r/MotionDesign • u/GraphicVibes19 • 1d ago
Question What was is like when you first started motion design?
I am curious to know what professional designers went through when they first started (self taught included).
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u/Dion42o 1d ago edited 1d ago
I started out as a snowboard video fanatic, so I edited my own shitty footage, which turned into me fucking with logo reveals, etc. next thing I know, I am a senior animator at one of the biggest casino companies there is.
Edit: I am 36. I use to be super into snowboarding Look at all the dumb shit I made https://www.youtube.com/@DylanGreene9 This is my old old shit may god have mercy on my souls. https://www.youtube.com/@Greener0710
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u/TheCowboyIsAnIndian Cinema 4D / After Effects 1d ago
37 here. Also started w skate vids and lttle comedy things. Mostly just editing to music I liked. But thats when I realized I loved post production and rhythm. I think that was an entry point for a lot of us.
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u/fkenned1 1d ago
What do you animate for the casino? Just curious.
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u/Dion42o 1d ago
Pretty much everything, background animations, symbol animations, anything that moves.
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u/negativezero_o 1d ago
Lmaoo I started chopping up skate & music videos and now design 3D-motion ads for building-exterior LED’s on the Vegas strip.
Cheers to the self-taught. I find we’re generally more passionate.
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u/GraphicVibes19 1d ago
Still better than nothing, unlike me who is just starting out and haven't done anything.
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u/Bloomngrace 1d ago
When I started Photoshop 1.0 had been upgraded to PSD 2.0 but still did not have layers. My first job introduced me to After Effects 1.0 which did have layers so it was a revelation. We had a dedicated PC that turned video into MPEGS...... everything had to be in a 256 colour palette. PS1 came out
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u/seemoleon 1d ago
Click ‘OK’ on the Gaussian blur, get up, go have a nap, read a book, maybe your blur will be finished, maybe not.
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u/MikeMac999 1d ago
I started in 1990 at a local station. I had no interest, or knowledge really, of motion graphics. I didn’t even really want the job, I figured I’d do it for a year to get over the experience hump then move on to something else. The situation was ridiculous by today’s standards. We had a Quantel Paintbox, which was a half million dollar machine with discs the size of 25lb weightlifting plate that held eighty 720x480 images. It was like a very, very limited version of Photoshop minus any typographic capabilities. We set type on our typesetter and scanned it in via camera. One of the main reasons they hired me was my knowledge of the Mac, which was still relatively new at the time, so we used that mainly for print, until I took over the department in ‘95 and then After Effects came out. We had Director before that but never really used it. We also had an SGI workstation with something called Matador, which was cool but I never really took to it.
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u/seemoleon 1d ago
I used to book at a reasonably well-known little studio in the basement of the studio owner’s mansion in DeMille Estates (this may sound familiar if you were / are in LA). Upon starting a gig every artist had same question—How’d ‘SM’ (the owner) get so filthy rich? The answer became all but gospel among my generation of LA motion artists—the Paint Box days were the Gold Rush days.
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u/leftonredd33 1d ago
I started out in the early 2000s. I created my first animation in Image Ready which shipped with Photoshop. I was living in the hood hood, and one of my boys was computer savvy. Mind you, we lived in Brownsville, the most dangerous neighborhood in Brooklyn, but we were nerdy kids trying to make it. He gave me some cracked versions of Photoshop and Flash.
I started learning Flash, and later on quit my dead end job at Staples to do an internship at a small Flash animation shop called Monkey Clan. A Puertorican kid straight off the Block working on projects for XBOX, MTV, and Disney. Since then I learned After Effects, and have worked on all sorts of projects from Music Video with 50 Cents to Commercials for Nintendo.
If you’re starting out, listen to this. If you truly love what you do, it doesn’t matter where you’re from. Just put yourself out there and don’t be a Dick. God will Bless you! I’ve escaped so much hardship because of the love I have for Motion Design! God Bless!!!
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u/ronismycat 1d ago
Video Toaster and tape to tape editing. Lightweight 3d was the bomb! No Adobe anything, no nonlinear editing. This was in 1995-96. So much different today it's hard to compare the two.
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u/cafeRacr After Effects 1d ago
Started in '98. Used Macromedia Flash and their vector design tool. Can't remember the name. Photoshop, After Effects, and yes, Lightwave. I'm still using Lightwave today.
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u/fkenned1 1d ago
I started animating in a pirated copy of flash back in 2005 or so, and officially started my career after college in around 2010, in after effects. Video copilot (andrew kramer… love you dood) was my god. I feel like I hopped in at a great moment where tools were good, and knowledge was accessible. Blender was well featured, and that was where I played with 3d for the first time. C4d was in a good place (that was my studio’s choice), so I jumped in there. Greyscale gorilla was putting out actual tutorials that weren’t just ads for their plugins. When I compare then now, and I had it good, now is like, insane! So many incredible tools and resources, and a lot of them are completely free. If I was coming up now, I feel like it might actually be more intimidating. There are so many people, with so much access to so much knowledge… young people are so good at this stuff now. It’s a good thing and I love to see it
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u/dfb_col08 1d ago
Started around 2012! I remember watching lots of videocopilot tutorials and then through vimeo discovered the GSG Nick Campbell C4D tutorials. Back then in my home country it was still a lot of 4:3 format videos and motion design was not really something people talked through a lot, agencies and production companies were looking for people that knew After Effects more than a “motion designer”. I remember seeing all these videos in Vimeo and being amazed and inspired every week until I knew this was the field I wanted to put my soul into.
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u/willerd 1d ago
I remember looking for job postings and being overwhelmed with how in demand it was. Nowadays, partially due to me being more niche, it feels like there are a lot less. I also think that’s due to the fact that a lot of freelancers - myself included - moved to full time when things started slowing down a couple of years ago. I’m expecting things to improve over time though. I don’t see the need for strong branding and content ever going away, and I don’t see AI being able to do what we do with as much control. Maybe I’m coping? Either way I love the industry.
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u/Yeti_Urine Professional 1d ago
When our producers popped up on us unexpectedly… and we weren’t doing anything at that moment…. “Oh, I’m rendering.” Was a totally valid excuse that would buy you about 20 min free time.
Also, you were never not booked for less than 2 weeks at a time. None of this 2 days bullshit like now.
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u/seabass4507 Cinema 4D/ After Effects 1d ago
At one point there was a project floating around called the “Pretender”.
Multiple layers of CC Lightburst that would literally take 100 years to render if you let it.
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u/seabass4507 Cinema 4D/ After Effects 1d ago
Started in 96 at a studio that was one of the biggest in the industry. I was surrounded by incredibly talented artists. Many of whom are still friends of mine.
Unfortunately the industry kind of forced a lot of the old behemoths out and that studio closed its doors somewhat abruptly.
I would gush about the amazing times we had using AE 3.5, Form Z, Lightwave, in combination with Henry and Flame, but it’s just gonna sound like a nostalgic GenXer thinking their golden age was THE golden age.
Let’s just say that on certain high pressure delivery evenings, we were supplied with certain illicit substances that might help keep us alert all night.
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u/Anonymograph 1d ago
After Effects 1.5, the default Comp size was 320-by-240, and the Layer Quality switch defaulted to Draft.
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u/Scott_does_art Junior Motion Designer 1d ago
Man, and to think I’ve made 10000x1080 compositions with little hassle now. Technology has changed
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u/Ludenbach 1d ago
I think I had absolutely no idea what I was doing and made some interesting if rough around the edges work as a result. Learning how things are supposed to be done is great and if you want to make professional work for clients or integrate into a studio pipeline kind of essential. There is also something to be said for having no idea what you are doing and coming up with random ideas that don't fit the mold because you don't what a mold is.
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u/Revolutionary_Sign_8 1d ago
I started out as a Video Editor around 2021 and, over time, the collage animation really grabbed my attention!! I learned a bit of it and ended up falling in love with 2D Motion Design. Recently, I quit my job, bought a course, and now I'm fully diving into it!!
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u/LeftHookLead 1d ago
Started in early 2000s. The biggest difference is the lack of resources available to you. There weren’t tutorials on YouTube and websites that specialized in every area of the craft. You really had to experiment and try things out to achieve an effect.
Also render times were extremely slow, and generalists were rare. Everyone seemed to be a specialist, whether it was 3-D, or typography, or graphic design, etc..