I’ve noticed that I messed up the setup of my autoresponders for maltaannon.com related emails, so everything you sent to me during last two weeks got lost on the way. I’m really sorry. On top of that I found out that some WP plugs got updated just before I left and due to that you were totally unable to watch tutorials. And if that’s not bad enough the stats stopped working. But I fixed it all in the end and everything should be back to normal.

If you sent me something very important and did not hear back from me it’s because the messed up autoresponders. Sorry. I always do my best to respond to your emails ASAP, but in this case I just can’t since the emails got lost. But you can still send it to me again, so give it a try.

Other than that I’m getting back on track with the tutorials, live sessions, and some training DVDs, so stay tuned. More exciting content coming soon.

In the show I’ll be talking about many aspects of working in the motion graphics, visual effects and postproduction industry, running your own company, dealing with clients and most of all I’ll be answering your questions. Other than that I plan to do some LIVE! tutorials as well. If that turns out as good as the first episode of “Happy AfterEffecting” then maybe I’ll host another show only for LIVE! tutorials, tips and tricks.

The first broadcast went for over 2 hours and it was super fun. I did record some of it so you have a chance to see what it was like in case you missed it. The recording is only 20 mins long, but I plan to record full meetings in the future. Anyway I think it’s best to be there and participate LIVE! as the show is “on air”.

Next broadcast is 09/16/2009 3:00pm PST and the subject will be: Creativity, education and success. Make sure to register on UStream.tv so you can chat with me live once you’re there. See you online!

Download: UI Controls Demo (After Effects CS4)

Basic controls
Here’s a list of basic user interface controls that look pretty much the same as expression controls.

• Angle Control
  You don’t need to set up minValue and maxValue attributes, because they are ignored in this case. Besides it wouldn’t make much sense, would it?

  parameter float myAngle
<
defaultValue: 0.0;
aeDisplayName: "My Angle";
aeUIControl:"aeAngle";
>;

• Checkbox Control
  Checkbox only returns true or false values (on and off), so it also does not need minValue and maxValue attributes.

  parameter bool myCheckbox
<
defaultValue: false;
aeUIControl: "aeCheckbox";
aeDisplayName: "My Checkbox";
>;

• Color Control
  This is valid as a float3 and float4 variable type, however After Effects uses float4data type (RGBA). Even though the color picker dialog does not allow you to define the alpha value of the color you’re defining it makes much sense to use the float4 instead of float3. Defining minValue and maxValue also makes no sense in here.

  parameter float4 myColor
<
defaultValue: float4(1.0, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0);
aeUIControl: "aeColor";
aeDisplayName: "My Color";
>;

• Point Control
  This is one out of two very specific controls. As you see in the code below it does not have minValue and maxValue attributes just like the examples above, but it’s also missing the defaultValue attribute. Instead theres aePointRelativeDefaultValue attribute. The key word here is “relative” because the the values are not pixel coordinates. They represent a point that is relative to the image size. For instance, value of float2(0.5, 0.5) would set the default position at the middle of the layer. However – this relative position is converted to pixel coordinates in After Effects and then those values are being used by your Pixel Bender code.

  parameter float2 myPoint
<
aePointRelativeDefaultValue: float2(0.0, 0.0);
aeUIControl: "aePoint";
aeDisplayName: "My Point";
>;

• Slider Control
  This is the most basic control you can have. No need to explain how it works. Just look at the code below. Explains itself.

  parameter float mySlider
<
minValue: 0.0;
maxValue: 100.0;
defaultValue: 0.0;
aeDisplayName: "My Slider";
>;

Additional controls
There are also some things that you can’t do with expression controls.

• Percent Slider Control
  It works exactly the same as the regular slider, but the display format of the value is in percentage.

  parameter float myPercent
<
minValue: 0.0;
maxValue: 300.0;
defaultValue: 0.0;
aeUIControl:"aePercentSlider";
aeDisplayName: "My Percent";
>;

• Popup Control
  This you won’t find in the Expression Controls group. It creates a dropdown menu with the predefined values. String values are held in the aePopupString attribute, but if you want to create an if statement in your Pixel Bender code than treat it as a regular array and check against index values. In this example Red is 0, Green is 1, and Blue is 2. Remember to define minValue and maxValue.

  parameter int myPopup
<
defaultValue: 0;
minValue:0;
maxValue:2;
aeUIControl: "aePopup";
aePopupString: "Red|Green|Blue";
aeDisplayName: "My Popup";
>;

• One Channel Color Color
  I guess this one could be handy in some cases, but so far I had no use for it. This works and looks just like a slider with one difference: if you do not provide minValue and maxValue attributes then they will be based on the bit depth of your project. I guess it could be used as a threshold parameter, but if you ask me it makes no sense. For 8bpc the minValue would be 0, and maxValue would be 255. Ok. But in 32bpc I’d expect to be able to go beyond 1.0 on the slider (unlimited maxValue), however in order to do that I’d have to define the minValue and maxValue on my own, and this defeats the purpose.

  parameter float mySingleColor
<
defaultValue: 0.0;
aeUIControl:"aeOneChannelColor";
aeDisplayName: "My Simgle Color";
>;

What about Layer Control?
Basically there isn’t one. In order to be able to pick another layer you need to create an additional source in the kernel. After Effects will allow you to use as many additional sources as you like, however Pixel Bender Toolkit only allows two sources, so you will only be able to test your code in After Effects. The big downside is that you can’t add any metadata for this additional source, so it will always show up in the user interface as “Input 2″, “Input 3″ and so on.

input image4 src1;
input image4 src2; // layer control - sort of...
output pixel4 dst;

How does it translate to graphs?
It’s all very similar, although it takes some time to figure out. Instead of listing all the parameters again in this post I’ve decided to give you two Pixel Bender files to look at. One is a simple kernel, and the other is a simple graph. Both of the files to exactly the same thing… nothing.

Download: UI Controls Demo (After Effects CS4)

There are already some nice responses in the comments and on my Facebook Fan Page. Some of you suggested that I should host my own show. What would you like me to talk about? Any suggestions? Or maybe you’d like me to just answer questions that you ask me?

Honestly I was thinking about something like that for a while, just never thought you’d be actually interested. If you are, than this is the place and time to let me know about it. I’m waiting for your comments.

Update
The plugin is now available for purchace. Check out the Youveelizer tutorial for more info. Read on if you’d like to learn more about the concept of UV mapping, or just watch the Youveelizer tutorial.

UV Mapping (source: wiki)
UV mapping is a 3D modeling process of making a 2D image representing a 3D model. The map transforms the 3D object onto an image known as a texture. In contrast to “X”, “Y” and “Z”, which are the coordinates for the original 3D object in the modeling space, “U” and “V” are the coordinates of the transformed object. This creates the effect of painting the image onto the surface of the 3D object.

Every 3D application is capable of generating UV maps and rendering out a UV pass. What if we could use those UV maps in After Effects to change textures, replace 3D screens, change pictures hanging on our 3D walls, or even add reflections to our 3D models?

I did some tests and came up with a very rough Pixel Bender plugin for painting an image onto a surface of a 3D object using UV maps. Here is the result of the first test.
This technique opens up new opportunities to cutting down render times and making changes on the fly inside After Effects. There are some problems that need to be faced, but all and all it looks promising. I’ll keep you posted. The tutorial and plugin should be available after publishing all of the 4 tutorials I have already announced. Two of them are already online, so it shouldn’t be longer than two weeks. I’d do it now, but I’m a bit busy (for a change).

Update
The plugin is now available for purchace. Check out the Youveelizer tutorial for more info.

Definition (source: wiki)
A voxel (a blend of the words volumetric and pixel) is a volume element, representing a value on a regular grid in three dimensional space. This is analogous to a pixel, which represents 2D image data. Voxels are frequently used in the visualization and analysis of medical and scientific data. Some volumetric displays use voxels to describe their resolution. For example, a display might be able to show 512×512×512 voxels.

It looks pretty simple at first, but then you realize that what you want to do is to animate your characters (or whatever) in a “normal” way, and then have it rendered out as voxels… and that’s where it gets complicated. I’ve tested out several solutions: script and renderers, but found nothing that satisfied me, so I started to develop my own script. Here are some of the first results that I got.
The script converts any given mesh to a voxel based object. The shape of the voxel can also be defined as a mesh. For performance reasons there is an option to minimize processing time by building the voxel model while ignoring backfacing vertices.

After I’m finished with the script there will probably be a tutorial on FineCG.com.

Now the site is ready to handle all the great things I have prepared for you. Presets, downloads, products, training dvds, and lots and lots of new tutorials and experiments. There are still some things to be done, but the new engine and the new look is ready, so I thought to launch the site anyway.

I’d like to thank all of you who stayed loyal to this site, kept pushing me and helping me out. Thanks to you this site is still running and is now on a right track to become even a better motion graphics resource – hopefully the one you’ll like most.

So… Thank you all. Stay tuned. A lot of great stuff is coming very very soon.
Happy AfterEffecting!

For the Fans

I just opened a FaceBook Page so you can easily become maltaannon.com fan to support me. You’ll get most recent updates and occasionally some special Facebook-only offers and promotions. Become a fan now!

Personal

You can look me up on Skype: maltaannon
I do have a Twitter account: http://twitter.com/maltaannon
YouTube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/maltaannon
MSN: maltaannon@maltaannon.com
AIM: maltaannon

You can send me instant messages on any of these. I mainly use Skype for instant messages. I’m hardly ever logged on to MSN or AIM. You have best chances catching me online on Skype. However for Skype voice calls please go to Support page to learn more. In a nuttshell text messages (IMs – instant messages) are free. Voice calls with support on your project are a paid service.

For MSN, AIM, and other popular IM applications I use Meebo – I don’t wan’t 10 IM applications installed on my system.

If you want to contact me via email please use the Contact page. The email provided in the MSN account is a catch-spam-box and I never check it for messages.

Business

My LinkedIn profile (EN).
My GoldenLine profile (PL).

Hope to see you all soon.

Happy AfterEffecting!

I tried it out on my own. I created a Solid and applied some Layer Styles to it. Dragging the Layer Styles from the timeline to the Effects & Presets palette didn’t work. So I tried dragging it along with some dummy Slider I’ve put on the Effects Palette. I added the Slider to a layer and then in the Timeline selected the Slider and the Layer Styles. That allowed me to drag the content to the Effects & Presets palette. And guess what… it worked.

But I thought that adding an additional Slider just to save the preset is kind of stupid, so I tried old-school solution: Animation menu > Save Animation Preset… and guess what… It also worked without adding or selecting any additional Sliders.

So there you go. If you want to save your Layer Styles as presets simply select the Layer Styles in your Timeline and go to: Animation > Save Animation Preset.

Hope that helps. Happy AfterEffecting.

We’ve all been through this. Creating channel separation effect by hand is a pain. You have to duplicate the layers and use channel mixer and blend modes to get what you want. Not anymore. Now with new After Effects CS4 we can script a simple Pixel Bender to do just that.

Finally I got my hands on this amazing new tool from Adobe called Pixel Bender Toolkit. It allows you to script very powerful effects in a very simple way. What’s best is that scripts you create may be used as plugins and shaders in Photoshop, Flash, and After Effects.

Unfortunatelly I haven’t found a nice way to create user friendly interfaces for After Effects users. All Pixel Bender allows you to create as a parameter is a slider. But hey – I’m just starting. And besides – it’s still the first official release. I think there are many great things to come from Pixel Bender technology in the near future.

After writing your code and adding parameters you can simply put the PBK file into your plugins folder in After Effects CS4 and open the application. Your newly created shader will be available under the PixelBender group in the Effects & Presets pallette.

I’m currently working on a CustomEffect as a wrapper for the Pixel Bender code for your convinience. Here is the preview of the interface that I’m working on. I hope you’ll find this useful.

In the meanwhile grab the Pixel Bender plugin that will help you with simple RGB channel separation.

Download: Maltaannon's RGB Splitter PBK (After Effects CS4)

Happy AfterEffecting.