StrongMocha

imagineer systems is sponsoring a video screen recording tutorial contest. Participants may submit a video screen recording of any of Imagineer Systems products and the winning participant will receive a full suite of all of Imagineer’s programs!

User must have the rights to use the content of the footage they are using. Video can feature any of the following software applications: mokey, monet, mocha, motor or mocha-AE

Any number of topics can be covered and the more unique the tutorial, the better chances of winning! Some sample ideas for tutorial topics:

1. rotoscoping organic objects with motor
2. logo replacement with monet
3. using clean plates in mokey
4. tracking null layers in After Effects using mocha-AE

Videos must be send to Imagineer no later than August 31th, 2008.

All rules and guidelines can be found here: video screen recording tutorial contest

Andrew Kramer from videcopilot.net did release another great After Effects Video Tutorial. This time he is guiding you through the creation of smoke on a footage and how to stabilize it. Andrew was inspired by the book Adobe After Effects CS3 Professional Studio Techniques (Author Mark Christiansen) that we at StrongMocha.com recommend as well.  I did buy the book myself some weeks ago and learned a lot from Mark Christiansen’s book, of course not as much I learned from Andrew Video Tutorials or products videcopilot.net sells.

From Andrew’s announcement at videocopilot.net:

“In this new 2-part tutorial you will learn a great method for stabilizing footage in After Effects that smooths the result rather than freezes the tracking center. We will also create smoke flying behind a police car, which is as fun as it sounds.

This one tutorial has many great tips and techniques including, rotoscoping, expressions and matte blending.”

“I’d also like to thank Mark Christiansen for allowing me to demonstrate his stabilize technique in this tutorial. For more information about his great After Effects book” Click the book below

Some day’s earlier the same week videocopilot.net did release another useful Video Tutorial. The After Effects Video Tutorial “Smoke Screen” which teaches you how to use various compositig techniques to create these smoke designs in After Effects.

Please do not forget to support the work Andrew is doing. One great way to support videocopilot.net is to buy their products like Twitch. Twitch is available as a download version, buy Twitch here. Twitch from Videocopilot is a awesome After Effects plug-in. StrongMocha highly recommends this great plug-in.To learn more on Twitch you can read more here:

New Twitch (Vines) Tutorial @ videocopilot.net

Twitch - a “must have” After Effects Plug-in

Twitch After Effects Plug-in promotion video

Alternative you could start to stabilize and/or track footage with monet or mokey both from Imagineer Systems, however these products come with additional costs you may do not want to spend. View the product overview chart to see how Imagineer Systems products compare and what you are missing in your toolbox: Chart

Imagineer Systems is offering a special January ‘08 90% promotion on all products to students and freelancers*!
* (mocha-AE and dongles not included, companies with more than 1 employee do not qualify)

View the product comparison chart to see how Imagineer Systems products compare and what you are missing in your toolbox: Chart

• mokey
  • If you regularly work on projects requiring removal of wires, rigs, logos, faces, lens flares, scratches, hair-in-gate, warped frames, lens distortion and so on then
    
• monet
  • Tracking, stabilisation, rotoscoping and compositing are a fundamental part of visual effects work
    
• motor

  

  • motor is a dedicated rotoscope tool which uses our unique Planar Tracker to help position, rotate, scale, shear and perspective-shift roto-splines. It has several spline tools designed specifically with the rotoscope artist in mind and the entire interface is dedicated to fast rotoscoping.
    
• mocha
  • mocha is a stand alone 2D tracking tool packed with features that make the life of the effects compositing artist easier and less stressful. Now compositors can avoid the guess work and inaccuracies that result from painstaking and time consuming difficult hand tracking shots. The process of generating solid 4-point tracks, giving position, scale, rotation, shear and perspective matched tracks is sped up thanks to the next generation tracking. Once the track is complete, mocha is designed to export the data to the industry’s most well known compositing and finishing packages such as Inferno, Flame, Flint, Smoke, Combustion, Avid DS, Quantel generationQ, After Effects, Shake and Digital Fusion. This gives the artist the freedom to finish their shots in the compositing application they feel most comfortable with.
    
• mocha-AE
  • mocha-AE is custom designed and priced for the After Effects community, this stand alone 2D tracking tool packed with features that make the effects compositors life easier. Now compositors can avoid the guess work and inaccuracies that result from hand tracking challenging shots, speeding up the process of generating solid 4-point tracks, giving position, scale, rotation, shear and perspective matched tracks and exporting the data to Adobe After Effects. Version 5,6,7 and CS3.
    

You can learn more about the different product by watching this clip from Imagineer Systems

Imagineer Systems Promotion details:

90% off monet, mokey, motor or mocha. Nodelocked or cross platform floating license.

50% off mocha-AE nodelocked or cross platform floating license.

To take advantage of this special discount simply:

Visit Imagineer’s on-line shop to buy your special discounted license.

1) Add desired product to the cart
2) Go to checkout
3) Fill in the customer information page
4) On the order details page add the following coupon codes to get the discount:

for mocha-AE: discfu-jan08-mochaAE
for all other products: discfu_jan08

5) On the summary page, enter the Host ID of the workstation you want to run the software on.
6) How do I get the Host ID for my machine?: Click Here

Offer expires 01/31/08.