AndrewK and Kai!!! I'm done with both of you!

Damn. Ridiculously awesome tutorial. Well beyond my level as I know nothing of Aftereffects and didn't try to follow along, but Andrew K made it seem soooooo easy, the mark of a true master. Almost makes me want to learn Aftereffects. If only I didn't have a million other things that I wanted to learn/do.

And Captain M, I've watched a few of your tutorials as well and they are quite awesome, you shouldn't have tutorial envy.
 
Alex DePew said:
And Captain M, I've watched a few of your tutorials as well and they are quite awesome, you shouldn't have tutorial envy.
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(That's kind of why I'm hoping to grab some secrets from these guys too!!)

CaptM
 
What are you wanting Capt?

I can't give you a tutorial, but I can maybe do a kind of step by step, of what I see is going on.

Screen opens with a quick Knolls lens flare

Then a quick animation of frames or pics to look like vertical jumping, mixed with some TV type noise which has been generated and used as a luminance matte to break up the image, and is also used on the image in some blending mode like overlay of soft light.

The background for the animation and for the rest of the sequence is a rock looking texture, with a solid layer using a radial gradient (ramp) from yellow to orange on top set to Color. There is also a vignette either done in Photoshop and applied or made with another solid on top colored black, with the circular mask with a high feather.

With the background in place, everything is a 3D layer, and there may be a lot of nested comps, or precompositions, or just well timed reveals. The beginning text that appears above the creative cow logo is a simple opacity fade in, and both the text and logo are slightly forward of the background layer on the z axis.

There is a 3d Camera which allows for movement around the 3D layers, or the layers, after being built, are nested, that nested comp put again as a 3D layer, and then animated. I would wager though, that it is a 3D camera move.

It also looks like the entire background layer is one large texture, allowing for the dramatic camera moves from main shot to main shot. Imagine a 4000 x 4000 pixel background layer, but all you ever see is the portion exposed by the size of the composition.

The tribal art textures are revealed through a either a quick masking, or as Andrew likes to do, with a masked white solid layer above the tribal art layers, having the tribal art set to Alpha matte, and the white solid's masks allowing for the reveal.

The tribal art, though looking different on each swipe, are actually the same elements, just reversed and sometimes pulled slightly out of frame for each "bounce".

The text on each swipe is again regular text slightly offset on the Z axis.

Repeat that bounce technique from main shot to main shot.

The 3D camera move is the same move for the first three main shots, and only on the last main, "Tutorials for . . " does the 3D camera change direction. It's not three separate 3D camera moves, but one continued camera rotation for the first three mains. The rest of the background movement is by changing the position data of the main background layer.

One more bounce to the last creative cow logo, and when that is finished, there is a keyframed optics compensation filter applied as the scale of the background drops, along with the opacity. the last is the same Knoll lense flare element we began with.

All in 3D space, with a generous helping of motion blur to make it look as damn cool as it does.
 
There's some good stuff in there Matt.

I'm dubious about it being a single large background because the wiggle point is always precisely where it needs to be. Wouldn't look right unless the anchor point changes... maybe he's got it picwhip'd to the camera's interest point.

I did something similar on my effects reel (hahaha) http://homepage.mac.com/captmench/TBPefxDEMO.mov but not this good. Kai promised something years ago... this would be a good step.

CaptM
 
CaptainMench said:
There's some good stuff in there Matt.

I'm dubious about it being a single large background because the wiggle point is always precisely where it needs to be. Wouldn't look right unless the anchor point changes... maybe he's got it picwhip'd to the camera's interest point.

CaptM
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It could be just that, though I suspect it is much simpler.

But if the main background only is one large layer, it will work. The rest could be comp add ons. I know if I was going to do a sequence of this type, and I wanted the background to always be fresh, I would use a large texture. That could be one animated comp on its own. And remember, the exact timing of the slowdown and stop of the background could be predetermined, and set to be in time with the foreground elements.

He could be using motion blur to his advantage, to change background plates, but I don't think so.

Remember, only the main background needs be something large, everything else could be well timed reveals or elements needed for only that sequence.



EDIT

However, I suspect I am missing something simple. I tend to think in terms of Photoshop, rather than AE.
 
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Hey Hey!

Hey Hey!

Hey Matt, you're right on. I used a large texture in 3d with a adjustment layer circular mask around the comp.

Here is the trick, I take the camera and link it to a 3D null object. This way when I move the Null it moves the camera position and point of interest together. So I animate the camera to slightly rotate around the anchor point at every "stop" then use keyframe to position the null up and down the big bg texture. Since the rotation always orbits the anchor point the camera stays pointed at the null or the text in this case but it add the 3d depth. Good call on the tribal too, I just a few elements and linar wipe transitioned them in a the right time. No precomping just a big bg layer.

You even nailed it down to my lousy use of the knoll LF. Dang-it.

Cheers,
Andrew Kramer
http://www.videocopilot.net

PS: for a tutorial on this check out the Riot Gear DVD it has 5 tutorials including this in a nice blue color.
 
AndrewKramer said:
Hey Matt, you're right on. I used a large texture in 3d with a adjustment layer circular mask around the comp.

Here is the trick, I take the camera and link it to a 3D null object. This way when I move the Null it moves the camera position and point of interest together. So I animate the camera to slightly rotate around the anchor point at every "stop" then use keyframe to position the null up and down the big bg texture. Since the rotation always orbits the anchor point the camera stays pointed at the null or the text in this case but it add the 3d depth. Good call on the tribal too, I just a few elements and linar wipe transitioned them in a the right time. No precomping just a big bg layer.

You even nailed it down to my lousy use of the knoll LF. Dang-it.

Cheers,
Andrew Kramer
http://www.videocopilot.net

PS: for a tutorial on this check out the Riot Gear DVD it has 5 tutorials including this in a nice blue color.
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heh. Yeah, but I didn't build it. It's a hell of a lot easier to sit back and "deconstruct" someone's work from a technical aspect, but I don't think I could have come up with the idea and creativity to put it together, so many props still to you.

And thanks again for all the tutorials, and your time and willingness to share with the rest of us. If I didn't have a voice that sounded like a hillbily kermit the frog, I'de even consider making one, though I couldn't imagine what to cover. Maybe the advantages of th use of a multipass 3d render animation?


ps. Knoll lense flares ROCK!!
 
kai said:
Dang I can't get the swf to play for some reason...
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Well -- let's just say I'm still waiting on a set of tutorials from you too!!

Andrew -- Bought and Paid for!! Thanks... the Reveal.movs are worth the cash alone!!

CaptM
 
CaptainMench said:
Well -- let's just say I'm still waiting on a set of tutorials from you too!!

Andrew -- Bought and Paid for!! Thanks... the Reveal.movs are worth the cash alone!!

CaptM
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HA I know man, its still on my list I swear! :) I just had my second little girl 2 weeks ago so things are pretty hectic around my house lately. I'll get back into the swing of things soon though. Summertime is good tutorial writing time :)

I've also been doing quite a bit of Flame work lately, just upgraded the flame to a 4k version running on linux, so I haven't been as active on the boards here as I should be. I'll be around though :beer:
 
Congrats!! (Hope this was less stressful) and you had more time to enjoy the first few moments.

You guys are truly blessed!

OH -- btw... we stole the foot-in-hand idea from your wife on our third and have a nice shot on our living room wall.

Mike
 
Cool! congrats on your third as well!

Yeah, this time around was much much smoother, no complications and everything is great. We were worried going into it (naturally), but she turned out perfect!
 
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