The Genesis Project

The basis of this tutorial is about taking a path from Photoshop (or Illustrator) and then using it within After Effects to create a simple animation background.

I've seen this a lot recently, so thought you might find it useful. The attached files are there with a little extra animation and a PDF to give you the essential instructions on how to make a path in Photoshop and animate it in After Effects.

The next version of After Effects will expand its shape capabilities dramatically, but even still, the tutorial here is an essential skill for After Effects users.

One last note - if you're pulling these down, let me know if they're useful or not. Also, feel free to ask for specifics.

Basic Elements Tutorial

Posted by Dennis Radeke at 01:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (11)

I'm a reverse engineer when it comes to design. There, I've admitted it. I can't claim to be a fantastic designer, far from it. I'd call myself a functioning (or disfunctional) user. I'm not a super creative guy, though I'd like to be. This is probably why I get paid to show software rather than use it all the time.

When I see what real creative people can do with Adobe products like After Effects and the like, I can take one of two approaches. I can get depressed and think I can never be as good as them. Or, I admire what they've done and break the image or composition down to it's elements and figure out how it was done.

Maybe you're the fantastic designer or the one that will be with practice and application. If you're not a design genius but still need to bring up your design chops, I've found that the second approach is a lot more fun, enabling and useful - go figure. It's helped me to be more useful when I do get asked to do a design (friends, church, school, etc.) and also when customers come up to me and ask, "hey, how do you do XYZ?"

A lot of the simpler commercials and print ads can easily be broken down to a couple of elements - bits that you know you can do (or figure out). This is especially true as a lot of design has had a very simple asthetic following the simple design trend typified by Apple campaigns.

So, when you see that commercial, print ad or graphic, stop and figure out how it was done. You'll be glad you did.

Posted by Dennis Radeke at 08:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Included in the download file is an After Effects Project file for AE7 and a .ffx file which is an animation preset with the right filters.

This file shows what can be done to text with the idea of using it as a motion graphics element. Turn on the CC Kaleida FX to see an even more extreme example.

conTEXTual Blur

Posted by Dennis Radeke at 02:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

The most common issue I find from beginner to intermediate AE users is the fact that they haven't installed everything that After Effects comes with. With AE 6.5 and 7.0, you have three distinct plugins that you should be installing into your system: Cycore Effects, Keylight and Color Finesse. For the beginner, Cycore is the most handy of the three because it's a bunch of fun effects, many very useful, some not and some just eye catching.

It's on the After Effects CD, just pop it in and click 'install 3rd party plugins'.

Posted by Dennis Radeke at 02:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Here's an After Effects 7.0 project that is super basic and that will be the theme of some of my tutorials. You should be able to look at these project files and figure it out in a few seconds.

This one simply takes text and blows it up as a bunch of particles. Two layers, maybe ten seconds and you've got it!

Titles Begone

Posted by Dennis Radeke at 07:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

You might be saying, "Okay, finally!" and I would be agreeing with you. We're all extremely excited about yesterday's launch and the impact we hope it has on the creative public. Every person and part of Adobe feels like a proud mother with her newest baby which in this case is 'babies' as in 13 new products.

Some thoughts and questions:

- The new logos. Gone are the feather of Photoshop which we only had for two versions. Gone are the x-ray type logos of the video products. Everything has a two letter periodic-like abbreviation or rune for a logo. Initially, I was skeptical, but I kind of like it now. What are your thoughts?
- Press coverage. There's a ton of it and most of it seems very positive. Wade into the sea of HTML, PDFs and print magazines to find the information you're looking for...
- Master Collection. I'd like to call this the 'all-you-can-eat' version. If you're a single person creative that spans print, web and video, we've got the product for you. I'm concerned that some people will buy this and think they can split it up, with web on one computer, print for my buddy and I'm on the video suite on a third computer. Nope. Two activations on two computers which is your standard license agreement. If I were a customer, I might be upset until I think about the price - $2495 is pretty aggressive for all of that product.
- more public betas. It seems that we announced that we would put more of the products on the Adobe Labs site as public betas. Premiere Pro and After Effects will be up around the NAB time frame. Soundbooth and Photoshop are already there.
- the event/webcast. I was actually one of the few Adobe employees that was allowed to be there and despite the technical glitch, it was a terrific event and a lot of fun for our customers and Adobe. Gina, Greg and Bob were all terrific in highlighting some of what makes CS3 go. The location was in NYC was of course, very NYC chic - white warehouse, spartan design and of course the obligatory bars in all locations...Maybe it was that cosomopolitan with the dry ice in the bottom that woke me up early this morning...
- old friends and new. Of course, this event wouldn't be much without some friends and I saw some old friends and made new. Everyone there was excited and having a blast.

Features!
Some of the features that I like best weren't shown on yesterday's webcast. Let me run down a couple of them:

In Photoshop - the 3D integration in the Extended version is in my opinion going to change how design for 3D is done. We're now allowing you to import 3DS, DXF and U3D models among others right into Photoshop so you can apply textures to the models without having to open up your 3D modeling program.

I also saw Russell Brown (A separate post on him in the future!) showing off the Photoshop animation palette. The guy was basically animating like AE in Photoshop! It was crazy, but very cool.

In After Effects - The Shape Layers feature is very, very, VERY practical in my opinion. For the entry level person, this will be a great tool for creating motion graphics designs and elements. Simple, easy, fast. That's what all level of users need.

Brainstorm - Another innovative way to overcome 'creatives block'. Select some parameters and let Brainstorm present you some variations on them for you. Very intuitive and visual.

In Encore - Take the same interactivity and output it as a SWF. Interactive web with video from a DVD authoring application...sweet. I also think Mac users who don't need the scripting of DVD Studio Pro are going to find Encore on the Mac very appealing because of the Photoshop integration which is second to none.

In Premiere Pro - It's back to the Mac. Let me say it again. It's back on the Mac! We're all thrilled to have it back and show Mac people what we can do with Dynamic Link, Clip Notes, color correction, etc...These are old features for PC people, but really new to the Mac community.

The time remapping you saw which is terrific, but I also like a couple of the simple things like flex bins which are allowing users to have multiple folders of media open in Premiere Pro at the same time. Also, the replace clip command which retains keyframes and effects but replaces the actual media.

Rather than go on and on, let me point you to the Adobe website and check out the individual product pages which have all been updated to reflect new versions with flash movies, pdfs, and resources to get you equipped. It all makes for a great Wednesday.

Posted by Dennis Radeke at 05:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)

Though there was some leaked information from Amazon Canada over the weekend, the CS3 launch event is happening today in NYC and being broadcast online, so be sure to tune in by clicking on the link below...

CS3 Launch

Also, the kuler application is just plain fun and if your a designer, just plain useful. We've added a Widget if you're a Mac user. If you haven't heard about what Kuler is yet, check it out by visiting.

http://kuler.adobe.com/

On an unrelated note, I'm trying to work up some tutorials and more substantive articles, but with the biggest launch of creative software in a long time (some might say ever), you can imagine how busy it is over at Adobe.

Happy CS3 launch day,
Dennis

Posted by Dennis Radeke at 07:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

http://www.dafont.com/

I stumbled across this when I needed some zapf dingbat symbols for a composition or a mask, or...well I don't really remember right now... The point is that this website has some fantastic stylistic fonts that are groups by categories. Most of them are free. Most of them are Mac and PC. Nearly all of them I could imagine using - they're quite good.

Sometimes inspiration can come from the littlest thing - maybe it's a new font that inspires you today.

Posted by Dennis Radeke at 09:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

If you're around the NY area and crazy (or just enthusiastic) about After Effects, then come join us on 3/29 for the second AENY.org meeting. AENY stands for After Effects New York and our first meeting had over 110 people join in.

We give away lots of prizes (and good ones too!) and there's free food. I don't think I need to add anything to that, except to say that March 29th will also have a special guest from Adobe showing off something very near and dear to our hearts.

Find out when and where by clicking on the meetings link on the website
AENY.org

Posted by Dennis Radeke at 02:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

For a software company, we're positively becoming blabbermouths. The Labs website for Adobe has been a real positive for the company and more importantly for our customers. Announcing and posting public betas of Photoshop CS3, Soundbooth, beta FlashPlayers, etc... Yesterday we're talking up Apollo and now talking about a new webcast with the official launch of CS3. While this information and invitation has been out there for a while, I don't know how many people have seen it - so enter the little blog that could and add to that list of people who have!

CS3 Launch Event

Labs website is here

Posted by Dennis Radeke at 01:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Today, Adobe announced and posted additional information on a new Adobe technology called Apollo. It's fascinating stuff with huge implications for how users and companies interact, but even that is probably only scratching the surface. A lot of us think of Adobe for it's best of class desktop tools, like Photoshop, After Effects, Acrobat, Flash, and the list goes on. However, over the last few years, especially after the acquisition of Macromedia, the company has expanded and grown to offer enterprise and server products, like Adobe's LiveCycle and more recently Adobe's Acrobat Connect.

To compare to the first Apollo mission like my title implies would be arrogant, but I do want to encourage us all to take the time to read up on some of what Adobe is doing and the implications.

Here are some links:
http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/apollo/
http://digitalproducer.digitalmedianet.com/articles/viewarticle.jsp?id=115305

Here's the one sentence summary of Apollo: HTML, Flash, Flex, and Acrobat, rolled into one runtime environment with scripting capabilities. whew - what a mouthful!

Look at the second link for a brief discussion with Apollo's product manager, Mike Downey for more information.

Let me know if you think we're on the right track.

Posted by Dennis Radeke at 04:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I wanted to put this up since the National Association of Photoshop Professionals (NAPP) has been a fantastic resource that has taught me a TON of things about Photoshop...

If you've never heard about NAPP or what they do, I would encourage you to check them out. Their magazines are Photoshop User, Layers and others including one on Illustrator and perhaps one on Lightroom.

What I really like about them is that they offer expansive articles on topics that are important to video professionals (especially on Layers) but they also offer simple 'how-to's' on practical things

While I don't often get the time, as a member, their online tutorials and help staff is absolutely fantastic.

If you'd like to learn more about Photoshop, NAPP is a great resource.

Posted by Dennis Radeke at 09:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Huh???

I've started to show the new Mac video applications including Premiere Pro to some accounts and because all of these applications are still beta, I've gotten into the habit of keeping them off my main, everyday laptop which is a 15" Macbook Pro. This is easy to do since the Mac OS allows you to boot from an external drive. I installed a clean version of the OS and then installed the Adobe builds of the applications.

I've received a few of the new G-Tech drives from the company and I have to say I'm pretty impressed thus far. You see, they're small enough to carry around easily because they're using 2.5" drives (laptop drives) instead of the larger and faster 3.5" drives. Usually, these laptop drives are slower and thus a problem for playing back video. However, my tests thus far have shown it to ably play back DV and HDV with aplomb.

If you need faster, they've got my favorite, which is the g-raid mini which takes two of these drives and stripes them together. Best of all, they can fire up over bus power, meaning I don't necessarily need a power supply to use them. However, I'm using the external power supply for the g-raid mini so I can boot from the g-mini and use the g-raid mini as my video drive with assets. I have to because the Mac laptop is pretty skimpy when it comes to bus power.

So, smaller is better, except you need it bigger. 'Bigger' of course is describing our growing demand for more storage to store more of our lives (and back them up of course!?!)

Since gear and technology is such a part of our everyday existence and since Adobe is all about technology, it seems appropriate for me to add a category for posts such as this.

What gear gets you going? I'll be sure to let you know what turns my head.

http://www.g-technology.com/

Posted by Dennis Radeke at 08:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As soon as I saw this month’s cover of Studio monthly, the first thing I did was inwardly sigh, because as a person in Adobe’s video division, I get asked about the ‘film look’ just about every time we get up and speak in front of a group of videographers. The second thing I did was smile, because I knew I had something to write about today!

So, (pause) the ‘film look’… Even when I write the words ‘film look’ I get an inward grimace and my chest heaves a bit, but for most people, the film look is the ultimate in taste, style and it is just plain cool. It’s a phrase that is bandied about because people view movie making as the ultimate in popular culture and it’s fun to say. The phrase is also assigned to new equipment everywhere and no doubt this NAB will be much the same. I can almost imagine the subtle marketing message that if you buy product XYZ, you’ll be the next ‘insert favorite filmmaker here’. Ahh, but I digress.

So, (pause) the ‘film look’. I can’t claim to be an expert on this, far from it. I’ve never shot film, am not the best guy with a camera and because I work in software, I tend to focus on what you do with your material after you get into the computer. However, I can discuss some of the myths and common approaches to get the mystical film look.

So, (pause again) the ‘film look’. Here’s what a lot of people think the film look is – 24 frames per second, which happens to be what most movies frame rate is. Video in comparison is at 30 frames per second (okay, 29.97 for NTSC!) The lower frame rate creates a different presentation to the eye, where the motion in the scene can become more dramatic. I remember seeing it dramatically portrayed when seeing Gladiator with Russell Crowe. Many of the fight scenes just ‘popped’. The motion was dramatic, not as smooth as you find in video. Taking out 6 frames per second does make a dramatic difference. Most likely Gladiator looked the way it did because of several other things, but I remember it jumped out at me at the time. Now many action movies do the same thing so we’re more accustomed to it.

Another true aspect about the ‘film look’ could be the idea of progressive frames as opposed to interlaced. Again, film (and some video formats) shoot in progressive frames where one frame (or cell of film) contains all the information of the picture. With traditional video, frames are interlaced where the odd numbered lines are captured and then the even numbered lines. The two together form a frame of video, each separate piece is called a field…mmm. Terminology...

So far, the above two are what most people attribute to the look of film, but my tender experience has told me there is a lot more to it than that. First off, there is the depth of field which is what the Studio Monthly review actually spends a fair amount of time on and shows with pictures (for simple minds like my own). The short version is that video cameras keep everything in focus whereas film cameras can keep certain objects in focus while having others out of focus. The advantage of this approach allows filmmakers to focus your attention on what they want you to see. The idea of focus/defocus in a picture is often called the bokeh effect in photography. It’s Japanese for blur. Check it out on wikipedia.

One other big part of the movie look is the aspect ratio. We think about it less often as more of us experience wide screen televisions, but even so, there is a difference. Traditional TVs or standard definition was 1.33:1 or 4:3 (4 inches horizontally for every 3 vertically) and newer HDTV or widescreen TVs are 16:9. Film has moved through a lot of changes over the years but the number I always remember is 21:9 or 21:10. Here’s a neat link that goes through some of the aspect ratios on film. http://www.dvdaust.com/aspect.htm

Without making a long post even longer, let me begin to wrap up by pointing out other characteristics that I understand influence the overall picture that we see when going to a typical Hollywood movie. Not only are there the aspects of the camera itself, such as lens, apeture, shutter speed, focal length and more I’m sure, but there is the film itself which has a specific grain.

There’s some interesting things to discuss here and I’ll hope to post another entry on some thoughts on what we can do to simulate the film look with traditional video.

BTW – here’s the link to the article from Studio Monthly, which is really a review about Redrock Micro’s M2 35mm lens adapter. http://www.studiodaily.com/studiomonthly/currentissue/7749.html

Posted by Dennis Radeke at 07:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)

No, it's not a left wing (or right if you prefer) political article, rather a tutorial for something that I see all the time. I have to admit, dreaming up the title of these posts is more fun than I generally should have. ;-)

I'm in New York City this week and just walking around and seeing the billboards posters, etc (media is EVERYWHERE in NYC) and more often than not, the treatment of the text has some kind of noise, distortion, texture, etc that makes it a little different than standard typefaces. You might think that these people purchase these typefaces that look like that - perhaps sometimes. More often, they use some version of what I'm showing you here and it's ridiculously easy, so give it a try and and add a very useful trick to your arsenal of Photoshop chops.

Disturbed Text Download

Posted by Dennis Radeke at 06:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Today, Adobe is announcing that there are not one but two flavors of Adobe's Photoshop product. You can get some of the details by reading John Nack's Blog;

http://blogs.adobe.com/jnack/2007/03/announcing_two.html

I've just started to wade into the deep waters of Photoshop Extended which is the flavor I'm most excited about, because it really adds a tremendous amount of features for video workflow and production. As John alluded, we can't dive into details right now, but most peoples response has been, 'wow, we knew you were going to make improvements, but we never imagined it would be as good as this.' Gotta be honest, that makes us all feel really good. If for some reason you're not aware, you can test drive Photoshop CS3 Standard today by going to the Adobe Labs website.

http://labs.adobe.com

It's a cornucopia of public beta Adobe products.

Back to Photoshop CS3 Extended - it's fun...really fun and if you're a video or motion graphics person, you're going to want this version instead of the Standard. John also alluded to 3D and I think it will be a huge change in the workflow for specific market segments.

When you ponder about Photoshop, perhaps you're like me in thinking, "What else can they possibly add to this program?" Photoshop CS3 Extended answers those questions and then some. Perhaps the best part is when I spoke to John in the Fall, he was already hard at work thinking what CS4 would have. That's good for Photoshop users everywhere.

Cheers,
Dennis

Posted by Dennis Radeke at 07:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I get questions on how to do the 'glassy button' or the 'apple button' all the time. You know what I'm talking about - that ultra cool looking button that just screams, "Click ME!"

Anyway, if you're looking to do this, look no further. Here's a basic tutorial that you can download. I've included the original Photoshop file (done in CS3) along with a rudimentary PDF that shows you step by step. I'll be tinkering with exactly how much detail to give in these tutorials over the course of the next couple of months, so if you're looking for more or less, let us know.

Download file

Here's what the graphic itself:

Posted by Dennis Radeke at 04:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Poor allusions and metaphors are part of the whole package with me but they’re fun too. Allow me to continue with my Star Wars metaphor in order to point you to people who can really teach you about After Effects.

Aharon Rabinowitz “Qui-Gon Jinn” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qui-Gon_Jinn – Aharon is really a fantastic guy who happens to not only be a great AE artist, but also a great teacher – just like Qui-Gon Jinn who was portrayed by Liam Neeson. My experience has taught me that this is a rare combination indeed. Better yet, most of his work you can find for free at the CreativeCow.net forums. I just checked out one of Aharon’s tutorials on basic expressions (a scary topic indeed) and walked away from it thinking that I should dive into it again. Note to self – stop saying that about every Adobe product. Aharon was instrumental in helping get the After Effects New York group started. Check out http://www.AENY.org if you live around the NY area. You can find Aharon on http://www.creativecow.net under the AE forums

Dean Velez “Mace Windu” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mace_Windu
Besides having a matching hair do, Dean does share a certain quiet passion (okay if you know Dean, he’s not quiet!) that characterizes Mace Windu in the Star War movies. Dean is also about motion graphic design, he doesn’t focus on visual effects as much. He has that instinct about creativity and he teaches how to harness your creativity to create within After Effects. Dean runs a training site at http://www.TheAnvel.com He has a number of CDs that you can buy. I like them because it not only gives you all the goodies, but step-by-step PDFs that walk you thru creating what you see.

Brian Maffitt “Yoda” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoda
If the title of “Mr. After Effects” had to be handed out, you’d have to give it to Brian. Brian started selling VHS tapes about After Effects with version 3.0. If you were going to learn After Effects, investing in one of his Total Training products was almost a prerequisite. Along the way, his company grew and now encompasses all Adobe products and a few others as well. You can find Brian’s product offerings at http://www.TotalTraining.com. Total Training products are encyclopedic in their approach in that they cover just about everything depending on which products you look at. The After Effects collection currently covers about 60 hours of training. That’s right, a week and a half of work just to get through it all.

Are there other companies, resources and individuals that will help you? Definitely. Lynda.com and DigitalMediaNet.com are two that readily come to mind. Just type After Effects Tutorials in your search engine and see what pops up.

May the force of AE be with you my friend,
Dennis

Posted by Dennis Radeke at 10:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Download file

Under the banner of 'be practical!, my hope is to provide some tutorials and tricks that beginners will find useful. Some of these are designed to encourage you to get your hands dirty, others maybe to show you 'how'd you do that?'

So the link above downloads a short PDF and example file of how to create old fashioned TV lines in Photoshop.

Posted by Dennis Radeke at 09:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

On February 22nd, we had our first After Effects New York user group meeting. It was a great fun and I think a great success for the After Effects community. Rather than have me regurgitate what's already been written check out http://www.aeny.org/meetings/meeting_02_22_07/recap_02_22_07.html

If you're interested in starting a similar group, let us know!

Cheers, Dennis

Posted by Dennis Radeke at 06:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Download file

Okay, a month between posts is not typical and I think once I have the feel of this, you better hang on to your seats. For now though, I'm just trying to keep my head above water as this little thing called CS3 starts to ramp up...

So, I was at a show called NRB - National Religous Broadcasters. Not only was it a great bunch of people, but it was in Florida in February. How tough can that be? ;-)

So the long and the short of it is that I said I would start posting some the content and materials that I presented at the show and wouldn't you know it, people are asking about when! The answer is that I'm frankly new to blogging so even this post here is somewhat of a test to see if it works. The link above should let you see and save a PDF file that outlines some general technics for using Photoshop to create a pseudo church logo. The idea is to help people get started with Photoshop or perhaps teach you a couple of new things. If you've got ideas on tutorials that you'd like to see (remember - this blog is all about easy!) then post a comment and let me know.

Posted by Dennis Radeke at 03:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)