How To: Create an animated spider web with Adobe After Effects
In this tutorial, you will learn how to use Illustrator and After Effects to create a spider web that animates on and catches some text that flies into it. 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...
How To: Stroke keylights in Adobe After Effects CS4 or CS5
This quick After Effects video tip will show you how to stroke a bitmap using Keylight and Solid Composite. Whether you're new to Adobe's popular vector editor or a seasoned graphic arts 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.
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: Use displacement maps in After Effects
In this 3-part series on Displacement Mapping, Creative Cow Leader Aharon Rabinowitz covers the basics of using this effect in both After Effects 6.5 and 7. This highly detailed tutorial will get you started on distorting your footage with displacement maps. Please note, you must have After Effects PRO to do these effects. Use displacement maps in After Effects - Part 1 of 3.
How To: Use FreeForm to simulate flowing cloth or ribbon in After Effects
You can use the FreeForm plugin to create the look of cloth blowing in the wind - like an animated ribbon, or a banner waving in the wind. The key is in designing the displacement map to get a truly realistic effect.
How To: Use the echo effect in After Effects CS3
Creative Cow leader Aharon Rabinowitz shares some tips and tricks for working with the Echo effect and animated layers in After Effects. Use the echo effect in After Effects CS3.
How To: Use After Effects to stabilize a shaky video recording
We don't always have a tripod handy when we need to grab some footage for our latest video project, but shaky footage can ruin an otherwise great video. Thankfully, After Effects has a 'stabilize motion' tool that you can apply to your recording to prevent headaches brought on by a shaky camera.
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 your own Presets in Adobe After Effects
Make your job a little easier by setting presets in After Effects. This will allow you to save time while you add visual effects to your film. Having custom presets makes it much simpler to achieve consistency is your VFX.
How To: Create a twinkling star effect in Adobe After Effects
This is a great background for Christmas plays, holiday pageants or any other video you want to add a little twinkle! You can add a twinkling star quite easily in Adobe After Effects, and this tutorial shows you exactly how!
How To: Create a particle animation loop with After Effects & Trapcode Particular
This video guide offers a complete overview of how to create a seamless looping particle animation with Trapcode Particular and 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 v...
How To: Make a pulse or pulsating wave effect in After Effects
Making really attractive titles for your films is just one of the way that you can dramatically improve them using After Effects. This video will help you make them by showing you how to create a pulse or pulsating wave effect from whence your titles can emerge. They look great, and will make your movie (especially horror or sci-fi movie) look much more professional right from the beginning.
How To: Make a flying effect with sonic boom in After Effects
If you've ever wanted to make an even slightly fantasy-flavored film, you've probably wanted to make one of your characters fly. Unless you're working with a bird or some really crazy rigging, you're going to need to make this special effect happen in After Effects, or whatever compositing software you use. This video will show you how to create a flying effect with a sonic boom on takeoff in After Effects, and following it's instructions will help you learn a lot about how to use After Effec...
How To: Avoid the wobbly keyframe in After Effects
Nick Campbell shows us how to avoid the wobbly keyframe in After Effects. When you are animating logos and want them to come onto the screen, stop for a few seconds, and then continue off the screen. To fix it, highlight your key frames and then right click on "keyframe interpolation". Now, where it says "temporal interpolation" click to make it say "linear" next to it. Save this change and now the wobbly effect should have gone away. This can come up in a number of different moves, no matter...
How To: Use the Puppet tool in Adobe After Effects CS5
Bring still graphics to life with the After Effects CS5 Puppet tool. 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 using the Puppet Tool in your own AE projects, watch this free video guide.
How To: Make the JibJab effect using After Effects
Nick from Greyscale Gorilla does a great tutorial showing you how to do the JibJab effect in After Effects. This effect is essentially taking a photograph, putting it on another video's head, and comedy ensues.
How To: Create handwriting in After Effects
In this Adobe After Effects tutorial, the instructor shows how to generate a hand writing effect. First, open Adobe After Effects. To do this effect, you need to use the Pen tool, which is a very good feature. Go to File menu, select new then create a new project. Go to composition and select a new composition. Right click and fit it to 100%. Go to the text tool and select a box on the composition and write something that you want. Apply a desired color and font to it. Select the text box, go...
How To: Create a stromotion effect in Adobe After Effects
In this video tutorial, Creative Cow contributing editor Carl Larsen will show you how to use offset tracking to analyze the motion of an object over time in Adobe After Effects. For an example on how to do this, you'll be working on a stromotion effect for a science show in After Effects. If you know how to use Tracker Points, you're off to a good start to stromotion in After Effects. Create a stromotion effect in Adobe After Effects.
How To: Use Trapcode Sound Keys After Effects plugin
Sound Keys is a keyframe generator plug-in for Adobe After Effects. Learn how to visually select parts of an audio track and convert that audio into keyframes. TrapCode Sound Keys After Effects plugin is great for audio-intensive animations. See how to use it in this tutorial. Use Trapcode Sound Keys After Effects plugin.
How To: Create a pond ripple effect in After Effects
An After Effects tutorial on creating a pond surface effect and simulating an underwater video. Start with footage of a person looking down at the camera and then "touching" the water, then follow along with this tutorial and you'll have rippling water in no time.
How To: Create a Kamehameha (energy blast attack) from Dragon Ball in After Effects
No, the Kamehameha is not the famous Hawaiian king who united all the islands under his rule from 1795 to 1819. Nope. However, it is named after him. But in this case, Kamehameha is an energy blast attack shown in the Dragon Ball Z series. And with this After Effects tutorial, you're going to learn how to recreate this energy attack.
How To: Create smoking letters in After Effects
Creative Cow contributing editor Eran Stern demonstrates a quick, easy way to make a smoky title effect. Create smoking letters in After Effects.
How To: Fix scaling issues in After Effects
In part one of this two-part tutorial, Aharon Rabinowitz introduces you to Exponential scale, a keyframe assistant used to counter the issues that occur naturally in After Effects when scaling from very high values. In the second part, you'll learn how to ease the values of Exponential Scale to create a smooth end to your layer's scale animation. This is a better way to create easing in and easing out effects on animations. Fix scaling issues in After Effects - Part 1 of 2.
How To: Convert video to cartoon in After Effects
In this three part tutorial Creative Cow leader Aharon Rabinowitz explains the process of converting video to cartoon by using only After Effects and Adobe Illustrator CS2. Even if you don't want to create this exact effect, this tutorial covers a TON of basics and is a worthwile learning experience. Topics discussed: Dealing with interlaced footage, Basic Color and Image Correction, Creative Outlines, rendering an image sequence, using layer blending/transfer modes, Motion Tracking, Hold Key...
How To: Copy masks & paste them as keyframes in After Effects
This tutorial shows you the proper way to copy a mask in After Effects to the position property of another layer (and use it as a keyframe).
How To: Control the camera point of interest in After Effects
Expressing the camera: animating along a path. Rick Gerard presents a five minute tutorial movie as the second in a series that teaches basic After Effects Camera animation. In this example you'll learn how to simplify animating a camera over a still image and how to orient the camera along a path using expressions to gain complete control. Control the camera point of interest in After Effects.
How To: Turn A Flat 2D Image into 3D
In this short tutorial i will show you how you can turn a flat 2D image of a room or hallway into a 3D Room using Vanishing points in Photoshop and After Effects.
News: AE Intro Electric Grid
Maybe it is inspiration for some people around here. I have done this in AE and want to share it. Feel Free to download and use or customize it however you want. Download the template here (music not included).
How To: Smash Someone into a Million Pieces in After Effects and 3ds Max
Ever wanted to freeze someone, then smash them into a million pieces? Here is your chance! If you've got Adobe After Effects and Autodesk 3ds Max, it's pretty easy. Check out the tutorial video below to see how it's done.
How To: Create Your Own Portals (Like in the Game) Using Adobe After Effects
We've already seen how to levitate a Companion Cube using a Portal gun—now we're going to show you how to shoot your own portals! The guys at MobiusLOL give you an overview of how they created their Portal-inspired short film, "Experimental Portal Device".
How To: Create a Walking Dead Like Post-Apocalyptic World Using Time-Lapse Footage
Zombies. That's the first thing that comes to mind when I see footage of a once heavily populated area turned completely desolate. Either that or you stumbled across a Ke$ha concert...BURN.
How To: Use Magic Bullet Looks for color correction in After Effects
This is your video guide to the Magic Bullet Looks plugin in for Adobe After Effects. If you are looking for a color correction tool, check out this video to see what Magic Bullet Looks has to offer. Learn how to use this color correction tool.
How To: Use green screen in After Effects
Into special FX? Check out this video for a lesson in green screen. Watch and learn how to use green screen in After Effects. You can use green screen to make incredible visual effects for your videos and short films.
How To: Change the language to English in After Effects
Have you got a copy of After Effects installed with the language set to another language? Check out this helpful video to learn how to set the language English, whatever the current language is. Maybe your film is in French, but that doesn't mean your visual effects software has to be.
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.
How To: Create the Death Eater effect from the Harry Potter movies
You can create the magical world of Harry Potter yourself, using After Effects software. Watch these videos and learn how to make the "Death Eater" effect from the Harry Potter movies. Using After Effects, you can have the same incredible SFX as these Hollywood blockbusters.
How To: Use the Twixtor Pro plug-in to create slow motion in After Effects
This tutorial demonstrates how Twixtor Pro can be used to create slow motion special effects when editing video in After Effects. Learn beginner to intermediate VFX, specifically slowing down footage shot at a very high shutter speed. Twixtor allows the user to manage blur and warping when creating a slow motion effect.
How To: Create cartoon animation with After Effects
A lot of people use Flash for 2D cartoon animation, but Adobe After Effects is another great tool to create some very cool cartoon animation. This how to gives you a clear idea of the steps to take to use AE as a cartoon creation device. This short video tutorial will demonstrate how to properly export character animation from Flash and import it into After Effects to combine with background and foreground elements. It also gives a handy trick of how to duplicate a character animation clip to...
News: SFX on Crack (Oh, Soooooo Good)
What happens when a bunch of Bollywood filmmakers unleash their imagination with the aid of Maya and After Effects (plus lots and lots of paisas)? The sci-fi flick Enthiran (Robot), the most expensive Indian film ever produced.
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