After Effect Tutorial 3

After Effects Tutorial | How to Make a Countdown

Melanie Lerner | November 19, 2010

http://vimeo.com/11312354

In this tutorial the artist Jordan Wiseman explains how to make a countdown clock by using expressions in After Effects. Before working on a plain background, he decides to start out by creating a more visually interesting one. He opens up a new solid layer and then goes to effect – generate ramp. The default is set to show a linear gradient but that can easily be switched to radial. You can then further alter the look by playing with different colors and expanding the gradient in size so it becomes much more subtle. He then took the text tool to write out 2:00 and clicked the arrow under the text layer followed by an Alt + Click on the source text layer so that the expression box showed up. The countdown expression is set in such a way that you have to input how many seconds are in the amount of minutes you hope to show. For instance, inputting 300 seconds would generate a 5 minute countdown while 120 seconds would generate a 2 minute countdown. You can manipulate the seconds to get the exact minute count you want, which I find helpful when trying to show moving numbers in my own presentation.

After Effects Tutorial | How to Show Smoke

More November 19, 2010

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmimOeWZRcY

In this video the creator shows an easy way to form a realistic looking smoke. He starts out with a plain black image/background and then goes to effect – stimulation – particle playground. The default color is set to red, but in order to look more like smoke you need to change the coloration to a light gray. He then goes into to alter the velocity to 250 (now the particles on screen go upward in motion instead of down). To get the particles looking less rigid you can add a blur by simply going to effect – blur and sharpen – fast blur. In this scenario the artist chose to adjust the blurriness to 16 in value, clicked enter and then ok. You can at this point watch what you have created by generating ram preview or if you want to see what the particles look like without the blur you can do that as well. By selecting total transparency grid you will see the smoke by itself (shows up as pretty faint), and this layer can be placed into any after effects video you want to use. Because my client is Le Creuset, knowing how to make smoke can be extremely helpful if I want steam to come out of a pot at some point during the animation sequence.