Wes comes back with another adrenalin fueled piece that is sure to become an Aetuts+ favorite. Using Trapcode Form as the basis to display video, he shows how to use the audio reactors built in to form to achieve something very very cool.
War! Or How to Create a 3D Particle Generated Video Display
Jun 15th in Motion Graphics by Wes Kandel
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File size 13MBTutorial
Requirement: Trapcode Form Plugin (download free trial here)
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User Comments
( ADD YOURS )Jon Draper June 15th
what the hell is going on in this video….looks awesome….let the tutorial begin…
Is there a bit of particular and twitch involved?
( )Nathan October 5th
i mean if you would read instead of using aetuts and stealing their idea your would know
( )EffectsGroup June 15th
Couldn’t understand a thing but, it still looks freakin’ awesome!
( )Mahmoud June 15th
it is rrreeeeellllll coolllll man
( )bfederman June 15th
download?
( )Captain June 15th
Amazing tuts i get some hint from this tuts on my working
( )Aponwao June 15th
Just Wow.
( )Jon Draper June 15th
just watched the whole tutorial….looks good. I like the fact that once you’ve got it setup, you could easily update it by putting any video underneath, and use any music easily.
Wonder if there would be a way to get a colored video version.
Having a colored version of the black and white video, and use the Form generated thing, as a displacement map or something like that.
Will definitely try it out at some point. Cheers Jon.
( )JustAaron June 15th
to do a colour version you set the colour video to the colour and alpha map, but the disperse which needs to the grey you use a tinted version.
( )Sal June 15th
Awesome, Wes. A simple explanation for such a powerful effect. Thank you for sharing. Great job.
( )Nico June 15th
Looks nice !
=> Is it possible to change the FLV player ? This one sucks, it is lagging all the time and difficult to preview correctly ?
( )Ianh June 15th
its lagging here too..
( )JohnyMyko June 15th
Agreed… The video is lagging with this player…
( )But anyway looks cool
dhjdg fg June 15th
agree
Sina June 18th
Yea its lagging pretty bad here too. I just downloaded it and watched it. Amazing video, the tuts still downloading, can’t wait to see that.
( )Shelton June 15th
Très bien, merci pour ce Tuto
( )anon June 15th
simply amazing !
( )…and well explained
Deniz June 15th
Sweet! I saw this earlier on your website and i gotta be honest i tried to replicate it but without succes
thanks for sharing the techniques !
Awesome vid + tut ; )
( )sooX June 15th
oh man, when i have seen this video for the first time i thought: awesome! i want a tutorial for this..
thanks a lot! This tutorial is really great
( )Matt June 15th
Awesome man
( )You just shared a very nice technique and look, and added a nice insight
on how to blend it with 3d and sorts !
Thx :p
Lexaa June 15th
Download? I try to do the same thing with an other movie and an other music and it’s an echec. The final is totally different!
( )MartinS June 17th
Try adjusting the frequency that drives Form — it will give you a completely different feel.
( )Loay June 15th
This music is Too much abstract, but nice motion graphic work
( )Thanks !
mick.editor June 15th
I love the result !
( )great tutorial again !
i love the music too !!!
What’s the music’s name ?
Blue_dreamer June 15th
The hottest AE tutorial i’ve seen for a looooong time!
( )i’ve always wondered how these features work in Form.. now i know, thanks.
hobofan June 15th
finally a tutorial to my favourite video ever
THANKS!!!!
( )Modisana June 15th
OH MY GOD! the outcome looks awesome!
( )dotcom June 15th
just a rockin stuff … I like that ! damned! bang!
( )luantran June 15th
hey.You help me creat Motion graphics Logo StarMovie in channel Star Movie TV? Thank…..
( )hi hi hi
thorsten June 15th
Nice TUT, want more of this kind of music. How is the title of the music?
( )Alex June 15th
Music is Teenage Bad Girl – Tales from the Pigs
Awesome tutorial!
( )Has_n June 15th
Wow, wow, wow, really nice!!!!
( )Kevin June 15th
looks pretty nice, but i can barely hear the voice.
( )Me June 16th
yeh me too – it was so quiet I couldnt catch what was being said at times and I had my speakers turned up full volume.
( )wentzr June 17th
highly agree… I would recommend that the author of this tut should normalize the audio track of your video tutorials… your voice goes from really quiet to really loud pretty dramatically.
Lo June 15th
Great post… I’m definitely going to try this out.
( )Rev65 June 15th
Thanks for walking us through that, Wes! Great look! As a FORM user, I knew basically what was going on already, but it was good to see your setup – especially rendering out a depth map from C4D for portions of your video edit. Thanks again!
( )junk June 15th
Піздато! ( from ukraine – cool! [pizdato])
( )Diego SA June 15th
I can’t watch it yet. My Safari doesn’t allow to watch. It’s like the video isn’t here. Anybody else?
( )Dirk June 15th
yeah proper download link and/or torrent would be appreciated
( )Lloyd June 16th
Download link added
( )Jonas June 15th
This is just great!
Thanks from norway
( )kamal98 June 15th
Absolutely amazing
( )Fernando Araya June 15th
One of the best, and most simple tutorials ever!! Thanks ma
( )Bryant Haff June 15th
dam that is grath
( )JacksonM June 15th
Hey I am having problems getting the particles to move. Now I’ve done everything you did and they still are not moving with the music any idea whats wrong?
Great tuts!
( )Dan Pope June 17th
having the same problem? followed word for word, tried messing around and it just isnt happening for me!
( )wentzr June 17th
no particles moved for me when doing this tut until i changed the audio reactor 1’s strength from the recommended value of -80 to something in the 100-300 range… give it a shot. not sure why he gave the strength a neg value in the first place -??
Tomm June 18th
Same, followed exactly to the video, even tried changing values (such as Hz to that of my mp3 file)… nothing.
Any help?
Tomm June 18th
Actually, nevermind, head to the bottom of the comments and it’s answered
Argamu June 15th
This is waaay to nice
realy love it.
( )steph4ne June 15th
Thanks !
( )I wan’t a tutorial of this video from so long….
You’re the man !
Chip June 15th
Really nice tutorial. There are never enough tutorials to show different ways to use the layer maps and other parameters in Form.
Thanks
( )JohnM. June 15th
Damn this is ILL! I’m always excited for Wes’ tutorials xD
( )JohnM. June 15th
If the player isn’t working for you I suggest you go here http://blip.tv/file/2239687/
and download it off of there (there’s a link at the bottom). Worked for me
( )SANTA(RUSSIA) June 15th
Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow…………………………………..
( )ALJ June 15th
oooooooooooooh my god this is the best video i like it in viemo
( )ryan June 15th
Sorry to say this but you forgot the fractel. But the rest of the tut was great! =D
( )Deniz June 15th
Form generates the fractal itself he was just showing what a fractal is for people that don’t have a clue about it, sorry to say this
( )ryan June 15th
I mean that you made a audio react for the fractal but didn’t load set the fractal settings in form. Under the fractal field.
Dan Pope June 17th
What are the setttings for the fractal? because i think this is why the particles dont move once i have done the disperse and twist.. nothing happens?
( )nitos June 15th
LOVE IT!
( )viaria June 15th
my computer is 4×4 but still cant figure out the video,
( )Zé Miguel June 15th
Ok, this is one of the most incredible pieces in this site to date! I need start following more of these tuts! Yesterday I did my first and was very pleased with the result! I really want to get a grip on the motion graphics area! Keep them coming!
( )J June 15th
No download for this one?
( )James June 15th
thankyou Wes!! very cool stuff!
( )Cooper June 16th
Yes!! Thank You!!! Finally the player is *real* HD! xD
( )I’m in bliss! It’s like Vimeo quality!
Matt June 16th
I was hoping you’d release a tutorial for this one
Thx
( )Jan June 16th
Graphic Candy! Thx mate!
( )Ben Stanley June 16th
man.. this is an awesome tutorial with a great effect. Thanks for this post Wes, another effect i will try and experiment with.
( )ashvin June 16th
wow nice! download?
( )Ed June 16th
Wes, that was great! You know what? As soon as you did the ramp bit, I thought ‘hey, wouldn’t that work with a depth pass?’ And then you did exactly that! Oh well, I suppose that means I’m starting to get the hang of it.
Cheers for a great tutorial.
( )hugo June 16th
how can i download this vid? my internet keeps stalling which makes it impossible to follow, grrrr!!! looks awesome though, cheers!
( )Kasper June 16th
Thats pretty awesome – i love the first 6 seconds of the preview
( )lawrence77 June 16th
nice looking, but didn’t know what is the theme is???
( )Dave June 16th
This video lags for me… Any chance to incorp a download link for the preview?
(It’s almost like watchin stills…)
( )Ryan McAfee June 16th
I just learned a lot about Form from your tut.
Keep it up.
( )Mike June 16th
Hey wes, where did you find the footage?
( )Lawrence June 16th
That was fantastic! Many thanks Wes
( )L1 June 16th
hey, i think i’ve got this effect done folllowing the tutorial..
But everytime i try to RAM Preview, it opens a new panel next to the composittion. and it tries to preview that instead.
really frustrating.. It must be a setting within AFTER EFFECTS.
( )Edward June 16th
Wow wow weee!!! That was amazing! =)
( )Elias June 16th
Nice Sufjan Stevens reference, also this is a pretty sweet tutorial.
( )m-_g June 17th
… 8 ) … awesome
( )MartinS June 17th
Brilliant! Very powerful techniques, particularly rendering out depth maps.
( )Dan Pope June 17th
Im really interested in completing this. Has something been cut off? because I cannot seem to get the particles moving. Is there some something to do with fractal that was not shown?
( )Please get back to me
Wes Kandel June 17th
Send me an email (contact page on my blog), with your ae comp, or screen shots of your form settings, and I’d be happy to take a look at it and help you out.
( )Dan Pope June 17th
Sent you an email my friend with all the above. Hope you can help me. Thanks
Dan June 17th
Try adjusting the strength on your audio reactor 1, the one that’s mapped to disperse. I think it has to do with what song you are using and how strong the peaks are so -80 got results for Wes while -200 got results for me. Crank it up or down and see where that gets you.
( )Dan Pope June 17th
I think you may have cracked it my friend.
Wes Kandel June 17th
I took a look at your comp and was just about to say the same thing…
Dan June 18th
Holy crap, I can’t believe i actually figured that out. I guess I know more than i thought. Glad I could help! Great Tut by the way, i’ve been hoping for one since i saw it on your site.
R4 June 17th
impressive
( )harry June 18th
in terms of wow factor alone, this tut does, indeed, cut it ! kudos! most aesthetically pleasing tut i’ve ever witnessed !!! thank you!
( )freshzboy June 18th
that’s so amazing,..
( )i’m speechless…
Samuel Rustenburg June 18th
Hey Wes
Love your work man, have been watching your tuts very closely. In my opinion your one of the Top 5 animators I’ve seen on the net and I respect you, your work and your contributions to the After Effects Community.
Keep it up man, I look forward to seeing what you’ll come up with next.
( )Samuel Rustenburg June 19th
Just finished the Tut, was great!
Just wondering if you could just do a quick overview of how to turn footage into gray scale. If I drop the saturation on my video so its B&W will that do the trick or is there another way to get a better result?
Again thanks for the Tut
( )Wes Kandel June 20th
The best way to convert color footage to black and white is to use the Tint effect. Without going into a long explanation as to why, I’ll just tell you that you’ll get a different grayscale image when using it… as apposed to simply dropping the saturation within Hue & Saturation. Thanks for the extremely generous compliment by the way.
Here’s a link that explains the topic in more depth:
http://www.artbeats.com/assets/written_tutorials/pdfs/grayscale_shootout.pdf
Chenxi June 19th
Why I can’t see the tutorial and preview?
( )jacobvon June 20th
can l download/
( )Diego SA June 20th
Incredible video! Nice music!
( )freshzboy June 21st
i like it,..
( )really,…
wow that’s great,..
CgBaran Tuts June 21st
Perfect work i love it thanks for tutorial
( )Joe Clay June 22nd
Simple and elegant.
The only problem is that you’re correct, screening with black doesn’t do anything. It probably makes it render more slowly though because it’s still doing the calculations. Normal should work fine with black. If you use a slightly lighter color you could use multiply. Classic color burn works nicely with black. Overlay is also interesting, but all of the ones in the Add “group” will render the vignette invisible. Others are very similar to normal—which should render the fastest if AE is programmed correctly because the fully opaque pixels will block out those below.
( )Martin June 23rd
i also wondered why wes wasn’t changing the blending mode even after recognizing that “screen” is useless…
maybe it was the funny easter egg
thanks wes for this great tutorial!!
( )Casper June 23rd
You rock at making effects, you suck at making tutorials
(at least imho)
You are moving too slow and you are saying irrelevant things.
Plus you will tweek many of the settings in the plugin, without showing us what it does.
This is dreadful learning – but a kickass effect.
( )Zeroflush June 24th
i have question is there a possiblty that u maybe can share the project file of it if u still have it ofcour s or maybe the presets ?
? if it wont be hard work at all anyway thnx for this creat tutorial it makes a great intro scene 
for amv’s
( )cus im doing some stept small stepts wrong and i tryed everything for it but i cant get my problem realy solved and i rewatched the vid 6 times and im still doing a smal thing wrong but i cant see what im realy doing wrong so if i can maybe have a copy of the project or sumthing so i can watch those steps back easly without hurting my eyes to sit like a freak behind my computer with eyes wide open lmao to see the things i possibol got doing wrong and yet im sry for the bad grammers i wroted in here im good with my english but not good with the spelling and wrighintg but i get the hang of it pretty easly but i just type 2 fast to so thats a other problem rofl but i love if u could maybe share the preset or the project itself
Nathan October 5th
you just want the project file to tell ppl you made it wen you didnt because if you cant sit behind a computer to watcg it on here how else are you going to watch the project file loser
( )Dominic Deloso June 24th
Wowowee!!
( )Ben June 25th
whoa!!! This tut is phenomenal! Thank you Wes!
( )Duarte June 26th
Muito Bom, ótimo tutorial! Congratulations Wes. I’m from Brazil.
( )geoff June 30th
professional and helpful. thank you for your time and expertise.
( )lok June 30th
impresionante, gracias
( )Nickium July 1st
The Tutorial Downloads to 40.6% then stops. Any other download host?
( )eugen July 2nd
where can i get the song of the video? or whats the name of it?
thx
( )Ryan July 2nd
You tutorial is great but I ran into a small problem I think…
During 18:43-18:49 in your Tutorial, after I did that … the color is not the same as what it shows on your tutorial.
When I disabled Ramp:
http://i41.tinypic.com/11rdpmq.jpg
When I have both Ramp and Form enabled:
http://i43.tinypic.com/dd0w8i.jpg
It seems the ramp does not load its attributes into the form when I set it on the Layer Map… after I pre-comp the ramp
( )Nickium July 14th
The Tutorial Downloads to 40.6% then stop…still…please another download host?
( )tom July 22nd
what is the backing song in this?
( )Sobuzzee July 25th
I don’t understand what he is doing at 20min 26sec to make the text appear.
( )Digital Fear July 27th
The song used for the background track is:
Tales From the Pigs by Teenage Bad Girl
Awesome tutorial also!
( )Aly July 28th
Casper maybe the problem your having is that Wes is assuming you have some sort of brain in your head. Great Tut man, keep up the good work.
( )Adorn July 30th
Wow man awesome
( )Stephen August 1st
Awesome, got this to work with dynamic results! Thanks for the tutorial!
( )Grid August 3rd
Ridiculous!
( )Andre Friedman August 8th
You totally ROCK
( )Anthony Breslin August 11th
Best tut ive seen in a long time!
( )Ricardo August 22nd
your tutorials are not 100% explanatory. but thanks anyway.
( )BizarreRod August 23rd
epic!!
( )dave dennison August 27th
Great tutorial Wes,
keep it up man.
( )always liked that piece.
Guest September 1st
Great tutorial.
( )I’m interested in how did you rendered the Depth pass from Cinema 4D
Daniel M September 19th
Man I have spent over 48 hours re-doing this over and over and I at 20 minutes when you get the text to punch through the Z layer mines not doing that, it’s just staying 2d. Like the particles are not being pushed by the grayscale value on the ramp compistion. I have followed every move and thats where im stuck. If anyone else thats completed this could assist me here.
( )Arsen September 29th
Wes u are a genius.. i love the tutorial very match .. very pedagogically explained
( )Nathan October 5th
having trouble to get the form to move with the audio file? any ideas
( )Aaron November 6th
Name of the song?
Sorry if this was answered earlier. I could not find it.
( )