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.

Cinema 4D Finally Brings 3D to Motion

Cinema 4D’s friendly interface and robust motion graphics toolset have made it the tool of choice for creating 3D motion graphic elements for title sequences, bumpers, interstitials, and the like. And it’s ability to export multipass renders as well as 3D data to After Effects have made it easy for After Effects users to integrate 3D into their projects. Well, with release 11.5, Final Cut Studio users can finally do the same, because Cinema can now export 3D data directly to a Motion project. By taking advantage of Motion’s real time render engine and Final Cut Pro integration, you can now create professional 3D projects or even Master Templates for your projects.

There are a few tricks to getting Cinema 4D to play nicely with Motion. In the video, I step through the workflow for preparing a Cinema 4D project for Motion, and then preparing the Motion project, swapping in video elements, adding text, and finally creating a Motion template that you can use in Final Cut Pro.

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.

Introducing the Centrica Carnivale

3D or AE?  How about 3D using AE! At the beginning of 2006 I created a conference opener for Centrica that looked like it had been made with a 3D animation package, however practically everything was created using only After Effects.  This is part one of a three-part series that looks back at the Centrica Carnivale animation and demonstrates the techniques that were used to create the distinctive 3D look.  While not intended to be a detailed step-by-step tutorial, the series looks at all aspects of the project- from the initial client brief through to final delivery and gives insight into the “real life” stages of an After Effects project.

Believable Hand-Held Motion Tracking with Mocha & After Effects CS4

One of the best additions to After Effects CS4 is the inclusion of a stand-alone application called Mocha for AE from Imagineer Systems. This is a powerful planar motion tracker and stabilizer that does an amazing job of tracking all kinds of elements in motion or to stabilize a character or a scene with shaky footage. Many of the example movies you may have seen demonstrating Mocha with After Effects CS4 (including some of my own) have been inserting something into the screen of a portable device or a TV. But what if the object you are tracking goes off the screen? What if you want to track something in motion but want to retain the realism of the hand-held camera shake? Even though Mocha does a remarkable job of stabilizing footage I thought I’d put Mocha to the test with some hand-held footage from a compact DV cam and track the footage, shaking and all!

Cleaning up Storyboards

Creating Cast Shadows

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