How To: Create a watercolor painting effect with Toonit for Adobe After Effects

In this video tutorial, we learn how to create an animated watercolor painting effect with the Toonit plugin in Adobe After Effects. Whether you're new to Adobe's popular motion graphics and compositing software or a seasoned video professional just looking to better acquaint yourself with the program and its various features and filters, you're sure to be well served by this video tutorial. For more information, including detailed, step-by-step instructions, watch this free video guide. Crea...

How To: Make a talking animals effect using After Effects

A LOT of movies have featured talking animals. Especially now that the technology is readily available to even low-budget filmmakers to make animals appear to be talking very realistically. If you've wanted to make your own talking-animal film, this video is here to help. It wills show you how to make animals talk using After Effects, creating and syncing mouth movements to fit your sound and leaving you with one charismatic cat, dog, fish, or marmoset.

How To: Animate 3D text from Blender in Adobe After Effects

In this tutorial, you'll learn how to take text from a Blender .3ds file, import it into Photoshop and saving as .PSD, and then bring it into After Effects for animation. Whether you're new to Adobe's popular motion graphics and compositing software or a seasoned video professional just looking to better acquaint yourself with the program and its various features and filters, you're sure to be well served by this video tutorial. For more information, including detailed, step-by-step instructi...

How To: Create a lightning bolt effect using After Effects and the Trapcode Suite

The Trapcode suite is a set of plug-ins for After Effects that allow video artists to create a variety of effects for inclusion in video and film productions. This particular guide demonstrates the power of Trapcode Particular and Trapcode 3D Stroke. Specifically, Wes Ball from OddBall Animation reveals how Trapcode was used in the creation of 'Eye of the Storm' - a music video by Lovett which can be seen here.

How To: Create a subtle ocean-like underwater scene in After Effects

This After Effects tutorial will show you a nice underwater scene, complete with light rays, rising bubbles and cloudy ocean mist. You don't have to be a professional AE user to recreate this great animated scene, either! Laurence Grayson demonstrates all the techniques for this subtle ocean-like underwater look using the standard toolkit in Adobe After Effects (CS3, CS4 & CS5). Using Fractal Noise, CC Snow and a Lens Blur with Depth Map, Laurence will have you chilling out in no time!

How To: Create particle effects with the Aux Particle function in Trapcode Particular

Using Trapcode Particular, Harry Frank teaches us how to create subtle unusual particle effects using the Aux Particle function in Trapcode Particular. Whether you're new to Adobe's popular motion graphics and compositing software or a seasoned video professional just looking to better acquaint yourself with the program and its various features and filters, you're sure to be well served by this video tutorial. For more information, including detailed, step-by-step instructions, watch this fre...

How To: Make someone burst into flames with After Effects

In this video, we learn how to make someone burst into flames with After Effects. You will first need Fire Assets from Action Essentials 2 or from somewhere online. Know which you are going to use before you shoot so you can get the right angle. Then, bring your shots into your software and position the fire above your character. Change the size and shape the match your actor. Then, track your footage by clicking on track motion and continuing forward. To make this look more realistic, change...

How To: Create a peel-away vortex transition in After Effects

In this clip, Aharon Rabinowitz shows you how to create a fun peel-away vortex transition for text and other elements. Whether you're new to Adobe's popular motion graphics and compositing software or a seasoned video professional just looking to better acquaint yourself with the program and its various features and filters, you're sure to be well served by this video tutorial. For more information, including detailed, step-by-step instructions, watch this free video guide. Create a peel-away...

How To: Write with water using Adobe After Effects

In this tutorial, learn how to create the appearance of text being written with a liquid using Adobe After Effects. This clip will show you how to use CC Glue Gun, Fractal Noise, CC Toner, Turbulent Displace and CC Mr. Mercury effects to create this cool illusion. This video is very detailed and comes straight from the experts at Motion Graphics Lab. Enjoy!

How To: Warp time in Adobe After Effects CS5

Want to slow down or speed up a clip after the fact? Whether you're new to Adobe's popular motion graphics and compositing software or a seasoned video professional just looking to better acquaint yourself with CS5's new features, you're sure to be well served by this video tutorial. For more information, and to get started manipulating time in your own AE projects, watch this free video guide.

How To: Create 3D text in After Effects without plugins

ChadandToddPodcast shows how to create 3D text in after-effects without plug-ins. This can be accomplished by an effect called shatter. First turn off the text layer, then apply shadow to your text image. Change your pattern to custom; it will go blank. Take the custom to text layer then increase extrusion depth. If you take up extrusion you can play with the style of the text. If you play around with fronts your whole image can also be 3-D.

How To: Use layer maps in Trapcode Form in After Effects

This software tutorial shows you how to use layer masks in Trapcode Form, a plug-in for After Effects. Trapcode Form helps you bend nature to your will by creating flame, smoke and other organic 3D shapes — and then synchronize it with your favorite audio. Learn how to work with layer maps in Form to create these organic effects in After Effects. Use layer maps in Trapcode Form in After Effects.

How To: Use the XML project file format in After Effects CS4

After Effects CS4 allows you to save any After Effects project in an editable text format known as XML. This tutorial will show you how to use the XML file format to modify and dynamically update an After Effects project without having to run the After Effects CS4 application. Using XML format After Effects files is a great way to save time and maintain flexibility by using a simple text editor to make changes. Use the XML project file format in After Effects CS4.

How To: Scrub audio in After Effects & more

Take a look at this instructional video and learn how to scrub the audio with the program After Effects. You can go about performing this by simply holding the command key and scrubbing the timeline, then that will scrub the audio and render the video. If you hold the option key and scrub nothing will be rendered. But if you hold both the command and the option keys, no video will be rendered but you can scrub through the audio without waiting for the video to render.

How To: Lip-sync in After Effects

In this video tutorial, CreativeCOW leader Aharon Rabinowitz shares some animation techniques for character lip-syncing in Adobe After Effects. This is not just the simple method of using open- and closed-mouths -- rather, Aharon covers the more advanced use of phonemes, which are the different mouth shapes formed by a person when making various sounds in a spoken language. Lip-sync in After Effects.

News: Space Invaders Transcend 8-Bit World to Attack Planet Earth

Those persistent alien beings from Space Invaders have finally abandoned the confines of their video game quarters, setting their crab-like eyes on the destruction of Earth. And it's up to one man to save the fate of human kind as we know it—Jeremiah Warren. Equipped with his trusty Atari CX-40 joystick, the lonesome savior battles the descending alien invaders, destroying them one by one with his laser cannon, right from his own bedroom window. See the battle below. The filming took about th...

How To: Disintegrate Objects at Super Speed (You Will Need: Sandpaper & After Effects)

Largely self-taught, Ryan John Kothe is an animator working out of Auckland, New Zealand. After picking up some rudimentary After Effects skills, he went on to create an impressive portfolio of beautifully rendered stop-motion animations with a distinctly tactile feel. Curious about the process behind Worn Out—Ryan's depiction of objects disintegrating in fast-forward (shown below)—we contacted him for a brief Q&A on the techniques behind his work.

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