Update: Optical Flares Version 1.2.129
This update fixes a problem with crash on quit problem in Mac OS 10.5.x in After Effects CS5.
Download the updates here:
Mac OS
32-Bit and 64-Bit for Mac
Windows
32-Bit and 64-Bit for Windows
Even more free textures… not that we’re complaining
Photographer Caleb Kimbrough has a passion for finding and capturing textures and lucky for us, he likes to share. He collected over 450 samples from his collection and made them available on his website Zen Textures. The images cover a wide range of textures including paper, concrete, fabric, stone, metal, wood and, of course, grunge. The images are fairly big and perfect for adding a little tactile flair to your After Effects projects. The textures are free to download and use in personal and commercial projects.
John Dickinson’s latest tutorial packed with tips
John Dickinson‘s new tutorial for Digital Juice looks, on the outside, to be a how-to for their line of stock After Effects elements Motion Designer’s Toolkit 2. It is, in fact, packed with After Effects tips and tricks, standard effects, blend modes and techniques. He also shows a number of ways how precomps make working on complicated projects so much easier. This 30+ minute tutorial is definitely not to be missed. Click here to view.
Creating Lightning: How RISE Visual Effects Brought Flash to Zeus’ Bolt
Studio Daily is providing a complimentary webinar on Thursday, August 5 from 12pm to 1pm ET. VFX supervisor Florian Gellinger will deconstruct a scene from Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief.
Tools used are Nuke and Sapphire plugins. Nevermind a lot of AE folk don’t use Nuke, this is an opportunity to see technique which could easily be reproduced using After Effects. And if you use Sapphire plugins all the better.
Some of the tasks to be examined involve an actor interacting with a lightning bolt and include:
- show Zeus catching the CG lightning bolt
- integrate the bolt in his hand
- add chromatic aberration
- add a plasma core
- make its edges wobble
- add a lightning “back bone”
- add a huge variety of smaller and bigger, high-energy arcs on its surface
- add heat distortion
- add photographic glow and light interaction on Zeus
Yanobox plug-ins for After Effects
I’ve found this two cool plug-ins for After Effects and they have impressed me a lot.
Yanobox has created two plug-ins: Nodes and Motype.
With Nodes you can animate objects and relationships through Nodes and Lines, with a cool and smooth look. Instead, Motype let you animate a text with a revolutionary way. The only bad thing?, It’s only for Mac users. I Hope some day will be able to multi-platform.
So, now check out the preview of the plug-ins and tell me what do you think.
Yanobox Nodes plug-in Preview
Yanobox Motype plug-in Preview
Remember visit Aefreemart for more tutorials, news, free stuff and other cool things!
Follow the author of this post: Victor Hernandez
Time Span: useful script for After Effects
Are you a freelance? If you are, you’ll appreciate this script that allow you to track your time in After Effects. It have some more features:
- Exports a .TXT (tab delimited) file to the folder of your choice.
- Can log by Client Name or Project Name.
- Logs your clock in time, clock out time, total hours, hourly pay rate and total pay
- Can log multiple entries per document.
- Reset button to clear accidental start time.
The released version is 1.0 and you can find more information and download it here.
Remember visit Aefreemart for more tutorials, news, free stuff and other cool things!
Follow the author of this post: Victor Hernandez
Tutorial: Make a large crowd in your videos – AE Basix
In this tutorial from AEtuts+, James Whiffin explains 5 different basic ways to create a large crowd in your videos. Yes this is a 5 in1 tutorial!
The methods that explain James there are:
- Simple Masking: It’s a tedious technique but is good for short clips.
- Rotoscoping: With CS5 It’s a nice technique, but you will need a good Hardware for medium-large clips
- Difference Matting: Good technique but you can find a good place to shot and control the Matte effects
- Chroma Keying: I love this technique, although you will be more accurate than others is really amazing. Light is the Key, you get it?
- Camera Technique: This is really powerfull with a good use of the Tracker and Stabilize Motion.
Enjoy duplicating friends and If you have free time you’ll can make a video like this.
You can see the preview below; also you can find the tutorial 5 in 1 here.
Preview of the final result
Remember visit Aefreemart for more tutorials, news, free stuff and other cool things!
Follow the author of this post: Victor Hernandez
Stu Maschwitz leads you through Colorista II
Red Giant Software just released Magic Bullet Colorista II and there’s a slew of new features. Stu Maschwitz takes you on a tour of the updated plugin in After Effects and Final Cut. If you don’t have Colorista II, or Colorista (I) for that matter, there’s still a lot to learn if you’re interested in the color correction/adjustment process.
Yes, we know the right side of the video is cut off. We’re working on that. Try hitting the Full Screen button!
You can save a few bucks and get Colorista II at Toolfarm.com.
Something to get fired up about!
Wren Weichman’s new tutorial Ignite A Sizzlin’ Hot Fire Burst shows you how to heat up your visual effects using only After Effects and some flaming footage. Watch it at aetuts+.
Wren used footage from Video Copilot’s Action Movie Essentials 2 but any clips will do.
While we’re on the topic of fiery footage, Artbeats’ Weekly Free Clip is rather explosive this week. Sign up at Artbeats and get the clip here. It will be available for the rest of the week.
New After Effects plugin: Data Glitch (Updated)
UPDATE: Data Glitch plug-in has been released, enter to Aescripts for more infromation.
Satya Meka has release a new plug-in. Data Glitch will allow us to create realistic glitches to our footage fast and easy. Also this script is going to be completely expressionable, this will give us more freedom and nice final effect for our video. (more…)
