Jason Milligan
Forum Replies Created
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This may not give you the exact look you want, but you may find it useful:
Duplicate the comp.
Blur the top copy and maybe boost the contrast with levels or curves.
Change the blending mode to something that accentuates highlights like add or screen. -
It looked like a photograph to me.
I would assume he built it in Photoshop by taking an image of a tractor and removing the tires and placing them on their own layers.Did you mean to type Flash?
It’s an After Effects tutorial.
Flash doesn’t use expressions (javascript-based), it uses Actionscript, something that would have to be written very differently. Flash can import raster (photographs) graphics as well as work with native vector graphics.Are you wanting to learn AE, Flash, Photoshop, all of them?
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AE is a moderately complex and very powerful application so expect a steep learning curve. Your familiarity with Photoshop will help and you will find many things similar and many things to be completely different.
Understanding the basics will make figuring out things on your own much easier. I recommend starting with these tutorials that will introduce you to a lot of the features of AE and its overall infrastructure:
https://www.videocopilot.net/basic/After that, you may find this tutorial will help get you started in the right direction for the type of project you are planning:
https://www.videocopilot.net/tutorials/elegant_slideshows/ -
I used to use the method you are proposing when I was first learning AE. It will work. I found the time-remapping method you mention from a COW tutorial to be much more manageable in the end. If you find that approach confusing, I would recommend messing around with it a bit more until it makes sense. It isn’t the only solution, but it is a good one.
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Picking up one of the AE “Classroom in a Book” books and following the tutorials inside would be a good place to start also. They’ll teach you the basics. You’ll be surprised how quickly you’ll be able to figure out complex tasks on your own once you understand the basics.
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This tutorial will get you started. There are some things in that video that will be a little tricky. For instance, the virtual LEDs are either on or off, there are none that are half-lit. Placing CC Ball Action over source footage won’t accurately portray this. You’ll have to prepare your footage with the LEDs in mind and perhaps fake a few things.
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Have you tried using duplicates of your displacement map with varying blending modes as highlights and shadows?
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Define “series of images.”
1-Do you mean, you have numerous scans of drawing that need to be cleaned up and colored?
2-Do you mean you have a sequence of final images that are all registered?AE can work with image sequences just as easily as video, so yes to your question if you mean number 2.
Import them as an image sequence and AE will play them as if they are one video file. (They will need to be named and numbered appropriately)
If you still need to clean up, color, ink, or register your images—I’d handle that first in Photoshop or another image editor. -
If you haven’t already, I would definitely recommend posting in the the expressions forum.
I imagine there must at least be a way to set up a comp with text that expressions can pull from or a way to read from an xml file or something similar. I bet someone hanging out over there knows how. -
You are looking at Flash animation and it is quite easy to attain the effect you are looking for.
You essentially have two options:1) Draw a keyframe (make sure your lineart is made of fills either by using the brush tool or converting lines to fills).
Turn on onion skinning so you can see the previous keyframe
Make a new keyframe and trace over the onion skinned image. (your art will be a bit different than the earlier drawing)
Loop these frames.2) Draw a keyframe as before.
Duplicate the keyframe.
Use smoothing on the lineart 1 or more times until the lines look different enough to please you.
Loop these frames.