Tyler Paul
Forum Replies Created
-
and as a follow up question, I’d like to be able to say the grid is 20 by 20 based on the comp size. Although I think I’ll be able to figure that out using Dan’s grid expression
* * *
“Life Should Come With Backround Music”
-Brown Sugar Studios- -
oh, you could also layout all of your frames and then attach a null to your camera. Animate the null for your camera movements.
see if there’s any other tips or techniques here
https://forums.creativecow.net/thread/2/925657#925657
The effect they want is very similar and far more advanced so you’ll have more control over your animation.
* * *
“Life Should Come With Backround Music”
-Brown Sugar Studios- -
What I’d do is attach all of your frames to a null and use your null to animate.
The easiest way to layout your frames is
put down your first frame
pickwhip it to the null
key frame the nulls movement moving the first frame out of the way
lay down your second frame
marry it to a null
keyframe the null again
etc
* * *
“Life Should Come With Backround Music”
-Brown Sugar Studios- -
clever use of CC kaleida perhaps
* * *
“Life Should Come With Backround Music”
-Brown Sugar Studios- -
It’s not difficult.
First off, you break the whole animation down into segments based short phrases. Probably make a different comp for each phrase.
There was a lot going on there but I’m assuming the animation that you were curious about are the shots that spin. Like “What country are you from”
What you do is:
-place down your first word in it’s proper location.
-Make a new layer with your second word in it’s proper location.
-Parent your first word to the second word.
-Now rotate and position the second word. The first word will move with it. Position, Rotate and Scale them to where you would like these two words to end up.
-Add your third word in it’s proper location
-Parent your second word to your third word
-Rotate, Scale and Position the third word. All other words will move with it.
-Add your fourth word…. etc
You’ll notice that there is a slow zoom during the entire ‘what country are you from’ animation. To do that simply create a null and parent the final word of the phrase to the null. Now animate the null for your slow zoom.
This clip only took about 2 minutes to make
http://www.brownsugarstudios.com/hi.mov -
It is a very loaded question but I’ll run through and tell you my favorites and most used.
Blur and Sharpen
——————–CC radial fast blur – great for volumetric lights.
fast blur – generic blur
unsharp mask – great for sharpening footage
Channel
———-
Set Matte – It sets a matte based on a certain layer and it’s properties (ie luminance, it’s alpha, its red channel, etc) There are other ways to set mattes (track matte) but I prefer using the same way every time. I also often use this effect with alpha levels for a much nicer luma key.Color Correction
———————-Levels – straight forward levels control with Histogram
Curves – color correction using curves (you can make your darks lighter without touching the lighter tones or make your light tones lighter and your dark tones darker using simple curves on a graph)
Displacement
————–bulge – a bulge
displacement map – displaces pixels based on color channel, luminance, alpha channel, etc. Can create a face in a puff of smoke or the invisible man.
turbulent displace – random warping
Generate
———grid – produces a grid
lens flare – lens flare
ramp/four color gradient – create simple gradients
stroke – generate a stroke based on your masks. I use it most often for revealing elements like growing vines.
Keying
——-
I’m just gonna skip this one on account that they all sucks. (well not really but there’s no real advice I can give on it)Noise and Grain
—————–
Fractal Noise – Most used. Learn it. Use it. Have fun.Perspective
————–Bevel Alpha – By stacking layers on top of each other you can create 3D text. I usually apply bevel alpha to each layer to produce shading around the edges.
CC Sphere – generates a ‘3D’ sphere.
CC Radial Shadow – a realistic drop shadow. Not always the better than the regular drop shadow for graphics but it’s always the first effect I try
Simulation
———–Caustics – MY FAVORITE! Designed for water reflections/refractions but can be used to make 2D layers react to light as if they were actually 3D. (find the depth map of a brain in Google images and apply caustics and some coloring and it looks like a REAL brain that reacts correctly with light) Make solid glass objects. Have objects reflect their surroundings. Give objects a more realistic shine. Very powerful. USE CAUSTICS WITH THE SET MATTE EFFECT! Caustics doesn’t incorporate the alpha channel into the final result.
Stylize
———CC Glass – Gives your element a smooth 3D look with simulated spectral lighting. Fractal noise looks like a thick goo.
Glow – Glow effect
time
——–CC Force Motion Blur – AE’s built in motion blur doesn’t always seem to to work. Maybe I forget to turn it on in the comp, maybe it’s another setting problem. Whatever, I just jump to CC Force Motion Blur and all is good.
Echo – creates trails
Timewarp – Again, AE has built in Pixel Motion and Frame blending but I immediately go to Timewarp for my speeding up and slowing down of footage.
They’re not the only effects I use but seem to come up most often. The beauty of After Effects is thinking of clever ways of making the effects work together.
-
Anvel Tutorials had posted some great free project files that had some good lightning effects. They don’t seem to be available anymore but luckily I already had them.
https://www.brownsugarstudios.com/files/ae/AlphebetSoup%20A-Z%20and%20more.aep
This has a text effect called Electric which used some really cool techniques for making electrified text
https://www.brownsugarstudios.com/files/ae/LightningAEPs.zip
This is just a variety of projects using advanced lightning.
None of them is exactly what you want but it could give you some ideas. Both should be 7.0 projects.
-
Andrew Kramer has a grain preset that gives you more control over the grain
https://www.videocopilot.net/presets.html?id=73
not sure if it’ll do what ya need
-
If the footage is resorting back to it’s original state than I’m thinking you must have your effects ON the precomposed layer and not IN the precomposed layer. I can’t imagine what else it could be. I imagine you probably precomposed and left all attributes.
Try editing the target of the tracker to the null again. It shouldn’t effect your footage at all and something may have just gone wrong.
If you do succeed in getting the tracking to work, here’s a script I came across to do tracker averaging
https://www.aenhancers.com/viewtopic.php?t=136
You do two tracks and then run the script to average them out and supposedly make a more accurate track. Haven’t had anything to test it on but it may help.
-
updated the link.