4/25/16 - After Effects Learning (Part 13) (Stabilizing/Tracking Footage)

Now THIS is what I've been waiting for!  I have never truly worked with tracking footage before (or stabilizing) and I've been wanting to for the longest time.  There's so many VFX ideas that will open up now that I understand the process in After Effects, so needless to say I'm VERY excited to try it out!  I'm sure it'll take a little getting used to, but I'm definitely planning to use this as a key tool on future projects.

4/20/16 - After Effects Learning (Part 12) (Compositing)

Two chapters today, all about compositing.  Topics included:

• Masks
• Blend Modes
• Keying/Green-Screening

A lot of powerful concepts, but ones I'm already well familiar with.  I've had very limited success with green-screening though, so it was interesting to see the process from someone else's perspective.  Relatively simple tools, but definitely some of the most powerful.

*Side note:  This did not cover rotoscoping, the main compositing concept I'm most waiting for, and one of the key methods I'll be employing in my film's more difficult VFX.  It covered custom mask shapes, but it did not express the best ways to animate/track them over various frames.  I may have to wait till the more advanced tutorials for that, but I'm starting to have a basic idea of how I might approach it already.

4/19/16 - After Effects Learning (Part 11) (Intermediate Animation)

Missed a few days, but I'm back with another post.  More After Effects learning.  Today's chapter was called "Intermediate Animation" and covered these topics:

• Temporal Interpolation
• Ease In/Ease Out
• Wiggler Tool
• Smoother Tool
• Parenting Objects
• Linking Properties with Expressions
• Graph Editor

I'm already very familiar with ease in/ease out and graph editing, but the Wiggler tool, Smooth tool, and expressions were all new to me.  Parenting objects was new as well, though just the structure of it.  As mentioned in a previous post, I come from a background in Apple's "Motion" where parenting is actually called "grouping", more akin to Photoshop's style of folders in folders.  Whereas After Effects essentially just has a little drop-down menu for every layer, which specifies a parent.  I've been confused about this for the longest time, so needless to say this was a VERY helpful chapter to learn just for that alone.  I think I still sort of prefer the "folder" method, but I could see this drop-down method making for a cleaner timeline in the long run.  I'm also quite excited to learn about this "expressions" thing.  It was only a quick introduction so far, so I'm still trying to wrap my head around how I might be able to use it, but it definitely looks like a useful tool I'll want to use in the future.  And of course the wiggler tool will definitely come in handy for certain "flickering" effects.  Just gotta remember it's there instead of trying to manually animate things I don't have to.

4/11/16 - After Effects Learning (Part 10) (Motion Paths)

Very quick chapter.  Introduced motion paths, adjusting keyframes, interpolation, pen tool, etc.  All stuff I've very familiar with.  What I didn't know about was a cool little option called "Auto-Orient".  I'm more prone to manual animation, but this could come in handy some day.  I also learned about the "Motion Sketch" option.  I come from a background in Apple's Motion, so this is very reminiscent of hitting the "record" button there.  I also learned that you can actually create a more fine-tuned motion path in a separate program like Illustrator, and then paste that into AE to automatically create a motion path.  I'm personally more familiar with Photoshop than Illustrator, so I'm curious to see if the pen tool it has (which I typically use for the brush stroke option) will work for this as well.

4/7/16 - After Effects Learning (Part 9) (Shape Layers)

Today's chapter was all about shape layers.  Man, there's a LOT of power in their options, way more than I would have imagined, with a lot of crazy creations you can make.  Not sure what I can do with them at the moment, but I'll keep them in mind for later.  At the moment I'm mostly just planning to use shapes for a flashlight effect in the movie I'm working on, so fairly simple stuff for now.  Oddly enough, this simple little tool has eluded me for the longest time.  I kept just getting masks instead of shapes and it really frustrated me, and now I know what was going on.  I'm used to a mask tool and shape tool being separate buttons.  And now I feel silly to find out how easy it actually was to figure out… haha  A simple step forward, but a very useful one I'm sure.

4/4/16 - After Effects Learning (Part 8) (Paint Tools)

More After Effects learning.  Only about 25 min. today, but boy was it a good one!  Today's chapter was all about using the Paint tools.  I had no idea After Effects had this kind of functionality!  I was creating all sorts of crazing line animations in minutes, stuff that I would have otherwise thought might take DAYS to achieve!  And the fact that it's all vector-based enables so much power!  From animating signatures, to growing vines, to even frame-by-frame animation, it's really an amazing aspect of AE that I never even knew existed!  Plus, there's a few moments in the film I'm currently working on where this kind of stuff would be PERFECT!  Needless to say, I'm really excited to try it all out!  :D

4/3/16 - After Effects Learning (Part 7) (Creating and Animating Text)

Simple post today.  Just learned a bit more about some of the options in After Effects for color-correcting footage, as well as creating and animating text.  I've always known After Effects to be famous for creating amazing text animations and now I can see why.  There's so many powerful options available.  I'm don't think my current project will be able to take advantage of them that much, but I'm sure these will come in quite handy on future projects.

4/2/16 - After Effects Learning (Part 6) (Effects)

Well, looks like I took a bit of a hiatus from the blog there.  Whoops…  hehe  I actually have been quite productive outside of it recently, but I'd like to get back to it cause I do really do think this setup is very helpful to keep me continually learning and staying on my toes.  So…

Back to After Effects!  Still doing these "no post" posts.  Just continuing with that tutorial on Lynda.com.  Today's chapter was all about various applications of effects:

• Glow
• Fractal Noise
• Turbulent Noise
• Colorama
• Roughen Edges
• CC Effects (Cycore)
• Motion Blur
• Other Various Blurs
• Liquify
• Wave Warp
• Shatter
• Various Generators
• And the Brainstorm Feature

And combining these effects to get cool results.  Still pretty simple stuff, but I'm definitely learning.  And definitely happy to be back on the blog!