Fairytale Lighting in After Effects

In Fairytale Lighting in After Effects (below), the prolific Harry Frank shows you how to "how to take a regular, run-of-the-mill shot and turn it into something beautiful and moody, straight out of a fairytale. You'll learn how to set up a down-and-dirty 3D track, add volumetric light and dust to a live action shot, and then finish it with some simulated camera lens blur."

Harry generously notes some alternatives to Red Giant and Trapcode effects he used. But wait, there's more:

• Tilt-shift blurring alternatives to MB Looks can be found at AE Portal.
• Replacing Shine will require a bit of extra work with the built-in Light Burst effect; Harry's previous tip and an alternative can be found in 3D volumetric lights with Shine or Lightburst.
• Dust particles can be generated with AE's built-in tools; Eran Stern offers a free project that creates floating dust using CC Particle World. Additional perspective can be found in 'Light Transmission' + 'Natural Light Effects' by Trish and Chris Meyer.

Red Giant QuickTip #39: Fairytale Lighting in After Effects from Red Giant Software on Vimeo.

Spirals and After Effects

Spirals are used as design guides and elements or paths for text, shapes, and particles. Here's a few resources for using and creating spirals in After Effects and other Adobe applications.

For an updated version of this article, see Spirals in After Effects at ProVideo Coalition.

Creating snow in After Effects

Note: this post has been updated on PVC as Creating snow in After Effects.

You can use dedicated snow filters or particle systems to create snow that can be either stylized or realistic. There's filters built into After Effects like CC Snow, CC Particle World, and Particle Playground -- or you can use 3rd-party filters like Trapcode Particular (which is AE 3D camera-aware), Boris FX Snow, Cycore FX HD Snowfall, DigiEffects Delirium Snow, and GenArts Monsters GT.

Read the rest on PVC...

The Matrix effect: some resources for After Effects

There are a number of ways to generate the Matrix text effect in AE, and reflex dictates a list!

Please read the updated resource The Matrix effect in After Effects at ProVideo Coalition.

CC Particle World project(s) from the usual suspect

Andrew Kramer again shows an example of nice work with CC Particle World (the pict doesn't do the animation and environment justice):

"Well here is a test I did using CC Particle World linked to a 3D NULL! I used several copies featuring different settings to serve as the smoke particles and the light debris. I think CC Particle World has great potential to create amazing particles but it may take a little more work when compared to Particular."

He gives you a CS3 After Effects project, but sadly without the lovely environment in the render. Here are some handy examples and After Effect tutorials from earlier AEP posts (gee they're almost all from Video Copilot):

• Better control of Particle World, a quick tip of 3D null & PW by Adam Everett Miller from AE Tut
• Particle Positioner script by Jess Toula, one click to create a Particle World with the emitter connected to a null object for easy control.
• CycoreFX Particle World Demo
• Video Copilot #98: Particle World explosion (an earlier demo of 3D null)
• Free custom Particle World-based project
• Fire in After Effects round-up
• Shatter and disintegration: techniques for our time
• Particle Turbulence for PW from VCP
• various Particle Tutorials and Particles Tutorials tutorials at Creative Cow
• CMD 81: Looping Backgrounds: Particle Effect (skip to 4:40 or so)
• CC Particle World Intro by AEDude

Better control of Particle World

In his latest After Effects tutorial, Adam Everett Miller from AE Tuts shows how to attach the particle emitter (producer) in AE's built-in CC Particle World filter to a null for additional control, if you don't have the Trapcode Particular plug-in.

You also may want to look at various tutorials by Video Copilot (here's a free After Effects project) since information on PW is a bit thin at Adobe and Cycore.

To see more of what Particle World can do, download the CycoreFX Particle World Demo. It's a poor man's version of Brian Maffitt's old demo in that you have to render each comp separately and read along with the PDF. Cycore also offers a project that shows how to link After Effects 3D coordinates to Particle World 3D coordinates using expressions.

Video Copilot Particular 2 smoke project

Video Copilot has a free Particular 2 project for download in Illuminating Particles. The sole element is a smoke movie (seen in the inset) that was used as a custom sprite.

Update: You can do similar custom particles with built-in particle systems. There's also a couple of more stylized examples in Creating Smoke with CC Particle Effects at AEtuts.

Video Copilot 98: Particle World explosion

Video Copilot posted a particle explosion tutorial that uses only tools built into After Effects. It builds "several particle systems linked to a single control layer for precision animation with the standard Particle World system." A Pixel Polly filter shatter is also used.

Free custom Particle World-based project

Even if you know that the built-in CC Particle World filter allows you to use images as a custom or "Textured" particles, you may want to look at Video Copilot's latest free After Effects project.

To see a fuller scope of what Particle World can do, download the CycoreFX Particle World Demo. It's a poor man's version of Brian Maffitt's old demo in that you have to render each Comp separately and read along with the PDF.

Fire in After Effects round-up

This roundup was updated and moved to ProVideo Coalition as Creating Fire in After Effects: A roundup of tutorials and free projects.

Yes: Fire created using Trapcode Particular by Ramiro Fernandez looks really nice, via @rymden.

Free fire project for After Effects

Video CoPilot has a free fire project (CS3+) for download:

"Here is a little test I made using CC Particle World and some vector blur to make Fire. It’s not perfect but an interesting study. One of the key things I did was used a wiggle expression on the particle birthrate to give a variable emission pattern like something was burning inconsistently. It’s a little slow to render but it is very high resolution."

Update: Mathew Kelly shows you how to build your own with built-in filters:

After effects fire tutorial from Mathew Kelly on Vimeo.