More often then not, we don’t get to work sitting in a chair next to the client. As a result, we are forced to communicate either by video chat, phone, or most common… Email. Today I just posted 5 Client Emailing Tips that I’ve learned literally in the past year. Hopefully you’ll walk away with something helpful.

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In this Sneak Peek Ben Griggs shows the ShapeShifter plug-in soon to be released by Mettle.com. With amazing speed text, masks, shapes and imported vectors are transformed right in your AE composition into live 3D mesh. ShapeShifter runs ultra fast using the 3DNAE engine developed by Mettle. To receive a discount and to be notified when ShapeShifter ships sign up here.

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The first Tuts+ bundle is finally here! An exclusive bundle of eleven fabulous items for an astonishingly low price!

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Adobe After Effects CS5 Visual Effects and Compositing Studio Techniques by Mark Christiansen surveys the art of compositing and visual effects using Adobe After Effects. While most books on AE focus on motion graphics or step-by-step instruction, this one gives you a succinct overview of optimizing the use of AE for effects compositing, as well as covering a variety of advanced topics to get you closer to photorealistic renders.

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A few years after my first light saber, I learned how to track footage, then eventually I was able to put in a cheap animated 3D spider robot… I was getting to the place where I thought I knew the basics of After Effects pretty well. Then one day my professor at college told us briefly about render order in After Effects… I found this fascinating and wanted to know more. Today we’ll do some experimentation and go through After Effects’ render order!

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Color Correction for Video by Steve Hullfish and Jaime Fowler (2nd edition 2009, Focal Press) is a serious overview of color grading for moving images. It’s platform agnostic, using screenshots and examples from major applications and filters, though favoring Apple Color. That’s a departure from the 1st edition that featured Color Finesse, a filter now built into After Effects. The new edition has been expanded by about a third with the addition of a quickstart chapter, beefed-up chapters on tool concepts and advanced tutorials, and infusions of advice from color experts throughout.

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2009 was an excellent year in the video industry with the introduction of the Video DSLR revolution. Now amateurs and pros can get their hands on video techniques and looks that were previously only able to be achieved at $30,000 and above mark using complicated and expensive cameras.

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Finally! Optical Flares is here and the behemoth of a lens flare plugin could not be more worth the months of hype! I decided to run through all the features, poke around and try out the plugin and give my exclusive opinion on how fantasmically AWESOME this thing is! Trust me, it has been well worth the wait.

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We get tons of questions on how to output After Effects project renders, mainly which format and codec to use. Topher decided to do some research and wrote this long article that aims to try and answer some questions. It is worth noting that the After Effects built-in help has improved dramatically in recent versions and it is constantly updated online. We urge anyone reading this article to also read the AE help for additional reference.

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