One of the problems that may plague animators is that their animation is too perfect ~ too clean. In this article, Jim Tierney demonstrates how to add in a little randomness to your animation with the Wiggler tool in After Effects 5.5.
Adobe After Effects 5.5 ~ 04/01/03
Cell Pattern is a filter that can be used to create all sorts of background animations, displacement maps, track mattes, and many other things. It uses algorithms to generate the shapes and shading you see rendered. This allows you to create thousands of different patterns and textures. In this tutorial, Jim Tierney demonstrates a few of these as well as discusses how to create and save your own After Effects favorites.
Adobe After Effects 5.5 ~ 04/01/03
In this tutorial, Dan Ebberts explores how you can use expressions in After Effects 5.5 to build a fairly sophisticated 3D particle generator. Our particles will respond to initial velocity, gravity, wind, drag, and much more. Using this particle generator, we'll look at how you might create explosions, smoke, a fire blast, falling snow, and even a liquid-like flow. We'll explore how to make each particle re-usable, which will allow us to simulate fountain-like particle streams. This one is quite advanced and is not for the faint of heart.
Adobe After Effects 5.5 ~ 01/31/03
Basic Shatter An Introduction to the Shatter Effect in After Effects 5.5
Now that Shatter is included in the filter set of After Effects 5.5, many users are asking how to use this effect. In this tutorial, Ben Unguren demonstrates a few very simple techniques to help get you started with Shatter.
Dave LaRonde shares his experiences with upgrading from AE 3.1 to AE 5.5, and the production bundle no less. What would he do first? He gave himself an assignment: A fictional client arrives with a starfield and two animations, both movies of a planet and a moon rotating on their axes. My task: the moon must revolve around the planet, and it must look CONVINCING, as if it were a time lapse from the Hubble Space Telescope. Armed only with the manual, he demonstrates both the old and the new: Masks, Transfer Modes, Track Mattes, Time Remapping for a little bit of fun, and as it turns out… Expressions!
Adobe After Effects 5.5 ~ 11/13/02
With version 5.5 of After Effects, Adobe added the wonderful world of the powerful new Expression Controls. In this tutorial, Dan Ebberts looks at several different ways that expression controls can be useful in your projects. (This is an Advanced Tutorial.)
Morphing is a distinctive effect that is best known from the movie Terminator 2 as well as the Michael Jackson music video Black and White. In this tutorial, Chris Zwar demonstrates simple morphs with the Reshape filter in Adobe After Effects 5.5 -- which is a Production Bundle only effect found under the "Distort" menu. (Intermediate to Advanced)
It makes sense to use a 3D program to create a 3D scene; but what if you need to re-use the camera motion info from that scene for advanced compositing? In this tutorial, René de la Fuente and Will Scates walk through the basic steps needed to accomplish this using Alias|Wavefront's Maya 4 and Adobe After Effects v 5.5.
This series is discussing a couple of approaches towards color grading using After Effects 5.5. Barend Onneweer starts out with a rather mathematical approach to match the overal color balance between shots. This procedure can also be put to good use to correct badly white-balanced video.
Roland R. Kahlenberg, CreativeCOW's resident Particle Playground expert, shows off the versatility of Particle Playground by creating a game that incorporates collision detection against a customized grid.
Please Note: This is an advanced tutorial demonstrating the use of layer maps. If you feel that you need something a bit less intimidating, then please try Roland's basic particle playground tutorial here.
Pan and Zoom. This is not new in AE 5.5, but still a quandary for many a beginner to AE. In this tutorial, Matt Dallos will cover the preparation of your images, the basic theory behind making them move, real world examples, and a few ideas about how this effect can be extended to other and more advanced applications.
In this tutorial, Bjorn Sjostrom tries to remove any fear toward the 3D tools in After Effects 5.5. He hopes it will give you an relaxed attitude towards animating the camera, and building a "3D corridor" where only your imagination can stop you, the sky is not the limit but space is.
Vector paint, introduced in Adobe After Effects 5.0 has many uses but most people don't think of it as a rotoscoping tool. In this tutorial, Bill O'Neil demonstrates how to rotoscope with Vector Paint to create a "supercharged" sports spot.
An easy way to make any number of layers follow the movement of a single layer is to use the Parenting feature in Adobe After Effects 5.5. In this article, Serge Hamad demonstrates the power of Parenting in situations you may encounter in your production studio instead of the usual robotic animation exercises that you may have seen elsewhere.
By using motion sketch and the smoother, you can achieve a less "computer-generated" motion in your animations, and in less time. This tutorial by Ben Unguren introduces you to the basic techniques involved with motion sketch and the smoother. This is by no means a complete demonstration of what you can do with motion sketch or the smoother. This simply introduces you to how to use them.
With AfterEffects 5.5, Adobe has truly delivered C4D users an excellent solution to assembling all of your 3D pieces. Cinema 4D and AfterEffects are a very powerful combination, and in this 3-part tutorial series, Thorn shows you how to get started in the world of multipass. We'll begin with some simple color correction using basic elements. These tutorials *require* Cinema 4D XL v7.303 and AfterEffects v5.5; earlier versions of these applications will not work (as they didn't contain key features we'll be using.) Don't forget to install Maxon's AE plugin into the AfterEffects plugin directory.
In after Effects 5.5, Adobe has added the capability for expressions to access keyframe and marker data. In this tutorial, Dan Ebberts will focus on how to use this new capability to synchronize an animation to an audio track using layer markers and expressions.
In this tutorial, Matt Dallos demonstrates using Fractal Noise in After Effects 5.5 to create fire. More specifically, he demonstrates the "Bonanza look" of a fire burning through a piece of paper. Yes, this effect could be generated in a 3d program or plugins, but why bother when you can do it with AE's own filter set. You can also use these same basic steps to create other plasma and liquid type effects.
In this tutorial, Dan Ebberts demonstrates a method of generating motion that is random in both time and space and allows you to quickly assemble a composition with a pleasantly fluid, chaotic movement.
Adobe After Effects 5.5, 07/01/02
Path Text Using Advanced settings in AE 5.5 to generate Dancing Text
With version 5.5 of After Effects, Adobe has included some new features in the path-text filter that can be quite cool SUCH AS THE ABILITY TO TREAT TEXT CHARACTERS AS INDIVIDUAL OBJECTS, BUT RETAIN THEIR CONNECTION TO A PATH. In this tutorial, Ben Unguren demonstrates how to use the filter to generate a dancing type-on effect.
One of the best ways of speeding your work in AE is to use low- resolutions proxies to substitute your original footage. This will increase the speed while previewing or rendering your work tremendously, especially if you are working with 3D. In this article, Serge Hamad explains the procedure while creating a 3d ride through a corridor.
Have you ever looked at your rendered animation and just thought, 'Something just wasn't right?' In this tutorial, Bryan Preston demonstrates the use of AE 5.5's Time Remapping Filter to control the speed of an animation.
In part one of this three part series, Bill O'Neil demonstrates using Vector Paint to create a color wall of splotches and paint blips that we will “smear” across the screen.
In part two of this three part series, Bill O'Neil demonstrates the use of After Effects 5.5's Motion Blur with shutter angle and phase settings to create a 'smear' of color that will become one of the most useful clips in your digital spice rack.
Bezier Warp under the distort menu is a great tool for bending objects. In this third section of our light storm tutorial, Bill O'Neil demonstrates the use of Bezier warp to precisely bend the light storm to fit the scene.
Rick Gerard explains the use of the Light Transmission property added to Layer Material Options in After Effects 5.5. Basic and advanced techniques demonstrate only a few creative possibilities opened up by this exciting new feature
With version 5.5 of After Effects, Adobe has included some new keyframe-looping expressions that can be very useful for cyclic animation and layer-looping. In this tutorial, Dan Ebberts walks us through the basics of how to set up and use these expressions and then use one to loop a walk-cycle as you might do in a simple character animation.
Adobe After Effects, 6/3/02
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