With the evolution of technology, the ways of depicting and story-telling has transcended to a greater and to a completely new level where graphic lovers and designers are allowing their narratives to move forward with some amazing technologies by their side. Experimentation has got a new pace where motion graphics play a major role in picturizing thoughtful ideas into reality. The world is no longer confined to the two-dimensional graphics and visuals for conveying the ideas and serving to the world some human-centric designs which are aligned to the roles and responsibilities of today’s generation. To fulfill these ideas motion graphics has a major role to look into the functionalities efficiently.
Motion Graphics has become a source for product branding and promotion these days which is very beneficial for various projects to undertake. The world is moving to a faster pace and to match up this pace new technologies and software are coming up and giving us some of the essentials of bringing innovation and unique ideas come to reality. With design and aesthetics coming into the collaboration of technology, the approach of digital technology is flourishing. Motion Graphic software are here to stay to turn out some amazing ideas into reality.
Some of the software to use as a graphic tool in animation and 3D motion graphics are listed below. Let’s dive in.
The most widely used software of Adobe creative cloud is Premiere Pro. It has amazing features for a motion designer to work upon. The excellent tools available in this software have unique functions to perform and bring pictures into reality. In the last few years, Adobe has worked on this software to put together the most effective experience and interaction of the program with the user. However, it has some functions which is cannot be exported to other software while doing some changes on the exported file in Premiere Pro.
Just choose a template from the essential graphics panel and you can see various templates, Credits , and titles. It has various flexible designs with visual consistency of setting time, text, positioning key elements to get started with some high quality animations.
It has become a favorite for the users you are beginners in the field of 3D motion graphics. Out of all other 3D software, Cinema 4D has a high learning ability curve and is easy to learn. This software has amazing abilities to integrate 3D elements such as 3D animation and 3D modeling. The interface is really simple to understand by a beginner. Anyone who knows software like Photoshop and After Effects, Cinema 4D could be an easy one to put hands on. This is a must-have for all the 3D graphic lovers working with motion graphics.
It has very professional skill sets that take your animation to the next level. The tools help you enhance modeling and rendering. You can edit high quality visuals with plug-ins that help in rendering easily. The price is around $59 a month which is really a hefty price but you can download the 42 days free trial version to familiarize yourself before you make an actual purchase. The plug-in suitable for it is X- Particles.
Blender is considered as one of the most amazing open- source software available for the artists and the designers. This software is completely free of charge. If you are really passionate about 3D animations then it would be a wise and one of the best option to go for. It has features like UV unwrapping, sculpting, match moving, video editing, virtual reality, fluid and smoke stimulation and composting which makes it the best software for a user.
This 3D computer graphics application is used all over the industry. It allows the artists to make functionality beyond what is possible with built-in tools. The learning curve is very steep. It has some dynamic features and effects such as deep adaptive liquid simulation, animation bookmarks, performance capture, shape authoring workflow, matrix drive workflows and proximity wrap deformer. Maya is considered as one of the difficult and time taking software to learn. This software comes with a price of $1,620 a year and is a go- to software for the entertainment industry.
Nuke is a professional software generally used for the highest level of motion work. It is a node based software which uses composite 3D elements and videos together. It has both 2D and 3D features like nodal toolset, lighting, Zdefocus, color analysis tool, VR corrections and model builder, 3D camera tracker, UDIM import respectively. The starting price of this software is $4,999 a year. Nuke has been designed keeping in mind catering the needs of professional users.
Coming in a price of $52 per month, this creative cloud software can be used to master the motion graphics. After effects is a 2.5D animation software which means you can do any animation until and unless it doesn’t involve 3D modeling. However, there are some exceptions to it while using 3D modeling. After effects come with features like motion tracking, simulation effects, template creation, vfx, kinetic typography etc.
Regidant -Trapcode Particular is probably one of the oldest After Effects plug-ins that has remained effective for motion designers and has been used very frequently by the film industry over the years and is now intuitive for the artists to create particle animations.
These are primarily most used software by animators and graphic designers across the globe.
Let’s take a closer view to the Plug-ins and support extensions available for the above and related software designed for motion graphics:
This plug-in is stored with pre compositions, sound, motion presets. Here you can buy various packs for this plug-in as it may include thousands of text, 3D and 2D motion presets. It is very hard to believe that this plug-in comes free of cost as it has unlimited transitions and effects. It comes with various tools such as Transition Shifter and Keyframe Wingman. It can only be used on After Effects CS5 and versions above it.
It comes with an annual subscription of $500 and has a free trial available. This plug-in has some impressive visual effects and is improved to be more powerful. The masking features and Mocha tracking makes it most adorable and user friendly plug-in software to use. It can be used on Nuke, Adobe Premiere Pro and supports all video resolutions upto 8 thousand. It is used on NVIDIA CUBA card and optimum drivers and is being recommended for professional users. It has been proven that it has the capability to meet highest industry standards.
This can be attached to various software like Premiere Pro CC, DaVinci Resolve and Adobe After Effects and is compatible with both Microsoft and Mac. In the universe collection, there are almost 76 plug-ins available that lets you choose the background and other elements. It comes with a price of $99.00 in an annual subscription and also, the users can download the free trial for few days.
This Plug-in is free of cost available on the internet. It has a Hi tech builder which helps in creating infographics, text animations and various cascading effects. It consists of five features such as Particle Builder, Type builder that helps in diving in to this creative process workflow. Users can experiment with some stunning effects to generate videos and make them valuable. However it is not a very powerful animation plug-in for professional users to meet industry standards but is helpful for those who are in entry level.
Note: Plug-ins can slowdown the workflow but is efficient in case of having an excellent quality of rendering. It is a great way of saving time and energy while building graphics. They add tools and other elements which make the creation and visual effects stunning.
Animation and 3D motion graphics involve a lot of movement and making such motion graphics takes a lot of hours. Thus, for a way to increase efficiency and gain extra added benefits of the software plug-ins play an important role in creation of great 3D motion graphics and act as a backbone for creation of something beautiful. We are here in the era of Motion design where large automobile companies and electronic companies are hiring designers and artists and are in requirement of such people who can make beautiful visual graphics for them which are further used in creating advertisements and putting jaw- dropping transition. These effects make the product amazing and enhance its features. They are also helpful in bringing out and reflecting the best in the product while keeping the viewers busy into transition effects.