AE.TUTSPLUS - Video Tutorials for Adobe After Effects (Volume 8)

Aetuts+ is a site made to house and showcase some of the best After Effects tutorials around. We publish tutorials that not only produce great effects, but explain them in a friendly, approachable manner. We also stock up links to tutorials, articles, presets and plugins from around the web to help you get the most out of After Effects.

167. Realistic Fog Without 3rd Party Plug-ins
Creating atmospheres within a 3d app can be tricky and there are often times when you just need a quick turn around without having to worry about render time. Today we’re gonna look at how to create realistic looking fog without the use of ANY 3rd party plug-ins. Enjoy!

168. Turn Out Something New By Rotating Boxes
In this tutorial I am going to show you how to create a very nice animation based in solids by using very simple effects and camera movements. All of this will be done totally inside After Effects and using nothing else than solids, rotations and camera postions. We will learn how to put a small box inside a bigger box to display you images or 3D elements in a cool way.

169. Simulate An Advanced Muzzle Flash
In this tutorial we’ll talk about the most realistic way (in my opinion) to go about making muzzle flashes for machine guns and pistols. Muzzle flashes, smoke, light simulation, slide action, and shells are all a must!

170. How To Keep Your Color Presets
Have you always wanted to create your own color presets? Now you can! Make your own complete library of easily adjustable color effects with this new tutorial. From levels to hue and saturation, you can now have full control over the complete look of your scene. Do you want the scene to be a rainy day or a warm summer? Lets take a look!

171. Chomp Out Your Own Pac Man Animation – Part 1
This 2 part tutorial is a simulated Pac Man animation as he navigates a maze and gobbles dots along the way… with ghost chasers. The tutorial will include guidelines on building the components in Photoshop or Illustrator and then integrating them into AE to animate Pac Man. This is more of a design project that incorporates many of the foundational skills associated with AE; pre-comps, transformations, layer masks, etc.

172. Chomp Out Your Own Pac Man Animation – Part 2
This 2 part tutorial is a simulated Pac Man animation as he navigates a maze and gobbles dots along the way… with ghost chasers. The tutorial will include guidelines on building the components in Photoshop or Illustrator and then integrating them into AE to animate Pac Man. This is more of a design project that incorporates many of the foundational skills associated with AE; pre-comps, transformations, layer masks, etc.

173. Put Out Realistic Candle Smoke
In this tutorial we’ll be going into Tracode Particular’s settings to generate a smoke like result that has a realistic movement wisping through the air. There are lots of Particular tutorials available, but this guy has some really practical uses.

174. Interlaced Footage Demystified
I decided to record this video, because I noticed that there are many After Effects artists who don’t know how to deal with interlaced video to be delivered to television. Many of us treat the interlaced feature of the footage as something that has to be removed at once. Don’t de-interlace everything you get. When you deliver something to TV, you can benefit from interlacing.
In this tutorial I try to explain what interlacing really means, why the television works this way, and how we should deal with the interlaced nature of TV. Did you know that progressive footage may sometimes be rejected by the TV station? Why does your footage look a bit different on a TV set, even if it is progressive LCD or plasma? Why do TV shows look different than movies? Is this only because of the color correction? I try to answer those questions. Simple as that. Don’t expect to see any fancy, exiting techniques. Just knowledge that may help you not to make little mistakes.

175. Dive Into A HUD Diver Mask Animation – Day 1
This 2 Part Tutorial aims to show various techniques used to create an imaginary hi-tech divers mask, as seen from the divers viewpoint.In Day 1, I will show how to create the graphical elements that form the basis of all the in-visor display systems. These will be done in Adobe Illustrator, but the same techniques can be used in After Effects.Then I’ll show how I created the glass warping effects used to simulate a 3d glass wraparound visor, and also put some water droplets onto the outside of the glass.

176. Dive Into A HUD Diver Mask Animation – Day 2
This 2 Part Tutorial aims to show various techniques used to create an imaginary hi-tech divers mask, as seen from the divers viewpoint.In Day 2, the bubbles caused by the diver breathing will be simulated and then the final task will be to bring in the graphical elements and treat them to look like light projections on the inside of the mask.The same effect was used on three variations of the same teaser advert, in May 2009, when the company I work for, Character Options, launched a brand new range of Military based action figures.Thanks also go to the team at Mark TV in Italy, who did an amazing job building the sets and shooting the commercials.

177. Use A Jello-Jiggly Expression – Quick Tip
In this Quick Tip, Ewan is going to run you through inserting an expression to the properties of an object to give it a Jello-like Wiggle. For other fun expressions check out MotionScript.com.

178. Extending Your Set With Cinema 4D
Aluminum frames abound! In this tutorial, we’ll learn how to extend your background using a small portable green screen and a little help from Cinema 4D to create large virtual 3d buildings. This technique has endless options… enjoy!

179. Fluidic Designs Using Particular
This tutorial is based on the Hyundai i45 tv commercial. The effect is rain falling in the shape of various designs, onto a vehichle. The tvc uses a real-world rain rig with a computer driven water delivery system, however we will be showing you how to create the same effect using only After Effects and Particular.

180. An Inside Look At OpenGL Within After Effects
In this video we’re going to take a look on how important performance is. We’ll be talking about what OpenGL is and how the new graphics cards Quadro from Nvidia can increase our performance dramatically. For more information, check out “Adobe’s Help Files”.

181. Accessing “Right To Left” Languages Within After Effects
Right to left languages are widely used in After Effects, but traditionally these languages are not treated like text in After Effects. We have to instead covert them to vector graphics which limit many possibilities that are only possible with text layers. In this Quick Tip we will learn to enable languages and manipulate “RTL” text right within After Effects. This tutorial is for After Effects CS4 and the preview video for this tutorial is just to show the capabilities of RTL languages in After Effects. I will not be discussing how to achieve this effect.

182. Control A 3D Deck of Cards Like Magic
In this tutorial we’ll be creating a Card deck that unfolds and a chosen card that rises up. We’ll be creating lots of expressions and i will show you an handy trick that will show another image on the front and backfacing of a layer.

183. Move Forward Using A Multi-Limb Walk Cycle
Have you ever wanted to animate a spider or crab walk cycle? In this tutorial you will learn a very useful and simple technique that will help you animate a walk cycle for creatures with anywhere from 2 to 200 limbs.

184. Put Your Face Onto An Inanimate Object
There have been a lot of YouTube videos posted lately with faces superimposed onto objects like The Annoying Orange. Now you can learn how to put your face onto things an apple within After Effects. This tutorial will show you everything you need from tracking to creating the reflection. Have Fun!

185. Enter The Matrix Using Particular 2
I was recently asked to create the Matrix “raining code” effect, but the only help I could find was a 40 minute tutorial which was not very helpful, because it was layer based and very time consuming. After thinking about it, I thought, “Why not do it in After Effects with Particular?”. I gave it a few tries, and voila, it worked. After that I created this tutorial. I hope you enjoy it, and will learn something.

186. Formatting Your Videos for Triplewide Display
Triplewide content is a new form of presenting content in multiple venues, be it live performances or even in the church. Because of how new it is, many people aren’t quite sure what it is or how to format their content. This tutorial will explain what Triplewide Content actually is and how to format it for optimal playback. Enjoy!

187. Put Together a Slick Mustang Assembly
Today we will create a cool reconstruction of a Mustang in 3D space with lights and a camera movement. This tutorial will show you how to animate the layers and generate an attractive, dynamic result.

188. Program A Fallout 3 “Pipboy” Touch Screen – Day 1
In Day 1 we’ll go over how to set up the shot to add a CG screen on a cell phone, GPS, or anything with a screen. It really looks cool when you do it on something portable though. We’re making a pipboy so we’ll go over how to mimick the pipboy look as far as style, color, and feel. So get ready to build build build!

189. Program A Fallout 3 “Pipboy” Touch Screen – Day 2
In Day 2 we’ll finish up the building of the pipboy screens. Then we’ll talk about how were going to transition between the first and second screen. We’ll animate and keyframe the layers. DON”T FORGET MOTION BLUR!!! Once we finally build the 2 screens and animate them, we’ll add some final detail to the screens like noise and grunge. And finally we’ll motion track the screen onto our live action footage. Thanks for watching guys.

190. Focus On Making A Simulated Microscope Field of View
I created this Microscope’s Field of View using 3 particle systems. The Base Layer is a water animation created using a fractal noise; the first level of particles is created using CC Particle World and it’s meant to look like quickly-moving bubbles. The Second Level of particles is created using Particular with a custom designed sprite, and is meant to look like a microscopic organism. The Third Set of particles are also created using Particular, and are added to mimic more floating debris. Finally, an arrow indicator is added to accurately simulate a microscope’s FOV.

191. Ignite A Sizzlin’ Hot Fire Burst
Have Fire? Have People? Have desire to be awesome? Learn to composite stock footage of various fire elements and have your friends burst into flames. In addition, learn to use the fire as a displacement map to create a unique “Heat Haze” effect from the fire.