Third of the series: “Naked Truth About…” In this video I am showing issues with rotations in 3D space and ways to deal with them. Have you ever wondered what is the difference between Rotation and Orientation? We set two keyframes for rotations and the layer rotates strangely. Has it ever happened to you? Those problems are NOT After Effects specific. This video explains the way rotations in 3D space work. Once you understand the concept – it will be easier for you to tame rotations not only in After Effects, but also in other applications. Have fun.

(Continue)

In the second of the series: “The Naked Truth About…” I am focusing on Collapse Transformations/Continuously Rasterize switch. The power of this little sun you see by each layer is huge. Some of the options are obvious, but some of you may be surprised with one or the other behavior. We’ll learn how to work efficiently with vector graphics, with pre-composed 3d layers or with some effects that use other layers as inputs. Have Fun!

(Continue)

Do you REALLY know what Adjustment Layer is? This video may surprise some of you. When I noticed some strange behavior of Adjustment Layers – I found out that I didn’t understand what they really are. After some research I figured out that trusting the well known definitions of some things may be misleading in some cases. This video will not teach you any new sophisticated ways of using Adjustment Layers, but may help to better understand the way they work. Have fun.

(Continue)

This tutorial is an introduction to Pixel Bender Toolkit – the tool for creating plug-ins for After Effects, Flash and Photoshop. This is not a rocket science. You can create plug-ins yourself. If you have ever written an expression, it shouldn’t be a big deal for you to understand how Pixel Bender works.

(Continue)

I decided to record this video, because I noticed that there are many After Effects artists who don’t know how to deal with interlaced video to be delivered to television. Many of us treat the interlaced feature of the footage as something that has to be removed at once. Don’t de-interlace everything you get. When you deliver something to TV, you can benefit from interlacing.

In this tutorial I try to explain what interlacing really means, why the television works this way, and how we should deal with the interlaced nature of TV. Did you know that progressive footage may sometimes be rejected by the TV station? Why does your footage look a bit different on a TV set, even if it is progressive LCD or plasma? Why do TV shows look different than movies? Is this only because of the color correction? I try to answer those questions. Simple as that. Don’t expect to see any fancy, exiting techniques. Just knowledge that may help you not to make little mistakes.

(Continue)