Create a “Bullet Time” Logo Shatter Effect

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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Discussion 95 Comments

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  1. Johsonator says:

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

  2. Eric At Full Sail says:

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

  3. 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

  4. Dave says:

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

  5. Sean Smyth says:

    Wow. Amazing. Thanks.

  6. Samuel says:

    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 says:

      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 says:

        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?

  7. Woutchi says:

    Great tutorial. Thanx !

  8. titi says:

    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

    • Lloyd says:
      Staff

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

      • titi says:

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

  9. Esteban says:

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

  10. ak says:

    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”

  11. titi says:

    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

  12. Bernardo says:

    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.

  13. geoff says:

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

    thanks

  14. GreenStar says:

    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.

  15. Konrad says:

    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?

  16. tvandang says:

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

  17. benjamin says:

    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 ;-)

  18. rks says:

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

  19. fail says:

    video missing.

  20. Valdmont says:

    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

  21. Epic-_-Fail says:

    hehe i gonna use this for my video (Credits)

    Thanks for the tutorial really :D

  22. Mike P says:

    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

  23. Gopal R says:

    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

  24. May says:

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

  25. May says:

    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.

  26. Ben says:

    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!

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