Using Blender for Motion Graphics

So I’ve been using Blender for about 4 years now. I started using it to do motion graphics around fall of last year. While not the best for this kind of job it still is really great and fairly simple to use once you get the basics. The reason I post is to find out if anyone else has been using Blender for motion graphics. And if so, what have you made with it? If not and you do make motion graphics what program do you use? I know AE will probably be the top response and I use AE as well but mainly use Blender, are there even any other programs out there for this kind of thing?

Here’s two brief examples of Motion Graphics I created:

Love to hear from you all!

Great stuff! I’ve been thinking about using Blender for motion, in fact I intend to switch away from that bugfest of AE. With 2D and 3D workflows converging Blender will be a natural fit.
I’m curious about how you made the type animation in Photo.

Ah well, actually quite a bit more work has been done on that one in the week since I posted it, but its somewhat messy at the moment, I can’t post a Blend file as it is for a project for a client but I can explain it somewhat, although it might make for better video material than a long post but I would be happy to do either!

You may want to check out this motion graphics example with source files: http://www.formacd.com/v2/public/page.php?langue=uk#|45,uk

Hey Caleb, great to see more mograph artist using Blender. I’ve been in motion graphics for about 15years now, AE is my used tool but Blender is increasingly becoming a daily program for me. Most mograph artist I know use C4D because of it’s mograph addon, and particle system. But we’re getting there. Anyway keep up the work.
matthew/mofx

I do love C4D’s mograph, excellent piece of work and I wish blender had something similar, but alas I’m not a coder myself! And thanks so much!

@caleb, yeah! I’d love to see a tutorial on type animation like that in Blender. Already subscribed to your channel
@Futurehack, thanks for the link. Looks really cool.

Mograph in Blender would be awesome. Re:lay, Re:Phrase+ and Re:ticular get you close though.

@januz Alright I will do it when I get the chance! Thanks for the feedback!

Cool stuff. There are some great addons around to extend blenders ability but you stiff have to jump through lots of hoops to achieve basic effects :frowning:

I have been using Blender for around 3 years, recently I started using it for motion graphic.

My latest finished project.

Experimenting with text, based on Greyscalegorilla tutorial.


Did you make all of yours motion graphics on Youtbe channel with Blender?

@deadframe Yes I did make all of them with Blender! And wow that tutorial did you well because that Image is fantastic!

@3pointedit True and this is why I wish we had Mograph… Someone from Google Summer of Code should do this this year.

A descent array modifier + what we can do with particles but as a modifier (put objects along surfaces or volumes) + the ability to pass down modifiers to child objects and we have some kind of mograph.

True but if you have seen mograph’s full capabilities you would know that even with Blender’s parent system you can only do

Well, i remember a site to get together all of us that make motion graphics with Blender, made by mofx/Blendswap. :wink:
It will be great to have a place to see our work, shar our thoughts and maybe create some addons for Motion graphics.

Good to see this!

some of my work here:
https://vimeo.com/martineschoyez/videos
www.vacuispacii.org

@meschoyez thats some great work and a good site you have there!

Hi Guys,

I work as a promo producer/editor and I’ve been doing Motion Graphics using AE for the last 10 years or so. I’ve been doing my best to try to move my workflow to Blender but I’m missing some major things before it can be viable:

First is some much better text tools, at the moment we don’t even have font previews from within Blender.

The ability to add modifiers without first converting to a mesh object.

Simple masking within the viewport, I don’t even do that work in an image editor anymore it’s just way faster to do it as a pre-comp in AE.

I can’t wait for the day when I can use Blender exclusively but it’s not now. Of course this could be done, but it’s really a PITA the moment:)

I did this horrible piece for my studio at the begining of last year:
http://estudiopintamonos.cl/projects/city/

And this one a few months ago (only the 3D elements… does this count as motion graphics at all?)
http://estudiopintamonos.cl/projects/radio-top-2/

…also did this for a client in 2010… my first attempt at a client project in blender =)

Don’t forget atoms excellent addons for text handling. But it’s true the text tool is very basic missing simple features. At least you don’t have to always covert to mesh for modifiers, just the fun ones :frowning:

The real problem with text is that you can animate characters like in after effects or in C4D. If someone could fix that Blender will become pretty usable for motion graphics.