shot with a slow out. So as you can see slowing out the camera made the transition a lot better. Now in addition to matching motion, we can also use transitions to help soften a cut. And those include a fade in or fade out, say to black. We can use crossfades between scenes. And we can also use what are called "wipes." Now all of these will soften a change in motion and they can also communicate things such as passage of time or change in place. So let's take a look at how a transition can help. Here I have a scene that's going to cut from one shot to another. Now that cut was a little bit abrupt and why was that? And this is because we have what's called a "speed mismatch." In this case, we're going from a faster motion to a slower motion across a cut. Even though both cameras are pushing in, that change in speed creates confusion. So we can use something like a transition to help this. So instead of cutting from one to the other, we will crossfade from one to the other and that should soften that change in speed. So let's take a look at this with a crossfade. And as you can see, that transition is a lot softer. So to sum up, we can add motion to our project to help direct the eye, reveal new elements or hide them, as well as bring images to life and add visual interest. Now motion doesn't happen just within a scene, it also happens over the cut. So when we go between scenes, we want to make sure our motions avoid jump cuts, that our motions match up, and that we also use transitions when needed.