Jumbotron Lightning

To preface: this is a 3D animated motion graphic I created for use by the Pflugerville ISD athletic department. The mascot of Hendrickson High School(a school in the district) is a hawk.

To start, I modeled the phrase “GO HAWKS” in large, metallic letters, and used the schools’ logo for the ‘H’.

After rendering, I grabbed a photo of mist from the internet, adjusted the colors in Photoshop, and animated it in Premiere Pro.

Additionally, I downloaded some royalty free music, and after experimenting, decided on this fast-paced rap beat.

This really adds a lot to the animation, and makes it seem more alive.

Go Hawks!

I wanted to add some spice to the animation; without it, all I had was the phrase.

I created a ‘lightning maker’ using geometry nodes, and made it so that all I had to do was draw a line, and the lightning bolt would build itself along that line.

It was easy enough to animate the lightning. All I had to do was adjust the length of the drawn line, and the bolt would appear or disappear. It wasn’t perfect, but the lightning would be moving fast enough that no one would be able to notice.