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Activity Forums Adobe After Effects Epic Falling Object Tips

  • Epic Falling Object Tips

    Posted by Brad Magnus on February 27, 2014 at 4:22 am

    I’ve got a project where an item, for ease of explanation it acts like a piece of paper, falls from the clouds to earth. My style is simplified vector artwork. I’ve got the clouds flying by with Motion tile. I guess I’d like some feedback or suggestions on your preferred way to get the item to “fall” from the sky. Right now I’ve got the Wave effect rippling, and directional blur to create the motion blur look.

    Any other suggestions or tutorials to sell the look a little better? Thanks in advance.

    John Cuevas replied 12 years, 5 months ago 2 Members · 3 Replies
  • 3 Replies
  • John Cuevas

    February 27, 2014 at 6:52 pm

    I’ve got an idea of what you are trying to accomplish, but if you could upload a screen grab of your comp window, that would help in figuring out what the movement, elements and relationships…

    Johnny Cuevas, Editor
    Thinkck.com

    “I have not failed 700 times. I have succeeded in proving that those 700 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work.”
    —THOMAS EDISON on inventing the light bulb.

  • Brad Magnus

    February 28, 2014 at 3:11 pm

    Thanks Johnny for getting back to me. Here are a couple images:


    It’s looking ok… but I would like to make it better.

  • John Cuevas

    March 1, 2014 at 1:51 pm

    Hi Brad. I made a project a few years ago where letters were falling out of the sky, fluttering a little by the wind. Basically, just using a sin curve to move them back and forth in x and z space, along with some y rotation.

    Here’s an updated version of that project. The controller null is where you can change the how often the flutters are(_Freq) and how big they are(_Amp or _Max Tilt). In the project I uploaded, I keyframed the _Freq of each property to get it to stop fluttering. And it’s set up so that you can use position keyframes on your object to move it into place(I wasn’t sure if your screen was moving or just the background).

    Take a look, it might help you on your project or give you some ideas to try out.
    7171_fallingfinal.aep.zip

    Johnny Cuevas, Editor
    Thinkck.com

    “I have not failed 700 times. I have succeeded in proving that those 700 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work.”
    —THOMAS EDISON on inventing the light bulb.

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