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Discover How To Recreate the Sherlock Holmes End Credits Effect

Discover How To Recreate the Sherlock Holmes End Credits Effect

on Apr 13th 2010 with 89 comments
Tutorial Details
  • Requirements: After Effects, VCP Riot Gear.
  • Difficulty: Intermediate
Download Source Files

After Effects, my dear Watson! This tutorial uses hand drawn elements, textures, and pre-matted motion elements to recreate a look that is similar to the Sherlock Holmes credits. It gives you basics to build on. The great thing about this effect is that it is made to look organic and not 3D and effects heavy, but it still turns out looking really professional. It does not require very much expertise in free hand drawing seeing that all you have to do is trace a still image. Take this tutorial and build upon it to create something awesome.

Preview

Want access to the full AE project files and assets for every tutorial on Aetuts+, including this one? Join Ae Premium for just $19/month. You can view the final effect preview video below.

Tutorial

Download Tutorial .flv

File size 97MB

 
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By

Rollover to read this author's bio or click through to see a full list of posts by this author.

I have been working with video since 1999, when I was a teenager and worked on a Videonics Titlemaker™ connected between two VCR’s. I have been a professional since 2004 and work on many kinds of projects, mostly for non-profit organizations. I am eager to learn and happy to share my experience. I hope you learn something from the information provided.  

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  • jason

    thanx,Great tutorial

  • X-Zero

    GREAT WORK!!!111 ;)

  • Terminator

    Hurray i am the first

    NIce job u did

    • burningchariot

      Seriously, I said something last time and my IP was blcoked from the site. Please stop doing this. And FYI you’r NOT FIRST!!!!!

      This tutorial isn’t great. The preview has some crazy wiggle on the camera, needs more control and organic movement for me.

      As for the look of the design – this is pretty good actually.

      • http://www.creativemyk.webs.com Terminator

        yah i agreee with u i see the tutorial this is the worst tutorial in the ae tuts

      • http://www.moviemaker.co.nr MovieMaker

        lol, don’t judge the tutorial if you haven’t even seen it yet and are just looking at the effect…
        The tutorial can be the best tutorial on the internet and have an awful outcome, not that the outcome on this is bad at all, I really like it, it’s just the bad camera that kind of takes it away from me. The camera looks like it’s on drugs, but everything else looks good. The camera movement also looks very artificial and makes the design look flat, I can basically see where the animation ends because it seems like the camera is bouncing off the sides of the invisible “box”. Also the movement looks like it isn’t at 24p, but that just might be me.

        Also, once the effect goes over the original image, nothing else happens. The effect is copied very nicely from the original opening credits of Sherlock Holmes, except there isn’t a white bloom, it is a brownish bloom if I remember, the colors are off. There needs to be more going on after the effect goes over the footage.

        I’d really like to see how this would look without the camera movement, because that REALLY detracts from it.

      • David L Good

        The tutorial isn’t the worst on AE TUTS — the content is good, but the delivery could stand some improvement.

        When creating a screen capture tutorial it’s important to understand that lower screen resolution equates to BETTER clarity to the end viewer. Try recording everything at 1024×768. Sure, I know that it’s a pain to work in that crowded resolution, but creating tutorials isn’t about the author — it’s about the student. A lower screen resolution on screen capture will mean that the student will be able to clearly see the text on the screen.

        Also — do NOT use pan/zoom features in your screen recording software. Some people try to cheat by lowering the screen recording to 1024×768 but they leave their monitors at full resolution and just rely on pan/scan/zoom to “follow” the area being addressed. This is a bad idea. Even the minimal vertical “jumping” in this tutorial started to really annoy me about half way through.

        Other than that, use a better microphone. This is more of a ‘polish’ request, since the audio in this tutorial was still clear enough that I was able to make out every word.

        Those comments aside, I liked everything else. Creative, good technique, and good extra “polish” in other areas — such as the time-lapse of the tracing. Fix the screen resolution and ‘jumping’ issue and it will make a huge difference.

        I look forward to more tutorials from this guy.

  • NIVEK

    TUT SEEMS TO HAVE A PROBLEM IN THE PLAYBACK– VIDEO AND AUDIO DONT SYNC AND VIDEO SEEMS TO LOOP THE SAME THING OVER AND OVER WHILE AUDIO IS OK

  • sameervalva

    First thank you for you effort and time to do your tutorial but i agree with burningchariot , the final work needs some enhancement for the camera movement, it needs more action and tuning.

    again thank you for this work and go ahead for more tuts .

  • Graeme Robson

    tutorial is way out of sync, the screen is just white for most of it too

  • matt

    yeah.. have to agree camera movement wasn’t smooth at all…. ruined it for me…

  • http://aerendyl.com Mladen Berakovic

    Yup, I also have the problem with the video / audio.

  • Shivam

    Yeah, The video loops on adobe finder all the time, tuts+ you have to take a look at it once, the tut looked great in the preview but I probably wasted my bandwidth by downloading it. Still TUTS+ is great, LOVE IT GUYZ, YOU ALL DOIN A GREAT JOB

  • Zer0ne

    Oh!! I want it !!!!
    very good
    i love so much!!

  • http://www.pierceproductions.org/blog Brent Pierce

    I was excited to watch this. The video and audio get way off, then the video repeats the same 30 seconds over and over.
    Really, AE Tuts? Fix this, please.

  • tvandang

    I only care about the effects. I like it a lot. Take his effects and do it your own. Thanks!

    • http://www.pierceproductions.org/blog Brent Pierce

      It’s definitely not “his” effect. And if I knew how to do it on my own, I wouldn’t be here trying to watch the tutorial. :)

      • http://www.monolithcreative.com Jason B.

        The “effect” is fairly simple. You use a greyscale source as a track matte (blacks are transparent and whites are opaque). It’s similar to the mask feature of a layer in photoshop. Then when your layers are set to 3D you can move around a camera to achieve a fluid natural eye movement.

        You should check out the Trish and Chris Meyer Creating Motion Graphics books if you’re really interested in getting a grasp of some of the basic tools and techniques that can be pulled off in AE.

  • http://solidpitch.com Dragos

    out of sync. trying to download the flv.

    • http://aerendyl.com Mladen Berakovic

      I downloaded and the .flv file is the same. :(

  • Raoul

    wauw, this is a great tut!

  • http://www.adamfarnsworth.com Adam Farnsworth

    Yeah, another confirmation of audio/video sync issues…

  • Azril

    Confirm, its out of sync.

  • http://www.vimeo.com/everettoptions Adam Everett Miller

    Sorry guys, reuploading the video now….

  • Brandon

    seriously, this is a nice effect. camera does need work though, but everytime i come here, which isnt very much because of the beginning tutorials, but when i come, there is always a problem with video, audio, playback, download, you name it! i suggest a complete swipe and clean. start from scratch with the site, and upload everything to vimeo. boom, instant success.

    • http://skelliewag.org Skellie

      Vimeo doesn’t allow video embedding on any site with advertising.

  • ev149

    Not a big fan of the camera movement, seems to jerky and mechanical. I like the idea, though. Unfortunately the audio in the tutorial is low quality and out of sync, so following it is difficult.

  • Seba

    Audio Sync problem. FIX PLEASE. THANKS.

  • http://www.vimeo.com/everettoptions Adam Everett Miller

    Sorry, we’re back.

  • aaron
    Author

    Thanks Adam for uploading it again. I knew I was going to get comments about the camera movement. Towards the end of the tutorial I mention how different the camera movement is from the actual movie credits. It was hard to see that it was so jerky while editing. I should have done it again. It only took 30 seconds to do it but it made a big impact apparently. But this is really awesome being able to see feedback on this effect. Now, if I use it in a video, I will know to take it easy on the camera movements. Hope everybody likes the overall effect though. Thanks, Aaron.

  • vic

    sweet. i never got to the end of the movie (zzzzzzz). so i didn’t see the inspiration for this video. preview looks good, so this may be pretty interesting. guy ritchie, why? elementary. a paycheck. anywayz. keep up the good work tutors!

  • Jason

    omg that’s horrible. the holmes title is so simple to pull off and yet for some reason you couldn’t and still ended up being approved for publication on aetuts. AMAZING! enjoy your $150. is this what the tuts network is becoming? are we all just going to start presenting tuts on how to poorly emulate pop culture media instead of new original ideas?

    just in case you weren’t aware of this but guy ritchie lurves the time remapping and you didn’t utilize that effect as all. your camera work is way too jumpy. i don’t know what your wiggle is set to but it’s not subtle at all. then you decided to do some kind of fractal wipe matte (i think andrew kramer made some of these for riot gear) instead of using an actual ink bleed footage as the matte (which is easy to do and more enjoyable than setting keyframes. just set up a camera and lights and start flinging ink and paint…it’s fun and you get a more natural end result). your illustration work is ok. not great. you should have done more shading and cross hatching. if you’ll notice in the holmes title there are some ink block hatching effects as well as solid ink wash shading. easy to pull off with a wacom but a lot more fun if you print out your frame and fire up your light box plus you’d have the finished image to actually hang on your wall as a work of art.

    i don’t know, man. your preview just leaves a lot to be desired…almost to point of not worth investigating your technique. if you’re going to call your tutorial ‘how to recreate the holmes credits’ then you should do everything in your power to recreate it.

    • Chris

      You’re right Jason. If you want to make it exactly like the original you could take a few hours filming ink splattering around and using a wacom. However this was done in about fifteen minutes and did not utilize a wacom. Its obvious from the tut that this is just an example of basic concepts to build upon when recreating an effect like this. As far as the camera, he mentioned in the tut that the camera movements were different from the original.

    • brandon

      complete agreement with Jason. all i have to add is dont EVER use anything video copilot. when i saw the word “reveal 1″ or 2 or what ever, i knew exactly where it was from and i stopped watching. that is just embarrassing if you use video copilot.

    • Jason

      @chris:
      yeh, the guy made a tutorial in 15 minutes and it shows. does that mean that we can all start recording our screens as we goof off with after effects and sell it to tutsplus as a tutorial when it has little to no value? where’s the pride and skill when investing time to produce a quality product? tutsplus is a joke because most of the stuff the editors greenlight are half assed rush jobs with mediocre results.

      @brandon:
      i wouldn’t go so far as to say to never use anything done by andrew kramer. the guy is good at what he does and he spends a lot of time sharing his knowledge and abilities with the creative community. we should all be grateful. however, if you’re going to use your ‘paint straight from the tube’ then you’re never going to get any better; you’ll always be at that default level; you won’t progress. i’ll admit that i have utilized many video copilot techniques into my own work and certainly for client projects but you wouldn’t know it just by looking at the renders because the techniques are more valuable than the example project. i have, however, seen many demo reels where the “artist” has replicated video copilot (and others) tutorials attempting to pass them off as their own creative work. i’ve also seen a professional video production companies do the same for their clients. it’s a disgrace to the community to know that someone would practice their business in such a manner as to sell a plagiarized animation to someone and we look down on them and laugh behind their back.

      • brandon

        im not talking about technique, i respect video copilot and all he does. im talking about his products. they are known and used by many, very easy to see in others work, using products such as riot gear tells me you are to lazy or just dont know how to create it your self, i am a huge fan of doing your own work, because then you can take full credit for what is yours. i cant tell you how many professionals and professors have told me this. and i always knew this before they told me.

  • http://motiodesign.com/mahsyar motiodesign

    whoa! happy to see it! nice tutorial btw. :)

  • René

    Wow jason…get your own blog and spam it with your frustration.

    @Aaron after the effort off reup htis tut and seeing result ill say not bad. i loved the idea. :)

  • Ramzes

    Guys, there is no reason to discuss this tutorial, he did very good tutorial and he has good technics which we can use our way.Just do it your way guys.

  • therealpanse

    the camera movement looks a bit jerky and noob-ish.
    select your keyframes and press F9 once for easy ease. would make the whole thing look so much better.

  • sagar
  • Marck

    @Jason: I do understand your point and even when I do not share it I do respect it. Even so I think you really are not considering the fact that even when you might be in a higher level that many here, including aaron who in the end is trying to help this community, and that I do not doubt, there are a lot of newcomers and people whom is getting to know AE (including myself), and so that kind of people is the one that will be more than thankful for having the chance to learn something like this, which they didnt know to start with and will help them to become better in the future (somehow). There are different levels of knowledge getting together here and therefore some of us may see a benefit of learning something like this and some may not, so in my opinion, just because you dont find this tut of any use for you, it doesnt mean others will not do so. Plus if aetuts+ wants to pay him $100/$150 to him, it shouldnt be none of your business, after all it is not your money, and I am quite sure that if you do something better and share it with us all, they will be more than happy to give you $150 too.

  • David

    I think the tutorial is really good. Shows some new ways to do things, at least for me. Maybe a little rushed but still… a good tutorial.

  • Donald Plachno

    I really enjoyed the tut, thanks for taking the time of making it.

  • ramesh

    great reveal of the technique and can be used in no. of ways.

    @ jason

    if he is earning $s then why dun u try, the door is open for everyone.

  • http://composemyself.blogspot.com Trevor

    Damn. I was going to make a tutorial for this effect as my first tutorial. Guess I can’t now. Don’t wanna be a “copycat.”

    This was my end result.

    http://www.vimeo.com/8963323

    Oh well…

  • Zerogravity

    you could have used photoshop filters for making the image look painted like; duplicating the same layer and putting different filters on each of them and playing with blending modes; then in ae all you had to do is play with revealing those layers by using some stock paint footage. Or if you don`t feel like paying to aquire some of the ink splats from motion designer’s toolkit or any other available source you can download this free ae preset from quba hq website which also comes with a tutorial on how to use it and all you need to do is download a free font and you have your ink splats. I worked on this kind of effect a while back ago.

  • Rick

    I believe it’s time for aetuts to allow video comment uploads, rather then just posting a link to a vid somewhere else. This way if an individual has a better workflow format he or she may share it rather then just state they do…

  • Loay Emad

    Thank you for your effort.

  • James

    Hi,
    I couldn’t download the project files completely.It always stop at 235Mb, but It’s 284Mb Zip file.
    Can someone help me ?

    Thanks.

  • Fernando Sucre

    thanx for Coool tutorial
    Look at My Work: COLOR WORLD – Green Bursa

    http://vimeo.com/11376586

  • http://www.vimeo.com/8963323 jacobs

    Hello, I need advice.
    how exactly achieve this effect? http://www.vimeo.com/8963323
    I have to really draw it ? or is there a plug-in?

  • xoxxor

    great stuff dude – no matter what some frusted posers are “herumraunzing”.

  • http://gooyait.com Gooya IT

    Was very interesting trick

  • Jason

    Yeah, always wanted to know how to do something like this but CAMERA IS A NO GO looks really dodgy.
    BUt useful effect good job on the re-creation.

  • http://creatogether.com Dan
  • ReAp

    For those who want to photoshop the sketched image, you can try this tutorial.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbMrhwKTpIY

  • ben_says

    dude. great tutorial. yeah it could be clearer. and yeah you could give us all ten bucks.
    but the techniques will dramatically help those watching. superb job.

  • atif

    wow !!

  • ZonadeArte

    I was looking for something like this! thank you so much! awesome work!

  • Me

    If I could draw I wouldn’t be pissing around in after effects!

  • http://www.ricardojorge.net Ricardo Jorge

    Wow, very good tutorial. I really liked the effect in the movie and i liked it here too. Good job

    As for everybody complaining about the camera movement at the end, if you see the tutorial, he just makes some random paths for the camera, without tweaking. It wasn’t supposed to be awesome, it was supposed to be quick and easy.
    When you use the effect yourselves, just move the camera less and thats it.

    And a tutorial isn’t a work of art – its made to teach you something, and this one did

    Kudos Aaron

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