Terminate Your Footage With Expressions – Day 1

on Sep 21st 2009 with 53 comments

Final Product What You'll Be Creating

This entry is part 1 of 3 in the series Terminate Your Footage with Expressions

Terminate Your Footage with Expressions

If you’re wanting to help to save Sarah Connor then maybe this tutorial will give you an insider’s perspective on what to do. Ben McEwan has created a 3 Day Series crammed full of useful expressions to create the UI found in the Terminator. He’ll skim over some of the basics of shape layers, as well as touch on some more advanced stuff like displacement mapping.

Tutorial

Download Tutorial .flv

File size 166MB

Series NavigationTerminate Your Footage With Expressions – Day 2»
 
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Ben McEwan grew up in Canberra, Australia. He started learning visual effects from a young age and persistantly followed his dreams. Today, Ben does freelance work for feature films, short films and television programs, and one day hopes to win an Academy Award.  

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  • http://www.youtube.com.br/ianhpiratao IANH – BR

    Awesome Dud!

    great tutorial!
    nice work!

  • m.h.s

    great

  • http://www.behance.net/Modisana Modisana

    Nice outcome…. looking forward to watching the tutorial

  • oketunde

    Nice tut. Terminator’s stuff.

  • White

    looks interesting… would want to get in and try this myself. This is somewhat suited more for outdoors though…

  • ckRED

    very nice!! output looking top notch

  • khan

    cool effect luv it
    thanks….

  • http://www.flickr.com/photos/ninjtso/ BAD GHOST

    nice one i really like it :P

  • http://www.thijsvaniersel.nl Thijs van Iersel

    Great Tut, I like the expressions. Like loopOut, that realy makes my projects better!

  • AmmarAhmad

    Sorry

    i really like your work

  • http://methodd.com Evangelos Methodd

    WOW Really needed a tutorial for this VFX !!!
    How could you figure it out?

    Maybe you should just focus on AE tracking and then anyone can do whatever they like. I think none needs specific tutorials on every “HUD driven” vfx shot. Just my opinion – I think it’s more creative free this way

    • http://www.benmcewan.com Ben McEwan
      Author

      It occurs more so in the next couple of parts, but I try to always mention to do things the way YOU want to do them, don’t just copy mine. I covered all of the most useful expressions so people have the knowledge to do what they like with these expressions.

      It would be great to see what other people come up with!

    • Cheesebottoms

      Troll is troll.

  • EGY99

    Someone knows how to add a custom face to a person in a video?

  • Martin Klekner

    I knew youre going to make it great. ;-D

  • René

    Hi nice tut man, but what about the “interference” kind of effect at the end of the comp?

    • http://www.benmcewan.com Ben McEwan
      Author

      That’s coming in the 3rd part. Keep your eyes open!

  • http://www.mattburnell.com MbCM

    Great tutorial! Thank you. Looking forward to the rest of them. Really like the output. It gives me a lot of ideas for my own work. Keep it up!

  • http://www.tripodbg.com Stefan

    Great tutorial. Can’t wait to see the other parts!

  • http://www.w2point.com Web 2.0

    Awesome… I liked it man :)

  • Mandolin

    Love it!

    Looking forward to part 2-3:)
    Keep them coming!

  • costas papadakis

    very good tutorial. Thanks

  • Tobias

    Can’t wait to see the rest of ‘em, I guess i have to take the gear from the office home next weekend ;)

  • Tobias

    great work

  • Lyndon

    Pretty sick man, you’ve gotten a lot better since i randomly messaged you more than a year ago on youtube :)

    keep it up

  • Antônio

    Belíssimo, maravilhoso, fantástico!
    Parabéns e obrigado.

  • trent

    Hahahahahahahahahah.

    How much do they pay for these tutorials?? Serious question.

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

      We typically start at 150$ per tutorial. Unless it’s really good, then we’ll go higher.

  • ProMomBlogger

    Totally wicked tutorial dude. keep it comin

  • http://noisejunkies.net Rafael Guerra

    rocket science! Cool stuff, thanks Ben.

  • Calvin

    Just download a few VCP tuts and you can get all the information covered in this tut.

    Nothing to see here, move along.

    • http://www.benmcewan.com Ben McEwan
      Author

      No matter where you go or what you do, something will always resemble VCP in some way, shape or form to someone. That’s a fact of life in the VFX/Motion Graphics world these days.

      • Flora

        I politely disagree with you. Also there were many many complex tutorials here and I don’t see the point of making it a 3 day series.

      • Dustin

        Not agreeing or disagreeing, but at some point maybe you people that dont like these should just move on. You can watch the previews which are usually less than 15 seconds and know if there is something there you want to see. All the time you spend commenting and debating could be spent scouring the net for those awesome and advanced tutorials you so crave.

        Or you could PAY money for some advance training DVD’s.

      • Flora

        You didnt get me right. I didnt say anything about the tutorial, I am just disagreeing with the author’s view that ‘everything will always resemble VCP’.

      • http://www.benmcewan.com Ben McEwan
        Author

        I’m not implying that – I;m implying that there will always be somebody who THINKS it’s got something to do with VCP… Even if it doesn’t

        Also, I find people use curves more than levels because it gives greater control, not because they’re copying anything or anyone. That’s my reasoning for using it over levels.
        In AE, there are at least 3 ways to do everything though, and it’s just personal preference

    • Ethan Asad

      Calvin, its a free tut.. You are not paying money for it.. And Thanks Ben for the tut.

      • Calvin

        True–I am not paying anything for it.

        BUT I subscribe to this website and visit it and generate ad revenue from impressions etc. for it, I would like more originality.

        Some of the Creative Cow tuts still manage to be original (however, with less awesomeness if you ask me) and do not resemble VCP. But when every second tut author adds a s curve effect to their footage, and uses a vignette to their footage, it gets a bit… much.

        I think I am going to make a tut on using level rather than curves, just to show people that there is another way to get the result.

    • Plop Face

      You should make that tutorial calvin. I think it would be great for you to show people this great new color correction method you’ve discovered. I also agree that you do deserve more originality. After all you are the one who visits this website. For them to do less is just a disservice to you and your originality

      • Calvin

        Woosh!

  • mike

    Great tutorial….Thanks for your time. Looking forward to the others.

  • Rolo

    Great tutorial!!!…i like the expressions. Wanting to see the part 2 of the tutorial.

  • samjujubi

    nice great. new update fashion vfx

  • Mike

    This is awesome, thank you so much. The programing with the numbers and math it’s soooooooo cool

  • Mike

    Is there any way not to fiddle with the numbers but just do it without typing all that math cycle and so on?

    • http://www.benmcewan.com Ben McEwan
      Author

      I’m not sure I understand your question properly.

      You use the short expressions so you don’t HAVE to fiddle with numbers.

  • :)

    LO PROBARE

  • Fábio Antunes

    Really great.
    Keep posting more of these xD

  • Jack

    Not bad bro. It’s nice to see solid visual effects and not just motion graphics. Seems like the majority of tutorials are on motion graphics these days.

    • http://www.benmcewan.com Ben McEwan
      Author

      Yeah agreed. After Effects is more a motion graphics app than vfx software though. That’s my guess as to why…

  • http://www.kresnotic.deviantart.com Kresna Akhmadi

    woaaaa, this is sick! hey ben i’m from indonesia, and i’m looking forward your similar after effects tuts like this, because my country movies effects are so asssuckin u know so i want to revolt to it. hehe
    when you gonna make the sequel?
    and what keyword do i have to type in youtube for somethin like this?
    i hope very much on other’s reply here, many thanks!!!

    • http://www.benmcewan.com Ben McEwan
      Author

      If you’re into UI design, there’s a whole field of VFX for that. Search around for Mark Coleran and you’ll see what I mean.

      As far as I’m concerned, YouTube will either bring up a result that looks exactly like this tutorial, or the one that Andrew Kramer did a (very basic) tutorial for. Search for UI or HUD – things similar to that..

  • rajo

    thank you very much …….very nice tuts