Andrew Kramer‘s latest After Effects tutorial Blast Wave will show you how to blow things up and make ‘em look good. This tutorial relies heavily on explosive stock elements from the Action Essentials 2 stock library offered by Video Copilot. Don’t worry, you can use whatever you’ve got from Artbeats, Digital Juice or even Detonation Films (where you can pick up some stuff for free). Even if you’re not into explosions (eh?) you’ll still be able to peer into the world of visual effects compositing and see what it takes to sell a shot. Andrew’s explosion in this tutorial isn’t just one or two or even three elements slapped together—there’s a bunch, and a lot of care went into blending them together and with the shot. He built shockwaves from scratch. There’s also many tips on everything from masking and time stretch to color adjustment. What truly brings it all together is a long look at Mocha and how the explosion was made to fit with the shaky camera. You can download the project footage for free but you’ll have to get your own booms. Watch it here.
John Dickinson (Motionworks) just posted a set of links for new tutorials explaining Mocha and Mocha Shape for After Effects CS5. He also talks about some of the new features and the current upgrade offer. 
