Even at this small thumbnail image you can see how poor the quality of the footage is. How do you key out something as nasty as this? Watch the tutorial to find out.

You also might like to know that this tutorial is made without any editing. One of my viewers - Bogdan from Chicago - requested this tutorial on his Hotline Session (that’s where the name of the tutorial came from). Fortunately I was also working on a simmilar case myself and I’ve planned to show it to you anyway, so here it is.

This tutorial uses Key Correct Pro - a set of plugins from Red Giant Software. They can be replaced with standard After Effects keying plugins, but Key Correct Pro really makes the job easier. I recommend you at least take a look at them. If you like to follow this tutorial without them, than I suggest downloading my PixelSampler to get a better screen color.

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If you’ve worked with High Pass filter before than you already know how amazing this tool is for sharpening, color grading, masking and many many others. I’ve seen many threads on many forums where people where asking how to move this wonderful Photoshop filter into After Effects, because it doesn’t come with one. Since I was also in need to use it several times in my video productions I decided to look into how it works and build one myself.

So here we are. After watching this tutorial you will learn two easy ways of building your own High Pass filter in After Effects. Above that you will learn a few tricks on how to use it.

This tutorials uses growing elements from Evolution design elements collection. Go to videocopilot.net to get your own copy.

Photos used in this tutorial come from sxc.hu. By the time they were downloaded, they were licensed as royalty free, and were free to use in any way you like (standard restrictions). Just to make sure, go to sxc.hu right now, or just click here to read the Standard restriction agreement.

Download project file: HighPass.zip (After Effects CS3)

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For those of you who didn’t face the ramp-on-text problem before here’s a brief description. After creating a new Text Layer we get all those handles and layer controls that suggest that the size of the layer is the same as the text itself. The truth is that it isn’t. It seems like After Effects is treating the text as a mask on a solid layer. Therefore when you apply the Ramp effect all the effects controls are relative to your comp size rather than the size of the text. The start and end of the ramp points appear on the top and bottom of the comp instead of on the top and bottom of the text.

Unless you’re planning to do more than one ramped text layer this may not be that much of a trouble. Simply reposition the points to suit your needs. On the other hand if you have a few ramped text layers you need to reposition the ramp points separately for each layer. This can be very annoying, not to mention how messy it gets when you start to animate the Text Layers position.

This quick tip shows you how to build a small preset that will not only fix that problem, but will also allow you to create complex ramps that consist of more than only two colors.

If you may think that using Layer Styles is the right solution than you’re probably right. It works, but it works only in CS3, not to mention the rendering time that is much longer than using the Ramp effect.

This is not a bulletproof solution, but it will get the job done for most of the cases. At least it worked for me more than a couple of times, and that’s why I found this worth sharing.

The font used in this tutorial is called Viper Nora. If you want you can download it from DaFont.com. Click here.

Download project file: TextRamp.zip (After Effects CS3 Professional)

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I’m not really a fan of installing plugins. I believe that After Effects provides all tools required to complete any given task, but if there is something that you could do better and easier, it’s with the Trapcode plugins. And no… I’m not getting payed to tell you that.

This title sequence was created loooong time ago and I was thinking about recording this tutorial ever since, so I’m glad I finally found some time to do it. The original project file that was created when I was working on that title sequence is far to complex to be fully covered in this tutorial, so I focused on the main idea behind this technique. Luckily for you I’ve attached the original project file, so after watching the tutorial you can go in-depth on what I did.

The main difference is in the amount of layers used, but like I said - the idea behind all expressions and everything else is the same. It takes a lot of time to set the effects just right, and I simply didn’t want to waste your time on moving the sliders around.

The font used in this tutorial is called Viper Nora. If you want you can download it from DaFont.com. Click here.

Download project file: FlashlightText.zip (After Effects CS3 Professional)

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First of all I’d like to apologize for the length of this tutorial - it’s about 50 minutes. It’s been over 3 months since my last post so I’m a bit out of shape. Hopefully next one will be shorter, but for now, before you start watching this make sure you’ve got supplies of some snacks and soda, or coffee if you prefer, so that you have everything you need to sit back and enjoy the tutorial.

I know what you’re thinking. This is the same as Andrew Kramer’s tutorial “Growing 3D Vines”. This is exactly my point. If you’ve watched my previous tutorials you know I don’t copy someone else’s work unless I have something to add to the techniques presented, which is exactly the case here.

It was said that this effect is impossible to achieve without using a 3D application like 3D Studio Max, or Cinema 4D, and I have to agree. It is impossible… but doable. What you’re about to see is made using only After Effects, nothing more.

The final result is not perfect, but since the tutorial already takes about 50 minutes I decided not to focus on the visual side so much, just the basic idea behind this technique.

Generally in this particular case I’d also decide to create this effect in 3D application. Simple shapes like that usually render pretty fast and making changes to the rendered files is not that much of a pain, but just to show you that it is in fact possible to do in After Effects alone I decided to record this tutorial anyway. Hopefully you’ll go creative on the techniques presented and create some stunning animations and effects. As always… possibilities are endless.

Inspiration for this project: Growing 3D Vines by Andrew Kramer.
The wall texture comes from Riot Gear by VideoCopilot.

Project file does not contain the original Riot Gear texture to avoid any copyright issues and giving away something for free that is not mine to give. However there is a replacement texture included that should do the trick.

Download project file: Growind3DVines.zip (After Effects CS3 Professional)

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After publishing my ShapeExtruder I got tons and tons of emails, more comments than usual, even a few job offers and some calls via my Hotline service. Most of the emails and comments were about extruding a logo and other uses of the ShapeExtruder.

Even though I enjoy responding to your emails I got pretty tired of answering same questions over and over, so I decided to record this follow-up tutorial that will hopefully answer most commonly asked questions about ShapeExtruder.

I’d like to thank one of my viewers - AztecMonkey - for pointing me to a brilliant script for converting masks into shape layers. You saved me a lot of work, since I was going to develop it on my own. For those of you who don’t understand yet why this script is so great heres an explanation…

ShapeExtruder uses Shape Layers in After Effects CS3 to create the illusion of objects being extruded. The only problem was moving paths from Adobe Illustrator to After Effects as Shape Layers because when you copy them from Illustrator and paste them in After Effects… they are pasted as masks. The script I’ve mentioned above converts masks to Shape Layers allowing you to create 3D logos easily.

Click here to download rd_MasksToShapes script by Jeff Almasol. Make sure to check out the rest of his scripts. Very cool stuff. Used wisely may save you hours of work.

Update!
I’ve just uploaded a short mini follow-up tutorial to explain how to extrude PNG logos. This was requested in the comments by Posix. Look it up. You’ll know what I’m referring to. Click here to view this tutorial on YouTube, or click here to view my YouTube profile.
Rate, comment, enjoy.

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While shooting footage for this tutorial Georges butt almost fell of because of the very low temperature. But hey… we’ll do anything for all of you boys and girls watching ours tutorials. Thankfully after drinking 10 cups of hot tea everything was back to normal.

In this experiment George and I will show you how you can create a snow falling from the sky. And if that wasn’t enough we are going to show you how to make the snow stick to the rooftops, cars standing on the streets, logos, or even actors in your footage.

And we even have a small challenge for you. After watching this tutorial try to create a custom shaped snowflake particle, or even few snowflake shapes.

Make sure to see the related tutorial: Particle Playground on Fire

Download: ParticlePlaygroundOnIce.zip (After Effects CS3 Professional)

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Have you ever had to color correct a shot? I bet you did. Even small corrections are often required to make the shoot look better. And what about cinematic looks? I’m sure everyone has tried to recreate the “filmlook” on your own footage at least once. But wait… theres more… You can even color correct poorly balanced footage to restore original colors. Yep. CE ColorCorrector allows you do to all that in 5 easy steps or less.

CE ColorCorrector is a wrapper around Adobe Color Balance plugin. I’m not really sure if I got the math behind it right, but hey… it works for me. You can also use it along with Hue/Saturation, Curves and Levels for even more control over the look and feel of your footage. Happy color correcting.

This CustomEffect was build using After Effects CS3, but it should also work with CS2 or even 6.5 but I’m not sure about that.

Download: CE_ColorCorrector (After Effects CS3)

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People! I’m on fire! George is on fire! And this tutorial is on fire! This tutorial is rather an experiment. I’ll show you how to generate particles from live action footage without using any keyframes or expressions.

The final fire look is just one of the possibilities. The idea of this is to show you how to generate particles that inherit motion and velocity from live footage. In the end you may use this tutorial to create a smoke trail of a falling plane, shining sparkles following someones moves, and basically anything you want. And most interesting of all… this is achieved using After Effects build in tools. No plugins required. Enjoy!

Particle Playground is very powerfull but it’s also very hard to master. It’s just not as user-friendly as 3rd-party plugins, like Trapcode’s Particular. If you’d like to know more about Particle Playground make sure to visit CreativeCow.net and Roland R. Kahlenberg’s tutorial.

Make sure to see the follow up tutorial: Particle Playground on Ice

Download: ParticlePlaygroundOnFire.zip (After Effects CS3 Professional)

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I did it! I did it again! I solve the biggest mystery in history of After Effects. With my new CustomEffect called ShapeExtruder you can take any vector based layer (known as Shape Layers) and extrude it to give it a cool 3D look.

Great thing about this CustomEffect is that the extruded layer still behaves and reacts like any other 3D layer so you keep total control over it’s appearance, animation and other things. It casts shadows, you can parent it to a null, and do all that good stuff.

Above all other features… it consists only of one layer. I’m pretty proud of this one. Not only it can be textured, but it can also reflect the world around it. And because it still is a Shape Layer you can apply any Shape Layer modifiers (like Offset Paths, or Round Corners) to create a custom look.

This tutorial turned out to be pretty long, because there are so many things to cover in it, and there are still some things that I didn’t mention in the tutorial itself, so make sure to download the project file and take a closer look on how things are build and put together.

I hope this will turn out useful for all of you. I can’t argue that the best results comes from external 3D applications, but I think that most of the time you’ll be able to get away with my CustomEffect. It has all the benefits of the old techniques of extruding in After Effects, none of theirs flaws, and there are some extra features so make sure to check it out.

Download: ShapeExtruder_ProjectFile (After Effects CS3)
Download: CE_ShapeExtruder (After Effects CS3)

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When I first started working with After Effects, I came across a difficult problem in which I didn’t want to solve it by animating keyframes by hand. As usual, I applied expressions to the problem, but at the time, expressions didn’t really solve it the way I wanted either. Now, with the release of After Effects CS3, my vision has come to life. I have created the CustomEffects that utilize the new sampleImage expression. These CustomEffects have made my job easier and I hope that they’ll help you as well.

This tutorial will show you how you can simplify the keying process, trigger expression events to control layers of your choice, and even do an automatic collision detection. Possibilities are endless.

Warning!
sampleImage expression seems to be unstable in some cases, and since PixelSampler is based on that expression I strongly recommend saving your work before doing a RAM Preview.

Below you can download probably the most powerful preset package ever released. This package includes:

• PixelSampler (grab a color from a pixel or a range of pixels)
• ColorSampler (compare two colors and see if they match)
• ColorHSL (calculates hue, saturation, and lightness for use with expressions)
• MatchingValues (compare any two values and see if they match)

This tutorial focuses on PixelSampler, but other CustomEffects are also mentioned. They are build so that people who don’t like expressions could still take advantage of them. Take ColorHSL for example. This converts RGB values to HSL. This can be easily done by using expressions, but using this CustomEffects simplifies the process by allowing to use the pickwip tool and point to one of the HSL values.

If you don’t know how to handle my CustomEffects make sure to wait till the end of the tutorial and to read this short article.

Download: PixelSamplingPowerPack_win.zip (After Effects CS3)
Download: PixelSamplingPowerPack_mac.zip (After Effects CS3)

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This video tutorial focus is to create time jittering effect using one of my presets. You may have seen this effect in movies like The Ring, The Cell, or Fight Club. You may still create this kind of effect simply by playing with the TimeRemap function, but it’s much easier to use my preset.

Since this tutorial is a response for a question posted on CreativeCow forums I haven’t had time to record some footage to demonstrate how cool this may look when used properly, so I’m counting on your imagination. For example: try using the Echo effect after applying TimeShuffle.

The interesting thing is that this preset it behaves like a standard plugin. Well… almost like a plugin. The main difference between a standard preset and this CustomEffect (because thats what I call it) is that all controls like sliders and checkboxes are bounded into one item under the effects pallet of a layer. You have to see the tutorial to know what I’m referring to.

To install this CustomEffect you need to download my installer and the CustomEffect package. To learn more on installing CustomEffects on Mac and Windows please click here. Of course, you may still choose to use the standard preset instead of my CustomEffect, but I really encourage you to download my installer and bound polyCE files to it, because from this day forward I’m planning to upload my present in this format (at least the expression based ones).

I hope to see some comments on this, because if you’ll like it I’ll create a CustomEffect Deployment Tool, that will allow you to create and share your own CustomEffects.

See the original thread (by Speedyman) on CreativeCow forums.

Download: TimeShuffle.zip (Adobe After Effects 7.0 Pro)

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In this tutorial you will learn basic techniques for removing unwanted objects from your footage. The idea for this tutorial came to me when I was working on a movie called “Wywiad” (The Interview) by Bartek Siemierzewicz and Konrad Wasilewski. In fact, the footage that I’m using comes from this movie, so this time no project file. Sorry.

This tutorial involves working in After Effects and Photoshop, and I’ve found a free plug-in, that makes that much more easier. You don’t have to use it, but I really recommend it. I’ve used it in this tutorial, so you can see it in action before trying it out.

Download ObviouFX CopyImage plug-in from the ObviousFX website.
I also recommend trying out ObviousFX Erodilation plug-in.

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This tutorial is no different from the others. It’s not creating a certain effect. Oh no. It’s about solving common and uncommon problems, and about finding solutions to situations that might occur in the future. All to help you work more efficiently by saving huge amounts of time. It’s not about the final visual result, but the way to get there.

So… what is this tutorial really about? We’re going to create a radar that really works! Draw the radar, animate the target over it, and watch how the radar detects the object by itself, marks it on the grid and even makes a beeping sound.

This whole project consists of only four keyframes, and few expressions, that will detect the collision between the target and the scanning line. When the collision occurs, the target will become visible, and a beep sound will be generated.

You must see this one! I hope you’ll like it. Enjoy!

Update
There is an update for this tutorial. If you’re using After Effects CS3 than you should check out the CE PixelSampler tutorial, where you can learn how to use my CustomEffect to detect collisions.

Download Project File: Radar.zip (After Effects 7.0)

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If you ever tried to animate a signature than you probably know, that when it’s more complex shape than just a simple line, you can run into some troubles. This tutorial will show you, how you can avoid them by customizing the brush tip. The whole idea is to use Paint effect instead of Stroke.

And if you don’t know what I’m talking about, just see the tutorial and learn how to create a signature effect. Enjoy.

Download Project File: Signature.zip (After Effects 7 Pro)

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Some TV sets now come with very cool feature of creating an ambient light around the screen that matches the color of whatever is on the screen. I thought this is pretty cool thing to do, and i tried to recreate this effect in after effects. In this tutorial we will simulate a FlatScreen TV hanging on the wall with ambient light option turned on.

You will also learn how to create slideshows fast, and how to use this ambient light technique to alter your slideshows background color to match photos used in the slideshow. No expressions, no scripts. Pure build-in effects.

This is very easy to achieve, and it will increase the quality of your slideshow, and visualizations.

Photos used in this tutorial come from sxc.hu. By the time they were downloaded, they were licensed as royalty free, and were free to use in any way you like (standard restrictions). Just to make sure, go to sxc.hu right now, or just click here to read the Standard restriction agreement.

Download Project File: AmbientLight.zip (After Effects 7.0 Pro)

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There are many ways to create Web2.0 elements in Photoshop. This tutorial will present one of them, just to give you a kick start. The effect is fully customizable because it is based on Blending Options such as Gradient Overlay, Stroke and Drop Shadow.

Above that, this tutorial also comes with After Effect version for creating this effect by using one of my presets, that you can find in my other tutorial called Photoshoping in After Effects.

Download Project File: Web20.zip (After Effects 7 Pro & Photoshop CS2)

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Volumetric lights are very simple way to add mood to your projects. Light going through the clouds, through the window, through the water surface, or whatever really. It makes a whole difference.

After watching this tutorial you will know how to create simple volumetric lights without using any 3rd-party plugins. Just match your volume lights with your footage, apply some blending modes, maybe even colorize the lights a little bit, and you’ll achieve next level of quality. You must try this one out.

Download Project File: VolumeLight.zip (After Effects 7 Pro)

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Most of you probably tried using Extract filter when it first showed up in Photoshop. Some of you probably noticed a big potential that this filter has and you’re already using this filter in the way this tutorial demonstrates. The rest of you probably stopped using it, because the results was far from perfect and you’re still using standard selection tools for creating masks.

If you’re one of those who don’t use Extract filter, then this tutorial is a must-see. Learn how to take advantage of the results Extract filter provides to create masks fast and easy.

Photos used in this tutorial come from sxc.hu. By the time they were downloaded, they were licensed as royalty free, and were free to use in any way you like (standard restrictions). Just to make sure, go to sxc.hu right now, or just click here to read the Standard restriction agreement.

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There are many tutorials on creating a SmoothSkin effect. They are all based on the same rule: separate the details like eyes, mouth and teeth from the rest of the image, and then apply different filters to smooth the skin out while keeping all the details sharp.

Here’s my way of achieving this effect. It doesn’t require any painting or selection drawing. It’s fully automated. However it may require a bit of tuning up after applying the effect to restore some details that might have been treated as a regular skin.

As a reference - here are other tutorials on this subject that I’ve found on the net.
http://www.lunacore.com/photoshop/tutorials/tut020.htm
http://www.tutorialwiz.com/smooth_skin/
http://www.tutorialized.com/tutorial/Flat-Skin/6436

You can also download my action preset to fully automate the process, or you can redord your own action after watching this tutorial.

Download Actions: PolygonStudioActions.zip (Photoshop CS2)

After downloading unpack the file to whatever folder you like and double-click it. After that you should see new Action Set in your Photoshop Actions palette.

Photos used in this tutorial come from sxc.hu. By the time they were downloaded, they were licensed as royalty free, and were free to use in any way you like (standard restrictions). Just to make sure, go to sxc.hu right now, or just click here to read the Standard restriction agreement.

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Some time ago someone asked for a way to censor his footage. I found the thread on CGTalk forums, and I thought, that it’s a good subject to do a tutorials about.

Learn how to censor your footage using few different techniques, that involve animated masks, layers, track mattes, and adjustment layers.

The idea for this tutorial came from Agresvig from CGTalk forums. See the oryginal thread.

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Many Photoshop users who just switched to After Effects complain about lack of blending options, especially the lack of stroke effect. Of course there is a Stroke effects in After Effects, but it works in different way than they’re used to.

To help all you Photoshopers out there I’ve prepared few presets, than will enable you to work in After Effects the same way you work in Photoshop.

Just go ahead and download the preset. After downloading make sure to unpack it to your After Effects preset directory, that by default is: C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe After Effects 7.0\Support Files\Presets\.

These presets include:

• Stroke effect
• Drop shadow (with Spread parameter)
• Gradient overlay

I wanted to put there Bevel and Emboss effect also, but there’s no need to make a preset for that, because all you have to do is to apply Alpha Bevel on a layer and you’ll get the same effect you’d get in Photoshop.

Download Presets: PhotoshopingInAE.zip

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Maybe this tutorial isn’t something very unique, but I’ve seen a lot of people asking questions about creating a loopable backgrounds, so here we are. Learn how to use blending modes and very powerful and often unappreciated fractal noise filter. Make a loop out of your background animation and make it look even more exciting by applying textures and lights to create a final look.

Download Project File: LoopBackground.zip (After Effects 7.0 Pro)

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Expressions are the most powerful feature of After Effects in my opinion. After watching this tutorial you will learn how to make your Volume Meter more dynamic by reacting to sound playing in the background while keeping total control over its sensitivity. You might have seen similar tutorials on the net, but I assure you that this one takes this subject a step further and that it’s worth watching.

Download Project File: SmartVolumeMeter.zip (After Effects 7 Pro)

Original tutorial by Talid Al Khatib from CreativeCow.net

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Removing noise is a very complex task. Depending on many factors one must use different techniques to get rid of unwanted sounds while keeping the sound quality as good as possible.

This tutorial shows what I have to do with each tutorial recorded for for you. At the moment I’m using a terrible microphone and a low-end sound card, so I have a lot of cleaning up before I can publish anything.

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Learn how to create a dynamic animation based on a “chain rig”. Animate one layer using keyframes, expressions, or both, and make other layers follow the leading layer. See how you can texture the rig and find out how flexible it is.

First 9 minutes will show you how to build a basic “chain rig”. The rest of the tutorial is about texturing and making the final look.

Download Project File: CGSnake.zip (After Effects 7 Pro)

The idea for this tutorial came from CGTalk forums, where someone who calls himself GetToTheTop asked for a way to create a snake in After Effects. See the oryginal thread.

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The focus of this tutorial is how to take your animation to the next level by adding dynamic behaviours to the bubbles. Find out how to take control over random movement generated by the wiggle expression, and how to drive the animation using audio clips.

Inspiration for this project: Levitated.net Oliy Stratum

Download finished Project File: OliyStratum.zip (After Effects 7 Pro)

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Follow this tutorial to learn how to take advantage of parenting and expressions in terms of animation. Create random motion while maintaining full control over the appearance of the bubbles.

Inspiration for this project: Levitated.net Oliy Stratum

Download finished Project File: OliyStratum.zip (After Effects 7 Pro)

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Learn how to improve your workflow by controlling each element in your composition with a Controller layer using expressions, expression controls and parenting.

Inspiration for this project: Levitated.net Oliy Stratum

Download finished Project File: OliyStratum.zip (After Effects 7 Pro)

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Find out how to create basic shapes in After Effects, how to get precise color values from a gradient (ramp effect), and get to know the basics of parenting the layers.

Inspiration for this project: Levitated.net Oliy Stratum

Download finished Project File: OliyStratum.zip (After Effects 7 Pro)

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Learn how to use the fact, that most DV cams record interlaced footage. Separate fields, duplicate frames by applying TimeWarp effect using Whole Frames method, and create blazing fast 50% slow motion effect without calculating intermediate frames. As a result you can turn your 25fps / 30fps digital camera to 50fps/60fps.

Find out more about internace.
Find out more about framerates.

Download Project File: SlowMotion.zip (After Effects 7 Pro)

Please note that the project file is missing the footage. Make sure to replace it by any other video clip. If you want to avoid adjusting the project I recommend that the footage you’re going to use is 15sec’s long PAL.

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