Matt's Blog

After Effect's Scripts are your friends

There are huge advantages to using .jsx scripts within After Effects, but the first step is often acknowledging, or even identifying, that you have a problem to begin with. It depends on your workflow, but the signs to look out for are whether you find yourself manually repeating repetitive tasks, if you are, its almost certain you’ll be able to find a script to ease your pain.

One of the largest repositories can be found at http://aescripts.com/, most of them, at the time of writing are available on a pay what you feel they are worth basis, although some of the pay for versions can also be demo’d too.

Other and by no means lesser sources include;

http://www.redefinery.com/ae/, which has a fantastic selection.

http://www.crgreen.com/aescripts/, a smaller but no less useful array.

http://www.motionscript.com/ is not so much a source of scripts as it is a reference for creating your own. If you are feeling adventurous it is a great place to start with plenty of invaluable and well written tutorials.

http://aenhancers.com/index.php is a forum dedicated to After Effects expressions and scripting. If you have requests or questions regarding them, then this is great place to ask.

The video below shows you how to get up and running with scripts, specifically, where to place your .jsx files.

One of my own personal favourites is;
Magnum – The Edit Detector
Absolutely invaluable. A script which when run detects potential scene edit points in your footage layer. You can tweak its scene detection algorithm if you are not getting the results you need, but even if it doesn’t pick up on all of them, it will certainly make your workload much, much easier to manage.

Any motion graphics designer, vfx artist or compositor is sure to find plenty of useful resources, time savers and inspiration at the above links.

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In case you have been living under a rock for the past 4 months (year/10 years) then you may not have encountered the Elder Scrolls series of RPG games. This online collaborative graphic novel has had my inner fantasy nerd entertained for the past few months. It takes place in the Elder Scrolls 3 Oblivion RPG era rather than Elder Scrolls 4 Skyrim era, but if you are familiar with the series and its lore, then I think you may like its tongue in cheek, but only just, tribulations of its Kajjit heroine Katia as she struggles to turn her life around.

You can start at the beginning here.

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Just to point you in the direction of the free After effects template (featured above) which is available for free on Videohive, you can find it here. It’s a Sci-Fi flight through space, with place holders for your text. It will be free until the end of February for one use of its license. Again, as a template, it should prove handy for learning purposes too. It does use videocopilots lens flare effect, but the project includes pre-rendered movies of these effects, so it can still be used even if you don’t have this plug in. Again, it can be found by clicking here.

Another great place to find textures or images for your After Effects, Photoshop or 3D work is www.morguefile.com. All the files here are completely free to use in your work. I’ve mainly only used it for reference images purposes so far, but I look forward to exploring it more in the future.

Also, if you are a programmer and into gamedev then this site is a fantastic source of links to a wide array of gamedev libraries. Again, I haven’t had much time to dive into it as yet, but it looks like a truly fantastic resource.

Finally, http://losttype.com is a great site for those in need of good typography resources, with a huge range of high quality, professional fonts. They use the pay what you want model and can be found here.

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I’m busy working on a new After Effects tutorial, should hopefully be live by the end of this week.

In other news I have been brushing up my knowledge in the Lab colour space, its been a fascinating journey of discovery and whilst its application is mainly only available in Photoshop, as alas After Effect’s doesn’t implement it, it has forced me to concentrate on areas of colour space and manipulation that I wasn’t even aware of, never mind considered. Basically, Lab is divided into three channels, the “L” , “a” and “b”. The “a” and “b” channels contain the images colour information whereas the “L” is a luminance channel used for detail and contrast information. Having the channels divided in this way apparently makes image sharpening and noise removal far more effectively applied in the Lab colour space. It’s something I will be experimenting with for sure, and with the help of transfer modes such as “color” and “luminance” within After Effects I can apply some of the theory to regular RGB too.

I’ve also been working on a redux of my 2005 “The Midnight Gardener” short film. Mainly as an exercise in camera projection techniques and as a test bed for removing digital noise. There are a few more finishing touches I need to apply in After Effects, but nothing major, however there is also the soundtrack which needs digitally cleaning.

Further to this I’ve also been working on my novel, mainly editing content. I’m considering getting Scrivener. I had a trial with the software, and it seemed a great way to organise content, as huge word documents tend to make navigation tricky.

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My “Flying Paint – Simulating Liquids with AE Particles – Part 3” After Effect’s Tutorial is now available on the Creative Cow website. Find it here (also see part 1 and part 2).

In this third part I add a few subtle finishing touches to the animation. Mainly adding little details including a membranous/papery texture, but I also use the Time Remap function to help slow down the particles, and briefly explain this powerful feature that lies within After Effects.

I also recommend adding a further adjustment layer to the composition and creating a Hue and Saturation effect, either shift the Hue (or check Colorize/Colourise) and with a few changes to the Saturation and Lightness parameters you can develop a wealth of new looks to the animation.

I might return to a more technical lesson next time… if the darn pneumatic drill outside my window decides to quieten down.

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I’ve got a new series of After Effects tutorials coming up on the Creative Cow. The first two parts can be found here and here respectively, with a third coming soon.

I cover quite a range of concepts and techniques, demonstrating my workflow, showing as much work in progress as I can; from initially setting up a particle field with CC Particle World and the CC Vector Blur effect, to refining, fine tuning, and adding visual polish. Please do stick with it until the end as the results are certainly worthwhile and their potential application is wide and varied.

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It would be remiss of me not to do a special Halloween update and James Cummins’ Boneyard from 1991, is such perfect Halloween fodder, that I feel compelled to recommend it wholeheartedly. It is by turns trashy, and tremendously effective. Offering sheer hokum, laughs, suspense and some absolutely fantastic make-up effects. There is also just the right level of gross out humour, with some surprising genre play which when combined with some of the initially low key creature design and effective camerawork, really allows it to stand out from so much of the straight to video trash it must have shared the shelves with.

It covers all the bases I require for a fun Halloween horror movie. The performances are all also terrifically likeable, with Phyllis Diller, Norman Fell, Deborah Rose and Ed Nelson camping it up a storm. Sadly James Cummins died in 2010, leaving behind quite a roster of visual effects and make-up achievements, so what better way to celebrate his legacy than with a trip to The Boneyard.

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I’ve got another free After Effects tutorial up on The Creative Cow which can be found here. It is focused on exploring the loop expression within After Effects. Specifically;

loopOut()
loopIn()
loopOutDuration()
loopInDuration()

and the “pingpong”, “cycle” and “continue” arguments that control them.

Even if you are new to After Effect’s expressions, this is an essential and relatively simple one that will prove useful more often than you might think.

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My latest After Effects tutorial has gone up at The Creative Cow website. You can find it by clicking here.

It’s a quick After Effect’s workflow technique that will save you a lot of time when working on your AE projects. There are actually two techniques revealed for doing the same thing (AE keyboard shortcuts), so even if you already know how to quickly replace footage, images, comps or music, then you may be surprised to learn a new technique for doing the same thing.

I have quite a few ideas for future tutorials, so look out for them here. You can subscribe to my automatic mailing list (just enter your email into the box on the right) to be sent emails when I update here.

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This is a free After Effects template license from one of the best selling and stylish stock After Effect project creators. Find the file for download here.

It’s a great portfolio piece, ideal for presentations. Do check out more of his work here, as there is plenty of great material to choose from. I find his work to be highly polished with a focus on clean design with plenty of attention to key framed animation. There is plenty to be learned from both the focused simplicity, and the character of the motion graphic work.

If you do find a After Effects template that you’d like to use, but lack the ability or software, then email me for a quote for completed delivery of the project, tailor made to your specifications. With the wealth of After Effects project files available you would be hard press to not find something suitable

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September is here and with it another free After Effects template courtesy of Balistique. Found here.

It looks like a pretty straightforward template to explore, with plenty of pretty cool assets. There are free video clips of Optical Flares and Trapcode Lux if you don’t have these plugins, and also the project comes with the audio track too. It also includes a link to the font used in the project.

I keep posting these free project links as I really do feel they are a good way for a beginner to get to grips with the After Effects workflow and structure by actively examining how a project is constructed and also as a simple way for absolutely new users to immediately get results from the software without the creative or deep technical knowledge required to build a project from scratch.

You can download a free trial of the After Effects software from Adobe, it will grant you use of After Effects for a month, which would be enough time for you to assemble a project and or just alter and render out that promo for free. It’s a great way to sample their other software too such as Photoshop. Although, alternatively, you could use the free, open source Gimp software. It’s basically Photoshop (albeit without the marketing budget) allowing you to paint and also manipulate your photo images. Go experiment, anything you learn in that application will ultimately prove just as useful in After Effects.

Full on designing, compositing or animating in After Effects is certainly not for the faint of heart, but you needn’t have to dive into its complexities in order use one of these project files. All projects come with instructions (either in the form of a video tutorial or text file) demonstrating what goes where, and the authors themselves are often willing to help you if asked nicely. It is simply a case of changing the text and the footage or photographs. You only need to import your graphic or movie files into the opened project. Then drag them into place and the text you want to change can be highlighted before typing in your own.

TIP
Hold down “Ctrl and T” to get the Text tool in After Effects, when you’ve finished typing just select another layer or press the ESC key. The “V” key will now return you to the regular arrow cursor.

Once this is done, all you have to do is to render the project to the video file format of your choice. Those really are the basic steps you would have to take. Go on, push yourself! If you still feel a little hesitant then there are plenty of helpful places on the internet. Sites such as the Creative Cow offer After Effects tutorials and forums with members who are happy to help beginners, the latest tutorials on the site are covering the very basics too.

Here’s a preview of the free project;

Read the rest of this entry »

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Drugsbox – Kelvox1 by GreatOneAE

I discovered that the daily motion website hosts video up to an hour in length, and that you can upload material up to 2gb in size. But, sadly, I think the two part Youtube version is still the champ, but in terms of framerate, on lower powered laptop/pc’s, this actually seems to play back pretty smoothly at 720p. The problem I seem to be encountering is that video hosting sites seem to cut playback down to 15fps when re-encoding rather than the specified 25fps. It’s not too apparent and the only time it is particularly noticeable is when the jittery text appears.

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The video is now up on Youtube. Sadly, I had to divide the video into two to meet the websites stringent 15 min video limit that my account currently has. But, here it is;

Please do click the 360 button at the bottom and up the resolution to 720, it is worth it.

For more in depth info on the video please see the following blog post below…
or just click here.

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It has been a busy last few days, as I finally managed to find the time to concentrate on creating this music video for the Cambridge based band Kelvox1, whose member, Dave Mckenna is a good friend. He’d mentioned, that whilst looking at my Shanghai metro train footage, he had the idea of asking me to do something for one of their tracks. Glad he did, as I managed to put to use a lot of material I had previously shot in 2009, it’s of a train journey from Baotou, Inner Mongolia, Northern China to Shanghai, Eastern China.

The landscape is utterly amazing, especially as it was in this winter / spring crossover time, and I feel this video captured the haunting beauty of this immense landscape, but perhaps only 10% of its awesome wonder (it is a 36 hour journey).

Overall, I wanted something that captured an idea, or reflection of, and indeed a reflection on, the countries cultural revolution reflected in and on its landscape, something bordering on the real / unreal. How better to do that then through a train window as it mimics the passing frame by frame linear nature of film itself?

The countries urban youth is fascinated by post punk music (as am I) too, so I felt that representing this idea or feeling was best found in Kelvox1′s fantastically atmospheric, post punk, electronic music. I’d like to take credit for the video, but I just happened to pick up a camera, and know how to string it together, the rest is its own magical and rather trippy thing (try watching it whilst wearing 3D glasses). Oh yes, and its maybe best that you don’t watch whilst too drunk. I apologise for the jerky framerate and low resolution… perhaps the two part Youtube version will be better quality, when its finished uploading I’ll post it here too.

Kelvox 1 – Drugsbox from GreatOne on Vimeo.

The embed is SD, but you can watch it in HD on the actual Vimeo site itself. Just click the HD button on the player so that it lights up.

In other news, its August and that means more free stuff over at the Envato site, I’ve only had time to check out this free After Effects project / template file so far. Download it for free here.

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IStockphoto.com are currently giving away 10 free images with every new signup to their stock imagery website. Whether you actually buy their stock, or simply use it for reference (you can download watermarked previews of video and stills before you buy, enabling you to use them as low resolution proxies, or indeed if you need to change them quickly and cost effectively should the need arise).

It is a great resource, and really, why would you want to turn down 10 free images? They also provide animations, stock footage and audio for your video / web projects. I find the site absolutely invaluable for creating my motion graphic, video and print work, both in terms of quality and the sheer volume of material that they provide.

Their collection of timelapse material for example is breathtaking. It’s great just to browse through looking for inspiration, or reference for particular looks, styles and even motion for animating purposes. Overall, the site is well designed, features animated thumbnails, a clear filtering system and a clean interface that really helps to narrow down your search and concentrate on the task at hand – finding that vital piece of stock, whether it be audio, video or photographic.

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I created this After Effects tutorial last year, not for the Creative Cow this time, but for Ruffkutmedia. In it, I show how you can create a racing car tachometer using After Effects expressions , a minimal amount of keyframes, text layers, shape layers (with pen tool beziers), and motion blur using an animated 3D camera.

It’s a pretty good tutorial, it’s free and I feel a lot can be learnt from it, both from a design perspective as well as it being an exercise in creating and communicating a sense of dynamism within an animation. You don’t need any special plug-ins to follow along, but if you are using an older version of After Effects you may need to mask off solid layers with the pen tool, as Shapes layers were only introduced in After Effects CS3.

You can find it by clicking here

Also, if you really like it, you can purchase a license to use it, as it can also be found for sale as a pre rendered video clip here as a pure animation in Quicktime format.

If you have any questions or comments, please let me know (Just click the article title to be taken to a page where commenting is possible, I’ll get round to making this a little easier in the future).

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There is another great (and 100% free) After Effects project / template file over at www.videohive.net It requires no additional plug-ins, as it comes included with a pre-rendered particle movie. It certainly looks like a fantastic opener and tt can be found totally free here.

In addition there is also a completely free music track here on Audiojungle, and what looks like a great free Travel website template here over at www.themeforest.net.

These are all great free items, whether you be a freelancer or small business, these can save you time and effort when building or just prototyping designs. Just be aware that you are entitled to one free licensed use of these items and that you can only download them this month (July), so go ahead, grab them and save for later.

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Just a quick post to point in the towards the June After Effects free file. Find the free file for June here.

It’s a loading screen video with a progress bar, it is not a project file / template, but free is free.

Quick Tip

I’ve recently begun using the After Effects shortcut “Ctrl+Shift+Alt+N” to open a new viewer window whilst working on multiple timelines / nested compositions. It is usually quite a fiddly process to set up, as it involves making room for another viewer / monitor window (and remembering which tab to actually click), but with this admittedly cumbersome shortcut it makes the process so much easier and time efficient. Just remember to lock those viewers into place.

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There are monthly free After Effect project files for download at the Envato Network and there is often some real gold to be found there, some have been best sellers on the site, (in the top ten) so whether you use them for commercial projects or just as a learning resource they can quickly prove invaluable. They are free to use for one regular, rather than extended license, enough to use on a one off After Effects project, be it for youtube or a corporate promotional video.

Spectrum After Effects Project Free Download – This free After Effects project file also comes with a tutorial.

Be sure to check other areas of the Envato site for more free project files, each category offers a unique free item each month. For example the tuts+ network is offering a free tutorial for building a javascript library.

Please do support the site if you like the free After Effect file or tutorial, it relies on mass traffic and repeat license sales to justify the time and effort put into these creative works by their respective authors. The project files and motion graphic clips can really add increased production value to your work, something previously only available to advertising agency clients with large budgets. So, now even entry level, small businesses can afford to deliver slick and professional video content.

Even if you are not familiar with After Effects or Video Editing, you can hire someone with knowledge of the products to customise one for you using a project file or template of your choice, so that it includes your logo, branding, pictures and video. This works out infinitely cheaper than hiring a advertising agency, or commissioning a unique project for yourself. But, this model does rely on crowd buying in order to justify its costs, so even if you don’t know After Effects you can hire a professional (such as myself, or even contact the author of the file you wish to buy) to change aspects of the project for a much cheaper price than having to design a completely unique, custom work which requires a much larger investment of time and overheads.

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I have set up two new channels on Youtube and Vimeo to help showcase my After Effects projects work. After a lull in my social media delving, I’m pleased to be back in the saddle as it were. So, if you do click on the channels, then please do subscribe to them. As usual I’m tied up in a million things, but do have plans to upload more to the channels soon(…ish), be it some form of After Effects project, tutorial, motion graphic, short film or even music.

Here are the links to the channels;

Youtube
Vimeo

So far there only a few videos on there including my Last Highway, Garden Maze and Mystery Horizon projects, but as I get more organised I plan on upping more.

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