[Tudor “ted” jelescu]

You can export swf from AE. You can even export flash projects from CS5. However, the vectors work only for effects that can be replicated in Flash- stuff like motion blur will be rasterized on export (if you want to keep the effect- there’s an option you need to check on export).

Tudor “Ted” Jelescu
Senior VFX Artist

[Tudor “ted” jelescu]

Also, these may help:
https://www.videocopilot.net/tutorials/smoke_screen/
https://www.videocopilot.net/tutorials/animating_a_still/
You may also be able to get some help from a 3d app- if you are familiar with one (anything from Bryce to Vue will do). Render out some clouds that travel to the camera and then comp in AE.

Tudor “Ted” Jelescu
Senior VFX Artist

[Tudor “ted” jelescu]

Depending on what the final result should be, this can be done in a few different ways – so let us know what you’re trying to achieve exactly and then we can give more input.
Just as a simple way of achieving this:
Create blue solid, add a vertical gradient on it, from light blue to a deep sky blue.
Shoot a few nice clouds on a sunny day with a still camera- cut them in PSD, and add them as 3d layers in AE.
Now depending on what the camera move is, there’s a few ways to position them.
If you need to pass through clouds, well that’s a different story.
As I said, the final result dictates the way to approach this.

Tudor “Ted” Jelescu
Senior VFX Artist

[Tudor “ted” jelescu]

search for the Toonit plugin – it has a preset for that exact look.

Tudor “Ted” Jelescu
Senior VFX Artist

[Tudor “ted” jelescu]

As far as AE goes, the more RAM the better.

Tudor “Ted” Jelescu
Senior VFX Artist

[Tudor “ted” jelescu]

Check to see if you have the same color working space in AE and AI.

Tudor “Ted” Jelescu
Senior VFX Artist

[Tudor “ted” jelescu]

Select all keyframes for position while the cursor in the timeline is over the last keyframe and adjust position to your need. That will adjust all keyframes

Tudor “Ted” Jelescu
Senior VFX Artist

[Tudor “ted” jelescu]

I may be wrong, but I think you wanted to know how to get the glowing effect on the discs/particles in such away that it appears the glow is from within. That is easily obtained by working at 32 bit in AE – apply a glow (not based on alpha) and play with the intensity and radius.

Tudor “Ted” Jelescu
Senior VFX Artist

[Tudor “ted” jelescu]

If the masks/blurs are on adjustment layers, then here’s my way of doing it:
Bring in the final 1080 clip in the 720 comp where you have the blurs.
Scale it down to fit the 720 size.
Copy the scaled down final clip and all the adjustment layers with blurs/masks.
Make a new 1080 comp – the length of the final clip.
Paste the scaled down 180 with all the adjustment layers in it.
Link all adjustment layers to the scaled down 1080 final.
Adjust size on the 1080 clip back to 100%.
You have now all the adjustment layers with masks in place for the 1080.

[Tudor “ted” jelescu]

Here’s a link to a very useful tutorial that shows how to create a camera rig in AE that is much easier to use than camera controls:

https://maltaannon.com/articles/after-effects/simple-camera-rig/

Tudor “Ted” Jelescu
Senior Compositor/VFX Artist