Video Copilot has just posted a free stock pack with a handful of video and texture elements. A couple of them look pretty handy. Download here.
http://www.toolfarm.com
The Happenin’ Hotspot for After Effects Artists
Archive for October, 2010
Enhancing your 3D render in After Effects
Nick Campbell reviews a project where a 3D render is further tweaked with glows, lens flares, color correction and more. The project is from GSG Five Second Project contest winner Rich Hinchcliffe who is offering a link to the actual project so you can follow along with Nick during the tutorial.
Get the project here. And Nick’s original post can be found here.
Sound design for motion graphics
“… The right music and the right sound effects in the right places.”
The above quote just about sums up the usefulness of this new tutorial by Jeff Earley for Digital Juice. Jeff takes a flattened render of a voiceless After Effects promo into Premiere Pro and adds layer after layer of sound and music… in just the right places. He gives tons of great tips on general sound design along the way. He makes heavy use of Digital Juice products and software, but again, these tips work with any tools and assets you have. You’ll learn:
- how to combine synthesized and practical clips together for new sounds with unique personalities
- combining whooshes and impacts
- how to align the peak of a whoosh with the animation
- how to make sure your sounds don’t bump into each other
- and a lot more
I found it particularly fascinating to hear what Jeff had to say about each sound while he was auditioning them. All in all, nice to see a tutorial on sound design for a change, especially since sound is such a vital aspect of motion graphics design. And many of us could probably do with a little guidance in the area.
Have you seen any tutorials like this one? Share with us and post them in the comments!
Boris Materials Unit FREE, First 500 Only!
Boris is giving away 500 copies of its Materials Unit… for FREE!
“Generate realistic textures such as Steel Plates, Bricks, Clouds, Granite, Wooden Planks, and Rock! The textures are procedurally-generated to ensure smooth render at any scale. Each filter provides a variety of animation parameters including controls for the color, width, height, and other aspects of the material. Many of the filters let you add 3D detail to the material surface and include lighting controls. Apply the materials as realistic surfaces or use them as animated organic backgrounds. Each filter includes presets that make using the materials a point and click operation – even for complex animations.”
This is unit is a $199 value. It works with CS3 thru CS5 on Mac and Windows. The news has been out for a little while so hurry and try to download now. Register and Download here.
After Effects LeftOvers
With the slogan ‘Re-heating stuff you forgot you had’, Chris Zwar has created After Effects LeftOvers, a 5-part video series.
In this video series you can see 40 tips, tricks, workflow suggestions, and more really cool stuff. Down you can find the description about this ‘event’.
‘After Effects has been around for over 17 years and with the recent release of CS5 it’s now up to version 10. Every new release brings new features and some have received more attention than others. This 5-part series looks at a selection of features that were in After Effects before CS5 but have been often overlooked. A total of 40 tips, tricks, workflow suggestions and general reminders are given covering topics including layout, masking, painting, rendering and even using the interface.’
There are 3 videos up, so far. So check them out and enjoy with this gift.
You can Follow me on Twitter or visit my websites Cicerone Blog and Video Cicerone
Free high resolution Rust textures
MediaMilitia.com has an outstanding rust texture pack aptly named Rust V.01 from Aqueous Sun. They’re huge and they’re gorgeous. The pack comes with 28 textures around about 4288px by 2848px. Most of them are yellow but you can change that quickly enough with a spin of the hue wheel. When I first discovered these images about a week ago I planning to make a sample video demonstrating what you could do with textures in our favorite program, and it evolved into a promo for the pack itself.
You can download these free textures here. And while you’re there take a look at the site’s other offerings. There’s a ton up for grabs!
Particular/Motion Sketch tutorial from Nick Campbell
Nice to see Nick Campbell taking a break from Cinema 4D and getting back to After Effects. This tutorial will show you how use AE’s built-in effect Motion Sketch to write your name using Trapcode Particular. Nick also made a Particular Preset which he uses in the tut; and you can get that for free at RedGiantPeople.com.
