Creating a 3D Pixelstorm with ShapeShifter AE – Part 2

Creating a 3D Pixelstorm with ShapeShifter AE – Part 2

on Dec 10th 2011 with 15 comments
Tutorial Details
  • Requirements: After Effects and ShapeShifter AE
  • Difficulty: Beginner
  • Run Time: 11:51 min
Download Source Files
This entry is part 2 of 3 in the series Pixel Storm

Pixel Storm

In Part 2, Nancy focuses primarily on ShapeShifter AE‘s built-in Generator. Some have called it a mini built-in Mo Graph (a la C4D), others say it’s closer to a particle system… we just call it awesome! :) Check it out.

Tutorial

Download Tutorial .m4v

File size: 41 MB

The following Items from the Envato Marketplace were used in this Tutorial:

Epic Earth

Distorted Logo Sting

Surf Hits the Beach

Series Navigation«Creating a 3D Pixelstorm with ShapeShifter AE – Part 1Creating a 3D Pixelstorm with ShapeShifter AE – Part 3»
 
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Rollover to read this author's bio or click through to see a full list of posts by this author.

Nancy is a motion graphics professional with over 20 years experience in the business. A graduate of both McGill University (Montreal) and Pratt Institute (New York),. She started off her career as a graphic designer, but has continually enjoyed learning new software applications. She began using After Effects when it was still called CoSa After Effects, and is an enthusiastic user. A partner at Mettle, she has been involved in the development of the Next Gen Software Plug-ins: FreeForm V2, ShapeShifter AE, and FreeForm Pro.  

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  • Alexa

    Sweat… great explanation of the Gnerator and the evolved Hyno Pre-compulator looks awesome. I want one :-)

    Peace
    Alexa

    • Alexa

      OK!!!! So that was one heluva hangover…. let’s try that again, now that I have some java in me.

      Sweet (not sweat). Nancy you have a great way of explaining things. The Generator (not Gnerator) is awesome so is the Hypno Pre-compulator (surprised I got hat right this morning). Are you planning to do a tut on the Hypno Pre-Compulator?

      Anyway great job Nancy :-)

      Peace
      Alexa

      • http://www.mettle.com/Products/ShapeShifter-AE.php Nancy
        Author

        @ Alexa

        Thanks Alexa, glad you liked it :-)

        Regarding a tutorial for the Hypno Pre-compulator, yes, I would love to do one We still have one more to go to finish off this series and then we had planned to do some for FreeForm Pro.

        You can always download the free project file we put together for the Hypno Pre-compulator and study that. Direct Link: http://www.mettle.com/hypno/pre-compulator.zip

        Not that complicated to pull off, just a clever use of ShapeShifter AE

        Thanks for watching.

        Nancy
        mettle.com

  • Xandercorp

    Excellent tutorial, but don’t go crazy on the joking, as far as I can tell you’re trying to get an Andrew Kramer feel but without the timing and randomness. Better just explain them in a natural way without the jokes.

    @Alexa – she probably used an .obj for the eye element, not sure what the features of ShapeShifter / FreeForm(can’t run them ’cause of my old graphics card) are exactly but it was either an .obj(if one of the plug-ins allows work with those) or something she may have built in AE directly, I don’t know how though…

    Anyway, it was a ‘sweat’ tutorial! :-)

  • Nancy
    Author

    @ Xandercorp

    The Hypno pre-compulator is built completely with ShapeShifter AE in After Effects :-) No .obj import (or other for that matter). All done in AE. Download the project file below and see for yourself.

    Link for Free Hypno Pre-compulator Project file: http://www.mettle.com/hypno/pre-compulator.zip
    Requirements : AECS5 (+ higher) ShapeShifter AE

    Glad you like the tutorial. One more to go in this series.

    Nancy
    mettle.com

  • Xandercorp

    Yep, it’s really nice to see new techniques being developed instead of the same stuff over and over. I really got excited when this initially came out(the plug-in, I mean). It’s one of the best as far as I can tell at the moment and I’m hoping that once I get a damn upgrade, I’ll have a lot of fun with it.

    It was really nice of you to answer the comment I left on the other tutorial, so thanks for that.

    Since you cleared up the technique question, here’s another, can ShapeShifter / FreeForm support the use of .objs? Or 3D elements? How about texturing? Sorry for all the technical stuff but I’m really rather curious of what it’s limitations are, I mean it’s 3D within After Effects, which is great! The only question in my mind is how far can it go, if it could eliminate the use of actual 3D programs someday or not… It does a great job, the best I’ve seen so far at least, in working with text and elements, but is the use limited to that or could we import ready made .objs or anything of that nature into it?

    • http://www.mettle.com/Products/ShapeShifter-AE.php Nancy
      Author

      @ Xandercorp

      No .obj support in Version 1.

      Our goal is to complement 3D apps not replace them.

      Part 3 is in the works and it deals with deformations and finishing touches. We are trying hard to keep it to about 10 minutes. Stay tuned.

      Thanks so much for watching :-)

      Nancy
      mettle.com

  • Gary Bird

    Yay Nancy!

    Thanks so much for giving us an entertaining and informative explanation of the inner secrets of SSAE. Your humorous touches work neatly to offset the potentially complex stuff in these tutes, and I love them. Some brilliant engineering has gone into ShapeShifter by Chris Bobotis at Mettle and it’s already changing the look of After Effects generated output. Apart from being completely addictive to play with, as a toy :)

    You are showing us what can be done with some imagination and knowledge of the ‘machinery’ of SSAE, and that is one helluva lot of exciting stuff!

    Cheers, and keep ‘em coming :)
    Gaz

    PS: Do I get a reward for spotting the stray Hypno Pre-compulator at the end of this latest tutorial? ;)

    • http://www.mettle.com/Products/ShapeShifter-AE.php Nancy
      Author

      @ Gary Bird

      Thanks for your support Gary :-) Your stuff looks great!

      Nancy
      mettle.com

      • Gary Bird

        Hi Nancy,

        I just dived into your Hypno Pre-compulator project file and am completely blown away by how you’ve constructed it – such an intricate 3d device from using what amounts to shades of grey in a displacement map! Amazing. And inspiring me to try (I repeat – try!) something similar later.
        Genius!

        Gaz

    • http://www.mettle.com/Products/ShapeShifter-AE.php Chris

      @ Gary

      Thanks for the kind words Gary, glad you are enjoying the software and that you like the tut`s.

      In case I have not thanked you enough already…thanks for contributing some of your project files and I am happy to report that I can see from our web stats that your project files are very popular.

      Keep up the great work!

      Cheers,
      Chris
      mettle.com

      • Gary Bird

        Thanks Chris… and thanks back to you for the encouragement, mate :)

        G

  • Strut

    Well done Nancy. Love the new Hypno gizmo. Just dl’ed the project file, very clever :-) Did you create this? When can we expect part 3? Rock on…

    Strut

    • http://www.mettle.com/Products/ShapeShifter-AE.php Nancy
      Author

      Hey Strut,

      Thanks for your comment! Chris made the Hypno gizmo thing (Hypno-precompulator) in ShapeShifter AE.

      Part 3 is coming soon….. :-)

      Nancy

  • Strut

    Excellent. I look forward to it :-)

    Strut