Muzzle Flashes

For those who like to shoot each other on video, this one’s for you, Make muzzle flashes,flares, front gun explosions things blam blam! This uses a little null object and some 3d action to make it faster and a little bigger and better.

This technique uses some pieces from the action essentials pack from video copilot but you don’t have you. You could make your own if you want to I suppose, but this is quicker.

If you have any questions, leave them in the comments and I’ll try to help you out.

If you want to see what it looks like head back and look at the ol intro http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRZRhGsT3KA

Thanks for watching and have a nice day!

Hinged Text Transition

I’ve had a number of requests about how I did parts of the Drama B – Lady in my life motion typography. Here is just one of them.

In this tutorial we will be making text come onto the screen and then opening it up like a door and pushing through it. It gets a little heady at times but bare with me because this technique is very versatile and I’m sure you’ll love it in promos, lyric videos and on a bun with coleslaw.

To watch the whole Drama B video go here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Y5ufKJXW7c
or here:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BoP9GxCjNK8

Connect with me on the Internets?

Retro Film Look

For that old school, retro, vintage, hipster, film look… look no further. Here we’ll cover how to make that reel to reel home theater experience with jostling frames and the offset effect. We will also treat the footage to look crappy, over exposed, and washed out just like you remember your family time! And as an added bonus, if you watch today you’ll learn some high end expression action to link animation to sound! whoooa! Hold onto your hats because we’re going for a ride… back in time. Hopefully you can warn your future self not to waste time reading this crap!

The expressions mentioned should be copy/pasted as they appear below
For the Audio Amplitude, Both Channels:
linear(effect(“Both Channels”)(“Slider”), 20, 40, 0, 100)
For the Offset effect creating the motion inked to the audio amplitude null:
[640,(wiggle(8,thisComp.layer(“Audio Amplitude”).effect(“Both Channels”)(“Slider”))[1])]

The original piece can be seen here:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOxr94kxCcQ

The show it goes with here:
http://www.youtube.com/user/TheFamilyofTim

The song you hear in the background is made by truly excellent human being and producer Dan Najm check him out: http://www.youtube.com/user/officialBIGdBEATS

Thanks for watching and have a nice day!

Animating Flouishes

How do you make flourishes, filigree, calligraphic whooshing, and other 10 dollar words for squiggly dos? All you need is after effects, an enjoyment or moderate interest in motion graphics, and the ability to tolerate my voice. Sit back and relax and you’ll be done in no time and be embellishing your text, titles, and mustaches in no time.

For those who need it fast not really that excellent this will teach you the fast way of animating flourishes, filigree, calligraphic whooshing, and whatever else you call squiggly dos.

This effect uses the write on technique with the “stroke” effect. Do you think having “stroke” + “quick & dirty” will help my page rank for this? Can’t hurt right? In for a penny in for a pound I suppose. BOOBS!

This tutorial builds on making flourishes by making something WITH the flourishes. The idea is to combine smaller easy to animate elements into one longer, larger, and more impressive piece without doing much more work. If I could sum up the purpose of After Effects that would be it. Make less work. Did you know that back in the day some poor schmuck had to manually draw special effects onto each frame of this thing called Film Stock? What a world. What a time to be alive. Thankfully we no longer have to suffer those indignities.

This is also a request from http://wwwyoutube.com/Shaf2k8 and if you have an effect or technique you want to learn just let me know and I’ll do my best to help you out.

3D Interface (in your face!)

Learn how put a 3d interface in your scene using only adobe after effects. This is an effect like was seen in Minority Report and other sci-fi movies of similar cheesy quality.

This tutorial covers more how to put the menu and loading elements into a scene and less about the style and composition of the menus. I’m hoping you watch it and post up your own video.

If you get stuck or have questions about this or any After Effect or Motion Graphic VFX just let me know, I’m happy to help.

Enjoy and have a nice day

Swinging Text (Motion Typography Technique)

The swinging Text Tutorial for a motion typography technique in adobe after effects.

In this after effects tutorial you’ll learn about how to make text (typography) swing into place in a scene using 3d layers and manual key frames and parenting. The idea behind the technique is to give the text weight and substance as it enters the scene using overshooting.

If you get stuck or have questions just leave them below in the comments. Chances are someone else is having the same problem and I can only answer the questions I get asked. So ask away.

Also if you end up making something cool share it with me. It’s great to see how folks fair getting through the tutorial and it’s awesome to see what you make.

I hope you enjoy the tutorial and have a nice day.
-Evan Abrams

Motion Tracking in Mocha

In this tutorial you will learn about motion tracking an element in your scene. it just happens to be the Death Star this time but you could make a space ship or a space station or a Godzilla or Mothra. Really anything but this technique will help you a lot if you’re into sci-fi or fantasy video making at all.

You will need after effects with mocha to do this one.

Simple Kinetic Typography

Part One of the After Effects Kinetic Typography tutorial. Here you’ll learn a method for arranging and animating text into other text quickly and cleanly. This is part one and will get you the bare bones of the effect without the oomph covered in part two.

Please post up what you make as well. I would love to see everyone’s take on this and let me know what I can do to improve my tutorializing.

In part Two of the After Effects Kinetic Typography tutorial you’ll take what you made in part one and make it look less like crap with background, particles systems, blending modes and positive thinking.

If you have any questions or comments or suggestions for making these better let me know. There should be more to follow.

Simple Cloning Tutorial

Have you ever thought: “if only there were two of me?” well now there can be… in videos anyway. This is the most simple of all cloning techniques using non-interacting parts of a frame and blending a locked off shot. This has added interest when in the second half the two clones actually throw a ball to each other.

It’s not as crazy as it sounds if you have a gene-therapy lab and some stem cells. Then you can just make your own clone and never have to worry about these after effects things again unless the clone decides it wants a life of its own and kills you to take your place. Just something to think about.

I heard they cloned a sheep once but they made an evil clone sheep and it stabbed a dude. It’s in a Mexican prison now for unrelated drug charges.

Thanks for watching and if you have any questions throw them down in the comments and I’ll get to you soon as I can 😀