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I'll be taking a welcomed break from all things Adobe and kicking back in Charleston, SC with a whole bunch of beach/pool action. Hope to grab a lot of photos, read some books and of course, play with Production Premium CS3 and write up some tutorials...We'll see if I'm inspired enough to post while I'm away...
Dan is one of the forum moderators at Creative Cow's AE forum and also a guy who knows AE's scripting engine inside and out. I'll be honest - I DON'T know it (much) but hope to learn more. Anyway, if you're into scripting and automating After Effects, this is a great resource to dive into...
Yesterday, I was at this small show in NY called ProMax BDA which stands for Broadcast Design Association (I think). The event is a showcase for all of the broadcasters to tout their design ideals and work. All of the big boys are there and it's quite interesting: especially the difference between what's acceptable here versus internationally. The quality of people at this show was very high and it was fun to talk and meet with many of them.
So, I was there with Aharon Rabinowitz from Creative Cow and AENY.org and we're talking about Shape Layers...
The more we talked about it, the more we agreed that this feature was so immense, so encompassing and so easy to get lost in, that we wonder how to approach talking about it. It's really that big and while it's so approachable for beginners, you can also quickly get lost and discouraged with it. Personally, I think one thing I have to start playing with is using Shape Layers and then taking it to Brainstorm!!! Ahh, there's an idea for you!
So, last night as I watched Ghostrider (maybe a 6.5 out of 10), I played around with Shape Layers in a minimalist approach and am posting them for you to view and download. These are After Effects CS3 features so that means you have to have After Effects CS3 preview to play with it. If you haven't downloaded it yet, take a look at the Labs website: Adobe Labs
Shape Layers ProjectAs a PS - Aharon did some great demos of After Effects CS3 during his presentation and I know that he'll be encorporating some of them into his Creative Cow Podcasts in the future - if you're not subscribing, you should start. Creative Cow Podcasts
You Tube is really letting me down today, but hopefully you see the video now...
What is it???
Well, to me one of the areas that After Effects needs to grow in is the area of particles. It's so good at so many things, it just seems wrong that it isn't awesome at this particular thing. And speaking of Particular - there is the wonderful Trapcode plugin as well as Wondertouch's Particle Illusion products. If you're serious about getting into this aspect of effects and motion graphics, you need one or both of these.
Anyway, In After Effects CS3, we have new versions of the Cycore plugins and when I looked at CC Particle World, what did my eyes see? A beautiful parameter called Texture where I could assign a layer or shape as the particle itself. Take a look at the video below and I'll be putting up the Project File later. Please note that this project HAS to be opened in After Effects CS3, so if you haven't downloaded the public preview version yet, you should go here - Adobe Labs
As a final BTW, my wife said this composition looked very 70's (bad 70's of course) and I have to agree being a fan of That 70's Show that it could fit. Hey - at least I was thinking of her when I did it - our 12th anniversery is coming up next week...
Project file: Using Shapes as ParticlesHappy Monday!
Tonight is another hit and run entry, but I still hope you'll find it entertaining and useful. But in order to tempt you to read on...ah well, I trust you.
Gotcha! ;-)
Hitting the items in the title in reverse order leads me to say I've got a bunch of ideas and the problem is doing my real job (this is just fun) while at the same time finishing up ever more ambitious tutorials. Still, I want to hold true to the blog's purpose: namely to help beginners get comfortable with some awesomely fun products, which so far has been mostly After Effects. I promise I'll be putting in a bunch on all kinds of applications, but I'm doing them as I go. I've got a simple planet tutorial on how to make planet earth or our solar system, or something completely crazy. I'm also working on taking our plasma fire tutorial and turning yours truly into a superhero - my kids love what I've done so far. I'm also trying to finish up an article on Vista (or at least my initial thoughts on it)
Whereabouts: In NYC this week and next. Hitting the Henry Stewart Digital Asset Management conference this week as well as visiting the SMPTE chapter in NYC. Next week, I'll be showing Production Premium CS3 to the Final Cut Users Group in NY as well as be a part of ProMax BEA - a high end designer show.
Breath deeply - then I'm going on PTO...also known as Paid Time OFF!!! I want to say I'll keep blogging during this time, but no promises - the beach (and my wife and kids) is calling.
Finally, a quick hit on another useful website that I've found. Deviant Art - very cool and worth a look at - especially the textures under resources...DeviantART
It wasn't very hard and in fact, I may have some more posts along this line as I continue to experiment. Oddly enough, the brushes are found at Photoshopbrushes.com or click here Photoshop Brushes
To me, adding some random noise or grunge to artwork quickly gives it a distinctive and unique look and these brushes (I gave most of the sets a try) are just what you may be looking for. Bravo to the creator(s).
Well, turns out it does. With Photoshop CS3 Extended you can import video as a layer or as a series of layers (1 for each frame). I imported our drummer video and started applying some of the standard Filter Gallery presets to the video all using the animation timeline feature of CS3. Take a look below to see what you think...
I'll say this, I'm continually amazed at the possibilities of Photoshop and now even what we can do with video inside of it. Great stuff to ponder on a Friday!