Continue reading "After Effects Tutorial: Basic Toolbox Series" »
Continue reading "AE Tutorial: Using Text as a shape layer" »
Finally! I apologize, but while I've had a number of shows done for over a month, the part of posting them is still somewhat of a manual process. I am sure that it will improve but in the meantime, I'm glad to say that the second installment is up there.
Continue reading "Adobe Beginner Classes Episode #2 is now live" »
Continue reading "AE tutorial - another simple 3D Text example" »
Continue reading "Adobe TV = ABC = Adobe Beginner Classes!" »
Continue reading "Churches are broadcasting too...plus knitting TV" »
Dean sent out a message to me telling me about some new animations that he makes available to everyone. Here's what he said:
"Hello Video, Film and Web folks,
I was messing around with some ideas for St Patrick's Day and came up with twelve different animations. There are Gold Coins, Rainbows, Clovers and even a Pot of Gold ready for download!
All 12 are free up until March 17th...and as usual they are royalty free and fully customizable."
Who doesn't like free? ;-)
Here's another basic tutorial that tries to bring some new concepts and ideas together in a real world project. I got this idea from two sources: First from an internal Adobe call that was demonstrating some new features on an upcoming product and secondly from a Creative Cow AE podcast that did a nice job on creating a fictitious movie title called, "The Smoke."
As a rule, ever since I joined Adobe I've always kept an eye out on all kinds of design, content, video, etc. I'm always looking at it to not only admire (or sometimes deride) the design, but to figure out how it was done. Today's tutorial is one such example that beginners and intermediate Photoshop users will enjoy.
Continue reading "AE Tutorial: Watching football make me think" »
Over the holiday break I created a simple birthday card for my son's birthday. As I was doing so, I was thinking that it would make a good example of a VERY basic Photoshop tutorial. If you already understand Layers, Selection tools, gradients and layer styles, then this tutorial is not for you...unless you're a Mets fan. If you're not familiar with some of the aforementioned Photoshop features, then pull up a chair and watch this simple 8 minute tutorial. Click on the link below to watch
PS - Since I've already committed myself above - Let's go Mets!
If you'd like to see the first part, you can find it here
With the Adobe break coming up, I thought I'd try and at least finish summarizing the more interesting tutorials and bits that came up in 2007. My hope is that this is a good post to bookmark for a visual summary of some of the tutorial content. So, on with the post!
Continue reading "Year in review - Genesis Project best tutorials (Part 2)" »
Continue reading "Another text example in AE - Happy Accidents" »
I've been at the Adobe 2007 Sales and Marketing Conference and before I jump on a plane to get home, I wanted to post up this simple After Effects project file for you to use.
Continue reading "After Effects Tutorial: Information Slate" »
During the course of the year, I've posted on many different subjects and topics as well as created several 'how-to's' and I thought it would be a good time to give everyone a single link to find (or discover) some of the 'best of'' during the past year. This post will focus on the best tutorial content. If I find there is reason for doing some other topics such as 'livliest discussion', etc., I will post again under a similar heading.
So, read on to grab some of the tutorial content that got a lot of downloads and comments...
Continue reading "Year in review - Genesis Project best tutorials (Part 1)" »
Continue reading "Exploding Planets courtesy of Video Copilot" »
Continue reading "Strange Planets revisited - After Effects Tutorial" »
Continue reading "Premiere Pro Tutorial: keyboard shortcuts" »
Got be straightforward here and say that I'm not a fan of Halloween. I mean with a blog called the Genesis Project? ;-) Or my 4 kids and too much candy? Ugh...sugar highs and sugar crashes!
However, it being close to Halloween, what better time to mention a tutorial by Andrew Kramer, appropriately titled, "Demon Face Warp." This terrific tutorial will teach you a bunch about masks, tracking, liquify and a whole bunch more and it will make your friends look at you strange because you'll shoot the video of yourself (I admit, I'm tempted too!)
Continue reading "Premiere Pro Keyboard Shortcuts Tutorial" »
One of the most popular E-Seminars I've done so far was the After Effects 101 seminar which I did twice within the last year. They were a lot of fun to do and the people who came had a lot of great questions. It's now available as an onDemand seminar if you're interested...It's tough to navigate directly to it, but you can find it here: After Effects onDemand content
It turns out that there are a lot of people who want to learn After Effects or learn more about it.
Continue reading "After Effects 101 E-Seminar on October 4th" »
Dean, perhaps more than any other designer out there, is the guy I wish I was - talent oozes out of his pores. I look at his latest work and understand how he does it (after all, he taught me some of his tricks when I was learning After Effects), but I just don't have his creative skills.
Continue reading "Dean Velez's latest - more great AEPs for download" »
This has been done a thousand times and probably better than I have done. Nevertheless, I've included a PDF for you to download in order to get some of the basics for making good portrait pictures great by using a couple of simple techniques. When you've gone through this, do a search for 'photo touchup tutorials' and see what you get.
DMN has posted a tutorial on using Photoshop's lighting feature on video. The end result was surprising to me and so I am passing it on to you.
Download Sample File and PDF
This (for me at least) was a rather larger project for me to post than most of the others. I might even categorize it as 'intermediate.' Anyway, I have had the project done for a while, but haven't had time to type up an outline on how to recreate it.
I will post the files and an outline here in the future, but in the meantime, here is an example of how you can use After Effects to sail through the Solar System. I also used Audition to build the soundtrack with some help from my friends at Digital Juice with their Sound FX library. Enjoy!
If that title does grab your attention, I don't know what will! Realize that I see New York newspapers that are trying for oneupmanship on each other with crazy headlines, which means you're likely to get the same from me - sorry...
Anyway, what am I talking about? Well, when you start working at Adobe, you start to look at everything a little bit differently and consequently, you start to look and see things in a different way than the rest of society. Case in point, my eleven year old daughter said that I'm always commenting on the design ideals of the commercial/film/tv show rather than just watching them. It drives the rest of my family crazy!
So, in looking at a box of snacks, I looked at the logo and said, "Cool, I bet I can do that!" So here you go...
Continue reading "Cereal Boxes - it's how a twisted mind thinks" »
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...
You Tube is really letting me down today, but hopefully you see the video now...
Continue reading "A Hidden Gem (for me) in After Effects CS3" »
Ahh, the good ole' days of 2001/2(?). I remember them like they were yesterday. The original iPod was (and is) the Sony Walkman of the 21st century and the commercials were the ultimate in cool. How'd they do that cool silouette look? Read on and find out! Below are a few examples of taking your silouette video and adding some zip to it.
This tutorial is pretty straightforward. I've attached the PDF for you to download to help you create your own.
This is a perfect example of why I'm passionate about the vision of Genesis Project - teaching people that After Effects is fairly easy and that some things that look hard are in fact quite easy. Let me know if you agree or disagree.
Here's a link for you: Video E-Seminars
Want to build the simple, elegant look of reflected images in Photoshop...read on...
Continue reading "Design basics: A current style to imitate" »
As you can imagine, I hit tradeshows fairly often (yes, sarcasm) and many times I get customers that come up to me asking, "How do I get started with After Effects?" or "What kind of training materials are there for After Effects?"
If this is you, then you'll want to read on and remember one key word - FREE!
Okay, I've been out of touch (or out of my mind from NAB) and so I apologize for not getting back on track earlier. Anyway, in an earlier post, I talked about working on some tutorials for you to download and chew on. Well, on the plane ride today, I was able to finish this one up.
This tutorial is my humble attempt to give you an introduction to After Effects and its 3D capabilities using just a simple Photoshop file. If you want to expand your repertoire in After Effects, this is one way to do it. It's a simple concept that you can build upon and hopefully build up a comfort level with an aspect of After Effects that can seem daunting at first look.
The basic idea of this tutorial is to build up a simple landscape scene and then move your camera through it. I threw in some flying geese(so homely you have to look at them!) and you're done.
The download is a little big (~8MB) but hopefully you'll find it worth it.
I also saw that Dean Velez posted one (a lot more in depth) at the Anvel.
Let me know what you think!
Dennis
ABC's logo treatment over the last couple of years have been all about some strokes zippin' around the ABC corporate logo. I've got to say that I really like it and certainly hope that it was done with After Effects. They've recently moved away from Quantel Paint Box to a Photoshop/After Effects workflow, so it's certainly possible.
More to the point, the strokes themselves reminded me of an AE stroke tip that Dean Velez taught me when he was with the Anvel. With Dean's permission, I've included his PDF lesson on creating a dynamic stroke within AE using TEXT. Wrap it up with a imitation RBC logo and an After Effects Project.
Check it out: RBC Logo Treatment
Dean's website: http://www.theanvel.com/
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.
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!
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.
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.
Here's what the graphic itself:
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.
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.