In this 50 minute, recorded E-seminar for Adobe, we look at a range of must-know techniques, tips and gotchas for using Adobe Illustrator CS5 with Adobe After Effects CS5.
How are you feeling – right now? Full of explosive energy, ready to deliver your A-plus game, or sick and tired of feeling burned out, worn out or just plain unhealthy. Don’t miss this vital episode that will motivate you to get fit for your best performance yet.
For free 1-minute business tips with Robin Dickinson, watch BLACK CHAIR Business Success TV.
Recently I worked on a promo for the film Green Zone here at Foxtel Box Office. The film is full of great helicopter shots over Baghdad, so I suggested we work some 3D supers into shots to give the promo more impact. Having just finished beta testing Camera Tracker, The Foundry ’s new 3D tracker for Adobe After Effects, I knew it would be perfect for this project.
Camera Tracker—originally developed for The Foundry’s high-end compositing tool Nuke X—gives After Effects users powerful 3D tracking tool directly inside After Effects.
Having used a number of other trackers on the market, I found this to be similar to PFHoe from Pixel Farm. It’s very simple to use and incredibly powerful. Full integration with After Effects means there is no longer any need to open up a stand alone application and have to transfer the data around.
Camera Tracker has the key features you’d expect in a 3D tracker, including free camera and rotating camera options, focal distance and lens distortion settings. Once a scene is tracked, removing weaker points from the point cloud is quick and easy before solving the camera and creating the scene.
You still have control over the point cloud to choose the desired orientation of the scene, and the option to create Solids or Null Objects from the points is handy.
I generally found that the first solve was solid and the camera behaved as expected. Having said that, the camera moves were shot professionally and had plenty of detail to track. I’m yet to test it on long unstable shots with multiple zooms and pans for example.
With CameraTracker, The Foundry has made 3D Tracking more approachable, and given users a new world of creative options inside of After Effects. I certainly recommend it to any After Effects user who wants to add match-moving to their toolkit.
You can check out more of my work at brettmorris.com
Got a project, product, show-reel or book that is important to you, but you just can’t seem to get it finished and launched? Watch this episode to get energised and motivated to take action and finish the job. Read more…
After 8 years with Foxtel Design, I recently accepted the position of Senior Designer at Foxtel Box Office – On Demand Movies, here at Foxtel in Sydney. Together with Gareth Chang and Brett Morris, both talented young designers, we get to flex our After Effects and Cinema 4D skills working on a wide range of movie graphic styles across various genres.
Over the coming months I’ll be showcasing graphics created using After Effects, Cinema 4D and a variety of plug-ins, by the team, some original and others influenced by existing spots. Read more…
In this excerpt from a recent Adobe E-seminar, we look at the new Align and Distribute to Composition and Orient Characters Independently features in Adobe After Effects CS5.
In this tutorial for Digital Juice, learn how I used the Motion Designer’s Toolkit 2 with Cinema 4D and After Effects to create a detailed background and multi-layer text effect with a dynamic sci-fi look.
Follow along with After Effects expert Eran Stern as he guides you through techniques for creating a TV spot using Adobe After Effects and DigiEffects Freeform. This tutorial is excellent for beginners and intermediates who want to learn key 3D design and animation skills with After Effects, as well as anyone wanting to better understand how to integrate DigiEffects Freeform (included with AE CS5) into their workflow. Watch Preview
Main areas covered include:
Total running time: 60 minutes   Watch Preview
Minimum Requirements: After Effects CS5 (DigiEffects Freeform is included with the CS5 install). A basic understanding of the After Effects interface is also recommended.
About your Host: Eran Stern is an independent motion graphics and visual effects expert and host of SternFX.com. He is well-known and respected around the globe and regularly presents at worldwide events such as the NAB show. As an Adobe Certified Expert and Instructor, Eran wrote the majority of questions for the Adobe Certified Expert exam for After Effects CS4 and CS5.
Fast-track your professional success by learning how to use Twitter as a business building tool. Get the edge online as John and Robin openly and candidly share their detailed Twitter strategies and tactics – giving you the inside scoop on what works and what doesn’t. Read more…
If Video Copilot is the most popular site on the planet for After Effects tutorials, then Sam Loya must be the most recognised tutorial talent. Appearing in dozens of Andrew Kramer’s tutorials sometimes wielding a light sabre or machine gun and other times being blasted to pieces, Sam’s style has given the tutorials a professional edge. In this funny episode, learn more about Sam, his work with Video Copilot and his “love” of sport! Read more…
The Foundry has released 3D Camera Tracker and Kronos, two exciting new plug-ins for Adobe After Effects.
Alexander of Amateurmedia.net has created a stylish new font named Typograph Pro. Also check some of the great usage examples created within Cinema 4D.
Red Giant Software has released Colorista 2, with some exciting new features and improvements. Use motionworks10 for a 1o% discount.
Fontfeed.com has an excellent column “Screenfonts” which discusses the use of fonts in movie posters.
Industrial Light and Magic has a new site. It’s quite amazing just how many productions ILM has been involved in.
Urban Dirty has terrific free grunge stock images and also provides color themes for various images with a downloadable .ASE file. You can import the .ASE file into After Effects using Swatch You Want.
