BBC Midlands Today

Well, with changes coming to Midlands Today soon, I thought I would try creating some graphics for them to use that keep to the 2008 theme but lack the whitewash and have some colour in them.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQGMSHBG290

(Please note you are judging the mock/endboard, not the presenter shot (or the dodgy pretend TV image).

The idea started a few weeks ago and I uploaded an early version to Youtube yesterday/the day before. I then saw problems and tried to fix them. The linked above is the latest revision of my initial mock with more changes being made tomorrow. The idea was to incorporate the 2008 style branding into a different looking title endboard, My mock is the result of that.

Made entirely in AfterEffects, no templates ect. Most elements made in AE (Swirly globes, place names, text, animations) the only 'external' element is the BBC Logo and BBC News logo (credit for mdta for BBC Logo font and BBC for their BBC News logo).

It's good but to me Orange isn't a very newsy colour. I looked at it and 'Breakfast' instantly came into my head for some reason. Otherwise it's good.

Looking at it now, I am inclined to agree, Orange isn't too good, I have changed the colours to include more red and will be playing around and adding more bits in over the next week.

What software did you use to make this?

(I quite like it by the way, but more red would certainly do the trick)

EDIT: I clearly need to read the description more carefully

Try rendering the inside of the spheres too. If you're using CC Sphere make a duplicate layer and set it to render inside, then you can keep them separate when you colour and or put things "inside" the spheres.

Also how did you do your placenames? Are they "true" 3D or just keyframed for this animation?

All done using 3D layering on a separate comp. When layered with the rest of the animation I used one of the transfer modes (can't remember which) to try and make them transparent-y but use the effect used on the real regional graphics. I used the expression
C = thisComp.activeCamera;

V = C.toWorldVec([0,0,1]);
P = toWorld(anchorPoint);
lookAt(P, P + V);

to make them face the 3D camera.

Your comment about separate 3D Spheres is what I did initially, it looked a bit odd and it looked slightly better without them. I do intend to add them into the next revision of it.

But what about the lines? If the place names are in true 3D space how did you get the lines to connect with them? I tried something similar but could never get the lines to line up. Eitther way good job

The lines were drawn after, I tried to use 3D space on them but it just fell to pieces. In the end I had to keyframe it up with the text movement.

Its about effing time someone on these mock forums showed some promise.

We spoke yesterday about this, but what you have achieved, especially without actually using any 3D is brilliant.

For my place names and lines, I used an orientation restraint and tied it to the camera, so I could fly around with the camera, rotate and move the place names , and no matter what, they will always face the camera.

If you look at my BBC World News wallpapers I made at TV Newsroom, you should be able to notice some of the subtle details that this BBC News identity has in its videos, and it will help make your designs closer to the real thing, but also will look great if you ever moved into HD!


Here is a large image showing some of the subtleties...
(sorry for the large image lol )

Thanks for that, Martin.

Been tweaking it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-SaR7a-64s

Some of those placenames look just a tad squiffy.. nothing like rotating a whole comp.