'100% Accurate Reflections'

In a new After Effects tutorial and project, 100% Accurate Reflections Tutorial, Quba Michalski demonstrates "how to build a two-camera rig in order to create perfect 3D reflections. using this technique, you will be able to reflect not only 3D layers, but also lights, particles, as well as any plug-in that obeys the movement of AE's 3D camera.

The setup is trivially easy when using hand-animated cameras, but in the second half of the video I also show you how to create a more complex rig for use with Video Copilot’s Sure Target 2 camera controls."

You can also create reflections with 3rd party AE filters like RGS Warp, Zaxwerks Reflector or the free VC Reflect filter -- and through a variety of other tutorials via the tag . Here's Quba's preview:


  
Update: Rob Garrott shows Two ways to create a reflective floor in After Effects,

Create a glass reflection in After Effects

AEtuts has a new After Effects tutorial, Create A Realistic Glass Reflection by Ran Ben Avraham:

"Transparency is an important element to reflect in one’s relationships and if we can help you in that area it’d be our pleasure! In this tutorial you’ll find out how to create a realistic glass reflection on a 3D object, created within After Effects. We’ll then simulate a normal pass and have it reflect the environment with the “normality” free plug-in."

VC Reflect: free AE filter for 2D reflections

Video Copilot developed a new plug-in for After Effects (Mac/Win) that simplifies the creation of 2D reflections -- VC Reflect. And you get it [and revisions for PPC Macs] free! There's a tutorial and project for it that examines a few examples and some customization.

Update: see VC Plug-in Updates for AE CS5 x64

Motion 3D shadows and the reflection gap

Apple Motion 4 has several refinements including shadows and reflections, demoed on Apple's website. Lynda.com's free Final Cut Studio overview also looked at creating shadows, reflections, and specular highlights.

Recently on MacBreak Video, Mark Spencer looked a bit closer at shadows and reflections in Motion 4. Will Adobe respond to Apple, especially in the reflection gap, or will it be left to user kluges like extrusions? In the meantime, see Built-in reflections in AE for Chris and Trish Meyer's formula and tips for creating "faux" reflections in After Effects without 3rd party tools like RGS Warp or Zaxwerks Reflector.

Update: a Motion extra from Oliver Peters, "I'd recommend that you DO install the Motion content. The biggest content chunk will be the audio files for STP and those can be easily installed on an external drive or not at all. If you don't install the Motion content, some of the text behaviors will not show up in the pulldown menu."

Scene Re-Lighting: Normality tutorial [updated]

Last month, Stephan Minning posted a multi-part tutorial on the new version of his donationware AE filter Normality 3, and a few weeks ago Maltaannon issued his own filter and tutorial for 3D pass texture replacements as noted in Youveelizer filter for UV mapping in After Effects.

Now, using a normal map with Normality, Video Copilot covers a lot of ground showing you how to use After Effects lights for possible relighting and reflection/refraction effects in a new tutorial (with project) Scene Re-Lighting.

A simple demonstration of how you can create your own maps is Normal Map Photography by Ryan Clark.

Update: Video Copilot explicates resources mentioned here and beyond in the useful Guide to Normals. Also see How to Bake a Flawless Normal Map in 3ds Max at CGTuts.

Update 2: for something not completely different see How to use UV Passes in 2D by Kert Gartner.

How to use UV Passes in 2D from Kert Gartner on Vimeo.

New AE filters: Red Giant, Digieffects, Zax [updated]

There are some new filters for After Effects being shown at NAB 2009.

Zaxwerks Serpentine is a new AE filter that creates path extrusions for 3D effects like moving film strips, shooting stars, animated marquee signs, swirling tubes, winding helixes, twisting extruded text, arrow pointers and self-tying ribbons. Ko Maruyama elaborates in his report at DMN:
"To those who know 3D terminology, you might consider Serpentine a Sweep NURBS object for After Effects. For those of you who don't know that terminology, consider an extrusion, but one that is not limited to a single direction, but instead moves along a path -- which could be anything from a straight line, to a curvy twisting, scaling shape that tumbles through space."


Red Giant Software announced version 2 of both Trapcode Particular and ToonIt. ToonIt version 2 is just shipping. It attempts to go beyond basic cartoonification, with more controls and features like "natural media" effects, randomization, and built-in presets. Particular 2 will ship this summer or earlier. Already seen on screens everywhere this new version is said to have a big list of enhancements, including particle shading that responds to After Effects lights in 3D space.


Digieffects is also showing 2 offerings shipping soon, Natural Forces and FreeForm AE. Natural Forces includes filters for weather effects, pyrotechnics, and atmospheric effects. FreeForm AE lets you manipulate a flat object into almost any shape using a mesh warp in 3D space.

Update: Chris & Trish Meyer have additional info on new filters from the NAB floor. Here's an excerpted list of part of the new features in Particular 2:

• custom particles can face in any direction (in version 1.5, custom particles always face the camera)
• particles can react to lights with full shading and depth of field and reflection maps
• new for all particle types is the Shadowlet option, which allows particles to cast shadows on themselves
• new particle type called Streaklet designed to easily create the long exposure light-streak look (think iPod ad)
• light falloff on particles, meaning particles that are far from a light source are not as brightly lit as those close to a light (remember that AE lights don’t inherently have a falloff based on distance, so Peder had to borrow that feature from his Lux plug-in)
• randomization option for sizing particles as well as a separate random seed for custom particles to determine which frame is used
• auto-orientation for shapes
• supports ortho rendering in 2-up and 4-up views, not just Active Camera

Additional new features include (from Trapcode PDF):

• Support for 32 bpc floating-point rendering
• Transfer Modes for stacking multiple instances, etc
  
• Adobe color picker
• Moved all parameters out of Options into regular sliders
• Increased max particles/sec to 1 million
• Visualization, offsets, & improved accuracy of Turbulence field
• Threading + Optimizations
• Many more improvements and bug fixes.
  

Update 2: In an NAB survey Studio Daily notes, "Coremelt was showing their V2 update of its entire product line. With V2 the Coremelt plug-ins have moved from the Noise Industies FxFactory engine to their own engine. This new engine allows for some very intuitive controls that didn’t exist before." Toolfarm says users get "3 new FREE plugins; ImageFlow FX's MultiPop Forward, VeeYou V2's WV Oscilloscope and VeeYou V2's WV Voiceprint. You receive ALL 21 FREE plugins instantly when you install the 15 day trial of CoreMelt Complete V2!" Also, Steve Douglas has a review of CoreMelt's Complete V2 at Ken Stone's FCP website.

And speaking of Noise Industies, FxFactory offers over 300 visual effects plug-ins optimized for real-time performance on the Macintosh. The new update shown at NAB brings new products based on FxFactory: idustrial revolution Volumetrix 2, Motype 1.2, DVShade EasyLooks 2.5 and Boinx FxTiles 1.0 -- and includes performance enhancements to the blur and glow categories and 3 new plug-ins, PDF Animator, Perlin Noise generator and Alpha Merger.

Red Giant Warp "3D Tools" project

The inscrutable Mylenium has posted several possibly useful After Effects project files lately, and the latest is Red Giant Warp 3D Tools. He says:

"Since this feature is not implemented yet in Red Giant Warp, some expressions to tie in the Reflection and Shadow effects with After Effects 3D layers might come in handy. Fancy photo frame included."

Update: Mylenium may ponder about donations for "free" stuff but downloading something doesn't mean it's used. A little explanation might help, and maybe even opening posts to commenting for feedback. Or expand the explanations into tutorials -- they'd be good -- and blog on PVC or follow the lead of other 2nd generation AE tutorial authors.

Videocopilot video intros recent free presets

An Andrew Kramer video intros a bundled collection of some of the recent presets for After Effects from Videocopilot, including Sure Target, 3D Falloff, Easy Reflect, etc.

Built-in reflections in AE

Chris and Trish Meyer have a formula and tips for creating "faux" reflections in After Effects on Artbeats.com; see Faux Reflections on PVC which may help to create reflections without 3rd party tools like RGS Warp or Zaxwerks Reflector.

AETUTS, new tutorial site

Lloyd Alvarez of AE Scripts is doing tutorials on After Effects at a new website called AETUTS. They say:

"If you think you have the skills to create a screencast or text and image tutorial for AETUTS, it's easy to familiarize yourself with the guidelines and pitch your idea. We're hungry for user contributions and pay $150 USD for an accepted tutorial."

In the first tutorial, AETUTS editor Lloyd Alvarez shows you how to create a cinematic opening title effect.



In this tutorial AETUTS Editor Lloyd Alvarez shows you how to create a unique twist on the traditional fireworks display. The tutorial shows you how to create fireworks with Trapcode Particular, and how to reflect this effect over water.



In another tutorial, by Haley Saner, "you'll be creating elegant glowing lines using shape layers within after effects. We'll create a few basic arc layers and then stylize them by using the find edges effect, glows, and blending modes. I enjoy this technique and you can easily adapt this concept to many different shapes to create some stunning looks."

Red Giant Warp: shadow, reflection, corner pin

Red Giant Warp is shipping. Warp is 3 plug-ins that give you control over shadows, reflections and corner point warps:

"The Shadow tool renders realistic shadows for text or subjects shot on greenscreen, while the Reflection tool creates perfect mirror-like reflections. The advanced Corner Pin tool includes features for working with warped images, importing tracking data from Mocha for After Effects, and adding secondary transforms and motion blur, to heighten realism in any scene."
The Corner Pin filter should take care of all the problems that Stu Maschwitz and others have with the one built into AE; for more, see Mocha for After Effects +Corner Pin thread.

Update: Eran Stern has a tutorial on using the RG filter with Mocha.