Video Copilot: Lightning Strike
Getting closer and closer to tutorial #100, this tutorial teaches you how to make an amazing looking, albeit gory, lightning strike to our good buddy Sam Loya, and make him explode using some elements from Action Essentials 2 HD.
Video Copilot: Reflection Plugin
The newest free plugin and product from Video Copilot is the sweet new Reflection plugin which, well… does exactly what you would think. Instead of duplicating layers, and screwing around with sizes and other effects, just use this to create simple reflections within the layer you want a reflection for.
Video Copilot: Dynamic Bar Graphs
People have been waiting for this expression-heavy tutorial for a while now, and it is not going to disappoint. You will use a prerendered set of videos out of a 3d program, and use time remapping linked to specific values via expressions to control how much of the bar graphs get displayed.
Video Copilot: Glass Orbs
Finally, number 100! it only took like, 4 years. Anyways, it could be any cooler, and more amazing looking. This tutorial uses just the built in plugins in AE to create some breathtaking 3d glass balls with reflections and all.
Brad Chmielewski: Creating a Walk Cycle
The Digital Hitchhiker himself walks you through how he created a walk cycle using only AE for a character he created for his work on the Groupon commercials.
Projuice.org: Designing a Graphic From Scratch
There hasn’t been much happening on the AE front over at Projuice, but this walkthrough shows how Nick worked through making a motocross promo for a network in Australia. Not too much to it, but there are some nice techniques in there.
Graymachine: Video Rock & Invigorator
Harry Frank uses Zaxwerks 3D Invigorator along with his new product, Video Rock to create some cool looking 3d titles, and uses a technique to make a cool looking edge glow.
Graymachine: Drifting Title Sequence
A follow up tutorial to Harry’s Grunge tutorial, this one shows you how to make a cool fly-through title sequence with some fog and particles using Trapcode Particular.
Graymachine: Fractal Noise Fade Effect
Harry shows you hot to use some Artbeats stock footage along with the fractal noise effect to create an orignal fade-on effect.
Creative Cow & Eran Stern: The Pen Tool
This is a pretty basic tutorial of sorts, but also useful if you don’t use the pen tool often, or are just starting out in AE. Eran shows you how to use all the functions of the pen tool, as well as tips for rotoscoping.
Greyscale Gorilla: Make the JibJab Effect using AE and the Tracker
Nick Campbell explains how he makes the JibJab effect without the moving mouth, and how to set up your shot if you want to do it yourself.
Greyscale Gorilla: How to Make a Globe Radio-Wave Animation in AE & C4D
Nick shows us how to make this globe-like looking animation with things orbiting around it. You will learn how to make this animation in AE as well as Cinema 4D.
Greyscale Gorilla: How to Color Correct Footage from your 5D or 7D
The new hot thing the last year has been DSLR cameras that can shoot HD video… Nick is going to walk us through a process to learn how to color correct our footage inside of AE to make the finished product more polished.
Motionworks: Zaxwerks 3D Flag & ProAnimator
John Dickinson shows us a sweet way to manipulate 3D Flag to make it look like wind is “flowing through” a banner. Also learn a technique to make your shadows from your ProAnimator text fall onto the banner and move with the movement of the banner.
Motionworks After Effects A-Z: Eran Stern – Bulge
In the last few months, we have kind of taken a break with our project, the After Effects, Effects A-Z Rundown… with the holidays it’s understandable. Anyways, Eran actually found some time to put together a tutorial for how to use the Bulge effect.
Artbeats: Vignettes
Chris and Trish Meyer put together a nice pdf tutorial of how to effectively use vignettes to focus your viewers attention on what you want them to.
Artbeats: Blending Ideas
Another tutorial from Chris and Trish, this time expanding on the idea of vignettes, but this time using it to blend with other footage.
CGtuts+: Animate a Stylized Musical Motion Graphic with Maya & AE
Use Maya and After effects to create this awesome looking speaker bumpin effect. Mostly all the modeling and stuff is done in Maya, but use AE to map out the music and put on the final touches.
CGtuts+: Create a Realistic Subway Scene with AE & C4D
Michael Szabo from Big Mike Design shows you over at CGtuts+ how to create a realistic looking subway scene with After Effects and Cinema 4D by modeling everything in C4D and putting the finishing touches on it over in AE.
CGtuts+: Create a Stylish Liquid Type Logo
Using RealFlow inside of Cinema 4D, create a liquid simulation then bring that into After Effects, like always for the finishing touches.
CGtuts+: Match Your 3D Animation to Live Action Footage
It seems like Chris Martin is the man when it comes to tutorials matching CG and live action together using C4D, Syntheyes, AE, and this time, some RealFlow thrown into the mix.
RGTV Episode 33: Death Eater Apparition Effect
You know I am stoked about this tutorial, because well, I am a Harry Potter nerd. Anyways, Michael Park is going to show you how to create the smoke that the Death Eaters travel in and apparate from.
RGTV Episode 34: 3D Thunderstorm Storm
In this tutorial from Robert Hranitzky he shows you how to create a realistic thunderstorm scene as if you were looking up the side of a building into the air.
RGTV Episode 35: Creating a Christmas Tree with Trapcode Particular
Michael Park has had a couple of episodes on RGTV, and this time he is back with the Christmas Episode, where he shows you how to make a Christmas Tree out of Trapcode Particular with lights and everything! Merry Christmas!
VideoHive & Topher Welsh: 3D Credit Roll
In this tutorial I show you an interesting take on the credit roll at the end of movies that I saw in the movie “Minghags”, the sequel to “Haggard” by Bam Margera… don’t worry it’s a horrible movie, not recommended. The only good thing about it actually is the credit roll.
VideoHive & Topher Welsh: Using Bridge and Animation Presets
It never ceases to amaze me when people don’t take advantage of the tools given them. Adobe Bridge as well as the TON of animation presets that ship with After Effects can make tasks in your day to day production life so much easier, but only if you really know how to utilize them.
VideoHive & Topher Welsh: OK Go – “WTF?” Video Effect
Inspired by the new video from OK Go… this video effect uses the Echo effect in After Effects to create lasting echo trails on an alpha channel to simulate a “painting” effect.
VideoHive & Topher Welsh: It Came From Underneath
This is a very simple tutorial, it uses the simple choker effect to make the text of a font “bleed on” screen as if blood had been staining a carpet or something like that.
VideoHive & Topher Welsh: Hand Drawn Animation Text
If you have ever seen those squiggly drawn cartoons or titles in movies, and wanted to recreate it… then this one is for you. Pretty simple task, a very few amount of steps and minimal time you can have some rad titles yourself.
VideoHive & Topher Welsh: Workflow Shortcuts
I walk you through some basic things you may not know about including, Layer > Time functions (Time Remapping, Time Reverse Layer, Freeze Frame techniques), Layer > Transform functions (Fit To Comp, Width & Height), and the Crop Comp To Region of Interest technique to eliminate empty alpha space on layers.
VideoHive & Topher Welsh: Another Technique for Super Tight Junk Mattes
A few years ago, Aharon Rabinowitz had a technique called Super Tight Junk Mattes. Well Maltaannon came up with a new way to do this, less time intensive, and I decided to stick it in Quick Tip form for you all to check out!
pt Multiplane
This is the newest script from Paul Tuersley called Multiplane, which can take a set of layers, or a PSD imported with cropped layers and automatically applies expressions and distributes them in 3D space.
pt ImportSubtitles
This could be an incredibly useful script to use, especially if you are doing a lot of subtitling for film or commercials or whatever. What this does is you build your subtitles in Adobe Encore, but then import those into After Effects for rendering out, instead of doing it in Encore.
Bad TV
This Pixel Bender plugin from Satya Meka is now working for Windows and Mac, and also has a demo video to go along with it. It’s a really simple plugin that basically simulates Bad TV system receptions.
Seperate RGB
Another one from Satya, this one simulates seperating the red, green, and blue channels of your footage, similar to the way Video Copilot’s Twitch works, but less of the bells and whistles.
Expression Toolbox
This is a pretty sweet script that I am surprised took this long to create. It’s a script for executing scripts that you can use as a dockable pallette.
Batch Search-and-Replace Paths
This is a pretty cool little utility used to fix the file paths for broken footage links. It has a couple different ways it works, but don’t let me explain it to you, watch the demo video it comes with.
Render Frame at Markers
This is named very obviously, basically all you do is set up layer markers in your composition and execute this script to render still frames wherever the markers appear.
CompsFromSpreadsheet
This is super handy if you are creating multiple comps of the same thing, just with different text fields in it. What this does, is looks at a spreadsheet document when you execute the script and it searches through the specified comps and creates new comps with the different text and automatically sets itself to render.
Aharon Rabinowitz: Keep Your Wiggle Under Control
If you have ever set up a wiggle expression just right, and then saw it sabotaged just by switching up a layer order or something like that, Aharon will show you the workaround for it.
Aharon Rabinowitz: Introduction to Holomatrix
The new plugin from Red Giant Software, developed by Aharon Rabinowitz and Dan Ebberts is now a reality. Aharon has a set of tutorials to get you up to speed on how to use it and what it is capable of.
Aharon Rabinowitz: Introduction to Knoll 3D Flare
You have probably heard about the extension to Knoll Light Factory Pro 2.5, if not… its the free set of tools that you can download to work with your already purchased plugin to give it more extended capabilities.
Creative Cow & Eran Stern: Jack of All Trades
Eran Stern shows you how to create a jumpy and squishy animation using some handy expressions.
Creative Cow & Omar Alkattan: Creating Stormy Oceans
Learn how to create a simple ocean scene with rain clouds and a stormy atmosphere.
Pixel Perfect: Motion Control With After Effects
Richard Harrington guest hosts this episode of Pixel Perfect and creates a 3D fly through scene using just photographs and AE’s 3D space.
DuIK Tools – Inverse Kinematics for AE!
Check out this tutorial on using DuIK Tools’ Inverse Kinematics in After Effects to easy create walk cycles and realistic body movement.
Big Mike Design: Curtain Reveal
Learn how to make a cool looking theater curtain reveal so that you can reveal something such as a demo reel or a movie trailer!
Pixel Art: Create a Rhythmic Seismograph
In this tutorial by Vailancio Rodrguez, learn how to create an effect from a popular music video (or at least part of it), by animating a Seismograph drawing the waveform of a peice of music.
VFX Haiku: Node Based Compositing for AE Users
A hard transition for After Effects users to make is that from layers to nodes. Kert Gartner shows you how to make an easy transition to Fusion from AE.
VFX Haiku: How to Use Normal Passes in AE
Learn how to use a Normal Pass out of Cinema 4D to relight objects inside of After Effects and Fusion 5.
VFX Haiku: Create Light Wrap and Edge Blur
Use some handy techniques to create light wraps and edge blurs inside of After Effects and Fusion 5 with no third party plugins needed.
Garus Booth: Nissan Reveal
In the first part of this tutorial, Garus shows you how to cut up an image of a Nissan car in Photoshop, then bring that into AE later to make the final reveal.
Yapper Design: Flare Text
This is a very basic tutorial with basic rotoscoping, basic animation and basic text manipulations. Still kinda worth checking out though.
I know it’s been a while since the last After Effects tutorial roundup, but hey… it was Christmas time! Give me a break! I hope you all got what you wanted for Christmas, but in case you didn’t, and you don’t have anything taking up your time, why not spend a few hours working through some tutorials? Think of it as my Christmas gift to you!
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By Topher Welsh
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