I love the 2manydjs video visuals in their live sets and on their visual radio shows. I make a lot of DJ mixes of random music across allsorts of genres and would love to make visuals similar to these as they seem like they are (or at least should be) fairly easy to make.

Anyone got any advice, tips, tutorials, guides to make these kinds of video visuals at all? Examples in the below videos:

Cheers in advance!

 

Looks like either Adobe Flash or it's daughter, Adobe Animate with perhaps some help from Adobe AfterEffects. Millions of youtube things for stuff like that.

 

He knows that already, he didn't ask for millions of youtube things, he asked for one einstein.

 

They aren't
There is a lot of work behind any of these videoclips: there is an intense use of After Effects, and CrazyTalk Animator. Rest assured: it ain't a "one click" job

 

It's called Cartoon Animator since 2019.

 

Maybe take look at this (and similar courses):

https://www.domestika.org/es/courses/333-collage-animado-con-adobe-after-effects

I make different stuff in Ae, so really can't judge. But I think this guy is (very) good at it

PS: credit where credit's due, @beluga_man already mentioned it in this thread:
https://audiosex.pro/threads/any-after-effects-gurus-here.57210/#post-527572

 

Last edited: Mar 20, 2021

All useful so far, thanks! I am happy to invest my time in learning and making the video animations of album covers (though would obviously prefer a one click solution ) but wondering what would you guys recommend? It’s only basic animation and movement I would need and don’t need too polished of a finish...more grunge and gritty than Pixar

Any thoughts on best software? Cartoon Animator? Adobe After Effects? Adobe Animate? Anything else?

 

Last edited: Mar 29, 2021

There's quite a steep learning curve with After Effects - but you can learn some basic concepts and then search YT for specifics. For the 2ManyDJs kind of thing you want to do, you need to know about 3D layers, Warp, Puppet tool - and you'll need to know Photoshop (or your preferred photo editing software). PM me if you want any AE for Beginners style courses - I have a decent stash.

Also, that Spanish dude's courses that @Matt777 suggested looks ideal for you - it's in Spanish but has English subtitles. I'd be happy to go halves (tenner each) with you as it looks pretty interesting - again, drop me a PM if interested. Diolch.

 

Honestly just piece of advice, if you make music already, find a freelancer to help you with AE and other motion design programs.

I've been on this road and unless you have a background in it you will waste a lot of time not making music instead.

Yes everything is on YouTube but this is such a long journey, just like learning how to code.

This will save you a lot of time in your endeavour! Just my two cents.

 

The OP posted two videos with 2 hours full of different techniques. So the member above who used irony and called "Einstein" another member who simply posted a true fact about the subject, isn't providing anything positive to the thread.

To the OP.
I am afraid that you are wrong my friend. These videos are not fairly easy to make. I work with Illustrator, Photoshop, After Effects, Premiere pro and cinema4d among others, and one thing you should know is that videos with motion graphics, even if the idea and technique is kind of simple, they always require a lot of time. And i mean A LOT. You need time to cut images from backgrounds, time to mask them out, to keyframe them, to try different movements until you find the one that suits you, to make the speed ok, to match the music to the movements on the screen, to find the exact frame you are looking for( have in mind that in video work, each second is at least 30 different frames or pictures if you prefer)..One second has at least 30 frames. And to see a preview of one second of movement in order to see if you are satisfied, you will need to first render all the effects and movement you created. Then you watch it and if it needs a minor change, which will be 9 out of 10 times, you will need to fix it and again render to preview the result. If you need to render 10 seconds, you need to render 300 frames. One minute means 1800 frames..Keyframing has ruined countless nights of my life. Not because i don't love creating motion videos, but simply because it is repetitive work that takes a lot of time. Repeat the same process again, and again, and again..

For me, since you are intelligent enough to connect and manage all that gear you own, i think that you will have no problem understanding the various techniques in these videos and motion graphics in general. It is simply a matter of you taking serious time to sit down and educate yourself.

The problem here is that i know nothing at all about your relationship with graphics in general. You don't know video but do you know photoshop maybe? If you are already familiar with how to quickly remove backgrounds from whatever, how to apply layer masks etc, then you will learn everything 3 times faster. But if you wish to create such videos without knowing anything from photoshop, everything will be 3 times more difficult.

My advice to you is to forget After Effects for now and focus on Premiere Pro. Most of the clips i saw in those videos, are 2d. They are basically flat things(elements) moving around the screen. A figure "dances" left to right, some bubbles go up in the air, Michael Jackson's body is still while his hand is moving up and down. Everything is 2d elements in these specific examples. They took Michael Jackson picture and they cut his hand so they now have it as a separate element. Then they place the body photo on one layer, and the hand on another layer. Then they add keyframes and they tell Premiere pro that from zero to 1 second in, i want that hand to rotate upwards. From 1 second to 2, i want that hand to rotate downwards. This is done by keyframing. We place the hand on where it should be using the position tool. Then we add a keyframe at zero seconds. then we move some frames and rotate the hand upwards. We add another keyframe there. Then after some extra frames, we rotate the hand again but reverse so it will return to position it had on zero frames. Back and forth, again and again. We finally have a 3 or 5 second clip with Michael Jackson's body still, but with his hand going up and down.

Keyframing is everything. If you manage to understand it, you will def manage to make your own 2d motion graphic videos.
A quick but not deep explanation..
Video is time separated in frames. Lets say we have 10 frames. Inside Premiere pro you will see a timeline showing 10 frames and it will be like a ruler. With markings 0,1,2,3 etc.0 to 10. Next to the timeline we got several options. Position, scale, rotation and opacity are the basic ones. But the options are many more. Change of color for example and others.
Lets say we got an element. A red ball.
We add a keyframe in frame 0 and we say here the opacity is 0%. We then add a keyframe at the last frame, frame 10 and we say here the opacity is 100%. Now when we play those 10 frames of video, we see nothing and then a ball appearing.
Example 2. We add a keyframe in frame 0 and we say here the scale is 100%. Then in the last frame, we add another keyframe and we say here the scale is 300%. Now when we play the video, we see a ball increasing in size.
Add a frame at zero and say here the position is minus 1000 which basically means outside the working area/screen. We then add at the last frame as position the numbers that correspond to the center of the screen. When we play the video we see a ball appearing from outside the screen and placing itself on the center of the screen. The ball could be sunglasses on a face. A hat on someone's head..We can also combine keyframes so a ball will not only appear from outside the screen but it can also change size at the same time. Or change color, or opacity.

As i said before, no matter what you choose, you will need countless hours of work. Every single element in those clips, was first prepared in photoshop. You will have to download a ton of pics, remove the background and save them as png with transparent background. Some of them you will need to cut to different pieces and save them separately. Like Michael Jackson and his hand. And as i said, everything in Premiere pro and After Effects needs time. In Photoshop you grab with the pointer tool a ball and you place it wherever you wish by clicking and dragging it and then releasing the mouse. But inside Premiere pro you will have to type in numbers. A ball moving from the center of the screen to a corner will mean that you will have to type a number for the horizontal and a number for the vertical position. You will also have to learn how to achieve the correct speed of movement. This means trial and error and unfortunately countless hours of waiting for clips to render.
Note also that Premiere Pro has a timeline with a waveform and perfect capabilities of zooming in and out. This makes the synchronization of music and moving elements in your video kind of easy. Especially if your waveform has peaks.

I would search youtube videos using the keywords, "Keyframes" and "Premiere Pro". Also Premiere Pro plus "moving objects", "animate objects", "sync audio to video", etc.

 

Please delete if I’m off topic but what would an easy solution for graphics be?

 

from the way the above posts sound highly technical and so on, I open this second video expecting like a Tool show. This looks like TikTok.

 

I am afraid your question is vague.
Graphics can mean many different things. Full illustrations, band logos, photomanipulations, motion graphics for videos, full animation videos, ad designs, banner designs, GUI designs, 3d graphics...
And whatever you might want to learn, there is no easy way. Everything will need time. Time to study. You will need to watch numerous video tutorials, read manuals for software and read instructional articles on the web.

Every digital piece of artwork is made by software or combinations of software
Depending on what you wish to create, you must study the appropriate software.
The most popular programs are Photoshop and GIMP, Illustrator, Corel draw and Inkscape, After Effects, Premiere Pro, Cinema4d and Blender.
My suggestion to all completely inexperienced people would be to start with Photoshop and/or Illustrator, and move to other programs afterwards.

 

Thanks for the tip! I'm hoping to find something simple like screen saver with a photo that bounces around or something... I'll check out some of the things you mentioned.