Hot After Effects How-Tos
How To: Create custom shapes in After Effects
In this video tutorial, Creative Cow leader Aharon Rabinowitz shows you how to move beyond the Basic shape tools to create your own custom shapes. Part two shows you how to combine several shapes to make a complex shape. Create custom shapes in After Effects - Part 1 of 2.
How To: Expand the boundaries of footage in After Effects
In this video tutorial, Creative Cow Leader Aharon Rabinowitz shows you a an often-missed tool in After Effects (Grow Bounds) that can help you out in a pinch, by expanding the boundaries of your footage. Expand the boundaries of footage in After Effects.
How To: Animate opacity in Adobe After Effects
Get started using Adobe After Effects with the help of The New Boston! This beginner's tutorial is bound to answer the many questions you have about the popular digital motion graphics and compositing software. The main purpose of After Effects is for film and video post-production.
How To: Create a knife throw effect in After Effects
In this After Effects tutorial you'll learn how to make it look as if a knife is flying through the air towards someone, and almost hits them. If you want, feel free to make it hit them. Create a knife throw effect in After Effects.
How To: Animate scale in Adobe After Effects
Get started using Adobe After Effects with the help of The New Boston! This beginner's tutorial is bound to answer the many questions you have about the popular digital motion graphics and compositing software. The main purpose of After Effects is for film and video post-production.
How To: Animate rotation in Adobe After Effects
Get started using Adobe After Effects with the help of The New Boston! This beginner's tutorial is bound to answer the many questions you have about the popular digital motion graphics and compositing software. The main purpose of After Effects is for film and video post-production.
How To: Change the color of an object in After Effects
This video shows you how to change the color of an object in After Effects.
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: 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.
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: 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 abstract waves in After Effects with the Trapcode Form plug-in
Creating an abstract wave effect in After Effects will allow you to make graphics like those in the thumbnail, basically clouds of particles with that smokey / silky effect like they used in James Bond titles. This video will show you how to make this effect yourself in After Effects in two parts. Apply this technique to your titles and they should be much, much sexier.
How To: Use After Effects to recreate the "Annoying Orange"
By now, everyone is familiar with the Annoying Orange, but how do they do their effects? This video will reveal the secret and show you how to put a face on an inanimate object like the Annoying Orange. See how to put any face on any object to make something that once was inanimate alive! This should work on all Adobe CS versions of After Effects. This example in this video is a beach ball.
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: 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: Create a Star Trek-style transporter effect in Adobe After Effects
In this clip, you'll learn how to use the Key Correct Pro, Knoll Light Factory Pro, Magic Bullet Looks and Trapcode Particular plug-ins in Adobe After Effects to create a sci-fi transformer effect. 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 detai...
How To: Loop still images to fake a 3-dimensional movement over a surface
In this tutorial, After Effects is used in actual realtime to create a video comp that simulates a forward three-dimensional movement. Several images are arranged into a layered, three-dimensional composition, and a single image is tiled into a surface pattern that is offset tilted and scrolled forward indefinitely. Several additional elements are also mentioned to add realism and depth to the forward scrolling movement, including foreground elements, background images, camera shake, camera p...
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: Make elements grow in After Effects
Jayse Hansen demonstrates how to create graphic elements that will grow in After Effects. Now we have a step by step tutorial. More experienced users are welcome to skip around using the included menu. Using simple masking techniques doesn't always do the trick, this in depth tutorial gives you some better techniques. Make elements grow in After Effects.
How To: Animate growing vines in After Effects CS5
Learn how to use After Effects CS5 to create a simple growing vine 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 CS5's new features, you're sure to be well served by this video tutorial. For more information, and to get started using this neat effect in your own AE projects, watch this free video guide.
How To: Create an animated butterfly in Adobe After Effects
In this two-part tutorial, J. Schuh demonstrates how to animate a layered image of a butterfly using After Effects CS4.
How To: Create a working radar screen in After Effects
In this After Effects tutorial, Jerzy Drozda Jr (aka Maltaannon) demonstrates how to create a radar that really works! You'll draw the radar, animate the target over it, and watch how the radar detects the object by itself, marks it on the grid and even makes a beeping sound. Create a working radar screen in After Effects.
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 and use lens flares in Adobe After Effects CS5
Want to add a lens flare effect to a video sequence? With Adobe After Effects CS5, it's quite easy. 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 lens flares in your own AE projects, watch this free video guide.
How To: Edit mask properties in Adobe After Effects
Get started using Adobe After Effects with the help of The New Boston! This beginner's tutorial is bound to answer the many questions you have about the popular digital motion graphics and compositing software. The main purpose of After Effects is for film and video post-production.
How To: Force motion blur on objects in After Effects
In this After Effects tutorial Creative Cow leader Aharon rabinowitz shows you how to add a motion blur to effects that don't support this feature. Motion blur is key for any fast moving objects or effects and it can often cover up imperfections, so it's an important skill to learn. Also covered is adding blur to video footage that has been sped up, and an introduction to CyCore's updated Effects: CyCore FX HD. Force motion blur on objects in After Effects.
How To: Creating The James Bond 007 Intro with After Effects
In this video tutorial, Creative Cow leader Michael Park shows you how to achieve that classic introduction to all of the James Bond films using only basic After Effects plugins.
How To: Get rid of edge seams in Adobe After Effects
Interested in getting rid of edge seams within Adobe After Effects? This video guide will show you how it's done. Whether you're new to Adobe's popular compositing editor or just want to better acquaint yourself with the popular video editing program, you're sure to benefit from this video tutorial. For more information, including detailed, step-by-step instructions, watch this tutorial.
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 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...
How To: Create masks w/ find edges & auto-trace After Effects
In this video tutorial, CreativeCOW contributing editor, Nelson Fernandes demonstrates a method to obtain a quick and dirty mask using the find edges effect combined with the auto-trace feature.
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: 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: Import images with transparency into After Effects
In this software tutorial you will learn how to manipulate images in Photoshop to remove the background and then bring that transparent background image into After Effects without loosing the transparency. The Photoshop section covers the use of the Magnetic Lasso tool and Quick Mask to remove a background. With the image adjusted, you will learn how to import your new image into After Effects with preserved transparency.
How To: Create a motion sketch in Adobe After Effects
Get started using Adobe After Effects with the help of The New Boston! This beginner's tutorial is bound to answer the many questions you have about the popular digital motion graphics and compositing software. The main purpose of After Effects is for film and video post-production.
How To: Simulate air flow over an object in After Effects
In this video tutorial, Creative Cow Leader Aharon Rabinowitz shows you how to simulate airflow over an object by using the After Effects CS3 puppet tools with a particle system. Simulate air flow over an object in After Effects.
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: Make a CCTV monitor effect in After Effects
CCTV's (closed-circuit televisions) are more common than ever before, and have become more and more popular to depict in films and in video games like Manhunt. This video will teach you how to create a CCTV monitor effect akin to what a security guard would see on their camera monitor using After Effects. This will work great for any horror movie that you might be shooting, the effect is very creepy.
How To: Use Show Audio Waveform in After Effects
CreativeCow leader Aharon Rabinowitz returns to the subject of "Audio in After Effects" and shares a quick tip for working with audio waveforms. Use Show Audio Waveform in After Effects.
How To: Combine 3 Videos Seamlessly in After Effects
Get past the intro and then you will get to the actual tutorial. This blending technique was used in the short film Tin Trio. This effect allows you to combine multiple videos shot with a locked off camera.
Next Page
Prev Page