VFX School

AVCHD and 7D footage giving you trouble?

2010-03-31T21:11:00.000-07:00

Got a lot of footage to batch convert?

Best solution is Neoscene from cineform. It even scene detects HDV for christ sakes!

however if you don't have Neoscene the cheap alternative is using DNxHD from avid here is a nice tutorial on how to batch convert your stuff.

http://eugenia.gnomefiles.org/images2/avid5d.png

Neoscene:

http://www.cineform.com/

These quick little solutions help you edit faster. I highly recommend neoscene because its such a complete product. It should be in every filmmakers tool box.

Quick guide to compositing

2010-03-21T00:52:00.000-07:00

For those of you interested in learning compositing here are a couple of very interesting things I found after combing the interwebs. Enjoy! and hopefully you learn something:

1. Seraph30 Has an interesting guide on perspective and the basics of compositing.

http://www.seraph3d.com/composite_main.htm

2. Topher welsh posted a nice video on Gomediazine on the basic compositing of things in 2.5D with in after effects.

http://www.gomediazine.com/tutorials/introduction-25d-compositing-tutorial/

3. This photoshop tutorial from digital Arts really teaches you the basics of compositing, the basic gist of things is to take elements and create a new final finished piece of art.

http://www.digitalartsonline.co.uk/tutorials/index.cfm?featureid=1750

Wealth of Info for newbs

2010-03-20T19:39:00.001-07:00

Getting started in VFX and film making? Want to learn a bit what products are used in post production and learn about some cool sites that give you plenty of info?

Here you go:

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=101533

The kind folks at CGsociety have cataloged a wealth of information.. evrything from a list of the software used in post to books and web sites that train you.. they even gave you links to amazon and the respectable web sites.. It doesn't get much easier than that. Now stop procrastinating and start learning the trade. your trade.

Fine tune your Photoshop skills

2010-03-18T12:16:00.000-07:00

Photoshop is essential to any work environment. Its not just post production and graphic design. Hospitals use it, law firms use it, even police and crime investigators use it as a means of forensics analysis. Being good at Photoshop has now become one extra skill that looks good on your resume just like Excel or word.

Check out this Six revisions post that has rounded up some internet tutorial that will help you fine tune and hone your Photoshop skills.

http://sixrevisions.com/photoshop/21-advanced-photoshop-tips-tricks-and-tutorials-roundup/

Color Managed Workspace

2010-01-14T22:50:00.000-08:00

Johan Steen has posted a Amazing article on color management, that if you consider your self to have even slight bit of a video enthusiast in you, you should read it. Its one of the many gotchas that plague the post production work and if you don't know how to handle color you will be left scratching your head when you actors are so red and over saturated they end up looking like the cast of Jersey shore.

Article is here

Brought to us courtesy of AE portal

Tamper: The future of Editing

2010-01-12T14:53:00.000-08:00

Tamper is a cool new software program, that lets you interactivity edit footage and elements using only simple hand gestures. Yes people rejoice, for the future is now.

More here:
http://makingof.com/insiders/media/john/underkoffler/john-underkoffler-tamper-s-with-the-future-of-editing/94/209

Obviously this is still in its infancy, but you can see the idea there. And in all honesty lets be real with our selfs. It was only a matter of time be for someone made this. I mean we are all ready headed in that direction ever since the mass production of wacom tablets and consumer touch screen laptops. This very well might be a small glimpse in to the future, and i like it. Editing video a la Xbox Natal.. sounds nice.

-Tony

Trapcode users rejoyce

2010-01-12T00:19:00.000-08:00

If you haven't already checked out Trapcode's new site GO check it out here:

http://trapcode.squarespace.com/

Its a web site dedicated to users or Trapcode Particular. You can share tips and tricks, and of course... presets. If you where sad to see trapcodepeople.net go this will put a smile on your face.

-J

News segment

2010-01-10T00:14:00.000-08:00

As you all know I have been absent from the blog for a while. Reason being is that work has flooded my life as well as family and life in general. However as you might have noticed Tony is also helping me run this site and has been very generous with his time.
There are many things to come this year so expect changes. One of them being that I will hopefully post more around here. In the mean time, tony has put up some great tuts, so make sure you check'em out.

Now as far as Actual news goes many of you must know something about CS5, unless you have been living under a rock for the past couple of months. To re-cap here are some things:

Adobe CS5 will come in one flavor only, thats 64-bit. Good news for everyone, bad news for plug-in makers. Since plenty of code will have to be ported to 64-bit. The decision is clear though and its the right move. If you want that better performance and more stability then 64-bit is the way to go. Speaking of performance, adobe's new Mercury playback engine is said to give Premiere PRO real-time editing capabilities. However according to sources the Mercury engine is CUDA based and so to run it you need a Nvidia card. Sorry ATI people, but you will be left out this time. Which is a shame because ATI makes some very powerful cards. Over all adobe is moving in the right direction. News on AE cs5 is scarce, but i do hope they have listened to our suggestions.

If you want to add suggestions, report bugs or make a wish your self hop over to:
https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/mmform/index.cfm?name=wishform

Have a good one

-J

AE: Greenscreen Tutorial

2010-01-09T23:33:00.000-08:00

Second in depth tutorial, and this is on chroma keying. Since the last one covered compositing more I thought this time I should focus more on greenscreen work. These tutorials are a bit more advanced and require some knowledge of AE and greenscreen work already since the focus is more on the workflow and its more in depth, so the basics will be flown over by pretty quickly.

I will let you know that im running CS4 right now and i apologize to all of my CS3 and below users. However if you follow the PDF's you should be just fine and I do provide you with the project file and footage.

This one is also courtesy of Umesh, and I want thank him for the awesome work he has been doing for a while providing everybody with free HD footage for a while. If you want to play with footage go check out his site.

http://umesh3d.blogspot.com/

Download the project file:

Project file

AE: Compositing tutorial

2010-01-09T19:57:00.000-08:00

Learn how to create a jet fighter flyover shot using only 2D elements. The result is a very realistic yet easy (if you know what you're doing) way of doing these types of shots. We will also cover some good compositing techniques and tips for color matching.

After having had some time off I decided to put up a tutorial on actual compositing, a subject skipped by most tutorial web site about After effects. You find a good amount of Nuke and Shake compositing tutorials but not many AE ones. Well I plan to change that. You can bet there are going to be more compositing tutorials for AE coming up soon. So stay tuned for those.

The footage is a free clip courtesy of Umesh off his website here:

http://umesh3d.blogspot.com/

Download the Project file and PDF here:

Project File

Free Project file download

2009-11-08T23:34:00.000-08:00

Here is a free project made in After Effects CS4. Its a countdown on a spinning box. Download it, use it tweak it, learn from it. Makes use of some cool After Effects tricks so if you have been looking to do some motion graphics here is a good project file to help you out.

Download AE project

The Film Makers Guide

2009-10-12T18:17:00.000-07:00

Hi sorry for the lack of posts but I have been busy with tons of projects. However since now I write for VFXschool along with my buddy here Jason. We thought it would be cool to put out a short guide on getting started with film making. It's a real quick over view of basic things you should know heading out to a shoot. I cover lighting, audio, and cameras as well as a cool post strategy to keep things organized and I finish it off with a quick guide on color correcting and grading.

Hope you enjoy it and find it useful.

Tony

Download Guide

*Edit:

I wanted to make something clear about lighting. In the guide I stated that most of the lighting is done in post. After reading it again today i thought some people might get confused. I had implied is that the final polishing is done in post.So you always want to light on set how the image should come out. However, you want to have minimal contrast. To do that shoot with a flat gamma and always lighten up your shadows with a bounce card. If you are doing a three point lighting, your fill light should lighten your shadows. When u have a custom set up or you shoot out doors, add a bounce card on the shadow side so that you shadows aren't completely dark. That way you always have that extra bit of data to work with. Use this tip especially when you shoot DV.

Most useful tutorials

2009-09-24T23:28:00.001-07:00

Now a days you have your pick from tons of people making tutorials. But the problem is that almost none of them are good. Its hard to get some one to nail down the basics and even more importantly teach them in a manner that is easy to understand. Creative cow is one of the very very few places that makes tutorials that are so well made they have become a staple in the online Mograph and VFX community. They host some of the best and most useful tutorial you can ever hope to find on the web. If you are a AE user your owe it to your self to watch all of these tutorials.

Go learn something.

The best Creative cow tuts so far:

Removing Chromatic aberrations

2.5D Rig removal

Calculating rotation

The famous droste effect

multi Freeze-frame effect

Simulating whip-pans

Sci-Fi Classics

(Audio) ADR basics and how it works

Looping particle systems

Making a water color effect on videos

Better Compositing

Reverse Earth Zoom

Jumbotron look

Vanishing point in AE

Cinematic compositing

Building a 3D world in AE

Creating a automated Odometer

Smart volume meter

Simple object removal

Smoking letters

Destroy AE CS4

2009-07-10T23:53:00.001-07:00

DESTROY AE distortion generator for After Effects CS4

Ladies and gentlemen what i present to you know is the all new-fully re-vamped preset for creating digital and analog artifacts and distortion. I had a small job a few weeks ago that called for me working on a short 10 sec. shot of a handheld camera falling down, obviously the they wanted the camera to distort freeze up an snap to black. So I did some searching and found Digieffects distort plug-in. Once i saw what it did, i realized that instead of spending money i could just create the effects my self. Glad to say that after some tinkering i came up with some presets that allowed be to create the effects. However to get a very custom preset i used keyframes. Obviously those can't be saved as presets. So instead using my little knowledge of expressions I added some controls and. Also since my footage was rendering very slowly i managed for this release to do away with tons of effects and tons of layers thanks to some friends, google and my good friend CC composite. Now you can enjoy dropping in the preset on any footage and voila. In fact i would go as far as to say that its a perfect substitute for Digieffect's plug-in. The one thing lacking is a time effect. Which I worked around by using TIMESHUFFLER by polygonstudio (maltannon.com). Enjoy.

Download:

http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=f1a082d8ed39bc127432d3c9683f450ae04e75f6e8ebb871

Music video preset.

2009-05-08T18:38:00.000-07:00

Need to make a handheld shakey "tryn" to focus effect? but don't want the sharp jitters of a real handheld? Shoot your actor or artist with your cam on a tripod. Bring it into after effects and use Shaker to give some life to your footage. I made it with the intention of using it o music videos, which is what i will be working on, however after playing around with it i discoverde that its useful for a dreamy confused feel if you duplicate the footage and ofset it 5-10 pixels off, so IDK it's useful for many other things experiment with it, im sure you guys will finde it useful for other things. And its all free, just give me or this blog a small bit of credit, we appreciate it.

About me: Im a local LA music producer, mixer and sound engineer, graphic designer both in art and commercial applications, Filmmaker, visual effects artist, digital composer, motionographer, photographer and cinematographer, director, screenwriter. I have a background in Art and digital media as well as science, phiosophy and math. Im an avid boxer and i Love art music and movies.

Aight so thats me expect more post to come.

-TOny

Download Shaker: http://www.mediafire.com/?nzzeyq2mnjw

New Streak and film burn pack!

2009-05-08T18:30:00.000-07:00

Wuts up. This is a small pack i put together of streaks, flares and film burns i made for certaint projects.. They have come in very helpful hope you enjoy them... If you are having trouble, or don't know how to usethem. There is a PDF along with the pack. Basically you set them to a transfer mode: either "add", "screen" or "color dodge." Now if you want more control. You can use Knoll Unmult to remove the black matte. I also created the MotionPRO pack but unlike that i didn't make an alpha channel since i never realy intended to use them withone. Ok have fun with them. And let me know what you think right in the comment section. Peace!

-TOny

Get it at: http://www.mediafire.com/?zdkzqdjw0ez

Get Ready!

2009-05-08T15:44:00.000-07:00

Been busy working on lots of cool projects.. But don't think i forgot about the blog.. I will soon be posting a LOT of useful tips and get ready for a back to back to back post of nothing but pure awesome downloads should all be up today... My friend Tony who is a compositor and visual effects artist is a student in the LA area. We met in a GD class a while back and he has been helping ever since. So i thought it would only be appropriate to share with you some awesome stuff he has helped me make. I would like to thank him for all of the product designs and logos he has made. and his presets he has over at http://tonyfbaby.deviantart.com. Lately he has been producing music, but has kindly granted me the right to distribute his presets and design elemenets and templates accross my various sites. I will be in NY for some time. So i wont have to much to post about. But Tony said he would be more than happy to share his knowledge with us all so expect post by him in the very near future. Also If you havent already check out Tophers site right there on the right (visualfxtuts.com) He has futured our free products and is Good friends with Tony, and has even featured his Presets on his site. So make sure you check it out.

TRACK THIS! free track markers

2009-04-21T18:20:00.001-07:00

So i'm starting to see a lot of people getting into green screening and 3d tracking and all of that good stuff. I'm glad to see people doing more and more advanced stuff, so to help you guys out i got in touch with a friend and created these tracking markers. What makes these so special is that we literally dedicated a long time in to figuring out what makes a good tracking marker. Through trial and error we found out that these markers should help you track much better (especially if your using point trackers) They are desigend to be easy to track even with perspective. So far they work better then most alternatives. And now you don't have to buy expensive tracking markers, when these free markers will do the trick.

Download tracker template here:

http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?ngeyydy2dow

Free Motion editors toolkit

2009-04-21T13:20:00.001-07:00

Hey everyone, im back again here on VFXschool and this time i have a great little gift for all of you begining motion graphics artists. I call it Motion Pro toolkit.. and its a pretty small pack about 330mb download, but you get tons of high quality textures, Animated backgrounds, Lowerthirds, brushes, some Letter fonts (both customizable PSD and PNG), plus every Lower third comes with its alpha video so it's easy to use, just drop both videos on a time line (ontop of your footage) and set the track matte to alpha, voila! instant lower thirds... Now this is not going to cover all of your needs, If you are a proffesional i suggest looking into GoMedia or Digital Juice's packs, but those cost a pretty penny. This however is geared more for a beginer motion editor that will sometimes need a quick background or Lowerthirds or a quick texture to get the job done. Anyways, enjoy and leave some feed back if you liked it. If you do, perhaps ill fire up the old Hard drive and put together another little pack. Which by the way is not so little. You acctually get a very decent number of things at a reasonable 330mb zip file.

Download: http://www.filesavr.com/motionprotoolkit

Camera and film gear

2009-03-10T23:33:00.000-07:00

Ok so you got a budget and you need some gear right? ok lets make this quick and easy:

You need 3 major things:

1. Light

2. Camera

3. Mic

Lights:

Lighting is a huge part of movies and if you get that wrong your movie is worthless. Now if you have money i would invest in a Arri light kit or go with KinoFlo. I love KinoFlo. But say you are on a budget. Easy! buy 6 dollar clamp lights and use different bulbs in them. Or search for cheap light stands, they are every where.. because it doesn't matter how you hold up a light bulb, as long as the bulb is good and you're lighting your subject, the audience can't tel if you are using 5,000 KinoFlo lights.

One thing to note is to get both regular bulbs and Day light balanced bulbs. Plus some tinted bulbs, Or buy gels to place over the bulbs. Experimenting with lighting is crucial you never know what looks good until you try it. Remember florescent are hard to mount on stands but run much cooler, and in a hot crowded set, that's a good thing.

Camera:

Ok here is where you invest. If you are a beginner get a Canon HV30 and you will never look back. Ok now that that's out of the way if you are serious about making movies HD or SD is the least of your worries. Whatever you get make sure you have three crucial things:

1. A 3 sensor chip! This is a must. sub $3,000 cameras are bad, and the last thing you want is a very bad camera, save your self time and money buy a 3ccd sensor camera. It's more expensive but has greater color replication and over-all better image.

2. Manual settings, Skip the auto stuff... Go for manual zoom and focus and exposure control, don't buy anything from best buy or wal-mart go to http://www.bhphotovideo.com/ for all your needs.

3. Buy a medium in which you will be best at. You have P2 cards, memory cards, Dv tape and HDV and everything in between. Each has their up's and downs. If you want high quality stuff P2 cards can record true high definition. However DV tape when lit well looks as good as anything else.

I suggest Canon or Sony line of cameras, but i also hear very good things from Panasonic's pro cameras..

Audio:

This is easy the best audio bar none comes from a good quality mic strapped to a boom pole with a blimp and a mic muff. Nothing fancy as long as the mic is good. You can get great audio from a shotgun mic from about 120 bucks and up. Don't fret nowadays cameras can record excellent sound. But if you are going all out a field recorder is what you want. Which will run you a pretty penny. But if you are serious about film making its a good investment. I mean come on! there is no excuse! get a broom pole a mic and a long XLR cable and bam! boom pole! easy.. No need to attach a shotgun mic to your cam. Ataching a shotgun mic to the cam not only yields weak audio, but also sound from handeling tha camera and noise from the camera it's self. Plus you hve to have close up shots to get decent sound. Unlike with a boom pole, which can follow the subjects around. However to make the boom pole work you need to keep it about a foot away from the actors face and about a foot and a half up (out of the camera view). Oh and don't use the on board audio for God's sake..

THE RED PROBLEM:

Ok so everybody wan'ts a Red camera or a SI MK camera. I know, but listen when will you need 2k or 4k resolution? Most indy films go straight to DVD or blue-ray. Even for a screening on a movie theater HD is just fine for most competitions. Face it You won't need anything past HD resolution. And if you do then you probably wouldn't be reading this anyways. That also goes for HD. Yes its the future but if you are starting out, SD is more than sufficient. Besides you must also think about your computer and what it can handle. So think logically before you mortgage your house, is a Red overkill when you are making youtube videos? if you say no, then you are my hero :p more power to you then..

Troubleshoot After Effects: FOR (full on reset)

2009-03-10T22:42:00.000-07:00

After Effects giving you trouble? OK don't panic im here to help. by following this list i have solved just about every single problem after effects has given me.

Ok so a project is giving you problems what do you do?

1. Shut off all the plug ins you are using (click on the FX button next to any plug-in)

2.Enable caps lock to disable the preview finder.

3.Click on Edit>purge>all

4.Create a new folder and make a new save of the project there. Move (copy) ALL of your media assets to that folder.

5.Clear computer: Clean registry (Abaxo is free), Defragment HD

If you have: Windows XP, Me, or 2000 then you should download Dial-a-Fix, it's free and works wonders, there is a vista version in the works.

6.Restart Computer

7.Run After Effects, Download all the latest updates.

8. Open the "new" Project you saved earlier, while holding down shift (This will force AE to Close the comp viewers)

9.Your Project should be working fine now

If your project isn't working here is the more complete list:

1a. Check to see if you just installed a new plug-in, if so remove it and check if it works now.

2b. If 1a didn't work check and make sure you have the latest:

Apple quick time player and other codecs, if you don't download FFDShow (google it) and VLC player.

3b. If you still have problems Slam you CD in the drive and re-install the software. This should solve about 99% of problems.

4b. If that still doesn't work download the CS3 or CS4 clean script from Adobe @ http://www.adobe.com/support/contact/cs3clean.html

Follow the instructions and remove your software and reinstall it again.

If all of this didn't work (which it should) either you have problems with driver issues and/or plug-ins (check your mediacore folder some times those plug-ins give you trouble), or your OS is screwy in which case a nice re-instaling of OS is in order. Or your hardware is failing (probably Ram or HD)

Failing all of this, if you did, then you have reached the limits of human potencial. The Gods of visual effects have frowned on you. The only thing left to do is leave the room quietly and later cry in the shower :p .. perhaps collecting stamps is more of your area?

Session 4: Matte Painting

2009-02-14T01:20:00.000-08:00

Learn how to create a proffesional looking matte painting. For use in After Effects. Software used is photoshop cs4. However the basics color correcting and perspective alignment can be applied to any program. I highly recommend you read this tutorial and many other on matte painting if you are going to be doing alot of visual effects. Its one of the harder concepts to grasp since it doesn't involve alot of technical work but rather more intuative modification of things. It's really up to you, the more time and detail you put in the better it will be. Anyways have fun :) .... And happy valentines day.. wait, yes its 1 am, ok happy valentines day!

And remeber to check back offten for more good stuff. Support VFXschool simply by commenting and being a part of the community, plus check out all of the other websites on the side, for more visual effects goodness.

Tutorial:

Matte Painting

Session 3: Advanced color grading

2009-01-01T23:02:00.000-08:00

Hey everybody!

Here is a brand new session. A lot of people seem to have trouble getting a good cinematic feel out of their footage. Thats because color grading is so important yet not to many people understand it. Here i teach you how to stabilize and level off your footage and then polish it of using some more advanced color grading techniques. This is a good read! very easy to get.

Download PDF:

Advanced color correction PDF

EXTRA!! EXTRA!!

If you need to do some pretty advanced color correction, but are a bit sad that AE doesn't have a cool 3 way color corrector like Avid or other programs? And you you also need a free way of doing things? Well to day is you lucky day! Stu Maschwitz over at ProLost has built a very good

3 way color corrector preset (OH and it's FREE) that uses expressions to harness the built in power of AE built in color correctors.

ProLost REBEL CC

vfx Session 2: Cinematography

2009-01-01T17:28:00.000-08:00

Become the master of your film, learn the basics of cinematography and some advanced stuff as well. If you are a Indy film maker or you will be working on set just helping out, you should know how cinematography works and how to properly shoot a film.

This is a very good tutorial and its in a easy to read short format that gives you the essentials with no fluff in the middle.

Highly recommended!

Read vfx session 2: Cinematography

Cinematography PDF

Happy New year!

2009-01-01T03:49:00.000-08:00

Happy 2009, hope it brings all of you good luck, health, and of course a good paying job at ILM.

I want to take this opportunity to thank and wish the following people a very good 2009 year:

Shout out to Andrew Kramer and the Videocopilot community, you guys have really become a staple in the VFX community, when ever any topic comes up whether at FXPHD forums or VFXtalk forums or even indymogul... someone always says, check videocopilot.net i herd someone figured it out... and as a proud VCP member i wish the site and AK all the best this up coming year.

I also want to wish every body at Creativecow a happy new years and of course at all of the amazingly talented people at abduzeedo.com, that site should saved onto historical records as the single greatest site for design. The community there is so lively and talented.

And lastly A big shout out to the PSDtuts community and now AEtuts, and for good measure just throw in the whole damn network, please do check them out because they have done an incredible job during the last year in teaching designers new tricks and tips.

Good luck and peace out!

Cartoon Sin City Effect

2008-12-29T22:27:00.000-08:00

Learn the secret to creating incredible cartoon effects using After Effects and Photoshop.

There will be two PDF versions up simutaniosly:
A VFX tut, like this one and a more "serious" and "technical" Tut, like the tracking tutorial.
Plus i will post here some of the cool stuff i learn every day at school or a job..

Download tutorial PDF:

Tutorial pdf

First PDF Session

2008-12-29T00:42:00.000-08:00

Tracking controls

This is the first Session on PDF. Learn the basics of the tracker control, as well as some advanced tracking and motion stabilization techniques and some advanced rotoscoping technique.

Download Session here:

Session 1: Tracker Controls

Happy learning

Session 3: Fractal Noise

2008-12-28T21:33:00.000-08:00

Fractal Noise:

Probably the most powerful built in tool After Effects has. Fractal Noise has so many controls that it's uses are almost unlimited. I have found that i can use fractal noise in almost every project i have made in one way or another.

Basics:

1. On top of any piece of footage start by creating a new layer.

2. Go to effects>noise>Fractal Noise

3. Scale up the fractal noise to 150%

4. Using keyframes make the fractal noise evolve.

5. Set the layer mode to either: screen, overlay, add or any other mode.

And there you go, a easy way to add movement and depth to any picture or footage.
If you are still having trouble grasping the usefulness of this plugin try this project.

Adding Fog/cloud

1. On a new black solid layer, add fractal noise

2. Keyframe evolution

3. Set mode to overlay, to get a cool shadowy effect.

Fog:

Fog is a bit dfferent first:

1. Create a new layer and add ramp effect (Black and white)

2. Set it so that you have black on top and white on the bottom.

3. add Fractal noise

4. Set the blending mode to multiply on the fractal noise

5.And on the layer it's self set it's mode to add

And there you go instant fog!

Keep playing with fractal noise and see what you come up with. If you want to see more of Fractal Noise in action download CINEMA PRO 2 for free at:

Tonyfbaby.deviantart.com

It's full of very useful presets and some use Fractal Noise in very creative ways.

Till next time.

Session 2: Animating Text

2008-12-23T00:30:00.000-08:00

Animating text is crucial to design. People like to see into a screen and see real life, even if they know it's fake. By that i mean, in real life there is always motion and energy and life. There is a never ending flow of energy, from tree branches sawing to a person's chest moving slightly up and down as they breath. Life never stands still. Same goes for design. Your visual presentation needs to be "alive". Things should move slightly and animate smoothly into screen. It makes for a more dynamic presentation. So to that; here are a few ways to animate your text so that its not bland and boring.

Cascading type

Cascading type allows multiple character to slide into place.
1- Animate /scale/600%
2- Using the fill color, choose a different color for the text.
3- Click the advanced tab.
4- Experiment with the Shapes option.
5- In the START, set the values at start 0/ end 40%. and offset -40%.
6- Set the END to set the values at start 0/ end 40%. and offset 40%.
7- Add Opacity in the START and put on 0%
8- Add Anchor point in the middle of the comp and on the X point at 100% and Y point change to -30%
9- Add motion blur.
10- Add randomize order

Per word animation
1- Animate /add/ Opacity to 0%
2- Change anchor point group to WORD
3- Set the key frames to Start to 0% End to 100%
4- Set group alignment to 0% and -100%
5- Go to the end key frame
6- Set group alignment to 0% and 100%
7- Add rotation and set two key frames. Beginning frame 0,0 and End frame 1,0.

Animate Flowing Text
1- Animate
2- Add blur
3- Unlock and Change to 0, 100
4- In advanced tab, change to RAMP UP
Animate Text on a path
1- Type in your text
2- Choose the pen tool
3- Select the Roto BAZIER
4- Draw a path
5- From the path options, choose Mask1
6- Move the FIRST and LAST margin to move the position of the text.

Wiggling Text
1- Create your text
2- Choose add/fillcolor/ HUE and change to 0x200.0
3- Choose Animate 1 button/selector/ Wiggly
4- Add property/ rotation and set to 20%

To Render Text with Alpha Channel
1- Command M
Use the setting in the snap shot

Session 1: TEXT

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Most people in the excitement of getting a VFX program, neglect the Text effects. Which are incredibly powerful. A good VFX artist should be familiar with it.

Text tool:

- Text is always by its self on its own layer. This allow blank spaces to be transparent and makes animating text easy. There are many ways to add text to you project.

1. Text tool: Click on the T Shape on the tool bar on top.
- This allows you to both create text and a new layer at the same time.

2. Text layer: Click on Layer>New>Text
- This allows you to create a Text Layer

3.Text Effect: Cilck on effects>Text>basic text
-This is a old school way of adding text as an effect. It lost its appeal with the introduction of
the text tool. However the Text Effect allows you to do things you normally couldn't do. such
as adding timers or countdowns or date stamps.

Animating text:

1- select it and apply a transformation mode to it by choosing ANIMATE on the right side of the text drop down menu in the upper right corner.

2- Click on the arrow to open it and choose one of the transformation modes.

3- Range selector and animate one determines the start and end value of our text location, for example if we choose to move the position property.

4- Only the characters between the range selector are effected b our animation.

ANIMATING TEXT FROM PHOTOSHOP

1- Import layer from photoshop
2- choose layer menu, and select the layer and choose: Convert to Editable Text
3- Double click the layer to make sure the entire layer is selected.
4- option +shift to hide the properties that you want to hide in the layer properties
5- choose position from top/right animate
6- When selecting range selector, you'll notice that there is a bar at the beginning and one at the end of your text.
7- In the range selector, by moving the start key frame you change the selection of your letters for animation
8- Under start, set the first key frame to 0, and set the second key frame in a different place in time to 100
press 0 to preview

9- You can also add Opacity to make the text fade in to to the picture.

Basic Training

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Hey guys, if you you are looking for easy beginners video tutorials make sure to check out:

1. Videocopilot basic training

2. Creativecow basic tutorials

These websites offer an incredible amount of knowledge. And have a big community which can be helpful if you run into problems and need quick answers.

Basics of After Effects

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After Effects along with other famous programs (Nuke,shake,FxHome) is a composting program, by adobe. It was originally created by the Company of Science and Art in 1993. In the same year Company of Science and Art was acquired by Aldus. And by 1994 Aldus was acquired by Adobe Corporation. After Effects is a motion graphics and composting software that offers unparalleled freedom at a reasonable price. The closest competitors to its throne are: Nuke, Shake, Boris RED, combustion, flame, and inferno. Yet for its price range none can offer the variety and freedom of After Effects.

So let's begin.

The interface can be dived into 4 major areas. 3 up top and the 1 time line on the bottom. On you top left you have the project and effects tabs. In the middle you have your monitors, and on your right are all you extra tabs, which include: effect finder, text, tools, trackers and more.

To begin on a new project:

1. Click > File> New project
- As soon as you make a new project make sure you save it right away, in a new folder.
Within the new folder add all the media you will be using (audio,video,pictures)

2. Create a new composition, click: Composition>New Composition
- A window will pop out. Here you can set the setting for your project. Depending on where
your final video will be shown, you must set it accordingly.

Here is a Guide:

SD American Television: NTSC DV
HD American Television: HDV/HDTV 720p/29.97

American DVD: NTSC DV WIDESCREEN

Digital Video for Computer or Web: NTSC D1 WIDESCREEN

Unless you have special outputs, these settings should work just fine. If you are doing
projects or tutorials i recommend NTSC d1 Widescreen, unless you have to do it in HD or 2k
or 4k resolutions.

Opening video or other media:

File>import ... or... double click on the project box.

To add your media to your project drag and drop your media into the time line. The best way to keep consistency in your project is to make sure your media matches the settings of you current project.

Rendering out projects:

Ok, so you are finished with a project you want to export it and stick it in a video editing program. But how? Well there are two ways to export a video.

1. File> Export> Quicktime:
This way is the worst way to export because it offers terrible video. So why use it? well sometimes you want to see how your video plays out, or you want to export to a Audio editing program and add sound effects to the video. Thats when you use the export feature.

The problem is that export offers terrible results and very little options. so you use option two.

2. Compisition>add to render queue
This way of exporting uses the Render Queue, which offers more options for rendering video and at a much better quality.

But what settings should you use?

Well the best setting are to use the project settings and render as a Quicktime animation or a AVI lossless. These keep every single bit of data from your video at full resolution and even keeps the alpha. However, the drawback is that they are HUGE. a typical video rendered in QT animation is a about 1GB per minute. Unless you are working on a feature film , the hassle is not worth it.

So there are other options. You can video out as a: QT H264, tiff or Jpeg sequence, mpeg-4 at full quality.

Hopefully you understood the basics of creating and rendering a new project. Stay tune for the next session.

VFX School

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Hi, Welcome to VFX school. This blog is made for easy access of tutorials, tip-and-tricks and useful downloads. If you are an aspiring visual artist. This is the place to begin.