Leap Into Hancock-Style Super Jump Effect

AE Tuts has a nicely done Leap Into Hancock-Style Super Jump Effect by Wren Weichman. You'll need an AETuts+ membership to add finishing touches to the project.

Expression arrays in After Effects

Chris and Trish Meyer posted the 3nd of a 12-part series, Deeper Modes of Expression, based on an extra in their book, Creating Motion Graphics with After Effects. The third installment is Deeper Modes of Expression, Part 3: Deeper Into Arrays, on how to translate values between parameters that have different dimensions.

AE performance tip: Don't overschedule your processors

Todd Kopriva is offering another After Effects performance tip: Don't overschedule your processors,

'This advice is similar in spirit to the advice given in a previous post, "Performance tip: Don't starve your software of RAM."

In many cases, performance is improved by using fewer than the maximum number of processors for Render Multiple Frames Simultaneously multiprocessing, even when you have enough RAM for all of the processors.

After Effects is a multithreaded application that can also use other forms of multiprocessing beyond just Render Multiple Frames Simultaneously multiprocessing, and it is possible for the processors to become "overscheduled" if these threads are competing for the same resources as the background processes used for rendering with Render Multiple Frames Simultaneously multiprocessing.'

...read the rest at After Effects region of interest.

Card Dance transition, Camera Rig script, & Particular 3D Ribbon

Via Lester Banks, Chris Hodgson of syrup syrup has an After Effects tutorial on Motion Design Love that demonstrates how to create a transition using the built-in filter Card Dance. AE Help has more on Card Dance, which only works in 8-bit/pixel mode but is able to use the AE camera and lights in the same composition.


MDL - Create a cool logo transition using card particle from Motion Design Love on Vimeo.

And, via Motion Design Love's This week in Motion Design series, Hypoly posted his Simple Camera Rig Script that will set up a simple camera rig with rotation and position controls located in one Control Null. He says it's easier to use than the Simple Camera Rig by Maltaannon, and explains how to make his work with Videocopilot's Sure Target 2.

Hypoly also shows you how to create a 3D Ribbon / Wire in AE with Trapcode Particular and a few expressions.




3D Ribbon / Wire in After Effects from Hypoly on Vimeo.

28 Mocha Tutorials

Over on AE Tuts, Topher Welsh threw together a handy collection Mocha tracker tutorials in 28 Magnificent Mocha Tutorials.

The article contains many After Effect tutorials mentioned here previously under the tags , but includes the most recent one on difficult panning tracks from the Imagineer Systems blog page, mocha tutorial: Unlink & RG Warp:

mocha tutorial: Unlink & RG Warp from Martin Brennand on Vimeo.

Shapeshifter AE: new 3D text extrusion plug-in

Shapeshifter AE is a new 3D text extrusion plug-in for After Effects, soon in beta testing. It's part of a new series of plug-ins from Chris Bobotis of mettle.com, developers of the 3D mesh warp filter Freeform AE.

There's more on options for 3D text in After Effects in 3D Text in After Effects (updated), Must.have.3D.text, and, and other posts tagged . Here's a render of Shapeshifter AE:

Create a surreal 3D nebula in AE

Alex Verlan shows you his method in his After Effects tutorial text using Trapcode Particular 2, How To Create A Surreal Outer Space Nebula. Here's a render:

nebula from versa on Vimeo.