Motion Graphics Trends 2011

[beau+++ 0]

2011 Trends will be comprised entirely of whatever tricks I decide to unleash on you sorry lot. Cuz y'all gonna copy my shit when you see it. Shiny balls? I got the shiniest balls of all.

[the_Monkey 8]

We're already starting to see this, but I think we'll see a lot mograph in 2011 making reference to "touch" – the way we interact with touch screen interfaces. Lots of fingers or invisible fingers touching, swiping, pinching, flicking and otherwise gesturing and screen elements reacting in the ways we've grown accustomed to.

That's brilliant Fred.

 

So just in case we see a GSG Pinch Kit... Fred called it first.

 

 

-m

[Duder 0]

 

 

/appropriate

[killkillakillyo 0]

[scott frizzle 0]

Chaos. There is no time between trends and the reactions to them any more. Motion graphics in 2011 is the visual equivalent of microphone feedback.

[ChrisC 2]

We're already starting to see this, but I think we'll see a lot mograph in 2011 making reference to "touch" – the way we interact with touch screen interfaces.

 

 

Eeeek - I'm working on one like this right about now. Swipes gestures and things stuck to fingers. Do you think I should stop and tell them they're walking into a cliché ;-)

[getSOME 0]

2011

 

-Clients realise trends are a cunning ploy to make second-hand ideas seem more valuable than original ones.

 

-Motion graphic people start wearing suits.

 

 

Liar, this is the only suit im wearing

 

[Beaver 1]

More of an industry trend than a style trend, but I predict more sophisticated motion graphics in local spots. Already seeing that quite a bit, and it's clear that local producers are finally hanging up their video toasters and hiring some AE people.

[SP3KTR 0]

shit! that's how I'm dressed right now

[monovich 0]

The trend is going to be whatever plugins or software make it easy to do. Bouncing balls? Its easy now. Trapcode made particles and shine easy. Knoll made lens flares easy. Mograph module made fancy replication animation easy. Global illuminated stuff on white backgrounds? Easy!

 

Here's a trend: Hyper color corrected EVERYTHING. iPhones have Lomo apps, We've got Magic Bullet Looks. Etc Etc. Now we can push the "easy" button and get footage that looks like action movies, even if we're using it on wedding videos!

 

Whoever writes the next hot "easy" plugin will be instantly rich.

[theta 0]

The trend is going to be whatever plugins or software make it easy to do. Bouncing balls? Its easy now. Trapcode made particles and shine easy. Knoll made lens flares easy. Mograph module made fancy replication animation easy. Global illuminated stuff on white backgrounds? Easy!

 

Here's a trend: Hyper color corrected EVERYTHING. iPhones have Lomo apps, We've got Magic Bullet Looks. Etc Etc. Now we can push the "easy" button and get footage that looks like action movies, even if we're using it on wedding videos!

 

Whoever writes the next hot "easy" plugin will be instantly rich.

 

 

My auto-stereoscopic conversion plugin for AE is almost complete. Taking pre-orders now...

[Colin@movecraft 0]

1. 3D (stereo playback) will undoubtedly filter down to motion artists. I feel as though the medium has only been lightly pushed in any kind of creative direction at all. i.e. Pixar's Day & Night. http://www.pixar.com/shorts/d&n/index.html

 

2 ."Graphic Design" is becoming "Motion Graphics". "Web and Interactive" will become "Mobile".

 

3. Typefaces will be designed with motion implementations included and considered.

 

4. Real-time graphic systems that will become more important. Digital signage won't be pre-rendered, it will include live data of some sort.

 

All of these trends will need designers.

 

c

[q3c 0]

This has got to be the best thread I have read in a while. Shiny balls with hinges

 

But to answer the question seriously, I can tell you what I HOPE will become the trend in 2011:

 

Abandoning visual extravaganza and coming back to the roots of simple, carefully crafted animation, where there isn't necessarily tons of stuff on the screen at the same time, but each frame and each move has been timed and polished to perfection.

 

Bah, but knowing the market, it will probably be Tron rip-offs, moar flarez and HDRI reflections galore.

[Marc Z 9]

I'm totally down with monovich on this. It's not like dynamics, HDRI, fluid sims, particles and heavy color correction weren't possible 5-8 years ago. But now it's easy. So whatever new red giant AE plug-in or C4D upgrade comes out in the next year, that's what will drive the look of the year. After seeing Skyline, I'm done again with lensflares for the foreseeable future.

 

I guess to see what we'll be doing in 3-4 years we need to keep an eye on what new white papers are presented at Siggraph. That stuff will end up in higher end apps like Houdini and Nuke first, then slowly trickle down to AE & C4D.

[vector meldrew 0]

1) New ways to render and manipulate point clouds

2) Multi-Layered video/data capture in consumer products (allowing development for fx based on camera position, orientation)

3) More/Cheaper Lidar/MoCap hardware (pretty much anything flight404 has been doing with their xBox Kinetic hacks... check them all)

 

-m

 

 

I like the idea that we will be using different forms of input and real time generating data for making motion graphics, for me this mocap video is already the start of that: http://vimeo.com/16562131

One thing i do wonder about mocap based stuff, is that it is expensive and you need alot of equipment/set-up, i guess the xbox kinect hacks should start to change this, however is there any kind of open source resources for the motion graphics artists to collaborate with the hackers? Flight404 stuff is cool but i would like to see it applied more creatively

 

Also alot of the stuff people are doing with augmented reality will gradually start to incorporate motion graphics. Once this technology develops i think it is something that should be taken seriously.

 

 

 

2 ."Graphic Design" is becoming "Motion Graphics".

 

c

 

Agree with this statement too .. in a big way!

 

 

 

[iline 0]

 

I guess to see what we'll be doing in 3-4 years we need to keep an eye on what new white papers are presented at Siggraph. That stuff will end up in higher end apps like Houdini and Nuke first, then slowly trickle down to AE & C4D.

 

Yeah, but then the open-source softwares like Blender have always been the first to implement Siggraph and Pixar's research into usable software. I'm not saying the Foundry or the Houdini chaps are slow, but they cannot compete with thousands of blender coders who release their products (look at graphicall.org for evidence of just how many people are taking that source code for a walk...) for free. I think once Blender is properly working as intended we'll see way more fluid sims, random AI and node-based weirdness that Maxon wouldn't touch with Autodesk's dick...

 

I think the tools dictate the trade at the moment, but we're expanding our toolset to reflect a changing ideology about how we use symbols to convey meaning. As the symbols become more complex our tools have to evolve. I think the need for the uncanny to seep into graphics production prompted the development of HDRI and physics simulation in a drag-and-drop, easy-peasy "CGI for Dummies Designers" application like Cinema. Particular is great, but before Trapcode made it it would have been more ballache than making bouncy balls for weeks on end currently is (I actually am). So perhaps as our toolset enables us to do stuff, we can pitch more ambitious ideas to more ambitious clients, and the trends are dictated less literally by clients' predilection to use last year's campaign/rival company's current brand strategy and more by the ability to do way more stuff for far less money...

 

clearly my theories are a bit rickety, but if I was good at this I'd be an economist, not an animator.

[Marc Z 9]

My point wasn't about cutting edge technology, but about new-ish technology being offered in such a way designers think it's easy to use. Blender fails rather spectacularly there.