Create a “Bullet Time” Logo Shatter Effect

on Apr 22nd 2009 with 96 comments
Tutorial Details
  • Program: After Effects
  • Difficulty: Intermediate

Final Product What You'll Be Creating

Wikipedia defines Bullet Time as a digitally enhanced simulation of variable speed (i.e. slow motion, time-lapse…) photography used in films, broadcast advertisements and computer games. It is characterized both by its extreme transformation of time (slow enough to show normally imperceptible and un-filmable events, such as flying bullets) and space (by way of the ability of the camera angle—the audience’s point-of-view—to move around the scene at a normal speed while events are slowed). The first movie credited with this effect is Blade, but it was the Matrix that really made it famous.
In this tutorial, Wes shows us how to use the built-in Shatter plugin to achieve “Bullet Time” with type or a logo.

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Instructions: Click ‘View Full-screen’ button (bottom right corner) to see this HD tutorial at maximum size. Click screen to pause, click again to play.

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Tutorial

 
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By

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Wes is a dedicated husband, father and motion designer. His dad was an accountant. His mom was an interior designer. He loves all things design as well. He is currently based in Orlando, FL. He is Swedish.  

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  • http://jrj373.aisites.com/wordpress Johsonator

    Thanks for the tutorial man! I used it for one of my assignments.

  • Eric At Full Sail

    Nice tutorial Wes! I like how you used depth of field to help achieve the motion blur on the shattered pieces.

  • http://www.youtube.com/results?search_type=&search_query=offthehook2+shatter+&aq=f adams offthehook

    Great tuts. I use mat to shatter so I control the shatter effects to what shatters first. I did tuts on the mat side on different objects…

    http://www.youtube.com/results?search_type=&search_query=offthehook2+shatter+&aq=f

  • http://www.yamandi.com/ Dave

    awsome tut, meny thanx to you for explanation of this tool

  • http://www.twitter.com/imlostirl Sean Smyth

    Wow. Amazing. Thanks.

    • http://www.bing.com/ Dahrann

      Phenomenal bedrakown of the topic, you should write for me too!

  • http://www.advideoproduction.com Samuel

    GREAT TUT!!!!!!
    One Question (and its making very frustrated)

    Is there a way to delay the effect of the shatter, I have a stop motion picture of a guy punching but I don’t want it to shatter till he punches the screen but the shatter effect happens before the time I want it to shatter. If you or anyone could let me know that would be great, till then I will keep playing around, thanks again for the TUT

    • Samuel

      holy crap i must have skipped a part of the tutorial just watching it again and u explained it, my bad. Still jaw dropping everytime i watch it.

      • NavsMontoya

        Hi, i cant find how to do that? how can i delay the effect of the shatter? I saw the tut three times and i didnt see it. Any help?

  • Woutchi

    Great tutorial. Thanx !

  • titi

    Hi,
    it’s a fool question, but where can I find the Shatter plugin.
    I search in google without finding it.
    There’s just tutorials about the shatter effects, but nowhere to download it …
    Thanks

    • http://aescripts.com Lloyd

      Shatter is a built-in plugin to After Effects. If you don’t have it you might want to try re-installing.

      • titi

        ok,
        for the moment, I have the trial version, maybe it’s not in this version? It’s surprising …
        Thanks

  • Esteban

    de la puta mare
    me guio por los procedimientos, aunque quisiera que los tutoriales tambien sean en castellano para la gente latina como

  • ak

    im getting this error when I try to preview when the tutorial guy first tells you to preview it. this is my first day using after effects and its a good tutorial.

    ram preview error “ram preview needs 2 or more frames for playback”

  • titi

    Hi,
    when I follow this (great) tutorial, I have a little problem :
    my “particles” made with the shatter effects are not completely filled : they fade : they are not solid like yours.
    Do you see what I mean ?
    I suppose there’s a parameter to specify it, but in Physics or other : I don’t see.
    Thanks for your help

    • http://aescripts.com Lloyd

      Try checking the visibility section. Also made sure your custom particle is at full opacity.

      • titi

        my opacity is 1 ( and I can just put between 0 and 1), so it’s not this :(

  • Bernardo

    Hey man, im new to after effects, but knowing illustrator and photoshop and because of the way u explain things, im starting to learn, thnx i really apreciate it =D.

  • http://www.blackbluebrown.com geoff

    great tut!
    one question:
    how is it possible to ‘sandwich’ a text layer in between shatter particles, like in the preview.

    thanks

  • http://www.hellogreenstar.com GreenStar

    As I type this, I am saving my try at this. It’s going to be used for an intro to a video blog series I am doing on an MMA site. THANK YOU for this tut + the other tuts on this site. I’m just getting into AE, but man it looks awesome.

  • Konrad

    Hey, i have a problem.
    You typed a text, i used an image. But it’s explode only in area of image (it’s smaller than composition size). How I can change it?

  • tvandang

    EXCELLENT TUTORIALS!!! SO EASY TO FOLLOW AND UNDERSTAND. I WANT MORE LIKE THESE!!!!

  • http://www.agence-anonyme.com/blog benjamin

    HI ! And thanks for that tutorial and all the others…
    I would like to discuss aboute the fact that they seems to be no way to link a force Force param to a sound spectrum.
    I mean, the shatter just do not render if you set it that way…
    At a T time if you set a value manually at 5 for exemple, the force will be applyed, but if you use expression to link to your sound channel amplitude and make it have a similar value, the shatter do not explode ..

    why ?

    anybody has fixed it ???

    Thank you very much, you’re makin my day, everyday ;-)

  • rks

    hmmm…. too old for me, i watch this technique a year earlier in andrew kramer designer sound fx tutorial

  • http://meat.org fail

    video missing.

  • Valdmont

    Excelent Tutorial Men

    I just wanted to ask how could I do the shatter effect but backwards, I mean, having a shattered text and turn it into the formed text

    I wait for the answer

    Thanks a lot

  • Epic-_-Fail

    hehe i gonna use this for my video (Credits)

    Thanks for the tutorial really :D

  • Mike P

    Just rockin! been interested in the shatter effect, and wanted to do something with it for a while so this has helped massively. Thanks so much

  • Gopal R

    hey nice tutorial…..but i constantly keep having one very irritating problem….after the particles shatter away they are not thick like the one in your tutorial. each particle looks like 2 flat 2d images with some space in between them. It is looking really bad and i would deeply appreciate it if someone would help me out PLEASE.

    here are some images of it:
    http://img272.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=65200_1_122_45lo.jpg
    http://img151.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=65208_2_122_576lo.jpg
    http://img217.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=65213_3_122_1032lo.jpg

  • May

    Hey Wes! That was one of the most easiest to fallow, and informative tutorials I’ve done. Thank heaps, I appreciate you sharing :)

  • May

    Hey Wes, I was wondering how you applied the colour wash onto the shattered pieces? I’ve been trying for ages but couldn’t quite get an effect that’s anything close to what you’ve done for this tut.

  • http://magicoficecream.wordpress.com Ben

    Thanks for the tutorial. I was going to ask you a question but seeing there are many pending questions, I doubt you’ll ever going answer mine. Thanks again!

  • Dark tree media

    i got a problem that maybe happened to other that the frames actually jump in the keyframing och the camera movement..i tried to fix it with the keyfram interpolation but it didnt work at all.. I fix that problem with actually doing a transition between the render from showing all to showing only the pieces..any one else that got that problem and fix it in a different way? great tutorial anyway! great for doing razy motion graphics titles..

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