Here’s a little roundup of some of the latest news on After Effects tutorials, plug-ins, scripts and more.
Newton, the new physics engine for After Effects by Motion Boutique was quietly released. Mike Afford stepped forward with a quick pinball simulation, and Motion Boutique added some video-only demos:
AEtuts+ posted an Elemental Combat Series, with 6 video tutorials on fireballs and electricty and stuff. You might scan the recent entries since only a few of this month’s nice lineup at AE tuts+ will be mentioned.
Quick Tip – So You Don’t Have Soundkeys by Ben Griggs on AEtuts+ shows how to use Adobe Soundbooth to isolate audio and replicate some of the functionality of Trapcode Soundkeys. Satya Meka offered a more complex approach earlier in Audio Analysis in After Effects and related tips and other tutorials mentioned in Audio waveform graphics in After Effects.
Also at AE Tuts+, VinhSon Nguyen finessed Creating An Audio Visualization: Liquid Sphere with Form. He used Trapcode Form, Particular, and Shine but with some difficulty could have substituted some combination of Particle World, Light Burst, CC Sphere, Ball Action, or Plexus.
Harry Frank explains Creating Normal Maps with Trapcode Form at Red Giant. Harry did another called Creating a Motion Graphics Billboard Animation also using Form.
Chris and Trish Meyer have more guidance at PVC:
* CMG Hidden Gems: Chapter 30 – Motion Tracking
* CMG Hidden Gems: Chapter 31 – mocha and mocha shape
* CMG Hidden Gems: Chapter 32 – Shape Layers
* CMG Hidden Gems: Chapter 33 – Paint and Clone
* After Effects Apprentice Free Video: What Could Go Wrong? (Just because there is more than way of doing something, doesn’t mean all choices are equal.)
ChromeDesigns posted a 5-part After Effects CS5 Typography Animation Tutorial on YouTube:
These are new products and tutorials mentioned at AE Portal @PVC:
* After Effects & Premiere Performance Workshop (free training from Todd Kopriva & Video2brain)
* Flash resamples audio to 44.1 kHz during playback (Jan Ozer notes this may cause loss of sync)
* Video enhanced by rolling shutter effect and other distortions
* Colored Light Strokes and Streaks (Mattrunks on 3D Stroke, plus some alternatives)
* The Stereo 3D Toolkit, a new script for After Effects from Ryan Cashman and AE Scripts
* Free 3D Ink Preset for Trapcode Particular from Greyscale Gorilla
* Basic AE project from concept through creation (2-part tutorial from Eran Stern)
* What’s your favourite AE Script? (Tim Clapham and Mark Christiansen share theirs, plus a chunk of tutorials on expressions from FeltTips and Arun Latvia). Note that Mark Christiansen has started an ongoing series on favorite scripts.
Smart Baker by Jake & Dan from AE Scripts intelligently bakes keyframes from expressions.This script was covered earlier in Trim Compose, Un-PreCompose, Auto Crop, and Smart Baker.
Laurie Knapp continues a run of AE tutorials with 3 new ones on Vimeo:
* After Effects Tutorial 6: Quick Tips for Moving Camera in Z Space
* AE Tutorial 7: 3D Objects into After Effects + Making 2D Text/Logo into a 3D Object
* AE Tutorial 8 (+ Premiere Pro): Easy Letterbox For Anamorphic Format
If you want to stretch out beyond Freeform and Boris Cylinder, try Curved Plane After Effects by Eric Zunkley.
Film Riot shared some Harry Potter (more) and Cowboys and Aliens inspired effects in the last few weeks. We’ll skip the HUD (more) and peek at a Harry Potter thing:
Rick Gerard shared tips on Avoiding Judder in Motion Graphics.
nsequence-browser is an AE script that serves as an alternative sequence browser for Adobe After Effects. For other alternatives, see Immigration and COB_SSD-Sequence Section Destroyer from AE Scripts.
Stefan Surmabojov offered an Overview Of Frischluft’s “Lenscare” Plug-ins on AEtuts+. Some of us might benefit from a more in-depth comparison with the new AE features described by Todd Kopriva in his updated Camera Lens Blur effect and camera depth of field properties in After Effects CS5.5.
Rampant Design Tools continues to deliver a variety of AE tutorials (recently on stereo 3D), product demos, and news from around the web on their blog.
Angie Taylor has a new tips & tricks newsletter that collects her notices, activities, and tutorials.
John H. King uses Trapcode Particular not Form, creating some fresh inspiration, in LandEscape Teaser 2011:
Adobe audio
Todd Kopriva answers “Why does audio not go to the track where I drop it?” in the free training course Premiere Pro: Frequently Asked Questions. Andrew Devis added a Premiere Pro tutorial: Sweetening Audio with Parametric EQ.
Colin Smith introduces Audition for After Effects Users and Advanced Noise Reduction In Audition CS5.5.
Miscellaneous
DaVinci Resolve Lite: two first-looks on PVC points to notes by Patrick Inhofer and Steve Oakley on the free Mac app.
Eric Escobar introduces getting looks right with Colorista II and Magic Bullet Looks in Getting Started with Eric Escobar’s Indie Film II for Looks.
No Film School posted something last month by Zack McTee that may come in handy for some, More Methods of Removing Stuck Pixels from Video Footage:
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