In this tutorial you'll learn how to make moving geometric shapes shake and shudder as if they've been moved by the vibrations of a beat. You'll learn how to sync this effect to music and create the building blocks of a stunning and futuristic music video.
Make sure to watch the addendum posted below the tutorial where John explains how he used Photoshop and After Effects to create the organic background that is used throughout the piece.
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PreviewJohn Schlemmer's 'Untitled' Piece
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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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User Comments
( ADD YOURS )Thijs February 9th
WOW!!!
( )stunning
Mike February 9th
Cool Tutorials
( )AE February 9th
greate tuts i like it very much.
( )can u upload project file this tuts
Trevor McPherson February 9th
Hi John. Thanks for the great tutorial. Please consider doing a tutorial on some of those great interference techniques from the longer video somethime.
cheers
( )tom February 9th
Really great tut. thnx for sharing.
( )Tom February 9th
Great tut, thnx for sharing.
( )Michał J. February 9th
I like the effect. Will check tutorial later.
( )JD February 9th
Holy F*!
( )Levi February 9th
Brilliant! Thanks for the tutorial
( )Rik February 9th
F*CKING Brilliant!
( )Joan February 9th
Geats Tuts!
( )but please don’t swallow… change the mic position.
Thank’s.
Vcp User February 9th
This is nice and all, but Video Copilot has the tool you need for this. Their plugin, Twitch, will do the same thing, but you can control everything so much more. Blur, light, slide, color, everything.
( )T.French February 9th
Cool, can you make this a multiple part tut and show us how to make the extended video
( )Billy February 9th
John….at 6:50 in the tutorial you say that you are going to include the song and the PNG’s for the project on the website….but I don’t see any. I made up my own, so it’s not a big deal but was wondering if you are going to put up the song?
Very cool tutorial….working my way through it right now!
( )Winston February 9th
Very cool! Thanks very much for sharing!
( )Vali February 9th
how did u make that back and forward motion in your longer video ? starting at 0:55
( )Billy February 9th
Just got done with it. Great effect….but I would have liked to see you put together more of the finished product. I know….being greedy. The shake effect is cool but it isn’t what makes your final product as sweet as it is.
Also…no project file. That would help.
Thanks John! I’d love to see more from you!
( )nikolas February 9th
you should offer your videos as podcasts too. would be great.
( )MasterDKR February 9th
Guys when he said the project files, he messed up, when AETUTS Launches the plus section all will be available to download.
( )tillimanjaro February 9th
hey nicetut.
( )For the wiggle you dont need to create a variable?
if you enter a simple wiggle(5,pickwiptheslidercontroller) it will do fine?No?
Billy February 9th
@tillimanjaro…..that is correct….or you can just type it out.
What I am interested in is the camera movement throughout the longer preview. What variable is he controlling? You can create camera movement through the triangle by increasing scale of the null but is there a better way?
( )The Ad Mad February 9th
I think probably the final touch that makes it interesting is the interference effect. For those wondering how to do it, one way is with Tinderbox plugins. They really work like a charm (I think it was called ‘bad tv’ or something)
( )illd February 10th
Whoa! Very impressiv piece.
( )Modisana February 10th
THAT WAS SICK!…..MY GODODNESS…..the final product was really really awesome…thank you so much…
WO HOO!
( )Daily Designs February 10th
Stunning effect!
( )ilb February 10th
I wonder why you did not convert the audio to keyframes. If you first do some EQ-Settings and cut off all higher frequencies, you will get some very accurate keyframes for bass & Beats.
( )reilly saso March 10th
“ilb February 10th” CAN YOU TELL ME HOW TO DO THIS?
reilly@reillysaso.com
( )Mostafa February 10th
one of the greatest videos i have ever seen … Great one
( )twisty February 10th
reminds me alot of aphex twin or autechre. very reminescent of autechre videos. Love it!
( )mamjed February 10th
oh man,i really like the Untitled piece! very nice!
( )Isis February 10th
WOW, amazing!
I’ve a title for this masterpiece: the “Butterfly Beat”.
=)
Thanks for sharing!!!!!
( )Isis February 10th
AH, there are a way to make the shapes “glow” with a formula, like you did with the shaker?
Thanks again!
( )Parag February 10th
cool Tuts, Thx
but i cant Set marker with RAM preview or audio-only preview
( )coz as i hit * key the RAM preview Stops
HELp psl
Modisana February 11th
Dude like I said before AWESOME tutorial, but you see when I made that comment I hadnt seen the actual tutorial yet, I only saw the final video and assumed that in the tutorial thats exactly what we were going to see.
Just please show us how you did everything else…wed really love to see that…Im sure some other readers know how to do it and other ones such as myself can guess how you might have done it but we would still like to see the master do it…Im sure there’s a lot of tips and tricks and what nots we could get from you…
So pretty please brother…
Thanks in advance
( )Mostafa February 11th
i agree with modisana
( )Eli February 11th
Is that beat one of your own? I’d really love an audiotut on how to make such dynamic and revolving sounds.
( )Ahmed Mohsen February 11th
great tutorial
thanks
My Blog
( )http://MotionSociety.com/blog
Petter February 11th
Seriously, this was really bad! You needed 21 minutes of my life to show me a simple wiggle connected to a slider?
Jeez. This was not good at all, no offence.
( )Joe Clay February 11th
This could be done much quicker with Trapcode SoundKeys (if you need to isolate individual frequencies) or just by using plain old convert audio to keyframes. You can even tweak the audio with an effect or two, and then convert it to keyframes (in order to isolate certain sounds) then drop the effects. After that a simple expression using linear() based on those keyframes will pretty much do this for you for any song, without you having to have any rhythm or take any of your time.
Overall this is a pretty good tutorial to explain the concept, however.
( )Andy February 11th
Cool tutorial, I thought there would be some downloads for this, as mentioned in the tutorial – thanks.
( )JohnM. February 11th
Great Tut!
John can you help me? How do you Render/Export your composition because when I render it out as H.264 my Radial Ramp has “steps.” In other words it’s not smooth. Any help is greatly appreciated!
( )Brandon February 11th
I’m doing this right now >:D
But, no project file?
( )Andre February 11th
what music is this???
( )really amazing music
Jay G February 11th
Hey John!
Great video concept and execution! Great tuts to go along with it, too!
Could you please show how you made the “double lines” that sometimes go around and behind the triangles? Did you use trapcode stroke for that?
Also, could you pleeeeeeease show how you made that bright center of the “solar system” or whatever it was? I would love to see what went into making that, and THEN also seeing how you went about making it glow and over expose. Does this make sense?
Thanks so much!
( )albaro February 12th
patapon lol
( )Juan February 12th
….YOU ARE THE MAN…(speechless)
( )Juan February 12th
The final product is high quality level, but the tutorial doesn´t correspond or doesn´t live up to that quality level
( )Jay G February 12th
Also,
I love how bassy and distorted and industrial the bass sounds in that song. Do you have any suggestions of other songs or artists who use a similar sound?
( )Bruce Aisher February 13th
Would be great if you did a longer tutorial on some of those distortion effects and camera movements as they are fantastic.
Going to give this a go this weekend and add my own bit of jazz to the equation.
( )shachar February 16th
hi
please someone can help me with that expression. im getting disabied
shakeyCam = effect(*Slider Control*)(*Slider*);
wiggle(15,shakeyCam)
thanks
( )Jag February 17th
for some reason I tried putting the expression in but it keeps giving me an error ^o).
The expression im writing is
shakeyCam = effect(*Slider Control*)(*Slider*);
wiggle(15,shakeyCam)
what am i writing wrong?
Please help!
Ps. The Error Says
After Effects warning: Expected: )
Expression disabled.
Error occurred at line 1.
( )SPU February 18th
The two comments above me…
Replace the asterisks with double-quotes:
* –> ”
The expression should be:
( )shakeyCam = effect(”Slider Control”)(”Slider”);
wiggle(15,shakeyCam)
Wailo May 16th
Didn’t work for me in windows,
but change it to (”) and it is fine now
shakeyCam = effect(”Slider Control”)(”Slider”);
( )wiggle(15,shakeyCam)
SPU February 18th
Sorry for double posting, but there is no edit function.
As said earlier, you can simplify the expression by pickwhiping the second part for the wiggle which will get you the following:
wiggle(15,effect(”Slider Control”)(”Slider”))
( )shachar February 19th
thanks
( )brian February 19th
what song was used in the full video
( )Roman Weisgerber February 19th
wow .. this is a great tutorial
( )Brandon February 19th
Awsome tutorial. I am going to try that variable out soon.
Thanks man!
( )mbergstrom February 20th
I’m getting an error…
After Effects warning: Syntax error
Experession disabled.
Error occurred at line 1.
Comp: ’shakeythinger’
Layer: 1 (’shaker’)
Property: ‘Position’
Whats up with that?
( )udin February 21st
anjeeng keren banget…fiuuuhhhh
( )thats meaning, oh my good veryveryvery impressive,interesting,inspiration, very good,great tutorial, thanks
klo February 22nd
i agree with petter, 21 minutes and the only thing in the tutorial is the camera shake… sorry but i don’t think its’ a good tutorial..
( )hking February 23rd
awsome
tutorial
realy nice one
( )Tony February 25th
Hey John, whats the song in your untitled piece called?
( )Vishal February 25th
Project file?
( )Andrew T.F. March 4th
I liked the tut and the concept is amazing.
Only wish he would pull through with the files.
( )Bie Lee March 9th
I honestly think this tutorial is just a waste a time. I think the actual project is pretty cool but the tutorial is just too simple and it deals with only one effect and the background creation. Its just to show off his piece. John, I applause your wonderful piece but will appreciate more if you explained a little bit more and didnt waste 20 min to explain one little effect.
( )Luke March 11th
Where’s the audio from?
( )coolboarder44 March 11th
I thought this was a great tutorial! He took it nice and slow and I was actually able to understand exactly what he was clicking and why. Okay, while he could have shown us tons of other elements seen in his ‘untitled’ film, I think the purpose of this tutorial was only to show the camera shake effect really. Don’t get me wrong, I would love to see how you brough together all the other elements too, but I certainly learned quite a bit just from the wiggle technique (including how scripting is applied!) Great work! Thanks!
( )NYY March 20th
Where is the star key???
( )if i press * the music just stops, and nothing happens
plz help me!!
Lloyd Alvarez March 20th
press * on the number keypad (not the one above the 8 )
( )hammd March 23rd
yes i like it this tutorials is to good
( )David Henderson March 27th
Great Tutorial. Thanks! Really well explained too John. Keep up the good work!
( )izzyQ April 14th
what the heck is the star key! when his demonstrating how to place a marker on the beat of a song he says to simply press the star key to mark a certain part of the song. what the heck is a star key! I have an iMac with AE 9….can someone clear this up for me please. it’s driving me crazy! I’ve tried press 8 key and shift + 8…but it doesn’t do anything.
( )Lloyd April 14th
it’s the star (asterisk) key on the number pad
( )izzyQ April 14th
woops…i’m actually doing this tutorial on a mac book i don’t have the number pad so what do i use instead?
pix April 16th
pls tell me how to make looking like smoke line~ pls
( )thankyou~
Muhammad Fikry April 19th
Great Tut. Thanks a lot
As to the song you can download the (John Schlemmer’s ‘Untitled’ Piece) Video from this very page and then with premiere you can isolate the song in an MP3 form
Thanks again
( )CgBaran Tuts April 22nd
Great tutorial thanks
( )José Antonio May 12th
Los tutoriales son increíbles…saludos desde Argentina!
( )Chaske June 23rd
Awesome tutorial, thanks for the expression help!
I used the techniques you taught in this to create my own version:
http://vimeo.com/5242026
Thanks again!
( )Mike July 3rd
really awesome
( )htasinhtoo July 22nd
hi john! thank for your tutorial
( )lex July 23rd
thanks im happy that you liked it .
( )andy September 28th
would there be a chance of posting or creating a tutorial on how to make the audio file?
( )