For all you animators who asked about how we did some of the visual effects in the award-winning “Red Lion” video, here are a few examples and free After Effects project files for you to experiment with.  We used the awesome Mettle 3D plugins Mantra VR, FLUX, FreeForm Pro, and ShapeShifter AE for Adobe After Effects and Premiere Pro in order to create the surreal elements of “Red Lion”. We made the “Metallia” 3D model with Adobe Fuse and animated her on Adobe Mixamo before importing into Photoshop and later AE.

Tima Vlasto, did the VFX for “Red Lion” and compiled these AE project files for you to use freely. She said it would be very cool if you found these helpful to go and watch “Red Lion” on YouTube or stream the “Metallia” album on Spotify, or follow Oh. on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram and connect with us.

The music video “Red Lion” is presently a winner, finalist and official selection in 14 film festivals worldwide for Best Music Video, Best Experimental Mixed Media and Best VFX.

Red Lion received the Best Music Video award in the inaugural French Riviera Film Festival (FRFF) in Cannes, France. Winner Best Music Video at the Cosmocinema Film Festival in London. Winner of the Best Music Video Short in The Psychedelic and Transpersonal Film and Music Festival at The Producer’s Club in New York City. Winner Best Experimental Mixed Media Short Film at the Paleochora Lost World Short Film Festival in Southwestern Crete in Greece.

Read more about the making of “Red Lion” and the music I make in the Bio and EPK.

It would have taken us many months to create the 5 minutes of animation for Red Lion if it weren’t for the incredible Mettle 3D plugins for Adobe After Effects and Premiere Pro, Adobe Fuse for the 3D models and the free animations on Adobe Mixamo. These plugins and resources made it possible to complete the 5 minutes animation in less than 200 hours.

We are very proud to say the video was #MadeWithMettle. The plugins opened up so many creative possibilities and we were blown away by what beautiful scenes we could create and make what we imagined a reality.

Mettle Plug-ins

Mettle’s Mantra VR is a comprehensive set of 16 stylization effects that work in both 360/VR and 2D, for After Effects and Premiere Pro. In “Red Lion” we used Circular Waves, Esher Droste, Hyperbolix, Mobius Raw, Repeater and Turbulence effects. We also used the Mettle Flux plugin which creates 3D volumetric fractal flames and the FreeForm Pro 3D Mesh Warp plugin that creates terrain, morphing organic shapes, an array of primitives, water simulation and character animation. For a few effects we used Mettle’s Shapeshifter AE plugin that creates 3D morphing shapes.

Learn more about Mettle 3D plugins for Adobe software

RED LION

A numinous Red Lion illuminates the path the warrior goddess Metallia must take to align her fragmented selves and restore an ever-present multidimensional vision long lost to humanity.

Director/composer Olivia Hadjiioannou (aka Oh.) presents a consciousness-expanding visual and acoustic odyssey. Avatars, griffins and multidimensional mathematical objects inhabit this psychedelic landscape.

Inspired by scenes from Federico Fellini’s, “8 1/2”, Lewis Carroll’s, “Alice in Wonderland”, Maurice Sendak’s, “Where the Wild Things Are”, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s, “The Little Prince” and ancient Greek myth.

“Red Lion” is the first in a six-part series of animated music videos by the multi-instrumentalist, Oh. for the progressive metal album, “Metallia“.