ScreenFlow is the de-facto standard for video tutorial creation on Mac OS. The mix of convenience and features included in version 1.x was great. Version 2.0 adds a whole slew of features that have been requested by the users. By far my favorite two are:
- Speed Control
- Audio Ducking
When creating video tutorials for 3D modeling you often need to switch to high speed to make things a bit more interesting. People can follow what you do even at 300% speed increase and it keeps the video interesting. With built-in speed control in ScreenFlow you don’t need to export to Premiere or After Effects anymore just to perform this function.
Audio ducking is the ability to automatically adjust the volume of the background music depending on the volume of the speech. I’ve done this manually many times. This is a time-saver worth the price of the upgrade alone.
Other great features in 2.0 are: support for transitions, copy and paste between projects and curve adjustment for the motion effects (Ease-In, Ease-Out). There is more to be discovered, take a look. If you make tutorials onthe Mac, ScreenFlow is a must-have!
Blender is a natural addition for the After Effects artists. The modeling, animation and rendering options rival or surpass the ones found in packages costing thousands of dollars, while Blender is Open Source and completely multiplatform. It was long due to create a class dedicated to the After Effects artists who wants to break the 3D barrier without “breaking the bank”. See more information about the class here. Don’t miss this great opportunity to extend your Motion Graphics skills into the 3D territory.
I’ll be showing how to use Blender with After Effects at the next meeting of the San Francisco Mograph Group at Adobe on Oct. 22th. The demo will focus on how to integrate Blender in your After Effects pipeline. I love Blender and I think it’s been grossly underused in the Mograph field. With so many people looking at other solutions, it turns out that often Blender is not only as good as any of the “big guys” out there, you know what I’m talking about, but it can be also easier and faster. The demo will focus on two main topics: 1) how to add 3D elements to existing footage 2) how to create a virtual set for an actor shot against green screen. After the demo I will introduce my upcoming 2-day class “Blender for After Effects”, scheduled to start in November.
Hope to see you there.
