Aetuts+ is a site made to house and showcase some of
the best After Effects tutorials around. We publish tutorials that not
only produce great effects, but explain them in a friendly, approachable
manner. We also stock up links to tutorials, articles, presets and
plugins from around the web to help you get the most out of After
Effects.
45. Create a Sound Reacting 3D Waveform Animation without 3rd Party Plugins
Satya has done it again. He's managed to re-wire and re-invent tools
that we've had for a long time to create what would normally only be
possible with third party plugins. For all of you that ask for tutorials
that only use built-in plugins, this one is for you. Satya has even
created a free preset so you don't have to re-create the effect from
scratch every time.
46. Create a “Bullet Time” Logo Shatter Effect
Wikipedia defines Bullet Time as a digitally enhanced simulation of
variable speed (i.e. slow motion, time-lapse…) photography used in
films, broadcast advertisements and computer games. It is characterized
both by its extreme transformation of time (slow enough to show normally
imperceptible and un-filmable events, such as flying bullets) and space
(by way of the ability of the camera angle—the audience's
point-of-view—to move around the scene at a normal speed while events
are slowed). The first movie credited with this effect is Blade, but it
was the Matrix that really made it famous.
In this tutorial, Wes shows us how to use the built-in Shatter plugin to achieve "Bullet Time" with type or a logo.
47. Dunk Your Logo in a Wave World
Adam brings back his charm in this tutorial that is all about the rarely
used Wave World plugin. You will learn all the ins and outs about this
plugin that can even do 3D!
48. Create a Stormy, Electric Type Reveal
This tutorial gives a different twist on how to use the powerful form
plugin. Learn how to use it to create a mysterious and electric type
reveal.
49. Give Your Type Some Ball Action
We get a lot of requests for tutorials that don't require 3rd party
plugins, and since we like to make our readers happy whenever possible,
Adam is back breaking down the rarely used "CC Ball Action" built-in
plugin to make some very cool type transitions.
50. Color Grade and Enhance a Horror Shot
Good horror isn't about over the top effects. Its about using effects
and colour correction to create a constant and un-nerving sense of fear,
suspense and terror as part of an imaginative and horrifyingly well
directed film. In this first part James will teach how to create 2
scenes. First how to take a shot of a mansion and give it an intense and
scary look through sky replacement and colour correction. Second we
will take a shot of a stone gargoyle face and create a subtle yet creepy
effect in which it frowns evilly at an oncoming victim. Be afraid...be
very afraid.
51. Make Form Cinematic
The secret to making motion graphics look sexy and less digital is to
borrow some tips from the cinematic production world. Simon breaks down a
bunch of tips including how to build your own light leaks and film
scratches! The tricks learned in this tutorial can be applied to any
motion graphics piece.
52. Create a Geometric Color Explosion
Wes Kandel is back to show us how to combine geometric shapes made in
Illustrator and then imported and animated in After Effects to create
his very cool Geometrika piece.
53. Create a 3D DNA Strain
We are very happy to welcome AE legend Maltaanon to the Aetuts+ family.
Maltaanon kicks things off with this tutorial that makes very clever use
of Trapcode's Form plugin to create something that would normally
require a 3D application, but is accomplished entirely within After
Effects.
54. Learn How to Create a Light Rays Custom Effect from Scratch
A custom effects is special kind of preset that looks and behaves like a
plugin. It allows you to save a special recipe of plugins and keyframes
into something that you can reuse with ease. Jorrit Schulte has been
producing a bunch of these very useful custom effects and providing them
for free at aenhancers.com. In this tutorial he breaks down how to
create the incredibly popular light rays effect and how to package it
all into a custom effect.
We're going to break down how you create a light ray effect, like shine,
and then we're gonna learn how to create a preset so you can use it
again any time you like inside of the preset. Finally we are going to
make that preset into a custom effect using a script from
nabscripts.com.
55. Create Whispy Spirit-like Text
Adam keeps digging through the good ol' built in CC plugins and
continues to come up with very clever and visually awesome solutions. In
this tutorial Adam uses CC Smear as the basis to create text that
appears in as if a spirit whisped into it.
56. Create a Split-Flap Type Display
Split-Flap-What? It's the term used for displays that are found in train
stations and airports, where they typically display departure and/or
arrival information and do that cool flipping of letters to display the
new information.
This tutorial does not show how to create the effect from scratch but
instead it is a tutorial to explain how to use the project file created
by Mattias Peresini who runs the totally awesome mattrunks website which
has incredible tutorials for After Effects in French. We are very happy
to have Mattias doing his first English tutorial for us here at
Aetuts+.
57. Create A Surprising Billowing Cloth Reveal
It's amazing how much pseudo-3D you can do in After Effects today. This
tutorial will focus on using a new plugin that brings 3D bicubic
deformations to layers that allows you to truly bend and twist layers in
3D space. If you are familiar with 3D packages, this is true
displacement as opposed to just bump mapping.
58. Create a Sci-Fi Movie Title Sequence
This tutorial covers the creation of a space-like si-fi title sequence
from scratch. Michael shows us how you can easily create a visually
interesting and impressive title animation with some simple title cards
and text animation. The tutorial uses the Twitch plugin from Video
Copilot, though a similar effect could be obtained by manual keyframing.
59. Create an Underwater Scene
We try to provide tutorials for users at all levels of After Effects. In
this tutorial you will learn some good fundamentals on how to create a
type reveal with an interesting background and environment. You will
learn how to use all built-in tools and plugins to create a faux
underwater scene complete with a bubbly type reveal. Simple.
60. War! Or How to Create a 3D Particle Generated Video Display
Wes comes back with another adrenalin fueled piece that is sure to
become an Aetuts+ favorite. Using Trapcode Form as the basis to display
video, he shows how to use the audio reactors built in to form to
achieve something very very cool.
61. Create an Elegant Concentric Rings Animation
Inspired by the work of Mark Coleran. Satya shows us how to use
iterations of simple shape layers to create some beautiful procedural
art.
62. Heads Up on Some Cool Graphic Type Techniques
In this tutorial, regular Aetuts+ author Markus Gustafsson shows us how
to use adjustment layers and expressions to create some edgy graphic
design.
63. Create a Burning Building VFX Shot
Starting with nothing more than a few still photographs, learn how to create this dynamic burning building VFX shot.
64. Create an Effect Inspired by the Bourne Ultimatum End Credits Sequence
In a very clever use of Trapcode Particular, this tutorial shows us how
to create an effect that is inspired by the Bourne Ultimatum end credits
sequence.
65. Create a Radar Screen Logo Reveal
Using only built in plugins, learn how to create a radar screen which
then reveals a logo. You will learn how to use 32-bit mode and few other
tricks to simulate a real screen glow.
66. Learn How to Rig and Animate a Character and Create your Own Odyssey Day 1
In this massive 2 part tutorial you will learn how to rig and animate a
character using a combination of Illustrator, Photoshop and After
Effects and create an incredible, cinematic odyssey piece.
Part 1 covers pre-production techniques, workflow overview and creating
and rigging the character. It also covers creating the star field
background and creating the eye close-up.
67. Learn How to Rig and Animate a Character and Create your Own Odyssey Day 2
This is part 2 of this very comprehensive tutorial where you will learn
how to rig and animate a character using a combination of Illustrator,
Photoshop and After Effects and create an incredible, cinematic odyssey
piece.
