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YouTube Tutorials Help Artists Make Sense of All That Technology

Today creative artists interested in graphic design, mixed media, and digital art need to master several different applications in order to fully exploit the digital tools available today. YouTube tutorials can really help to clarify how best to utilize these tools for digital and video art.

This recent tutorial guides the viewer through the process of making an animated, 3D logo. This is an important skill for anyone who wants to promote their craft via the internet and video platforms. What better way to show your professionalism than a really polished digital logo?

First, you need to create your logo in two dimensions using Adobe Photoshop. After you have your basic logo, you want to trace outlines around the main lines with the pen tool. This is going to allow you to create shading for the 3d image. Make sure you get every outline drawn, including the lines inside the letters, or you’ll lose those nice holes inside your o’s and b’s. Watch how he drags the handles after he marks the corner to create the curved lines you need in rounded letters.

Some shortcuts have been suggested for this first step, so experiment and see what you come up with. The most important thing is to make sure the image gets exported to the next step.

After you have created your outline, export to the Adobe Illustrator path. Now you should be able to open the file in Cinema 4D. Now you will extrude the image to create a 3D model and animation using Cinema 4D. Use the extrude tool and fill out every character in your logo, as shown.

You can play with color and lighting effects to get the look you want, but the important color elements are going to be in the materials window. This is where you fill in your logo, the background, and the interior of your 3-D object with solid colors that will make the image pop. Now use the keyframes in the timeline to mark the time it should take to rotate the object. For this level of motion, the controls are very straightforward.

Then render for output. You can use different settings, but that’s one of the easiest ways to get yourself in trouble if you don’t know what you are doing. The output settings in the tutorial are a good rule of thumb.

Now you can use Adobe Aftereffects to turn the animated model into a movie. Watch carefully how he first opens the Alpha channel, then imports the color file.

So overall, three different applications are used to produce the final product, but what you get in return is a truly professional-looking logo, and that will speak volumes on its own.