Motion Tracking and Green Screen with After Effects & Mocha AE

Amazingly, a lot of people don’t even know that they already OWN Mocha AE… it ships along with After Effects CS4 and higher and is a stand-alone application for providing planar motion tracking. You’ve probably already seen the trick of using Mocha AE to track and insert an image or a video clip inside an iPhone, but how about dealing with fingers on the screen and reflections on the surface? Sure, you could root out the fingers with the RotoBrush tool in After Effects and get pretty decent results, but that’s a fairly time-consuming workflow if you can avoid it.

This tutorial will show you how to take a video clip of an iPhone or iPad or any other handheld touch device set to a solid green screen, and insert your video clips or animations into to it perfectly, while realistically retaining the bright reflections on the shiny glass surfaces.

*NOTE: You can follow along with this tutorial by downloading the free project folder with included source files (After Effects CS5.5) at this link from my web site HERE.

After Effects Leftovers - Part 5

This 5-part series looks at a selection of features that were in After Effects before CS5 but have been often overlooked.  A total of 40 tips, tricks, workflow suggestions and general reminders are given covering topics including layout, masking, rendering and even using the interface. Part 5 wraps up the series by looking at presets and rendering.

Adobe’s Todd Kopriva has kindly pointed out another bonus feature -  a bunch of additional animation presets on the Adobe Exchange that is a great way to conclude the series.  Thanks Todd!

After Effects Leftovers - Part 4

This 5-part series looks at a selection of features that were in After Effects before CS5 but have been often overlooked.  A total of 40 tips, tricks, workflow suggestions and general reminders are given covering topics including layout, masking, rendering and even using the interface. Part 4 is a mixed bag of tricks including cropping compositions, advanced gradients and some text tips.

After Effects Leftovers - Part 3

This 5-part series looks at a selection of features that were in After Effects before CS5 but have been often overlooked.  A total of 40 tips, tricks, workflow suggestions and general reminders are given covering topics including layout, masking, rendering and even using the interface. Part 3 looks at using the After Effects interface.

Adobe’s Todd Kopriva has pointed out that my description of the grave key is slightly inaccurate.  In the video I say that the grave key maximises the currently selected panel, when in fact it maximises the panel underneath the mouse pointer.  This is something I never noticed until he pointed it out!  Thanks Todd…

I’ll add here an anecdote that I edited out of the video to keep it shorter.  A few months ago I was working with someone who kept bumping the grave key by accident - I don’t think she was used to a Mac keyboard where the grave key is next to the z.  Bumping the grave key would make one of the panels fullscreen, but not knowing what she’d down and how to fix it, she’d just quit After Effects and restart.  When I realised she was re-starting After Effects for the 4th time in an hour I asked what was wrong and she explained that there seemed to be a ‘bug’, and I’m like ‘um that’s not a bug, it’s a feature’... hence the reason I included the grave key in this series!

After Effects Leftovers - Part 2

This 5-part series looks at a selection of features that were in After Effects before CS5 but have been often overlooked.  A total of 40 tips, tricks, workflow suggestions and general reminders are given covering topics including layout, masking, rendering and even using the interface. Part 2 looks at masking and painting.

After Effects Leftovers - Part 1

After Effects has been around for over 17 years and with the recent release of CS5 it’s now up to version 10.  Every new release brings new features and some have received more attention than others.  This 5-part series looks at a selection of features that were in After Effects before CS5 but have been often overlooked.  A total of 40 tips, tricks, workflow suggestions and general reminders are given covering topics including layout, masking, painting, rendering and even using the interface.

The Centrica Carnivale part 3

In part 2 we looked at the creation and animation of the “racing waiters” scene… one award done but five more to go!  In the final of the three-part series we look at all the other scenes in the animation and then conclude with a few notes on delivery.

The Centrica Carnivale part 2

In Part 1 we looked at the initial client brief, the pitch animation, and ended up creating some flashing lights in After Effects.  In Part 2 we dive right into advanced 3D - beginning with an examination of the “magic star”, then a comprehensive demonstration of the Knoll Light Factory, before concluding with a complete analysis of the “racing waiters” scene.

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