This is the second tutorial on the road to generating script files for After Effects. I read the comments from Part 1 stating that those are expressions, not actual Javascripts. I figured, to learn what Javascript does from scratch, you have to understand expressions first, because you can immediately see what the changes do. There will be one more tutorial on placing layers with expressions, then we’ll move on to actual scripts. In this tutorial you will learn how for-loops can help analyzing several frames in order to customize effects.

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Tutorial

Additional Aetuts+ Resources

• Create Your Own Custom Effects!
• Connect Your Scale Relative To The Camera’s Position
• Generate Your Own Splendid Spirographical Designs
• QuickTip – Creating Circular And Spiral Motion Paths
• Learn How to Create a Light Rays Custom Effect from Scratch

Tonight at 7pm EST We will be streaming a live video feed from our Envato Community Night here in Chicago. This will give you a chance to “hang out” with the Envato staff as we have an informal meet and greet with those who use the sites. Each site editor, including myself, will make a point to come over and say hello. For those who can’t make it, we’ll record the stream to go back and watch later.

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View Live Broadcast Here:

In this article, I will show you a variety of illustrations made from vector that contain gradients. I’ll explain why these elements work well and share with you some links to great tutorials. We’ll also read what the artists say about the pieces, which tools they use, and what advice they give to those wishing to venture into vector art using gradients.

Continue reading “Using Multiple Styles of Gradients in Vector Illustration and Vector Art”

Usually, editing is overlooked as a part of audio production. It’s not that engineers don’t know what it is, it’s just that it’s looked at the same way a chef would look at doing the dishes. It’s boring. It’s tedious and tiresome to go through each and every track to spot the glitches, pops and abnormal volume changes.

That said, here are some effective editing tips you can keep in mind the next time you finished recording and are deciding to dive into the mixing phase.

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Tip 1: Edit Before You Start Mixing

The best way to approach a mix is if all the tracks are edited and sounding the best they can. If you dedicate a part of your session to editing your tracks the mixing aspect will be easier and more enjoyable.

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Tip 2: Cut Out Any Background Noise Between Phrases

Go through all your tracks and listen to the silences between phrases.

Most of the time, especially with vocal tracks, the parts that look like silences in your DAW do have noise, very quiet breaths and the occasional lyric sheet being turned. And guess what happens when you add compression to those vocals? The noise floor goes up and now the noise is even more audible.

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Tip 3: Use Fades Effectively

Sometimes, when you have a quiet backing track and suddenly you introduce more instrument to the mix, the volume change might sound abnormal. By using fades you can minimize the aural unexpectedness of adding more instruments to a mix.

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Tip 4: Cut At the Zero Point

The zero point is the point in the waveform where the positive and negative side of a wave meet. This is where the volume of the wave is zero. By cutting here you can avoid clicks and pops in your audio.

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Tip 5: Raise the Volume of Individual Phrases

If some phrases of a track sound much louder or quieter than the rest, rather than compressing the whole track to lower the dynamic range try raising or lowering the individual phrases. That way your compression will be more effective over the track as a whole.

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Tip 6: Move Regions for Quick Fixes

If a phrase or two don’t sound completely in the pocket or a drum hit doesn’t come exactly on the beat, there is nothing wrong with a little digital magic and moving a phrase here or there if it’s just for quick fixes. But if you’re spending most of your time moving a complete bass track here or there usually you’re better off recording the whole part again.

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Tip 7: Copy/Paste

The beauty of doing things in the digital domain is that you can copy and paste parts to other sections in the song.

Say your singer has a cold and his voice breaks after the first chorus, or you want to copy a guitar part to another place in the chorus. Maybe you can fly the chorus vocal into the intro parts to create a completely new arrangement. It’s very easy and quick to try out new arrangements by copying and pasting like this.

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Tip 8: Use A.D.T.

In a similar vein, using artificial double tracking to double a part is an easy part of editing. Just copy and paste a phrase and displace it a few milliseconds after the original to create this effect.

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Tip 9: Use Mutes

By cutting up regions into their respective intro, verse, chorus parts etc. you can create dynamics and anticipation throughout the songs.

Say you have a lonely vocal in the first verse, a doubled one in the chorus and then various harmonizations for the rest of the track. By muting some vocals and then introducing them sporadically you can create a type of suspense.

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Tip 10: Get It Over With

Editing can be boring. But it’s worth it – get it over with. When you have clean tracks, devoid of background noise, fades that compliment your tracks and innovative arrangements by experimenting with regions you can clearly see how the benefits of editing reveal themselves.

Sometimes certain scenes are too expensive, dangerous, or even impossible to photograph. This is when people often turn to Photoshop. In only a little bit of time, you can create a very realistic looking image. Today we will be learning how to create an eerie underwater scene. So, get your scuba gear on and let’s get started!

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Tutorial Assets

The following assets were used during the production of this tutorial.

• Bubble Brush
• Ocean Background
• Shark
• Turtle
• Coral

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Step 1

We are going to first open up the background ocean image, as this will dictate how large our canvas is going to be. You can do this by either dragging and dropping the image icon onto your Photoshop icon, or go to File > Open.

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Step 2

Once the background is opened in Photoshop, go to: Image > Image Size. In the popup box, we are only going to modify the Width. Set the width to: 630px.

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Step 3

Before you can modify the background image, you are going to need to unlock it. We can do this by double clicking on the layer in the layer panel and by clicking "OK" on the "New Layer" popup.

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Step 4

Once the background is unlocked, you can go ahead and drag it down, just until the bright rocks on the bottom are no longer visible. This will allow us to add more water to the top portion of the image. Grab your marquee selection tool and select the bottom portion of the image up to below the waves in the water, and then click the "mask" button in your layers panel.

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Step 5

Select the top portion of the water and click "Cmd/Ctrl + J" on your keyboard to duplicate the selection to a new layer. Move the layer up just slightly and scale it upwards just so it covers about half of the transparent portion of the canvas.

Click "Cmd/Ctrl + J" one more time, to duplicate that layer. Take this layer, and move it upwards until it reaches the top of the canvas. Don’t worry about the water looking a little stretched. That won’t be noticeable once we are finished.

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Step 6

Now that we have the background filled in, we have to work on the bottom edges of the new layers that we created in the last step. We can do this very simply by using layer masks once again. We do this by clicking on the layer in the layers panel and then click the "mask" button. A new thumbnail image of a white box will appear next to the layer thumbnail.

You will now need to select a midsize brush with a hardness of 0%. We are going to use this brush to gently paint the bottom portion of the selected layer. By doing this, it will make the layer blend in. You will have to repeat this step for both of the water layers.

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Step 7

Import the Shark image. You can do this by going to File > Place and navigating to the shark image. Or you can just simply drag and drop the image from your folder directly onto your Photoshop document. Once it is imported, scale the shark to size, and then place it on the right side of the image about halfway up the image.

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Step 8

Now it’s time to remove the background from the shark image. We are going to do this exactly like we did in step 6, with the mask tool. Click on the shark layer and then click the "mask" button in your layer’s panel. With a small brush slowly erase around the entire shark, removing the background. The closer you get to the shark, the better the final image will look.

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Step 9

You can leave the shark as-is, but I prefer to give the shark more of a gray look. We are going to accomplish this by creating 2 duplicates of the shark and modifying them slightly. First step is to select your current shark layer and changing the Blending Mode to "overlay". You can do this by clicking the box with the word "Normal". This box is located at the top of your layers panel.

Duplicate that current layer (Cmd/Ctrl + J), change the Blending Mode to "Hard Light". We are going to want to "Desaturate" this layer. You can do this simply by clicking "Cmd/Ctrl + Shift + U", or you can do it the hard way by going to Image > Adjustments > Desaturate. This will turn the image black and white. Duplicate the desaturated layer (Cmd/Ctrl + J) and change the layer mode back to "Normal", but this time change the "Opacity" to 60%.

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Step 10

Now it’s time to give the background a dark eerie look. Create a new layer above the water background layers and fill it with black. Then grab a very large eraser brush (about 1000 px) and erase the top left portion of the black background. Lower the opacity of this layer to about 65%. Create one more layer and fill it with black. Using the same size eraser brush, erase the top right portion of the layer. This time lower the opacity to 80%.

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Step 11

We now have 8 layers in our layers palette and it is looking a little sloppy. We can quickly organize it by selecting the 3 shark layers and clicking "Cmd/Ctrl + G". This will create a new folder with those layers in it. Lets do the same for the 5 background layers (2 black layers and 3 background image layers).

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Step 12

At this point, our scene is looking pretty empty. Lets fix this by duplicating the shark and giving him 2 friends. Select the "Shark" folder and drag it down to the "New layer" icon on the bottom of the layers palette. Go ahead and add one just above the current shark and then another on the left side of the canvas. Mess with the opacity and scaling of the shark to give the sharks more "depth".

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Step 13

Now that the sharks are all placed, we need to give them a couple of friends, turtles. Go ahead and load the turtle image into Photoshop, exactly like you did with the shark image. At the moment, the turtle is swimming towards the left. We are going to flip the image horizontal so the turtle is swimming towards the right. We can rotate the image horizontal by going to Edit > Transform > Flip Horizontal.

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Step 14

We need to now remove the background from the turtle image. We do this the exact same way as we did with the shark. Create a layer mask and then just paint around the turtle. This time, we want to leave a little bit of the coral that is under the turtle. You also want to mask a small amount of the background on the edges of coral. This way there are no hard edges.

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Step 15

As you can see, the turtle stands out pretty badly. We need to do pretty much exactly like we did with the shark. Set the turtle layer’s blending mode to "Overlay" and set the opacity to 60%. Duplicate the turtle layer by clicking Cmd/Ctrl + J. Then set that layer to "Hard Light" with an opacity of 100%. As you can see, the turtle is standing out still, we need desaturate that layer. You can do this by clicking "Cmd/Ctrl + Shift + U", or going to Image > Adjustments > Desaturate.

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Step 16

One final step for the "Hard Light" layer, is to slightly mask the bottom portion of it. We can do this by clicking on the "mask" thumbnail on the layer. Then with a black brush with the size of about 300px and a hardness of 0%, gently paint the bottom half of the turtle and coral. This will help make the turtle and coral blend in with the background Now, take both of those layers and put them into their own folder called "Turtle / Coral". You can do this by selecting both layers and clicking "Cmd/Ctrl + G".

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Step 17

The turtle feels a bit out-numbered because there are so many sharks, so lets give him a friend. You can make a copy of the turtle, just like we did with the shark, by dragging it to the "new layer" button at the bottom of the layers pallet.

The problem with just cloning the turtle is that it has the little bit of coral at the bottom of the image, so we are going to have to remove that. Rather than redoing all of the previous steps, we are going to just add a layer mask to the folder. You can do this by clicking the folder, and just like with a layer, you click the "mask" button at the bottom of the layers pallet. With the mask created, paint away the rest of the coral with a small brush. Now, you can place the turtle at the upper left corner of the canvas. I recommend scaling, rotating and lowering the opacity to give it some depth.

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Step 18

There is one more image for us to work with. This will just be repeating the exact same steps as the turtle. Go ahead and load up the Coral image and place it on the lower right corner of the canvas. Mask out the background, just like we did with the other images. With this image, all we have to do is change the layer Blending Mode to "Overlay" with an Opacity of 40%.

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Step 19

Now that we are done with the images, we can begin adding a little detail. We are going to add bubbles to the water, to give some character to the fish. First, we will have to load the bubble brushes. You do this by right clicking the canvas. In the brush selection pop-up, click the arrow on the top right, go down to "Preset Manager." In the "Preset Manager" window, make sure your Preset Type is on "Brushes", then click on the "Load" button and load the brush file.

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Step 20

Your brushes are now loaded, but painting 1 bubble at a time would take way too much time. We can save time by simply modifying the brush. Click "F5" to open your brush menu, or go to Window > Brush. Select the bubble brush with the number "690." In this window we are going to do the following: Size: 6px – Spacing: 210%. On the left, click "Shape Dynamics." Size Jitter: 30% – Minimum Diameter: 10% – Angle Jitter: 10% – Roundness Jitter: 20% – Minimum Roundness: 25%. On the left, click "Scattering." Scatter: 1000% – Count: 1 – Count Jitter: 18%. You don’t have to worry about any other settings.

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Step 21

Now that your brush is set, create a new layer and make sure your brush color is white. Then paint the bubbles. I like to give 1 to 2 rows of bubbles (vertical rows) by each mouth and gills. You can also add a few in the background. Pretty much anywhere you feel bubbles should be placed. Feel free to play with the brush size. Once your bubbles are brushed, lower the bubble layer’s Opacity to about 20% to 30%.

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Step 22

We need to go back to a "default" paintbrush. You can do this by right clicking the canvas and in the brush selection menu, just select one of the round brushes at the top. Set the size to about: 35px and make sure the hardness is 0%. Create a new layer and make sure your brush color is white. Now, we are going to paint "rays" coming from the top right of the canvas.

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Step 23

We need to now make the sunrays blend in quite a bit better. First step is to add noise to them. You can do this by going to Filter > Noise > Add Noise. Make the amount 16%. Then add Gaussian Blur. Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur. Make the Radius 22.0 pixels. Lower the layer Opacity to about: 20%. If you feel that the light rays are a little too "heavy", you can create a layer mask, and gently mask out certain portions of the rays. For example: the bottom edges, and parts that intersect with the fish.

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Final Image

Congratulations, you have successfully created an eerie underwater scene.

Today, Topher Welsh is back with another awesome 3D roundup. Here’s what he has to say: “Abstract artwork is really beautiful sometimes… I mean, it can be anything you want it to be, and with the capabilities of 3D, you can make some really cool stuff! I have a ton of really cool images, plus some tutorials at the end for you to learn how to do this yourself!”

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mansoorshaikeali – Cyclorepto



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Mack Lucknow – Music



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Mantra – Blood Cells



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Vrajitha Lankaa – Broken



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killerpixel – Discovering Art



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Avael – Ocean Mystery



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Chris Haines – The Nest



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adnan4u2 – Abstract Art of a Newbeeee



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Brad Schwede – 3D Graffitii – ‘Skeme



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Brad Schwede – 3D Graffiti – Terminate



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Brad Schwede – 3D Graffiti – Destroy



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Brad Schweded – 3D Graffiti – ‘Photek



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MALZman – Splash Glas



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Archcaina – Crystal and Ice Fantasy



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Mastra – Paperless



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Image CZ – Love is Gone



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Loswl – What Is Man?



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Image CZ – Chromatic Water



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Nastplas – The Runner



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Archcaina – The Blues of Darkness



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aceveza.enrique – Abstracto 2



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Ceasare Schuit – GLA55



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Fregezechen – XXII



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tvq – My First Concept Car



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Kumo Creative – Graf Composite



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SeventhGraphics – Intoxication



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Abstract Related Tutorials

Structural Renders in C4D



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Render Tutorial in C4D



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:Crash Burn



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Abstract Tutorial



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3D Abstract Tentacle Tutorial



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Making Abstract Shapes in Cinema 4D



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How to use Sub Polygon Displacement in Cinema 4D



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Blender Abstract 3D Tutorial



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Complex Geometric 3D Abstract Design in 3DSMax



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Advanced 3D Abstracts



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For many years, at my company, employees were able to surf the internet at will. I was able to check my personal email online, listen to my favorite streaming sports talk show or, God forbid, check the lottery numbers from the night before. But, after being acquired by a large conglomerate, a few changes were initiated in my working and internet world. A strict internet policy was enforced. Social media sites like Twitter and Facebook were prohibited. Quickly viewing my personal internet email was also forbidden. And my precious streaming radio was heartlessly taken away. My internet world at work was now a privilege of the past.

I know most large companies have an internet usage policy. They don’t want their employees to be lured from their tasks at hand into a den of iniquity such as Grudge, CNN, Twitter, Facebook, or any such blog you could reel off. I know it is probably for my own good but I still don’t like it. So how have I felt the effects?

Streaming Radio

I used to love being able to listen to my favorite sports talk show online without any static whatsoever. This was the hardest for me because I would listen to my sports talk all day long. I would get to know the personalities as well as the regular callers. My solution was to get a transistor radio and find a local sports talk show that is on FM. The AM station that I listened to online has no reception within my cubicle. So I had to settle for second best. It may not seem like a lot to you but they took something pleasurable away from my day. It made my working life less enjoyable. But, I understand, it was for the common good.

Social Media

I have a Twitter account. A lot of people don’t really understand the value of Twitter. The lay person thinks that it simply is a way for a fan to see what Lebron James had for breakfast or to tell your followers what store you’re in at the mall. No, Twitter is a way for people to exchange ideas. To link to interesting articles or blog posts that may be of interest to your world. It is also used to exchange ideas at conferences you may attend. A way, if you will, to extend the discussion over the Twitter waves. If used properly, it is quite remarkable. But, I’m now cut off; at least in my working world. Of course, I could buy an iPhone or a Droid, and pay for the service. But those items are not currently in my budget. My daughter’s college loans and the grocery and utility bills tend to take precedence for some reason. So, what once was a break from my working world that I used to enjoy at lunchtime is gone. But I understand, it really must be for my own good.

Personal Email

Years ago at my work we were told to use our personal email for any personal correspondence. Now, I cannot access my personal email from my office computer due to the internet policy at work. What used to take me roughly 30 seconds to check my personal email, now takes a number of minutes using my cell phone, which is just a basic phone with rudimentary internet access. So I sit at my desk or in the men’s room, with phone in hand, waiting for it to sign into my personal email account and bring up my email. Wait, wait, and wait some more. Finally, I can see my email which mostly contains links that I cannot access on my crappy phone. So, for any personal email that is important, I end up manually forwarding it to my work email account. Then I open up the email from my work email account and click on the link, which, more often than not, is blocked! So, as a result of the internet lockdown, I now spend a whole lot more time accessing my personal email. At least I’m now doing it in the name of progress. I know it must be for my own good.

Blog Reading

I am a lover of blogs. I have my own and I write for others. It is a refreshing break for me to be able to visit a blog that I enjoy. I’ve met a lot of people from reading their blogs and commenting on them. It is a community of people with common interests; the main one being the love of writing. Now I am blocked from reading most of my favorite blogs. I don’t get that break that I used to get from my technical work during my lunch hour. It was something that I really looked forward to. It was a much-needed respite in the middle of the day. But, I must be better off without it.

As I mentioned earlier, I know that I simply could go out and spend some big bucks on a fancy iPhone, iTouch, Droid, iPad, or laptop, and pay the connection fees. But I simply can’t afford it. So, I’ll simply turn back the clock and listen to my transistor radio, take a walk in the fresh air, or read a hard-cover book in lieu of an ebook. When you get used to accessing technology, it’s hard to go without it.

So maybe I am better off without technology during those 60 minutes of free time that we call lunch. Maybe turning back the clock isn’t so bad for me. Maybe the powers-that-be just might know what they are doing. Maybe they really know what is for my own good.

What do you think?

Recently, we suggested outsourcing chores to add time to our 24/7 work schedule.  Doing a little research I came across the blog about the book The 4-Hour Workweek, which we recently reviewed, and an account by AJ Jacobs, editor-at-large at Esquire magazine, about his experience outsourcing his chores.  He started by assigning a little research to his virtual assistant (VA) and in the end he was even outsourcing his worries!  From his account they definitely seem like a good idea.

But after digging around online forums, it seems that many people haven’t had the stellar service about which AJ Jacobs writes.  He does mention that Brickwork, the Indian outsourcing company, knew that he worked for Esquire and some frustrated forum dwellers speculated that they weren’t surprised he had good service while they were yet to receive a decent document from their VA or anything at all!  Still, as far as VA companies go, Brickwork seems to be one of the best out of India, competing with YourManinIndia.com.

Other options for VA services include freelance sites such eLance and oDesk as well as a local person who you can actually meet a few times a month if you need to.  From my own experience I wouldn’t recommend freelancing sites but there are people who find them useful.

A common problem with VA employers seems to be that clients want to pay very little for very high quality service from a highly competent VA, which pushes Westerners to Eastern markets, causing lack of English skills to be a main complaint.  Clients who pay more for VA’s in their own countries or who at least have good English skills generally left more positive comments.

Do you use a VA or a VA service?  What’s your experience?