Forum suggestions for video critic / feedback / inspiration?

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Morning all,

In short, we are using vray / sketchup to create videos for our company website. This forum is great for how to do things technically on vray / sketchup, but I’m wondering if anyone can recommend a good forum for advice on visual effects / creative story telling / general video creation advice?

We use the adobe suite, but once again, their forums seem to be trouble shooting than creative input.

For instance, it would be great if I should share a video, and rough brief, and people could say “how about a text transition of x, or maybe start the video with a bit more info about the team” etc.

In short, a bit like a forum where people critique and give ideas based on what you submit?

Best

T

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You might benefit from taking a course on filming or photography.

The used techniques would contribute in manipulating your audiance.
@eric-s might have some ideas, too.

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Yes I’m certainly thinking of doing this.

Traditionally I have worked with 2D graphics, so going to 3D was mind changing. Then getting into VRay has made me think like a photographer (2 point lighting etc), which was a massive shift for me, as all of a sudden I was simply trying to make models as accurate as possible.

I think the problem I have, is that I work with advertising, and then work on the models directly, so sometimes it’s hard to see the wood through the trees. So even if I did a course of kinds, I would still need some input regardless. Literally a forum of people would be good haha.

Best

T

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Hi @theog and thanks @MikeWayzovski for the ping on this thread. I think the answer is that you just created the resource that you’re looking for. Forums are mostly used for technical support but there’s no rule against sharing ideas or soliciting creative feedback.

Feel free to share a video or part of a video and see what contributions the community can make. Speaking from experience, I view my approach to working with SketchUp and V-Ray almost more like a graphic or stage designer would – rather than say and architect or engineer. I assume that at some point down the road, someone way smarter than me can figure out how to get a project built – hence freeing me to focus on the storytelling aspects…ie composition, setting/context, user profiles, program, etc.

Looking forward to see what you have to share and any specific questions you want support on.

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The most professional approach would be to hire someone who has these skills and experience IMO. That’s gets you to your destination asap. If time is not critical, you could look at some training on Masterclass.com. possibly, as well as other suggestions in this thread.

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Ace thanks @eric-s

I should have something uploaded onto youtube next week which I can share with you.

I’m pretty happy with it so far, but ideally we will be producing a video every month, and would like to improve with each iteration. I would like to think, the Sketchup + Vray is getting there, but I think there are areas improvement from other cinematic areas.

Best

Theo

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Looking forward to see what you come up with. I can see 3 areas that I (or we) can contribute feedback to:

  1. SketchUp Model - level of detail, context, etc

  2. V-Ray Rendering - materials, lighting, entourage, etc

  3. Animation & Production - camera angles, transitions, timing, effects, etc

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Morning all,

Just pushed the video live onto YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Vf7Kx2IMm0

Whilst it’s not perfect, ideally we want to get something out there and see how people respond.

From a marketing point of view, we have other direct channels that are working well, so now we are looking at more soft sell marketing outlets (video / social media). We have a lot of expertise in door related hardware install / maintenance, so we are thinking of sharing a bit of that knowledge. The main target market being building managers / owners rather than DIYs or the engineers themselves. So we aren’t interested in how to videos, but more of ‘heads up’ type thing.

We work in a heavily compliant field, so we can’t say definitive answers to things, as this would get extremely lengthy, so instead we are liking the idea of ‘common problems’, or ‘things you may need to consider’.

We know that clients come to our website to generally snoop around, so having some video to show could help with the experience as a whole.

This video isn’t integrated yet, but it will probably sit on a page such as this - https://www.poyntell.com/fire-doors/fire-doors

As we build out videos, we will have a separate blog / vlog section to the site. But I think we are a little way off from that. But I envisage a series of kinds.

Whilst there are many very clever people this end in terms of door compliance etc, I wouldn’t mind a bit of advice on look / feel / transitions / how I could maybe jazz it up with some interesting animations or the likes of.

Our sector is generally very dry and full of text, so we are trying to shift away from text heavy articles, instead opting for quick snippets of information on video… as mentioned before, we have many good Google Ads which are providing direct leads. This video content is more for browsing / educating / promoting change / creating demand through education.

I’m somewhat limited to Adobe software + sketchup / vray for the time being. Ideally I want the technical learning curve to be a short as possible, as we are going to be producing 1 video per month. Perhaps a video per week, but this might be a little diluted.

Thoughts welcome!

Best

T

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Looks good!

You might want to consider framing your shots with text being placed in mind - there are some shots where there are labels that look like they are the focus of the shot, but they are obscured by the overlays

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Ace thanks!

I’m guessing your talking about the first video, where the text is on the left, and door label is also on the left?

I wanted to change this, but it meant another night of rendering, and I have been having issues with my vray crashing over night, so not been ideal. But yes, if we are talking about the same things, then I totally agree.

Our general style, is to have tags on the top left to highlight text, but part of me is wondering if there is a more graphical way of doing it. Maybe this fits with the company though. If you see the website, that should give you an idea of branding etc

It’s safe to say though that from this first video, we need to keep in mind where text will sit in comparison to the video subject matter.

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I suppose one of the things you can do first is perhaps storyboard or pre-vizualise each shot - export out a basic image of each product/scene and then decide where text will be placed.

You could even do this within SketchUp itself using advanced camera tools to set a 16:9 camera and either floating a face me component rectangle with the text on it - or using watermarks.

If you do this in advance of rendering, hopefully you can nail your composition before you send to render

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Yes good ideas.

Initially we looked at just the video, without any other interface (text overlays) involved. Now I think we will consider the interface whilst also doing the background video.

That being said, I’m still open to new ways of doing the text, so I like the idea of the 3D rendering to be kept fairly generic, so it can be used for other micro clips so to speak.

I haven’t looked at After Effects yet, but I’m guessing something like that may help make the text appear in a more flashy way.