Animate a character in After Effects

This post has been updated at ProVideo Coalition,

Animate a character in After Effects: A survey of resources

Creating Motion Graphics with After Effects CS5

Chris Meyer announced Creating Motion Graphics with After Effects, Fifth Edition for CS5 today on the AE-List. If your browser tab is too narrow you may have missed the chapter excerpts pointed out by Todd Kopriva, who broadcasts a hearty recommendation.

Trish and Chris Meyer are among the very earliest users and teachers of After Effects and have redesigned the book to reflect new features from both CS4 and CS5. This is the definitive book on After Effects and an essential reference for all but a few. It now includes sections on:

• Mastering animation through the use of keyframes, motion paths, and the Graph Editor
• Blending imagery using alpha channels, masks, mattes, modes, and stencils
• Building groups and hierarchies through parenting and nested compositions
• Extended coverage of type animation, paint tools and 3D space
• New CS5 features including Roto Brush, mocha v2 for AE, and the Digieffects Freeform
• Advanced subjects such as keying, motion tracking, mocha, expressions, integrating with 3D applications, and video issues
• Extensive coverage of recently added features such as Shape and Puppet tools, Per-character 3D text, Brainstorm, Cartoon effect, color management, and more
• The DVD also includes almost 200 pages of additional information, including lengthy Bonus Chapters on Expressions and Effects.

Puppet tool + wiggle expression in After Effects

In a new After Effects tutorial, Using the Wiggle Expression with the Puppet tool, Kert Gartner uses After Effects CS4 to look at the wiggle expression and show how it can be used with the Puppet tool to add some life to otherwise static objects. For more, see Puppet tools overview and resources and the wiggle expression reference in AE Help.

Using the Wiggle Expression with the Puppet tool from Kert Gartner on Vimeo.

Another Photoshop CS5 sneak peek: Puppet Warp

Russell Brown has posted a new demonstration of the Puppet Warp technology being developed for Photoshop. John Nack has a few more comments at his blog [also]. Here's the older demo too:

Puppetji: animated by the unseen

Here's a "socksang" by the sometimes fickle Puppetji, before his enlightenment over the paradox of Paper or Plastic?:

Inverse kinematics script for After Effects + update

[Update: Some of the links in this AEP post maybe broken but you can route through the new website for Duik Tools.]

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Via Sebastien Perier, a top contributor to After Effects Community Help, is DuDuF IK Tools for After Effects, a free script that does Inverse Kinematics (IK). The script is from Duik Tools, a website in French (English translation).

Sebastien says it seems pretty decent, and that you can even add bones to puppet pins. For specifics see the Overview and Help sections.

Update: nabscripts from Charles Bordenave has a good number of expressions and scripts (English package download and French), and he even has a script to help you translate expressions. It translates expression controls names in the language of the running version (supports English, French, German, Italian and Spanish).

Update 2: A commenter noted Dan Ebberts and Brian Maffitt's techniques for IK using expressions; see Dan's Inverse Kinematics and Inverse Kinematics Redux. Ko Maruyama also had sections on IK and the Puppet Tool in his Total Training set. Also, you can see Adobe's implementation of IK in Flash CS4 in an AdobeTV clip.

Update 3: A new version was posted 15 March 2009 (changelog); also, it's now distributed under the under the GNU General Public License.Update 4: Everything is supposed to be translated into English now.

Prolost notes Box2D open-source physics engine

Stu Maschwitz asks Dear some nerd: Please port the Box2D open-source physics engine to an Adobe After Effects Script.

The Box2D demos are fun. It would be great to have dynamics integrated with the Puppet Tool or eventually have something in AE like Motional Realms' ReelMotion, which had an incredible physics engine that used physics and collision detection to realistically animate vehicles and objects. My PowerPC version of ReelMotion hasn't seen action for quite awhile; the technology was purchased by and absorbed into Rainbow Studios, which makes games like Cars:The Videogame.

Puppet Masters...to ship soon

No it's not the Donald Sutherland movie in which the President receives instructions from implants. No, two tutorials showed up on the new Puppet Tool in AE 8 (CS3).

Bob Donlon shows how he animated a bird extracted from a still in Photo 2 Life. He might have used new tools in Photoshop: see Russell Brown's tips on the new Quick Select, Refine Edge, and Clone Source features. Bob also dropped the news that the PuppetTool will ship in a few weeks, which seemed likely now that you can order the Adobe Master Collection.

Also, in a guerilla tutorial on Youtube, M dot Strange (featured on KQED's Spark after his Sundance success) proclaims: Puppet Tool in Adobe After Effects CS3: Best thing eveR. An interesting comment on the Strange blog pointed to earlier work on shape manipulation (see the worm animation above).