Every major concert or awards show these days has an animated backdrop, typically of some basic color shifts and effects. Mantra Design, specifically Anna Toonk, got the job of creating the backdrops for the Country Music Awards Music Festival last June and discusses how they did it over at LiveDesign. It’s a great ‘best practices’ writeup of working with large multi-screen systems.
After reviewing the artists and tracks, we decided to do the screen animations and other elements primarily in Adobe After Effects, as it keeps our render times down and allows us to be flexible when needed. We did 3D components for two artists using Maya and Maxon Cinema 4D, and the rest were done in After Effects.
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As each screen begins to take shape, we add it to the pixel map of the screens themselves that we drop into After Effects to create our canvas so we know exactly what space we have available to us. It’s an essential part of the entire process, because it gives us a big picture view of the screens and allows us to troubleshoot anything before the content goes live on the actual screens themselves.
via How I Did That: Screen Savers At The CMA Music Festival.
