AE Portal News

700: the maximum number of scripts in AE CS4

2010-03-16T07:53:00.000-07:00

On the After Effects Mail List, Jeff Almosul noted the maximum number of scripts CS4:

"I

believe the limit is >700 scripts in the Scripts folder (and subfolders). check for a script that contains a subfolder of support script files. the older version of the script lloyd referenced had something like 1000 files in a subfolder, but an updated version seems to have fixed it (by enclosing the folder in parentheses). also follow alises/shortcuts to other folders."

Skydome: 3D environment script for After Effects

2010-03-15T12:20:00.000-07:00

Skydome is a new script for After Effects by Ben Rollason that "creates a 3D environment for your After Effects compositions at the touch of a button. The environment then responds to your camera’s position, orientation, rotation and lens properties."

Get it at AEScripts; here's the introduction:

Hollywood's Teal & Orange Abyss

2010-03-15T10:31:00.000-07:00

Lloyd Alvarez and 5tu just noted Teal and Orange - Hollywood, Please Stop the Madness by Todd Miro on his blog Into the Abyss.

Todd provides several visual examples, so apparently it's not all mojo from Stu Maschwitz's Blockbuster Film Look discussion:

Red Giant TV Episode 22: Creating a Summer Blockbuster Film Look from Stu Maschwitz on Vimeo.

No plug-in rolling shutter fix in After Effects

2010-03-15T09:02:00.000-07:00

Lester Banks noted a rolling shutter fix in after effects, with no plugins by Mike Huetz, who has an After Effects tutorial and AEP using Nikon D90 footage (720, 24fps).

Plug-ins to fix rolling shutter problems (skew, wobble, and partial exposure caused C-MOSS sensors rolling shutters) include solutions by NewBlue Video Essentials III and by The Foundry. See the Prolost look at The Foundry Rolling Shutter plug-in, which also gives the Maschwitz opinion on 30p to 24p conversions. That opinion is now updated in a fresh post, Converting 30p to 24p..

Rolling Shutter Fix Tutorial from Mike Huetz on Vimeo.

Can You Legally Use H.264 for Professional Video?

2010-03-10T10:39:00.000-08:00

In the context of the Flash - HTML5 controversy, Jan Ozer has been comparing the Ogg and h.264 codecs recently -- see Google Closes On2 acquision - Better check your wallet and Ogg, MPEG-LA and Submarine Patents -- and warns against the cost of encoding and storage for multiple codecs.

[Update: ReadWriteWeb summarizes some of Ozer's benchmarks in Does HTML5 Really Beat Flash? The Surprising Results of New Tests]

Now, Larry Jordan and Philip Hodgetts have dealt with a related issue -- Can You Legally Use H.264 for Professional Video?

You can listen to their discussion on Digital Production Buzz, of March 4 2010, plus Larry has provided a summary on his blog:

"Note: This is not legal advice - for that, see your lawyer. However, this is our understanding of the problem, with a link to learn more. A license fee for H.264 use is probably required for professional use if ALL the following conditions are all met:

1. The video program must be encoded using the H.264 codec. (Other codecs are not covered by this license agreement.)
2. You sell the program. (If no money changes hands, no license fee is required.)
3. The program is sold to the ultimate end user. (If you are compressing files for use by someone else, say, digital dailies, no license fee is due.)
4. These programs must be in excess of 12 minutes. (Shorter programs do not require a license fee.)

If required, the license fee is very small: $0.02 per disc sold or about 2% of gross revenue, whichever is smaller."

Zoom in and enhance

2010-03-09T07:40:00.000-08:00

While most of us have seen Let's Enhance, a rerun of The Simpsons provides another algorithm f or now:

An Alphabet Soup of Fake Text Particles

2010-03-09T07:27:00.000-08:00

Lester Banks noted a new 65-minute After Effects tutorial by Quba Michalski, Tutorial: Alphabet Soup (Fake Text Particles). Quba says:

"Rather than using Trapcode Particular (which many of you may not have installed) or CC Particle World (which really could use an update to its coordinate system) the project fakes particle simulation through use of text animators. This quite lengthy tutorial is derived from another Video Bits project I created a while ago."

Alphabet Soup Tutorial Preview from Quba Michalski on Vimeo.

SF Cutters March 11: Red Giant sneak peek & more

2010-03-09T07:12:00.000-08:00

SF Cutters -- brought to you originally by the Option key in Final Cut -- is having their 10th Anniversary meeting is this week on Thursday March 11th. The meeting is at Adobe is at 601 Townsend at 7th in San Francisco.

This meeting is free but please sign up for access and for better food planning. Here's the current agenda:

STUMP THE GURUS With Kevin Monahan, Jesse Spencer, Karl Soule, Sean Safreed
Karl Soule: Adobe Evangelist on The Making of AVATAR and Adobe Production Premium & a sneak peak of the new Mercury Playback Engine
Sean Safreed: Redgiant Software - More Grinder & Sneak Peaks of New Releases
Chris Fenwick: Slice Editorial - Organize your FCP Project - Save your sanity and Improve your Business
Raffle, which includes CS4 Adobe Production Premium, DigiEffects Mega Suite, NAB Post Production World Pass, and more!

3D Ball Dispersion with CC Ball Action

2010-03-09T06:38:00.000-08:00

Andrew Kramer has a new After Effects tutorial on Video Copilot, 3D Ball Dispersion:

"In this tutorial we will learn a technique to offset the animation of the CC Ball Action effect to create a cool transition. This effect uses only built-in plug-in and offers creative flexibility for a variety of looks. The project file also includes a script for offsetting the layers by 1 frame to make the process easier. The tutorial is about 25 minutes but the time will fly by!"

The built-in CC Ball Action filter "transforms the source layer into an array of balls. You can rotate and twist the array around a specified axis and scatter the array in all directions." Ball Action is a very old filter that hasn't been upgraded beyond support for the AE comp camera, but using the Brighten Twist control makes things interesting beyond the basics described by the intro by Brian Maffitt from an old Total Training video at Toolfarm.

Other tutorials can be found around the net, including Jumbotrons in After Effects, Harry Frank's Rippling Circles, Sound Reacting 3D Waveform without 3rd Party Plugins from Satya Meka, and Give Your Type Some Ball Action from AETuts.

Exploring the Aux System in Trapcode Particular

2010-03-09T06:30:00.000-08:00

Harry Frank has an After Effects tutorial on Red Giant TV exploring the Aux System in Trapcode Particular, Episode 38: Creating a Music to Light Effect:

"In this episode of Red Giant TV, Harry Frank shows you how to re-create the Music-to-Light effect (seen last season on Heroes), using Trapcode Particular 2. He'll also use Mojo to alter the color, and Knoll 3D Flare to add to the effect."

Episode 38: Creating a Music to Light Effect from Red Giant Software on Vimeo.

The 12 basic principles of animation for After Effects

2010-03-09T05:38:00.000-08:00

AE Tuts Premium ($9 /month or less) is featuring an After Effects tutorial series by Bryan Clark on applying the Disney system of 12 Basic Principles of Animation. Here's a sample:

Wikipedia has a decent article on the 12 basic principles of animation, "a set of principles of animation introduced by the Disney animators Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas in their 1981 book The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation." I'm just excited because I found a paperback version in a used bookstore for $4 this last weekend.

If you don't have John Lasseter's seminal 1987 SIGGRAPH paper based on The Illusion of Life, there's a decent scanned copy available: Principles of Traditional Animation Applied to 3D Computer Animation.

Fuel Your Motionography finished a 3-part explanation in October with examples from recent works; see Principles of Animation for Motionographers – Part 3 of 3. Also, in the recent Lynda.com training series After Effects CS4 Beyond the Basics, Chad Perkins explores techniques for animation according to several of these principles.

Leap Into Hancock-Style Super Jump Effect

2010-03-08T23:57:00.000-08:00

AE Tuts has a nicely done Leap Into Hancock-Style Super Jump Effect by Wren Weichman. You'll need an AETuts+ membership to add finishing touches to the project.

Expression arrays in After Effects

2010-03-08T14:47:00.000-08:00

Chris and Trish Meyer posted the 3nd of a 12-part series, Deeper Modes of Expression, based on an extra in their book, Creating Motion Graphics with After Effects. The third installment is Deeper Modes of Expression, Part 3: Deeper Into Arrays, on how to translate values between parameters that have different dimensions.

AE performance tip: Don't overschedule your processors

2010-03-08T14:41:00.000-08:00

Todd Kopriva is offering another After Effects performance tip: Don't overschedule your processors,

'This advice is similar in spirit to the advice given in a previous post, "Performance tip: Don't starve your software of RAM."

In many cases, performance is improved by using fewer than the maximum number of processors for Render Multiple Frames Simultaneously multiprocessing, even when you have enough RAM for all of the processors.

After Effects is a multithreaded application that can also use other forms of multiprocessing beyond just Render Multiple Frames Simultaneously multiprocessing, and it is possible for the processors to become "overscheduled" if these threads are competing for the same resources as the background processes used for rendering with Render Multiple Frames Simultaneously multiprocessing.'

...read the rest at After Effects region of interest.

Card Dance transition, Camera Rig script, & Particular 3D Ribbon

2010-03-06T20:10:00.000-08:00

Via Lester Banks, Chris Hodgson of syrup syrup has an After Effects tutorial on Motion Design Love that demonstrates how to create a transition using the built-in filter Card Dance. AE Help has more on Card Dance, which only works in 8-bit/pixel mode but is able to use the AE camera and lights in the same composition.

MDL - Create a cool logo transition using card particle from Motion Design Love on Vimeo.

And, via Motion Design Love's This week in Motion Design series, Hypoly posted his Simple Camera Rig Script that will set up a simple camera rig with rotation and position controls located in one Control Null. He also explains how to make it work better with Videocopilot's Sure Target 2.

Hypoly also shows you how to create a 3D Ribbon / Wire in AE with Trapcode Particular and a few expressions.

3D Ribbon / Wire in After Effects from Hypoly on Vimeo.

28 Mocha Tutorials

2010-03-06T13:34:00.000-08:00

Over on AE Tuts, Topher Welsh threw together a handy collection Mocha tracker tutorials in 28 Magnificent Mocha Tutorials.

The article contains many After Effect tutorials mentioned here previously under the tags Mocha and tracking, but includes the most recent one on difficult panning tracks from the Imagineer Systems blog page, mocha tutorial: Unlink & RG Warp:

mocha tutorial: Unlink & RG Warp from Martin Brennand on Vimeo.

Shapeshifter AE: new 3D text extrusion plug-in

2010-03-04T22:09:00.000-08:00

Shapeshifter AE is a new 3D text extrusion plug-in for After Effects, soon in beta testing. It's part of a new series of plug-ins from Chris Bobotis of mettle.com, developers of the 3D mesh warp filter Freeform AE.

There's more on 3D text in After Effects in Must.have.3D.text and other posts tagged 3D text. Here's a render of Shapeshifter AE:

Create a surreal 3D nebula in AE

2010-03-02T00:29:00.000-08:00

Alex Verlan shows you his method in his After Effects tutorial text using Trapcode Particular 2, How To Create A Surreal Outer Space Nebula . Here's a render:

nebula from versa on Vimeo.

Jobs: 'No worries. FCP is alive and well.'

2010-02-28T21:32:00.000-08:00

Following up on the Twitter on Apple layoffs of 40 of the Pro Apps team, Mac Soda reports an iPhone message from a Steve Jobs:

"No worries. FCP is alive and well."

That's good news, but not surprising since the jobs cuts apparently weren't in Cupertino! Mac Soda's previous post on The State of Final Cut wasn't convincing about "timming the fat" -- "40 people weren’t doing a good job." But who knows, maybe the boosters will find their way back into the outback of the infinite loop.

For something ridiculous, see Apple's Influence on Visual Arts is Rotting to the Core from Jason Perlow on ZD Net.

700+ pictograms, 60 free fonts, 30 vector packs

2010-02-28T10:30:00.000-08:00

From maltaannon and others on Twitter:

Pictodeck v1.0 is a deck of pictograms for Apple Keynote. It’s a collection of over 700 vector pictograms taken from four different sets: PICOL, Android Icons, Pictoico, Komodo Media, and Freshpixel.
50 awesome free fonts for professional design from Design Reviver
10 Awesome Free Handwritten Fonts from MyInkBlog
61 Fantabulous Fonts For Titles! from AE Tuts
30 First-Rate Vector Packs. Take Them. They’re FREE…. from Francesco Mugnai

For more, see the "Popular" posts of Smashing Magazine, which has made a cottage industry of these sorts of collections. One example is The Ultimate Collection Of Free Vector Packs.

Heller’s animated appraisal of Olympic pictograms

2010-02-28T06:15:00.000-08:00

Via Motionographer is Steven Heller’s Olympic Icons: an Animated Appraisal at The New York Times website:

See also The Graphic Design Olympics (2004) by Michael Bierut at Design Observer, and another short comparison of various Olympic icons. Interesting recent work includes pictograms developed for the 2008 Summer Olympics in China by a former Adobe guy; see The Graphic Language of Min Wang.

The use of pictograms in history and in modern design is an established field of study, with major works by Henry Dreyfuss (Symbol Sourcebook), Otl Aicher, Otto Neurath, Paul Rand, Edward Tufte, and others.

A few sentences on the subject can only be inadequate. For more info, see Navigating Today’s Signs: An Interview with Mies Hora by Steven Heller and Critical Wayfinding by Ellen Lupton and J. Abbott Miller. "Modern Hieroglyphs" in Design, Writing, & Research by Lupton and Miller (excerpt pdf) makes a really cool use of pictograms in explaining pictograms in design and history.

Update: Slate has 6-part series on The Secret Language of Signs, which includes why signs are better now than they've ever been, why the signs in Penn Station are so confusing, how smarter signs could make London easier to navigate, and the international war over the exit sign.

Noise reduction in AE

2010-02-25T15:45:00.000-08:00

In this After Effects tutorial, you'll see how Adobe evangelist Jason Levine uses Neat Video, a noise reduction filter, to clean up noise in footage.

It would have been nice to see how AE's built-in Remove Grain filter performed on the demo footage (it performs far better than a Median filter). Other options include RE:Vision Effects DE:Noise, which uses sensitive spatial filtering along with time-based optical flow methods, and Digital Anarchy Beauty Box.

BCC Reptilian: free for a limited time

2010-02-25T10:05:00.000-08:00

For a limited time, Eye Scream Factory and Boris FX have teamed up to offer a free fully-licensed version of BCC Reptilian, one of the filters included in the Boris Continuum Materials Unit (pictured).

"BCC Reptilian is designed to simulate the look of scaly or spotted animal skin; by adjusting the colors, textures, and lighting, you can create an amazing variety of effects." There's also a written tutorial on this filter.

New tour of Magic Bullet Mojo

2010-02-24T18:28:00.000-08:00

Stu Maschwitz narrates a new lip-smackin' good tour of Magic Bullet Mojo (the old one is here). Mojo is a filter that acts like a magic button to give you a blockbuster-type film look often used to add "a subtle coloring effect to warm up actors’ skin tones while backgrounds and shadows get a cool blue treatment." For background see the AEP post on a discussion of examples of Blockbuster Film Look and the related Stu Maschwitz note.

See also Prolost's Memory Colors, which considers color correction of unevenly roasted coffee beans and the optical illusion called the Same Color Illusion.

Intro To Magic Bullet Mojo from Red Giant Software on Vimeo.

Customizing text presets in After Effects

2010-02-22T20:45:00.000-08:00

Motionworks has a new After Effects tutorial, After Effects: Creating magic from presets – part 1:

"In this two-part tutorial learn how to take basic Adobe After Effects presets and customise them to create your own unique looks. This section focusses on giving a simple text preset a touch-of-class, with a clear explanation of Text Animator Groups, Animator Properties and Range Selectors. Turning a simple typewriter look into something much more special. "

There's more in AEP's AE presets & projects round-up and in AE Help. Here's a Focal Press overview of presets from Chris Meyer:

Update: part 2 of the Motionworks tutorial is up, plus AE Help has more in Examples and resources for text animation.