How To Cheat in After Effects PDF

Cool Tricks Appetizer!
WE’VE GOT A LOT OF JUICY STUFF TO COVER IN THIS

BOOK. So let’s get warmed up by just getting the sampler
platter of sweet After Effects tricks at the outset.
This chapter will be a great warm-up for the rest of the

book, and we’ll even conclude this chapter with a small
section about getting extra help in case you find yourself
stuck as you go through the cheats.
Mantesh
Cool Tri
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Fireball
1 We’ll start in the Fireball START comp in the Fireball.aep project in the Chapter
01 folder in the Exercise Files folder. In this cheat, we’re going to take a simple
animated shape layer (discussed in Chapter 7), and apply fire from the Fractal
Noise effect (discussed in Chapter 10), and then roughen it up. Note that we learn
how to make the pretty background from scratch in Chapter 10.
W HAT BETTER START TO A BOOK COULD

YOU HAVE than a fire breathing
dragon? In this cheat, we’re going to be turning
a plain red blob into this glowing fireball above.
3 Now apply the Colorama effect to the Fire layer. In the Colorama effect
controls, open the Output Cycle area, and from the Use Preset Palette drop
down, choose Fire.
4
How to Cheat in After Effects
2 Apply the Fractal Noise effect to the Fire layer. In the Fractal Noise settings in
the Effect Controls panel, increase Contrast to 150, and in the Transform area,
decrease Scale to 80.
HOT TIP
To animate the
fireball, animate
the Evolution
value in the
Fractal Noise
effect, and the
Offset and/or
Evolution values
in the Roughen
Edges effect.
4 To make this blob look like a fireball, apply the Roughen Edges effect to the
Fire layer. In its effect controls, take Border to 75, Edge Sharpness to 0.5,
Scale to 80, and Complexity to 3. It’s looking pretty good, but perhaps we could
get a better final result by playing with the Fractal Noise and Roughen Edges
settings?
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Growing Vines
1 Start out in the Growing Vines START comp in the Growing Vines.aep project in
the Chapter 01 folder of the exercise files. This contains a few vine layers from
Adobe Illustrator. It’s very important for this trick that the vines are cut up into
separate components like this. I’m going to solo just the Main Vine layer and work
on it first.
T HIS CHEAT IS A LITTLE MORE INVOLVED

and takes a bit more time than the others
in this chapter. But nevertheless, having vines or
filigree grow is a very common trick. It’s a great
way to draw a viewer’s attention to something
important.
3 Once you’ve completed painting the vine, go back to the Write-on effect
controls and change the Paint Style to Reveal Original Image. Now, there’s
no more paint. Your “paint” is just unmasking your layer. This is how the growing
vines effect is created. You then repeat this for each vine and time their reveals so
that it appears that they are growing together.
6
HOT TIP
If you don’t
change the
Brush Time
Properties to
Size, then when
you animate
the Brush Size
parameter, it
animates the
size of the
2 Apply the Write-on effect to this. In its effect controls, increase the Brush
Size to about 30 so you can see it. Change the Brush Time Properties value to
Size, so that you can animate the size of the brush along the path if you need to.
entire brush
stroke at once.
Adjust the Brush Position value so that the brush is at the bottom, then animate it
painting the vine as above. Also animate Brush Size as the vine gets more narrow.
Trying to paint the spiral at the top is the biggest challenge.
4 After doing this for each layer, I selected all of these layers and pressed
CScLSc to precompose them. I then added some glow and
a gradient background. But another secret to this trick is duplication. I pressed
CdLd to duplicate this precomp, then rotated and scaled the duplicates
and shifted them in time. This creates the illusion that your project is far more
complex and intricate than it actually is, and the result is beautiful.
SHORTCUTS
MAC WIN BOTH
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Tracked Text
1 Start in the Tracked Text START comp in the Tracked Text.aep project. Double
click the cool bird.mov layer to open it in the Layer panel. In Chapter 4, we’ll
look at Mocha, which is a better way to track motion. For now, let’s use the native
motion tracking in After Effects by choosing Tracker from the Window menu at the
top of the interface. In the Tracker panel, click the Track Motion button.
E VERY EPISODE OF THE NOW-DEFUNCT

HEROES TV SHOW had this really cool
effect that people always wanted to duplicate.
It basically featured 3D text that moved with
the scene. I still see this effect everywhere from
TV commercials to movie trailers. It’s actually a
pretty easy trick in After Effects.
3 In the Tracker panel, click the Edit Target button, and choose the text layer
(TALKING Bird4) as the target. Then click the Apply button, and OK to choose
X and Y dimensions, and that’s it! Our text is tracked to the background, and now
moves with it realistically.
8
HOT TIP
Normally, you
wouldn’t want
to ever track
a horizontal
surface, because
the tracking
system will
easily drift off
track. In this
2 Now we need to figure out what to track, and we don’t have many options.
We can’t track the bird because the bird moves. That leaves the background.
The only area of contrast I see is on the light and shadow between the two fence
case, we’re
also using the
contrast of the
posts. Drag the tracking point over there, and expand the feature and search wall posts for
regions to include the edges of the posts. Believe it or not, this gave me a near- tracking, so it
perfect track. works.
4 I’ve applied some color correction to make this look more intense (we’ll cover
color correction in Chapter 9). And, to heighten the realism, I’ve created a
spotlight and created shadows (both discussed in Chapter 2). I’ve created some
3D distance between the bird layer and the text so that the shadows make the
text look farther away. Looking at this again, I’m wondering if I shouldn’t have
reduced the scale on the text and increased the distance even more to increase the
apparent distance. What do you think?
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Blooming Flower
B ECAUSE OF THE STATIC NATURE OF

BOOKS, we aren’t going to look at a
lot of tricks that need motion in order to be
1 We’re going to be using the Blooming Flower.aep project, where I’ve created
this flower scene using shape layers (discussed in Chapter 7).
demonstrated. These include the transition

effects.
However, these transition effects can often
be used in unconventional ways. We’ll look
at the power of the Card Wipe transition in
Chapter 3 when we talk about 3D objects. In
this cheat, we’ll look at a simple transition
that can be used to reveal content like a
blooming flower.
3 When the Radial Wipe effect is applied to the video clip, and the Transition
Completion value is increased, a transition occurs as above and you can see
the blue background layer behind the main clip.
10
Mantesh
2 We’re going to be using the Radial Wipe effect, which is intended to transition
between two clips like a clock wipe. Here is one clip from the stock video
company uberstock, that has donated a lot of great video clips for this book.
4 Apply the Radial Wipe effect to the flower petals layer. As you animate the
Transition Completion property, the flower will seem to disappear. To animate
it blooming, animate it from 100% to 0%. This is a great trick for flowers, plus all
circular motion graphics as well.
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Tilt Shift
T ILT SHIFT IS A TRICK IN PHOTOGRAPHY

USUALLY USED TO SIMULATE MINIATURES.
I’m actually seeing this effect more and more in
1 Open the Tilt Shift.aep project. This photo comes courtesy of Angela McInroe,
one of the photographers at Zombie Crush Photography (they did the
photography on the cover of the book). I love their stuff.
commercials these days, as entire cities appear

to be tiny miniatures. It’s a pretty cool trick and
it’s easy to do.
3 In the Lens Blur effect controls, check the Repeat Edge Pixels option so that
we don’t get feathered edges. Then, with the layer selected, create a mask as
shown above.
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2 When miniatures are photographed, the depth of field is so shallow that

only a small area is in focus. When we recreate that same, small area of
focus on a regular photo, it creates the illusion of miniature footage. Press
COyLAy to create a new adjustment layer and apply the Lens Blur
effect to it.
HOT TIP
If you are
currently
reading this
book while in
the bookstore
in the image (in
the Southcenter
Mall in Tukwila,
WA), I apologize
if this is a really
Twilight Zone-
esque creepy
experience for
you.
4 In the Timeline, change the mask mode from Add to Subtract. Press the letter
f and increase the Mask Feather value to 70. And now this looks like a tiny
miniature model of a mall. SHORTCUTS
MAC WIN BOTH
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Ink Spatter
1 Start with a brand new comp at 1280 x 720. Create a new solid of the same
size, and change the color to whatever color you want your ink spatter to be.
Apply the CC Particle Systems II effect to this solid. We’ll talk a lot about this
effect and many other particle systems in Chapter 8.
T HE GRUNGY LOOK OF INK SPATTER SEEMS

TO BE SOMETHING that is always sought
after. Computer graphics usually look too
clean and perfect, and a little noise, grain, or
ink spatter can sometimes make things (like
backgrounds) look much more organic and
engaging.
The problem is that ink spatter can be time
consuming to create, assuming you create
actual ink spatter, scan it, convert it, blah, blah,
blah. It’s a lot of work. Here’s a way that you
can fake that in After Effects.
3 In the Producer area, take Radius X to 30 and Radius Y to 7. In the Physics

area, take Velocity to 0.7, and Gravity to 0. And to make this begin to look
like something decent, take the Particle Type drop down in the Particle area from
Line to Lens Convex. We’re getting closer to ink spatter, but this little system looks
pretty sweet in its own right.
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2 In the CC Particle Systems II effect controls, change the Birth Rate to 0.6 and
the Longevity (sec) value to 0.4. It’s still looking more like fireworks and less
like ink, but just stay with it.
HOT TIP
As suggested
by the color
in the initial
screenshot, you
can also use
this technique
to create blood,
paint, and
spatter from
other liquids.
4 For the final touches, go to the Particle area in the Effect Controls panel.
Change Birth Size to 0.01, Death Size to 0.5, Size Variation to 100%, Max
Opacity to 100%, and change the Opacity Map drop down to Constant. Now, this
will change every frame, so you’ll probably want to render this out as a still image,
then re-import it back into After Effects to use. You might also want to try the
Roughen Edges effect to roughen the edges of the ink spatter.
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Damaged Film
W E SPEND SO MUCH MONEY

PERFECTING THE QUALITY OF
FOOTAGE. The world is adopting HD and the
1 Start in the Damaged Film START comp in the Damaged Film.aep project. This
contains a stock video clip from uberstock.com.
quality of video cameras seems to be improving

on a daily basis. But for some reason, people
still love the look of bad film and video. It
can give our footage some character, add a
nostalgic style, or make it feel more edgy and
raw. Here are a few solutions for creating that
damaged film look.
3 Now apply the Fractal Noise effect. In its effect controls, change Fractal Type
to Smeary, Contrast to 320, Brightness to 300, Complexity to 1, and change
the Blending Mode to Multiply. Then open the Transform area, uncheck Uniform
Scaling, and increase Scale Height to 6000. This creates those dark vertical lines
seen in old film.
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2 As we’ll learn in Chapter 9, color is the secret to everything. Apply the Curves
effect to this layer. Take the bottom left corner of the curve up just a little bit;
about halfway up to the first line. This will lighten the shadows, creating a faded
look. Then change the Channel drop down to Blue, then take the upper right point
down to the first line. This will add a vintage yellowness.
HOT TIP
If you’re looking
to create a
damaged TV
footage look,
there are several
animation
presets that
ship with After
Effects that
will instantly
help you create
that look as
well. Animation
presets are
covered in
Chapter 10.
4 Now apply the CC Burn Film effect and take its Burn value to 38. You might
also want to adjust its Center value to get the burn in the right spot. Now you
have damaged film! See if you can trick a coworker into believing that you have
old bootleg footage of your favorite classic rock band!
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Cool Tri
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The Master Solid
1 We’ll start with this comp in the Master Solid.aep project. This is a composition
that only contains solid layers, a light, a camera, and a background.
T HIS MIGHT NOT BE THE COOLEST TRICK to

everyone in the world, but this is one of
my favorite little tricks. There are several times
when I have used this and it just makes me
happy, honestly.
I use solid layers all the time. And when you
create a solid layer, and then duplicate, After
Effects quietly maintains a link between those
solids in case you need to make changes.
3 Select any one of the green solid layers (note that they appear red because of
a hidden adjustment layer). Press CSyLSy to open the Solid
Settings dialog box. As long as you check the option that says Affect all layers that
use this solid, whatever changes you make will be instantly reflected in all solids
that are duplicates. And you don’t have to select the original solid – any duplicate
will do. I took the Height down to 20 and the Width up to 300, and I also changed
the color.
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2 As you can see, there are loads of solid layers here. If we wanted to make a
global change to every solid, it would take a very long time. Thankfully, all of
these solids are duplicates from a single solid.
4 In one fell swoop, all solids reflect the changes. Isn’t that incredible?
SHORTCUTS
MAC WIN BOTH
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I N T E R L U D E
Using the Help

AS WE BEGIN THIS ADVENTURE together into the rest of this book, I wanted
to have this little interlude to mention the incredible help system that comes
with After Effects, and all Adobe apps. For the last few versions, the help has
only been available in an online system. I’m very happy that there is also a
local version now, and it’s better than ever.
Now I realize that the idea of reading a manual sounds like the most boring
concept one can imagine. Like you, I’ve spent hours reading manuals in every
category of life, from software applications to cable boxes. It’s almost always
a frustrating experience. I can hardly find what I’m looking for, and when I do
find the answer, it’s so poorly written that the manual raises more questions
than it answers.
Adobe’s help is different, especially with After Effects. Of all the software
manuals in all the world, the After Effects documentation is the most well
written and helpful that I’ve ever seen. As a matter of fact, it’s one of the best
references on After Effects expressions I’ve ever seen
To access the help, just click in the Search Help field in the upper right
corner of the interface, type what After Effects feature you want to learn
about and hit Enter. This will automatically launch the Adobe Community
Help application. This application will search not only Adobe’s help, but it will
search through many helpful (and free) online resources as well. As shown in
the screenshot on the opposite page, you can choose to search through Adobe’s
help only if desired. The selections (and search field) show up on the left, and
when you choose one, it shows up on the left. The help system is also well
integrated with itself, offering hyperlink references that will take you to other
places to learn more.
I share this little tidbit of info with you at the outset of this book so that
if something isn’t explained very clearly, you know where to go to get more
information. I’ve honestly had a little bit of a challenge writing this book. I’m
the type of chap that likes to know how and why a thing works, and I usually
20
explain why I’m doing something. I hate just telling you what settings to use
and not explaining why I chose that particular number or what that property
does. But with the nature of this book, there just isn’t space for that. We can’t
have as many cheats as we want and still explain everything.
I know that this book is not for beginners, but what’s a pro? How do you
define that? You might work for years on feature films with massive Hollywood
budgets, but you might not know how to hide layers or properties in the
Timeline panel. Theoretically, someone might learn those things the first day of
After Effects class.
So, forgive me if I don’t have the space to explain things as much I would
like to, and know that if you’d like more detail on a certain subject, that the
After Effects help is a great resource.
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Lights and Cameras
MOST AFTER EFFECTS USERS KNOW HOW TO CREATE
BASIC LIGHTS AND CAMERAS. But what many don’t
realize is that there’s a massive wealth of options that
allow you to have a significant amount of control over
the look of your final product.
In this chapter, we’re going to become virtual

cinematographers; working with lights and cameras in
new and innovative ways. In some instances, we’re going
to be mimicking real world cinematography techniques,
such as when we create a rack focus effect. But because
we’re using software, we’ll be able to also do many tricks
that cinematographers only dream about, such as when
we create negative light and exclude objects from casting
and receiving shadows. This chapter will help you push
cameras and lights to the limit, and your 3D projects will
be forever benefited.
23
Ligh
ghts and Cameeras
ras
Casting Basic Shadows
1 Open the Basic Shadows.aep project from the Chapter

02 folder of the exercise files. Go to the Basic Shadow
START comp. I’ve already created a basic light for you in this
comp, using the default light settings. This art is by artist
Dan Grady.
O NE MIGHT THINK THAT SHADOWS

WOULD BE EASIER TO CREATE in After
Effects. After all, the ubiquitous drop shadow
has been overused for over a decade. But
as it turns out, creating a real shadow using
After Effects’ virtual lights is actually quite an
involved process. Just so we’re clear moving
forward, we’re going to briefly look at how to
create a basic 3D shadow using real 3D lights.
4 Now, it is conceivable that you’ve followed the

aforementioned steps and you’re not seeing a shadow.
It’s important that your light be in front of the objects you
want casting shadows. To double check this, go to the 3D
View Popup at the bottom of the Composition panel and
change the view from Active Camera to Top so that we can
see a top view of our light, as well as our other layers.
24
HOT TIP
Want to
tweak your
shadow’s look
or placement?
The placement
of the shadow is
based on where
the light is
placed, so that
2 There are three main steps to make sure your lights are
casting shadows. First, make sure that when you are
creating your lights, you check Casts Shadows from the
3 The second step is that we need to make sure that we
set layers to cast shadows. Unfortunately, this is one
of those things that you have to do manually for each layer
can be fixed by
simply moving
Light Settings dialog box. If you’ve already created your that you want to cast shadows. Select the foreground_ the light (not
light, you can simply double click on the light layer in the waves layer and press aa on your keyboard (that’s the the light’s Point
Timeline panel. letter “a” twice quickly) to reveal its material properties. For of Interest). To
the Casts Shadows property, click Off only ONCE to turn on adjust the look
shadow casting for this wave. Now the wave casts shadows of the shadow,
onto the layers behind it, like the metallic robot ship. double click the
light layer to
get to the Light
Settings dialog
box. The opacity
of the shadow
is adjusted with
the Shadow
Darkness
property. As
with a layer’s
opacity property,
to reduce its
opacity, lower
the value.
You may also
feel that your
shadow’s edges
are too crisp. If
that is the case,
you can increase
the Shadow
Diffusion value,
which essentially
5 In the Top view, the light source (indicated here by the

cone because our light is a spot light) should be below
the layers you want casting shadows. As you can see here,
6 And that’s really all that it takes to create real, “live”
shadows that dynamically respond to changes in light
position. This screenshot is from the Basic Shadow DONE
acts as a blur
for the shadows
created by the
we’re good on this one. comp, where I’ve also told the Robot_ship layer to cast light.
shadows. Try experimenting with casting shadows. Does it
look good to you with all layers casting shadows? Why or
why not? SHORTCUTS
MAC WIN BOTH
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Ligh
ghts and Cameeras
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Stained Glass Shadows
1 Here’s the original image that we’re going to use to cast a colored shadow.
H ERE’S A QUICK CHEAT FOR CREATING

MORE BEAUTIFUL AND REALISTIC
SHADOWS. We’re essentially going to take a
photo of stained glass windows, and transmit
that color data in the shadows. For creating
shadows from colored, semi-transparent objects
(like glass or plastic), this can add an important
degree of realism.
3 Thankfully, the remedy here is a quick and easy one. Select the Stained Glass.
psd layer in the Timeline panel. Press aa to reveal the Material Options
properties. The parameter here that allows colors to pass through into the
shadows is called Light Transmission.
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2 Open Comp 1 from the Stained Glass.aep project in the Chapter 02 folder of the exercise files.
I’ve already created a 3D scene using our image, a solid (as the floor), and a light that is casting
a shadow. Notice how the black shadow looks very unrealistic coming through this colored glass.
4 Increase the Light Transmission value all the way up to 100% (or whatever looks good to your
eye). As you increase this value, colors from the object that is casting a shadow will show up in
the shadow. This effect is great for stained glass, but also anytime you want light spill. Maybe have
a neon sign layer that you want to cast a glow onto a building behind it. Perhaps you want to have
a client logo appear first as a shadow, and then reveal the actual logo. This single parameter can
add a lot to your 3D projects.
SHORTCUTS
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Ligh
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Controlling Shadows
I N THE NEXT FEW CHEATS, WE’RE GOING

TO EXAMINE THE BENEFITS OF VIRTUAL
CINEMATOGRAPHY. We’re going to look
at several things that we can do with the
3D lights in After Effects that real world
cinematographers can only dream of. 1 So here’s our starting point (which you can find in the Controlling Shadows.aep
project in the Chapter 02 folder of the exercise files). Only the front wave and
the robot ship layers are casting shadows, but they are still just terrible. They are
In this cheat in particular, we’re going to look particularly artificial and distracting on the right side of the image. The shadows
at how to regulate shadow casting. Sometimes, fall on the background waves, which is not how real shadows would behave.
you might not want a certain object to cast
shadows, or to receive shadows. Or maybe you
want total control over where that shadow falls.
With the simple click of a button or two, After
Effects gives you all of these choices and more.
This is going to be like three cheats for the price
of one!
3 You can also use the settings in a layer’s material options to create a gobo,
or “cookie”. A gobo is an object placed in front of a light that controls the
shape of the light. This is like the professional equivalent of shadow puppets. To
make our front waves a gobo, select the foreground_waves layer and press aa.
Click the Casts Shadows value to change it to Only. Now, all we see is this layer’s
shadow, not the layer itself, which almost makes it look like a sea monster is
attacking.
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2 If this were a film set that we were lighting, we would have a heck of a time
fixing this. We would probably add more lights to the background, which
would not only lighten non-shadow areas, but it would also throw off the mood
of the lighting we’ve already created. Instead, select the wave4_silhouette layer,
press aa and change the Accepts Shadows value to Off. I’m going to do the
same thing with the waves3 layer.
HOT TIP
Another
great virtual
cinematography
trick that After
Effects provides
is that it lets
you turn off
Accepts Lights
and still cast a
shadow! Movies
would be made
in half the time
if scenes could
be lit with this
much flexibility!
4 This one last trick can also bail you out of a pinch. Every once in a while,
you’ll light a scene and get everything perfect – except for one, annoying,
rebellious object. You can exclude objects from lights, and still keep it 3D. Just
press aa to reveal its material options, and change the Accepts Lights value to
Off. In this case, I can remove the light falloff and make the robot captain and the
background waves pop a little more by not allowing lights to fall on them. Falloff
is generally good though, so use this trick prudently. SHORTCUTS
MAC WIN BOTH
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Ligh
ghts and Cameeras
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Negative Light
1 We’re going to be working with this really impressive Photoshop document by

matte painter Daniel Johnson. You’ll find this in the Negative Light START comp
in the Negative Light.aep project in the Chapter 02 folder of the exercise files.
What I want to do here is to add some meaning to this. I want it to have a bright
streak down the middle, but I also want it darker on the sides, almost as if to show
hope in the midst of all this carnage and devastation.
A NOTHER IMPRESSIVE VIRTUAL

CINEMATOGRAPHY TRICK that is possible
in After Effects but isn’t possible in the real
world is that of negative light. Essentially what
that means is that we can use lights to actually
remove light, rather than add it. Although this
is a very simple trick, it kind of messes with your
mind a little because it’s so different than what
lights do in the real world. So, swallow that red
pill and follow me down the rabbit hole as we
discover negative light.
3 The problem is that now there’s too much light generally in the scene. It all
looks too happy. Oddly enough, I’m going to create another spotlight and
point it at the left side of the layers. But when creating the light, I’m going to take
the Intensity of the light to a negative number; negative 66% to be exact. This will
actually suck light out of the scene.
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HOT TIP
To check out
2 First, I’m going to add a new spotlight (seen here as the selected light). I’m
going to add it pointing at the sun, to exaggerate the brightness in the clouds,
and the strip of sunlight coming down the middle portion of the piece.
more of Daniel
Johnson’s
incredible work,
go to www.
danjohnson
imagery.com/
portfolio. He
also has some
free tutorials
available that
are quite
insightful.
4 With the light on the left sucked out by the negative light (shown selected
on the left), our piece looks much better. I realize that we could get a similar
result from using masks on an adjustment layer with color correction effects.
However, when your scene is animated, it’s much more useful in many cases to
have negative lights that actually move in 3D space.
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Ligh
ghts and Cameeras
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Film Noir Lighting
D ON’T YOU JUST LOVE THOSE OLD FILM

NOIR SUSPENSE MOVIES? I do. Those old
movies always have such incredible lighting. It
1 In the Film Noir START comp in the Film Noir Lighting.aep project, you’ll find
this 3D door made of solids. Without lighting, these solids are just pure white.
was just so dramatic, often only showing the

actor’s terrified eyes. Everything else – including
the actor’s neck and forehead – were in shadow.
I created a 3D door out of solids in After
Effects, and then lit it in that film noir style. In
this cheat, we’re going to recreate that look.
Note that because this 3D door is made out of
solids, it’s a little slow to render. If that bothers
you, you can degrade the view quality.
3 The secret to this trick is to get the light close to the subject and then tweak
the settings to create a more narrow strip of light, with shadows on the top
and the bottom of the door. I took the Point of Interest for the light to –95, 2100,
7130, and the Position of the light to 71, 711, 4970. This also puts the Point of
Interest on the other side of the door.
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Press COSlLASl to create a white spotlight using the

2 default settings. Now at least we can see the surface of our door. It’s just not
that intense.
HOT TIP
For a quick film
noir effect on
2D layers, try
the CC Spotlight
effect.
4 Double click the Light layer to open the Light Settings dialog box. Change the
Cone Angle to 20 to create a smaller lighted area. I also reduced the Cone
Feather to 65% so that the edge of the shadows would be a little harder.
SHORTCUTS
MAC WIN BOTH
33
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Creating Depth of Field
1 I love this art by Dan Grady. However, like me, it is a little chaotic. Notice how
the clouds and stars in the background and the buildings and planes in the
P ERHAPS THE MOST SOUGHT AFTER

CINEMATOGRAPHY (AND PHOTOGRAPHY)
TECHNIQUE IS THAT OF DEPTH OF FIELD. Depth
foreground are all in sharp focus. Where should the eyes of our viewers go? We
can of course alter the colors and composition, but adding focus by creating a
shallow depth of field will do better in this case.
of field refers to the area in a shot that is

in focus. In movies, depth of field is used to
focus your eye. The subject (or wherever the
director wants you to look) will be in focus, and
everything closer to the camera or farther away
from it will be blurry.
One of the telltale signs of video is a very
deep depth of field. In other words, everything
in the foreground and background of the shot
are in focus. Although this was a cinematic
marvel when first achieved in the movie Citizen
Kane (1941), deep depth of field typically
doesn’t make for great story telling.
To achieve a shallow depth of field (where
only a very small area is in focus) usually
requires a 35mm adapter if you’re using a video
camera, or you can use an HDLSR camera, or 3 In order to create depth of field, we need a couple things working for us. First
of all, we need to make sure that the Focus Distance property is set properly.
After enabling Depth of Field, the After Effects camera will get an extra rectangle
you can just click a few buttons in After Effects. which represents the Focus Distance. I like to use an orthographic view (such as
Right seen above) to make sure that the Focus Distance is lined up with the object
we want in focus. This is typically the job of the first assistant camera on a film
set.
34
2 Open up the properties for Camera 1 in the Depth of Field comp in the Depth
of Field.aep project in the Chapter 02 folder of the exercise files. In the
Camera Options area, click the Depth of Field value to turn this effect on. Hey,
what gives? Not much difference so far.
HOT TIP
In real world
cameras,
opening the
aperture lets
in more light,
increasing
the exposure.
Cinematography
is a constant
battle between
achieving the
correct focus
and the correct
exposure at the
same time. In
After Effects,
it’s much easier.
Adjusting the
Aperture (or
other camera
settings) has
no effect on
exposure.
4 With real world cameras, depth of field is enhanced by opening the aperture
of the lens. The same is true in After Effects. Increase the Aperture value
of the Camera 1 layer to about 200 or so. That looks good to me, but I used an
exaggerated value of 400 so that the results would be clearer in this screenshot.
Now there’s no question of what to look at first. The green monster is obviously on
the focal plane. To make objects less or more in focus, move them farther away or
closer to the focal plane, respectively.
35
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Rack Focus
N OW THAT WE KNOW HOW TO CREATE

DEPTH OF FIELD, WE CAN LOOK AT A
COOL TRICK THAT USES IT – RACK FOCUS. Rack
1 We’re going to continue on where we left off in the last cheat. If you’d like,
follow along with the Rack Focus.aep project in the Chapter 02 folder of the
exercise files.
focus is a trick where something far away is in
focus, and then the focus shifts so that what’s
far away is out of focus, and something closer is
in focus (or vice versa). This trick is quite simple,
and can be used to reveal something to your
audience, much like the way rack focus is used
in the movies.
Be advised that this trick of necessity requires
animation. So as you look at the screenshots
in this book, you’ll kinda have to use your
imagination a little bit.
3 Now move out in time and change the Focus Distance value until the guide on
the After Effects camera widget is lined up with the frontmost building layer.
I used a value of about 2520. Notice that the target of the camera is not changed,
only the Focus Distance, shown here on the left side of the image.
36
2 The rack focus effect is created by animating the Focus Distance of a camera.
Right now, the focus is on the green monster (selected above), which is in the
middle of our scene, depth-wise. This is the right view. Click the stopwatch for the
Focus Distance property.
HOT TIP
Also like real
world cameras,
the depth of
field in After
Effects is
increased by
using a “long”
lens. This refers
to a lens with
a longer focal
length. For this
project, I’ve
used a Focal
Length value
of 76mm, but
After Effects’
camera settings
allow you to
increase this
value even
more.
4 The final results tell a completely different story. The building in the
foreground is now where the viewer expects the story to take place. Perhaps
this story started out with monsters attacking, and then we rack focus to the
foreground building and find our helpless protagonist stuck on the top floor! Oh
no! Oh well. At least our rack focus looked awesome!
37
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Lens Distortion
1 In this 3D scene, we have a bunch of square solids floating around in space.

We also have a background, a light, and a camera. As mentioned, the virtual
camera lens is set to 50mm, which is very similar to the way human eyes work. So
these squares look natural.
C AMERA LENSES DON’T JUST REGULATE

THE AMOUNT OF LIGHT entering into your
camera. They also can vary the perspective of a
shot, bringing objects seemingly closer together
or farther apart. In some cases, they can even
add some really intense distortion.
In this cheat, we’re going to play the role of
virtual cinematographer again as we change the
lens on our After Effects camera. We’re going to
take this from a “standard” lens to a wide angle
lens. Wide angle lenses are intended to view
wide vistas. But when you bring objects close to
them, they have a tendency to distort objects in
a really cool way that makes them seem more
intense and ominous.
3 As mentioned in the intro, wide angle lenses are used to capture wide scenes;
almost as if you stepped backwards 20 paces when you changed lenses. So
just changing the focal length of the lens changes the composition of our scene.
38
2 Double click the Camera 1 layer in the Lens Distortion comp in the Lens
Distortion.aep project in the Chapter 02 folder of the exercise files. This opens
the Camera Settings dialog box. Although you can also adjust the focal length of
the “lens” by adjusting the Focal Length property here, you can also use the Preset
drop down to choose a lens size. Choose the most wide angle lens available here
– 15mm.
HOT TIP
Another side
effect of using
a wide angle
lens is that Z
space depth is
exaggerated.
Use a wide angle
lens to make a
background look
like it is farther
away from the
subject than
it is.
Select the Camera 1 layer and press p to reveal its Position property. Change
4 the Z value to bring the camera closer to the solids, and rotate as desired.
Notice that when you do, these square solids become distorted and rectangular
as they get close to the camera. It’s a really cool effect that can make objects feel
that they are really coming at you. In horror films, this technique is often used to
make viewers feel that something is even more horrific. But it can also be used to
make motion graphics and animations more exciting. SHORTCUTS
MAC WIN BOTH
39
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Multiple Camera Angles
O NE OF THE TRICKS TO MAKING

ANIMATIONS FEEL MORE CINEMATIC is
to change camera angles the way they do in 1 Again we’re going to be using this great art by Dan Grady. For this trick, it’s
a good idea to use Illustrator files (or other vector objects, like shape layers)
so that we can zoom in closely with “long” lenses and still have the objects
movies. We can have a wide angle shot, where remain sharp. I’ve already created a wide angle lens camera for you to use as the
establishing shot. You’ll find this project in the Multi Camera Render.aep project in
we see the big picture. Then we can cut in the Chapter 02 folder of the exercise files.
close to see a particular character, then cut to
a reaction shot, and so forth. Using multiple
cameras (especially with multiple angles), we
can really tell a better story.
With a quick trick in After Effects, we can set
up multiple cameras using different angles, and
render them out – all in the same comp with
just one render!
3 Let’s make another camera, this one using the 200mm preset so we can really
get in there. This makes the plane a much more significant character in this
drama.
40
Create a new camera by using the keyboard shortcut COSc

2 LASc and use the 80mm preset. This is a much longer lens than
the one in the previous screen shot, which zooms us into the action. Adjust the
position of the camera as desired.
HOT TIP
After Effects
will use
whatever
camera layer
that is on
top. So, you
could have
three different
cameras
overlapping
each other in
the timeline, but
After Effects
will only show
4 Create as many cameras with as many angles as you need to tell your story
effectively. The trick then to change cameras within the same comp is to
simply trim the length of the camera layers! To do that, simply grab the beginning
you the one
highest in the
layer stack.
or end of a layer in the Timeline panel and drag it inwards to make it shorter. Then
as one camera layer ends, it will “cut” to the camera angle of the camera layer
beneath it. When you render, it will be as if you had rendered multiple shots and
edited them together.
SHORTCUTS
MAC WIN BOTH
41
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3D Camera Path
A LTHOUGH AFTER EFFECTS HAS

INCREDIBLE 3D FEATURES for an
application that was designed to be a 2D app,
1 Open the 3D Camera Path.aep project from the Chapter 02 folder of the
exercise files. I’ve already got a camera set up for you here. Note that this is
one of those new-fangled one-node cameras, new to After Effects CS5. I find that
these are easier to use for creating predictable camera paths.
sometimes those dang cameras are just so hard

to control. In this cheat, we’re going to look
at a way (okay, actually two ways) to control
a camera using a path from another layer. This
might help you be able to get better control of
your camera movement. We’re going to look
at a way to use a 2D mask to create a camera
path, and also how to create a 3D motion path
for cameras. An example of this 3D camera path
is shown above. Notice the curvature of the
camera’s path in the two different viewports.
3 The other way to create a camera path isn’t as easy to control, but it allows
you to create a 3D motion path for your camera. The secret is to create a
new null object. Masks reside on layers, and layers are 2D, therefore masks (and
the paths created from them) must be 2D. However, we can move this null in 3D
space. The screenshot above shows the 3D path that I created for the null object.
42
HOT TIP
This method of
copying paths
into the Position
property can
also be used
to copy shapes
from Adobe
Illustrator and
paste them as
2 To easily create a 2D path for the camera to follow, grab the Pen tool. Create a
new solid the size of your comp and create your camera path on it. Then select
the new solid you created and press m to reveal the Mask Path property. Click
motion paths on
regular layers!
Mask Path and then press CcLc to copy it. Select the camera layer and
press p to reveal its Position property, and click it to select the property (NOT the
layer). Then press CvLv to paste the mask, and have your camera follow
this path! You may need to make small tweaks to Focal Length after pasting.
Select the camera layer and press p to reveal its Position property. OA
4 click the stopwatch to add an expression. Click and drag the expression
pickwhip to the Position property of your null object. Now your camera navigates
through your scene as your null object did! This made it much easier for me to
navigate this camera through my 3D scene, and tell an entire story with just this
one still graphic.
SHORTCUTS
MAC WIN BOTH
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Orient to Camera
1 Here we have the characters and objects in their standard state with the
A FTER EFFECTS HAS A COOL (AND SIMPLE)

WAY TO AUTOMATICALLY HAVE OBJECTS
POINT AT THE CAMERA, no matter where the
camera looking at them straight on. This is the Orient to Camera.aep project in
the Chapter 02 folder of the exercise files. All is well and good thus far...
camera goes. Although this trick is obviously

handy for those times when you animate a
camera moving through a room full of people,
and you want those people to continually stare
at the camera. However, this trick is also really
helpful for adding an extra degree of apparent
volume.
As the After Effects camera travels by an
object, it becomes very apparent that it is
only a flat layer. If the object auto-orients (i.e.
automatically points) to the camera as it goes
by, the object doesn’t quite seem so flat.
3 In the Timeline panel, right click on the layers for the robots (PRECOMP
robot 1 and PRECOMP robot 2). Choose Transform>Auto-Orient. In the Auto-
Orientation dialog box, change the setting from Off to Orient Towards Camera.
This will ensure that this object will automatically point towards the camera at all
times.
44
2 But when we orbit the camera around, they start to skew. We can see that the
robots are 2D, and it makes the whole scene look less realistic.
HOT TIP
Note that after
changing the
camera angle
to a degree this
extreme and
then turning
on auto-
orientation,
you may need
to tweak the
position of
the characters
4 With their orientation now automatically set, these two robots look towards
the camera, which gives them an increased sense of life. In the screenshot
above, contrast their appearance and scale with the robot on the far right with
or the Focus
Distance
parameter of
its back turned. The distortion created by the lack of proper orientation is very the camera.
apparent when viewed side by side with the robots that we’ve adjusted. The
benefit of this feature is even more pronounced when animated.
45
I N T E R L U D E
Lighting is the Secret

LIGHTING IS EVERYTHING. NO, SERIOUSLY. As you work in 3D (and even as
you work in 2D), it pays to remember that the lighting of a scene makes all the
difference. Talk to any director of photography or talented 3D artist and they
will no doubt confirm that lighting is in fact the most important ingredient
in the recipe of getting a quality looking final result. Look at the werewolf on
the opposite page. This is from a werewolf model created for a low poly video
game. Without proper lighting, the model looks awful. But with some sweet
lighting, it’s a significantly improved piece of artwork.
Have you ever gone to a museum or a movie set where they have props
from famous movies? If that’s your thing, check out the Warner Brothers
museum on the VIP Studio Tour in Burbank, CA or the Science Fiction museum
in Seattle, WA. It’s an incredible experience, mostly because it’s not that
incredible. The costumes and props that look so cool in the movies look like
prizes you’d find in the bottom of your favorite breakfast cereal when viewed
up close. So how come they look so cool on screen? Yep. You guessed it.
Lighting.
So then, how do you light a scene properly? Although the answer to that
question might take a lifetime of experience to master, there are some good tips
that I can give you to at least help you get started.
The first is what they call three point lighting. It’s a basic lighting setup
where you have one main light (called a “key” light). This is the light that
creates your shadows, and it’s placed in front of the subject, usually higher
in the air and slightly off to the side a bit. The second light is a fill light, to
basically lighten the shadows and create more ambient light. The third light is
placed behind the subject and is used to highlight the edges around the subject,
creating more of a sense of the volume of the object. Check out the shot on the
opposite page of this kid that I made (with a little help from my wife, I guess).
This is a raw still from a short film I made called The Young are the Restless.
You can see the shadows under her chin, on the plate, and (unfortunately) on
46
the back wall. The shadows indicate where the key light is. Notice the light
underneath her right arm and on her back. This is from the backlight. I’m
admittedly not that good at lighting, but I think the backlight here adds a lot of
volume and dimension to this shot.
Another tip is to simply observe the real world. Try this: go somewhere
where there is an obvious light source coming from above you (e.g. a room with
a light, or outside in daylight). Then hover your hand right above the surface
(maybe about a half inch or so). Note the shadow – it’s opacity, it’s color, and
the softness of the edges. Now raise your hand away from the surface. What
happens to the shadow? Why does it do that? Little tests like this can help you
understand more about the way that light works.
Even if you never take on the role of gaffer in a movie production, your job
as an After Effects artist will be greatly improved by knowing about lighting,
and how to control it to get the results you’re looking for.
47
3D Objects
TURNING A 2D LAYER INTO A 3D LAYER COULDN’T BE
ANY EASIER – just check the 3D Layer checkbox in the
Timeline panel. Cake. Anyone can do that.
But what we’re going to examine in this chapter is a load

of tricks and features in After Effects to create 3D objects,
including some unconventional ones, and some great new
stuff in CS5. We’ll even look briefly at a new feature in
Photoshop CS5 Extended that allows you to create and
texture 3D objects from scratch, and then import those
objects (keeping them 3D!) into After Effects. After going
through the tips in this chapter, you will no doubt be able
to create more thrilling 3D objects and environments in
your future After Effects projects.
49
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The Parallax Effect

P ARALLAX IS NOT REALLY
AN AFTER EFFECTS-
SPECIFIC CHEAT. It’s a principle
that you should be aware of
when working in 3D. Because
of the nature of the 3D in
After Effects, you’re typically
just moving flat objects, or
“postcards in space” as it’s
been called. As we rotate
around a 3D scene, we see
objects that are near to us
moving at a different rate of
speed than those objects that
1 Take this art for example (which you can find in The Parallax Effect.aep project in the Chapter 03
folder of the exercise files). By the way, this fantastic art was created by artist Dan Grady.
are distant from us. This is

parallax.
This is also the way that
you are able to see 3D. Try
this experiment. With both
eyes open, hold up a finger
centered between your eyes,
about six inches away from
your head. Look at a stationary
object off in the distance. Now
take turns closing one eye and
opening the other. Notice how
the difference between the
two views. Your finger appears
to move in the opposite
direction of the background
object. Being aware of this
phenomenon will help you
3 The reason I keep all that stuff in the background (and foreground) is that these objects provide
important background layering necessary to enhance the parallax effect. There really isn’t anything
behind the green monster’s head without the clouds and stars. Notice the first frame of the moving
camera when the stars and clouds are visible.
get the most out of your 3D
experience in After Effects.
50
HOT TIP
In most 3D
scenes, objects
are adjusted
in 3D space to
exist farther
away from the
camera, or to
be closer to it.
Objects that
have not had
their Z position
2 One might argue that the art looks much cleaner without all of the stars and clouds in the
background, especially when static. changed from
the default
value typically
don’t move
much when
the camera is
orbited around
the scene. For
that reason, I
refer to this
zone as the
“focal plane”.
The focal plane
is a good spot
to put things
that need to be
very clear for
the duration of
the animation,
such as text or
a client logo.
Note that if
your camera
animation is
less orbital and
more of a dolly
shot, then the
focal plane will
4 Here is the same scene with the camera moving in the opposite direction. Again pay particular
attention to the area behind the head of the green monster. What gives you clues that the camera
has moved? What if those background objects weren’t there? The clouds and stars in the extreme
be irrelevant.
background and the fighter planes in the extreme foreground are what I refer to as “depth cues” –
objects that indicate that the camera is moving in 3D space. Can you find any other depth cues in these
images? The careful use of depth cues is the key to using the parallax effect, and is what will make your
3D projects in After Effects really come alive.
51
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3D in Repoussé
O K, SO TECHNICALLY, THIS CHEAT DEALS

WITH PHOTOSHOP. But as we’ll see in the
following cheat, this is a direct benefit for After
1 In Photoshop, open up the Repousse.psd file from the Media folder in the
Exercise Files folder. Then OA click the eye icon for the flower shape layer
in the Layers panel to see only this layer (kind of like the equivalent of soloing the
layer in After Effects).
Effects users. Besides, every After Effects user
uses Photoshop, right? Of course.
In Photoshop CS5 Extended, Adobe has added
a new module called Repoussé which allows
you to create 3D objects from scratch. And it’s
just so easy! You take practically any object,
and Repoussé will extrude it, and/or bevel it,
bloat it, texture it, and give you all kinds of
interesting creative options.
Here, we’ll create a 3D object from scratch
and use that object in a real world design. In
the next cheat, we’ll take this same 3D object
into After Effects where we can manipulate it
as if it were a true 3D object. Note that using
3D from Photoshop files is the only way to get
truly 3D objects natively into After Effects.
3 Behold Repoussé! Even without adjusting any parameters, we see that

Repoussé has made our little flower an extruded 3D object. Even while
the Repoussé window is open, we can click and drag around the flower in our
document window to rotate it around in 3D.
52
2 To make this simple layer a 3D object, click on it to select it in the Layers

panel, then go to the Window menu at the top of the interface and choose
Window>3D, which will open the 3D panel. At the bottom of the 3D panel, in
the Create New 3D Object area, select 3D Repoussé Object, and press the Create
button. You will get a warning saying that Photoshop will have to rasterize the
layer. Choose yes to make it happen.
HOT TIP
If you
inadvertently
close Repoussé,
or would like
to edit your
Repoussé object
again after
you’ve created
it, go to the 3D
menu at the top
of the interface
and choose 3D>
Repoussé>Edit
in Repoussé.
4 While we’re here, let’s play around a bit. In the Extrude area, increase
the Depth value to about 3.3. Increase the Twist value to about 110 or so.
Decrease Scale to about 0.5. I’m also going to click and drag on my shape to rotate SHORTCUTS
it a little. Not bad, Photoshop! MAC WIN BOTH
continued...
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3D in Repoussé (continued)
5 OK. Enough goofing around (for now). Let’s get back to the project at hand by
going to the Repoussé Shape Presets area at the top, and choosing the preset
called Bevel 2. Notice that completely overrides our previous settings for Depth,
Scale, and Twist. Let’s leave Twist at 0. But take Scale back down to 0.5 and take
Depth to 2.5. In the Bevel area, take the Width value down to 15.
8 Go ahead and click OK to accept this object. Photoshop

will render it with better quality. I like it! 9 Of course, it gets much better. You can also go to the
3D panel to improve the quality further. At the top of
the panel, make sure Filter By: Whole scene is selected. Then,
from the Quality drop down, change this from Interactive to
Ray Traced Draft. This takes a LONG time, but it improves the
quality quite a bit.
54
HOT TIP
Adobe has
generously
created loads
of additional
materials
libraries
that you can
download and
6 This is looking a little funky. So let’s use another

great Repoussé feature and texture this object. In the
Materials area, click the Front texture and from the popup
7 Now change the texture for the Sides, but this time
choose Satin Black as the texture. I realize the red “fun”
texture still looks a little rough. Photoshop will fix that for us
install for free.
Just go to the
3D menu in
library, choose Fun Textured3. Yep. Fun Textured 1 and 2 just automatically once we exit Repoussé. Photoshop
aren’t enough fun for us. Apply the same texture to Bevel1. and choose
Browse 3D
Content Online.
And they’re
actually really
GOOD libraries,
too. There’s a
library of glass
textures, a
library of metal
textures, and
several more.
10 Select the Object Rotate Tool in the Tools panel to rotate this object in 3D space if you like. From there, you can
arrange these 3D objects into a design like this. And remember that these are live 3D objects. So if you wanted to
change the red or black texture, or if you wanted to adjust the light source, or if you wanted to change the bevel or extrusion
settings, you can do that. Ahhh... I just love 3D.
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Photoshop 3D in After Effects
1 In After Effects, import the Repousse for AE.psd file from Exercise
Files>Media>PSDs. Be sure to choose to import this as a composition. Here,
we’ll go ahead and choose Composition – Retain Layer Sizes. In the dialog box that
N OW THAT WE KNOW HOW TO CREATE 3D

OBJECTS from scratch in Photoshop, it’s
time to look at importing those 3D objects into
follows, be sure to choose Live Photoshop 3D so that 3D layers from Photoshop
maintain their 3D-ness. Click OK to import.
After Effects. There are a few tricks to this, so

here’s hoping that this cheat is helpful for you.
I should also point out that not only does
this technique work for importing 3D objects
created in Repoussé, but it also works with any
other 3D object in a PSD file. As mentioned
previously, this is the only way natively to bring
a truly 3D dimensional object into After Effects
and manipulate it in 3D space.
3 Right about now, you might be looking at this 3D object and wondering about
the quality, or rather the lack thereof. Here’s the deal – this object used the
Interactive quality mode in Photoshop. If that’s the case, it will never get better
than that here in After Effects. Select one of the layers of this PSD from the
Repousse for AE Layers folder in the Project panel. Press CeLe to open it
in Photoshop.
56
2 Notice our layers in the Timeline panel. Layers 3 and 4 are our 3D layers.
Upon import, After Effects turned these 3D layers into their own nested
compositions. Double click layer 3 to open it up. You’ll find that After Effects has
actually created a null object and a camera for each of the 3D objects. Use the
camera to navigate around the 3D object. Use the null to transform the 3D object
instead of using the 3D layer’s layer transforms.
HOT TIP
Although 3D
objects from
Photoshop are
truly 3D, and
therefore can
respond to
lights, they do
not respond to
the lights in
After Effects.
So, if you want
to customize the
lighting on your
3D object, you
must do so in
Photoshop.
4 In the 3D panel in Photoshop, change the Quality drop down to Ray Traced
Draft and then go get yourself a sandwich. It takes quite a while to render.
After that’s done, save the file and go back to After Effects. Right click on a layer
from the Photoshop document in the Project panel and choose Reload Footage.
Now, this will make things look better, but render slower in After Effects. To
remedy this, change the 3D layer’s quality switch in the Timeline panel from Best SHORTCUTS
to Draft while you’re working. Then change it back to Best for your final render. MAC WIN BOTH
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3D Shatter Scenes
1 In the Shatter.aep project in the Chapter 03 folder of the exercise files, open up
the Shatter START comp (which is actually blank). Press CyLy to create
S O THE 3D IN THE ABOVE SCREENSHOT IS

KINDA COOL, YES? Can you guess what
program it was made in? Was it 3DS Max?
a new solid layer. Make it white. Apply the Shatter effect, which isn’t much to look
at in its default state. This view is a working view. The Shatter effect breaks your
layer up into pieces. The wireframe shows the pieces. The blue lines show you the
force that blows up your layer.
Cinema 4D? Perhaps Maya?

Actually, the 3D in the project shown above
was created entirely in After Effects, without
the help of additional plugins. And both the
text and the background were not only created
from scratch in After Effects, but they are
completely editable in 3D. You can adjust the
3D lighting and the 3D camera angle.
What might be even more surprising is that
these objects were created by playing around
with the Shatter effect. Created many, many
years ago by After Effects legend Brian Maffitt,
this effect was originally intended to just blow
stuff up (as it says in its description in the
Effects Control panel if you press the “About”
button). But this effect was years ahead of its 3 As mentioned, the real amazing thing (to me) about Shatter is that it creates
a three dimensional shatter. In its effect controls, scroll down to the Camera
Position area and open that up. This is the virtual camera that controls Shatter.
time. As we’ll see, Shatter is capable of much Take X Rotation to about –70 degrees. Take Y position down to about 230 or so.
more than just shattering, thanks to the 3D
environment that it creates.
58
2 In the Shatter effect controls (in the Effect Controls panel), change the View
drop down from Wireframe + Forces to Rendered. If, after changing the
View value, you only see white, go out a few frames in time. Shatter is an auto-
animating effect, and the shattering effect doesn’t start until the layer’s second
frame. This shot is from 0;00;00;08 in my comp.
HOT TIP
In addition
to controlling
Shatter with the
Camera Position
controls, you
can also change
the Camera
System drop
down to control
Shatter with
either corner
pins, or the first
camera in your
composition.
4 So, as you can see, these are real 3D bricks we’re dealing with here! Let’s
make these bricks look more like buildings by going to the Shape area in the
Shatter effect controls and increasing the Extrusion Depth value to about 5 or so.
That’s kinda cool, but now you can see that the edges aren’t blowing up. In the
Force 1 area, increase the Radius value to about 0.6 to blow up those pesky edges.
You may want to increase the Y position of the camera after that.
SHORTCUTS
continued... MAC WIN BOTH
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3D Shatter Scenes (continued)
5 One of the benefits of Shatter is that it auto-animates. One of the problems of Shatter is that it
auto-animates. If you preview a frame later on in the timeline, you’ll notice that your design just
falls apart (well, it technically shatters). In the Physics area, make the “air” thicker by increasing the
Viscosity value to 1.0 and take the Gravity value down to 0. Wait a minute! What happened?!? To fix
this, let’s increase the Force 1>Strength value to 13.
7 As part of the “real” 3D environment that Shatter creates, a light is created for you. Adjusting
the light can help you create significantly more realism in your 3D Shatter scene. Change the
Lighting>Light Type value to Point Source to create a more dramatic effect. Then take Light Depth to
–0.1, and increase the Light Intensity to 1.5.
60
6 I think I’ve gone without color for about as long as I can stand. Thankfully, Shatter allows you to
add textures to the front, side, and back of these 3D pieces. When we texture a side, we basically
have two choices – we can texture it with the color in the Textures>Color swatch, or we can use a layer.
Click that color swatch and change the color to a deep red. Change the Textures>Side Mode drop down
to Color.
HOT TIP
Similar to the
camera system
in Shatter, you
can also set
Shatter to use a
light from your
composition
that you’ve
created.
Simply choose
Lighting>Light
Type>First Comp
Light.
8 For the finishing touches, I boosted contrast with the Levels effect and the Glow effect, then added
a gradient background. I also fiddled around with the Materials settings in the Shatter effect to
change how the light reacts when it hits the shattered pieces. Keep in mind that this scene is still 3D,
and can be navigated with cameras in 3D space.
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3D Text
1 In the 3D Text.aep project in the Chapter 03 folder of

the exercise files, go to the 3D Text START comp. This
comp contains some background layers (which are currently
shy), and some shapes created from a text layer. It’s the text
shapes that we’re going to be converting into 3D objects.
O NE OF THE BIGGEST REASONS THAT

MANY AFTER EFFECTS USERS LEARN a
dedicated 3D modeling application is just to be
able to create three dimensional extruded text.
In the last cheat, we used Shatter to create a 3D
environment. Here, we’re going to take things
to an entirely new level. We’re going to use
Shatter to create our own custom 3D objects –
3D text, in this case.
4 So that Shatter doesn’t blow up our text, open the

Force 1 area and increase the Depth value until the blue
force doesn’t touch the wireframe shattering wall. A value
of about 0.5 should do it. Now that the blue force never
touches the text, it will never shatter.
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HOT TIP
The text here
is not being
generated by
a font, so it’s
not “live”. It
originally was a
text layer, but
Press CyLy to create a new solid. Make it the
2 same size as the comp and name the layer Shatter Text.
Apply the Shatter effect to this solid layer (NOT the layer
3 As it stands now, Shatter is just going to blow up our
solid layer. Unlike the previous cheat, we don’t want
anything blowing up here; we just want to use Shatter to
was converted
by choosing
Layer>Create
with the text shapes on it). In the Timeline, click the layer’s make our text three dimensional. Open the Camera Position Shapes From
solo switch so we’re only seeing this layer. controls and take the Y Rotation value to –88 degrees. Now Text so that
we can see the side view of our explosion. there wouldn’t
be any
compatibility
issues in case
you didn’t
have the same
font that I was
using. Note that
shapes are not
necessary for
this trick. Text
layers can be
used as shatter
patterns, as
well as regular
layers.
5 The last step is perhaps most important. In the Shatter effect controls, go to the Shape area. Change the Pattern drop
down to Custom. Then, from the Custom Shatter Map drop down, choose the Art Show Outlines layer. Now you have
3D text! To see it, change the View drop down from Wireframe + Forces to Rendered. Change the Y Rotation value of the
camera in Shatter back to 0. Increase the 3D extrusion by increasing the Extrusion Depth value in the Shape area. Here, I also
changed the color of the light to a cyan color to match the background that we created in the last cheat. SHORTCUTS
MAC WIN BOTH
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3D Postcards
1 We’re going to start with the 3D Postcards START comp in

the 3D Postcards.aep project in the Chapter 03 folder of
W HEN PEOPLE SPEAK OF THE 3D IN

AFTER EFFECTS and the lack thereof,
they often deride it be referring to it as
the exercise files. I’ve created this very large PSD file to use.
This is a bunch of animal photos I’ve taken that have been
arranged in a 6 x 6 grid.
“postcards in space.” Well, there might be

occasions where that’s exactly the look that you
are going for.
After Effects actually has a couple of tools
for creating instant distribution and animation
of 3D postcards, including what is seen on the
back of the virtual cards. This can be helpful
for creating an instant array of playing cards,
or for creating the look that an entire stadium
of people is holding up and flipping posters, or
for simply creating a massive, three dimensional
array of photographs, as we’ll do in this cheat.
4 Now let’s play with this! Apply the Card Wipe effect to
the Photos.psd layer in the 3D Postcards START comp.
The cards don’t quite match our photos. So in the Card Wipe
effect controls, make the Rows and Columns values both 6,
because that corresponds to how many rows and columns
our photo grid has.
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2 We’re going to bring this to life with the Card Wipe

effect. But before we do that, I want to demonstrate
what this effect does using a simple solid. This is what the
3 At first, it’s really not clear (to me, anyway) what Card
Wipe is doing exactly. It’s actually creating a series of 3D
cards and is flipping them to reveal the content underneath.
solid looks like after Card Wipe has been applied with its To see the “3D-ness” of the cards, I can adjust the Y rotation
default settings. of the virtual camera, similar to what we did with Shatter. HOT TIP
Ah, now it’s easier to see what Card Wipe is doing. Animating
these cards
is easy, but a
little confusing.
In both the
Position Jitter
and Rotation
Jitter areas,
you’ll find that
each dimension
has an amount
value and a
speed value.
Once you
increase the
amount value to
anything besides
0, that property
of the cards will
auto-animate
(wiggle) using
the amount
value and the
speed value.
To transform
5 Another cool trick with Card Wipe is that you can put
stuff on the back of the cards! In the 3D Postcards DONE
comp, you’ll see this Animal Discoveries logo layer. We’re
6 At the bottom of the Card Wipe effect controls, open the
Position Jitter controls. Increase one of the jitter amount
controls to distribute the cards along that axis. Then animate
them without
the wiggle, take
going to put this on the back of the cards, so that they flip Transition Completion to flip the cards and you’re done! the speed value
to reveal it. To do that, simply choose the layer from the to 0.
Back Layer drop down in the Card Wipe effect controls.
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3D Objects from Solids
A LTHOUGH NOT IDEAL, IT IS POSSIBLE

in a pinch to create simple three
dimensional objects entirely out of solid layers.
1 For this particular project, I started in Adobe Illustrator. Man, I love Illustrator.
I find that it’s often a lot easier to sketch out ideas in Illustrator than After
Effects. So this is what I drew there. And actually, this is based on the art of Ed
Emberley, who makes these really fun drawing books that I’ve been a big fan of
since I was a kid.
The screenshot above was taken from a video
tutorial that I created, demonstrating ways
to create 3D in After Effects. The entire door
– including the door jamb paneling on the
door – was created using solids in After Effects.
The group of solids that make up the door was
then parented to a null object so that the door
can open and close. Sexy 1940’s era film noir
lighting was added, and there you have it.
In this cheat, I’m going to walk you through
the steps of how I created a more elaborate
3D object with solids. Again, this method is
not preferable to creating a 3D object in a 3D
program. However, it is a good reminder that
solids can be oh so much more than just flat
objects.
3 After I had assembled the rough template, I went to work making solids for
every side of everything – a solid for each side of each post of the door frame,
each side of each step, and so on. So that I could align each layer a little easier in
3D, and so that these layers would render a little faster, I used the Wireframe view
from the Fast Previews drop down at the bottom of the Composition panel. This
had the added benefit of making me feel like an architect, which I enjoyed.
66
2 I then imported this AI file into After Effects so that I could use this as a
template for creating my 3D house. Once imported, I locked the Illustrator
file so that I couldn’t mess it up on accident. I then used this as a reference to
assemble a rough 3D structure using solids.
4 For the final house scene, I added some lighting, some lightning, and a cool
fractal noise cloud background. Now again, it’s not the most impressive thing
you’ve ever seen, but it is 3D. I can move lights around it, and pilot a camera
through it if needed. Having objects with three dimensions gives you a lot more
control over their animation and lighting.
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3D Distortion
1 First, we’re going to make the bottom part of the tent. You can open up the 3D
Distortion.aep project in the Chapter 03 folder of the exercise files if you’d like
to use that as a reference. Create a 1280 x 720 comp. Create a white solid and
make it the same width as the comp (1280 pixels), but make it half of the height
(360 pixels).
T HERE ARE SEVERAL TOOLS FOR WARPING

OBJECTS IN AFTER EFFECTS. Heck, there’s
even an entire effects category devoted to
warping, stretching, bending, and otherwise
fiddling with your layers.
But most of these effects only distort in two
dimensions. Using included 3rd party effects,
however, we can absolutely warp objects in all
three dimensions. In this cheat, we’re going to
get more familiar with two effects that can be
used to create 3D distortion. We’re going to
use these effects to create a three dimensional
circus tent. We might even learn a few extra
tricks along the way!
3 Now we need to precompose these layers. Select the Timeline panel and
press CaLa to select all layers, then press CScLSc
to precompose these layers. Name the precomp Tent. Now we can edit them as
one. To this nested precomp layer, apply the CC Cylinder effect, which will wrap
this layer around a 3D cylinder. This is the base of our tent. Using the CC Cylinder
effect controls, we can rotate, move, and change the lighting of this cylinder.
68
Select this solid and press CdLd to duplicate the layer. Select the
2 top copy and press CSyLSy to adjust the settings of this
solid. Making sure that the “Affect all layers that use this solid” option is turned
OFF, change the color of this solid to red. Then apply the Venetian Blinds effect to
the red solid layer. In the Venetian Blinds effect controls, increase the Transition
Completion value to 60% and the Width value to 115.
HOT TIP
So this is
probably the
most depressing
“Hot Tip” of all
time. The CC
Cylinder does
have 3D camera
and 3D lighting
controls.
Unfortunately,
however, the
CC Cylinder
effect does not
respond to After
Effects cameras
or lights.
4 Select the Tent layer and duplicate the layer using the shortcut from step 2.
Name this copy Tent Overhang. Adjust the Y scale and the Radius value in the
CC Cylinder effect controls for each layer to create a tent with an overhang.
SHORTCUTS
69
3D O
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3D Distortion (continued)
5 Temporarily turn off the visibility for the Tent and Tent Overhang layers. Press
F2 to deselect all layers. Then select the Ellipse tool in the Tool bar and create
an ellipse in the center of the comp. Hold S while creating it to make it a
perfect circle. Give it a white fill and no stroke.
8 In the DE_FreeFormAE effect controls, change the Rotation X value (found

in the 3D Mesh Controls area) to –82 degrees so that we can see what we’re
doing. Click a point in the center of the mesh to highlight it.
70
HOT TIP
You may need to
adjust the size
and position of
the red pinwheel
or the white
shape layer to
make sure that
the edges of
each are even,
and that they
Now select both of these new layers using the S key
6 This step is fun. Make a red solid the size of the comp.
Apply the Venetian Blinds effect to this layer. In the
Venetian Blinds effect controls, change the Transition
7 and precompose as we did in step 3 and call this nested
comp Tent Top. Then apply the DE_FreeFormAE effect to
are centered in
the composition.
Completion value to 60% and the Width value to 115. Now the Tent Top layer. This is a 3rd party effect that now comes
apply the Polar Coordinates effect, and adjust its Type of with After Effects CS5. In the Grid area in its effect controls,
Conversion to Rect to Polar and increase Interpolation to increase both the Rows and Columns values to 6.
100%.
9 Drag it upwards to deform this mesh in 3D, creating

a point to the top of the tent. Unlike CC Cylinder,
FreeFormAE responds to After Effects lights (but not After
10 Here is the final image after arranging the Tent Top
layer in 3D space, adding lights, adding a background,
adding a ball at the top (using CC Sphere) and creating a
Effects cameras). In the 3D Mesh Quality area, change the mask for the front part of the door. Each component of this
Antialiasing value to High to increase the quality (if desired). tent is 3D!
SHORTCUTS
MAC WIN BOTH
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3D Planetscape
1 If you’d like to dissect a finished version of this project,

I’ve created one called 3D Planet.aep which you’ll find in
the Chapter 03 folder of the exercise files. The first step is
S IMILAR TO THE PREVIOUS CHEAT, WE’RE

GOING TO MAKE A 3D SCENE using
FreeformAE and a Cycore 3D effect. This time
to create a 1280 x 720 comp. Then create a new solid layer
and apply the Fractal Noise effect to it. In its effect controls,
change the Fractal Type to Dynamic. For more info on Fractal
Noise, check out the cheats in Chapter 10.
we’re going to be creating a 3D planet scene.

But this time, when we use the FreeformAE
effect, we’re going to use fractal noise as a
displacement map to create 3D displacement on
a regular old solid layer.
4 To make this beautiful planet match our scene a

bit more, in the CC Sphere effect controls, change
the Light Intensity to 225, the Light Height to –40, the
Shading>Ambient value to 20, and increase the X value of
the Offset property to about 925 or so to move our planet
over to the right. Note that you can make the planet rotate
in 3D by adjusting Rotation>Rotation Y
72
HOT TIP
You don’t have
to precomp
the fractal
noise to have
it distorted by
CC Sphere. We
precomposed so
that the color of
the solid would
Press CaLa to select all layers and then press be on our sphere
2 This pattern will be the texture for our planet. To me,
there’s too much contrast here. So change the Overflow
drop down to Soft Clamp to make sure that our highlights
3 CScLSc to precompose these layers.
Call this new composition planet. Apply the CC Sphere effect
as well. If it’s
more convenient
for you, you can
and shadows are more dull. Adjust Complexity, Scale, to the nested precomp.
simply apply a
Brightness, and Contrast to your liking. I also created a
colorizing effect
yellowish solid above this layer and put it into the Soft Light
to the layer
blend mode in order to colorize this.
with the Fractal
Noise effect
on it.
Press CyLy to create a new white solid. Make it

5 the size of the comp, and apply the CC Star Burst effect
to it. It’s important that the solid is white because the CC
6 OK, so the stars look terrible. Let’s fix them. In the effect
controls for CC Star Burst, take the Scatter value to 200,
and the Size value to 30. I also added the Fast Blur effect
Star Burst effect creates stars that are the same color as the with a very low Blurriness value (0.5), just to soften the
layer it’s applied to. Drag this layer beneath the planet layer. edges.
SHORTCUTS
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3D Planetscape (continued)
7 Make a solid and apply Fractal Noise. The default settings will be fine.
Select this layer and precompose it as we did in step 3. Choose the “Move
all attributes...” option and call it foreground texture. Create a new light yellow
solid layer (or whatever color you’d like your foreground planet soil to be). Apply
the DE_FreeformAE effect to this new solid. In the Displacement Controls area in
its effect controls, choose the foreground texture layer from the Displace Layer
drop down. Change the 3D Mesh Quality>Mesh Subdivision property to 300 and
Displacement Controls>Displace Height to 50. Create a light.
9 One of the things that the eyes really love is contrast. Right now, we’re
looking at two planets in shadow. In space. And as expected, it’s dark. Press
F2 to make sure all layers are deselected, then select the Ellipse tool in the tool
bar. Click and drag to make a light yellow-orange ellipse about the size of the
foreground surface. Then deselect all again and make another ellipse about the
size of the planet and drag these below their corresponding layers in the layer
stack in the Timeline panel.
74
HOT TIP
When using
layers as maps
(such as in this
case with the
foreground
texture layer
here), it is
usually advisable
to turn off their
8 The cool thing about this displacement is that it’s actually three dimensional.
In the 3D Mesh Controls area of the FreeformAE effect controls, adjust the
Rotation X value to about –70. Adjust the position and rotation values, and the
visibility. Layers
that are not
visible can still
settings of the light as desired. For a more controlled way to displace a layer, check be used as maps
out the cheats in Chapter 5. to control the
properties of
effects.
10 For the final touches, I applied the Fast Blur effect to both of the shape
layers and increased the Blurriness value to taste. For additional sexiness,
I then applied the Optical Flares effect from Video Copilot. Note that if you do not
have this effect installed on your machine, you will not be able to see these layers
in the project file, but they are not essential to the scene. Also keep in mind that
although these objects can’t be controlled by an After Effects camera, they are
volumetric 3D objects that can be moved in 3D space!
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Echospace
T RAPCODE’S ECHOSPACE IS A GREAT

LITTLE PLUGIN EFFECT that duplicates and
distributes layers in 3D space, and provides a
1 Create a new 1280 x 720 comp, and a new black solid of the same size. Apply
the somewhat rare Circle effect. In the Effect Controls panel, take the Radius
to 122, the Edge drop down to Thickness*Radius, and the Thickness to 20. Click the
Color swatch and replace it with something more colorful. I chose purple.
handy way to control all of these layers as well.

The screenshot above is taken from a (free)
tutorial that I created for Red Giant Software.
I used Echospace to create a psychedelic spiral
in the style of the old Twilight Zone television
show intros. The copies created by Echospace
are just regular layers, and as such, respond to
lights, as seen in the film noir style lighting
above. We’re going to be creating something
similar, but slightly more colorful than that.
For creating motion graphics or even abstract
animated art, I find Echospace a helpful and
creativity-inspiring plugin. If you don’t own
Echospace, you can get a free trial download of
it from redgiantsoftware.com.
3 Echospace creates multiple copies of your layer. The Setup>Instances value

determines the number of copies. This is similar to the repeater operator with
shape layers. In the Repeater area, increase the Z Offset value to 300, and the
Scale value to 30. Then click the Setup>Commands>Repeat button to generate the
copies.
76
2 Next, apply another oft-used effect – the Bevel Alpha effect. In its effect
controls, take the Edge Thickness value to 12 and the Light Intensity value to
0.6. Then apply the Echospace effect. HOT TIP
Echospace
automatically
creates multiple
null objects to
control each
duplicate, and
a master null is
created that is
the parent to all
of those nulls.
Additionally,
it makes all
layers it creates
(except the
master null)
shy. So all you
have to do is to
click the master
shy switch at
the top of the
Timeline panel
to hide all layers
except the
original layer
with Echospace
and the master
null.
4 So that’s pretty convenient, but the real magic of this effect is that you can
still make adjustments, either to the master null (called “Main[14]” here) or to
the Echospace effect on the original layer. In this case, I increased the Repeater>X
Offset value of the Echospace effect on the original solid to about 70, and I
decided to reduce the Scale value to about 15.
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3D in Nested Compositions
W ORKING WITH 3D LAYERS IS PRETTY

STRAIGHT FORWARD. However, once
those layers are precomposed, it’s a different
1 We’re going to start with this little promo video that I made. You’ll find this
project in the Chad Show Bumper Final.aep project in the Chapter 03 folder of
the exercise files. I had all of these layers, and I wanted to precompose them so
that I can move them together, and mask them as one object as well. These layers
can be found in the PRECOMP left stuff composition. I added a white background
story. It can be a challenge accessing 3D data so it would be easier to see what is happening.
in nested compositions. So in this cheat, we’re
going to look at how to save your sanity in
those cases where you have 3D in nested comp
layers.
3 The cheat here is that the three dimensions of the original layers CAN in fact
be accessed in the parent comp! Instead of clicking the 3D switch for the
nested precomp layer, enable Collapse Transformations (which is also the switch
used to continuously rasterize Illustrator files). Then create a new camera. Now
when we rotate around with the camera, we can see that the layers are 3D again!
78
2 These layers have been arranged at different places in 3D space (along the
Z axis). If we precompose these layers, the resultant nested comp will be a
regular old 2D layer. If we enable the 3D switch for this layer, we can move and
rotate it in 3D space, but we’ve lost all of the depth of the original layers! Boo!
HOT TIP
I learned
from Aharon
Rabinowitz from
All Bets Are Off
Productions that
you can increase
the Z scale value
on the nested
precomp layer
to increase the
3D distance
between the
layers in the
precomp!
4 With the Collapse Transformations switch enabled, we can now access the 3D
depth from the original layers using cameras, lights, or nulls that the nested
comp is parented to. Additionally, this switch will allow blend modes from the
nested layers to be respected as well.
79
I N T E R L U D E
Picking a 3D App
FOR MANY USERS OF AFTER EFFECTS, THESE COOL 3D TRICKS JUST AREN’T
ENOUGH. They need a dedicated 3D application. And hey, I can relate to that. I
got into 3DS Max many years ago, and totally fell in love with the world of 3D.
I’ve since switched computer platforms (from PC to Mac), and unfortunately,
they don’t make 3DS Max for the Mac. So, I’ve switched over to Cinema 4D,
which I really love. No 3D application integrates better with After Effects than
does Cinema 4D, which can actually output your 3D scene as an After Effects
project file. It also has many features dedicated just to creating incredible
motion graphics.
But do you need a 3D application, and if so, which one? Notice the text on
the opposite page. This was created in Cinema 4D. I took some basic splines (i.e.
paths) from Illustrator and then extruded them and beveled them in Cinema
4D. Although Photoshop CS5 Extended is getting close to this, it’s much
more awkward and clunky doing it in Photoshop than it is in a dedicated 3D
program like this. Notice the beveled edges on the front, and the way that the
light interacts with them. That type of thing is just so much easier in a 3D app.
Also, if you wanted something with roundness (like a humanoid character)
or something to deform and animate in 3D, or if you just want to create a
complex structure (like a skyscraper), you’re probably better off learning a 3D
app.
But which one? For many, price is a huge consideration. The big 3D apps
(e.g. Maya, 3DS Max, Cinema 4D, Lightwave, Softimage, etc.) all carry a hefty
price tag, starting around $1000, and averaging around $3000. If price is a
big concern for you, fear not! Check out Blender from Blender.org. It is a high
quality 3D app with most of the features of the big guys, but it’s completely
free! Although I find the interface and workflow less intuitive and the learning
curve much steeper, you can’t beat the price tag!
For those wanting to work in the video game industry, you should know
that most video games are created in 3DS Max. For the film industry, Maya is
80
probably still the champion in that arena. And Cinema 4D is perhaps the most
common software out there for broadcast graphics. Be advised however, that
any 3D app can be used in almost any setting because the core features are very
similar between 3D apps.
While it’s definitely not essential to learn a 3D program to create
phenomenal 3D art, I find that it helps a lot. It’s also great for sparking creative
ideas that I had never thought of while working only in 2D. As another side
benefit (that might not apply to you), I found that learning a dedicated 3D app
really helped me in the 3D environment in After Effects. I’ve always found AE’s
3D environment really awkward, like the program wasn’t really designed to do
3D stuff (which it wasn’t). Seeing how 3D is SUPPOSED to work with cameras
and lights and viewports that are much easier to control, has really helped my
3D in the relatively scaled down world of After Effects 3D.
81
Compositing
COMBINING MULTIPLE OBJECTS INTO ONE is surely one
of the most common purposes of using After Effects.
In this chapter, we’re going to cover everything from
near-automatic rotoscoping with Roto Brush to motion
tracking with Mocha, and the basics of compositing and
removing a green screen background, and tons of stuff in
between. We’ll also look at a few little tips and tricks that
help me when I’m working in the world of compositing.
Compositing is just one of those things that makes

people’s mouths hang open in disbelief when done
properly. And this is a great time to make this course of
study, as most of the new features in After Effects CS5
were geared towards the compositing workflow. So, much
of this chapter is going to be cutting edge stuff. This is
going to be a blast.
83
Compoossiting
Making a Garbage Matte
1 Import the IHB ball 01.mp4 clip from Exercise Files>Media>Video. This is some
B EFORE WE LOOK AT HOW TO REMOVE

GREEN SCREEN BACKGROUNDS FROM
FOOTAGE and other compositing tricks, we
footage we shot for the short film I Hate Basketball by Jef Faulkner. The film
is about these basketballs that come to life. We only want the basketball here so
that it can be composited in with the actual footage with the actors later.
need to first look at creating a garbage matte.

A garbage matte is used to remove the excess
junk areas from footage, making it easier to pull
a good key.
Honestly, I’ve fought the whole garbage
matte thing before. When no one was looking,
I tried to just muscle through and to key
the footage as is. Let me tell you, that was a
mistake! I always end up punching myself in
the face for being so stubborn. The garbage
matte is intended to be a very rough, very quick
outline around only the stuff you want to keep,
and I swear on my Mom that it really helps the
keying process.
Note that this may include the shadows from
the green screen as well, as these can often
help the object look more believable when 3 Create a complete shape by clicking on the first point that you clicked to start
the mask. You want to make sure that your subject (the thing that you’re
trying to isolate by keying) is never cut off by the garbage matte at any point in
composited. time, as shown above.
84
HOT TIP
For more
information
on creating
the perfect
mask for your
garbage mattes,
check out
2 The problem is that there is a bunch of junk around the basketball. This is
typically the case when keying; you’ll have equipment or the end of the green
screen around the edges of the frame. This makes it more challenging for the
Chapter 7. It’s
full of cheats
pertaining to
keying tool to do its job efficiently. To create a garbage matte, select the layer, and masks, including
using the Pen tool, click an area around where the basketball bounces. how to animate
them.
4 Click on a point to move it if necessary so that your subject is not accidentally

masked out. In some cases where your subject gets too close to the “garbage”
areas, you may need to animate the garbage matte. In the final result, you can
already see how much easier it will be to key out this basketball because the
background is much more clean and solid.
85
Compoossiting
Removing a Green Screen
1 In the Keying.aep project in the Chapter 04 folder of the

exercise files, you’ll find this green screen footage. Here
O NE OF THE MOST COMMON USES OF

AFTER EFFECTS IS TO REMOVE A GREEN
SCREEN background from footage. This allows
I am, your humble author, waiting to get keyed. Although
there are many keying solutions in After Effects, Keylight is
definitely the best one that ships with the program. Apply
the Keylight effect to this footage.
for all kinds of visual chicanery. I once saw a
brilliant Conan O’Brien bit where he put circles
of green screen fabric on his body and they
were digitally removed to make it appear that
he had these giant, gaping bullet wounds.
Genius.
More commonly, however, a green screen is
used so that subjects can be put into a different
environment; one that might not be feasible to
create in real life. Some environments might be
created with computers (such as Mount Doom
in The Lord of the Rings trilogy), or they might
be too expensive to recreate (such as Superman
flying through the sky), or they might not be
safe (such as someone standing on the top of
a building, or drinking Southern California tap
water). There’s really no end to what can be 4 Sometimes, you can get an improved key by simply
pressing CzLz to undo and picking a different
color. But we’re going to just fix this. In the Screen Matte
done with a green screen and a healthy dose of area, increase the Clip Black value to make the background
creativity. completely transparent. Decrease Clip White to make the
subject fully opaque. Be careful that you don’t create little
pockets of transparency in the subject (as seen above).
86
2 Our first order of business is to let Keylight know which

color we want removed. To do that, click the eyedropper
for the Screen Colour property in Keylight’s effect controls.
3 So our instant results are not too bad, right? Well, it
may seem that way. To see what’s really going on, take
the View drop down from Final Result to Status. The white
Then click on a spot on the green screen that is a good areas indicate opaque areas. Black indicates transparent
representation of the green colors in the background. I areas. Gray indicates partially transparent areas. Yikes!
picked a spot right in front of my chest.
HOT TIP
Although
Keylight is a
fantastic effect,
an industry
standard, and a
great addition
to After Effects,
my favorite
keying tool is
Primatte Keyer
Pro by Red
Giant Software.
It has a very
intelligent and
intuitive way to
remove a green
screen, and I’m
almost always
able to get
better results
with it than I
can get with
Keylight. But
5 Ideally, our subject should be completely white (in
the areas that they SHOULD be completely opaque, of
course), and the background should be completely black.
6 So here’s the final result (using a Clip Black value of 23
and a Clip White value of 67). I often use solid layers
as a background to check my key, as above. There are a few
that’s just been
my experience.
A little gray around the edges is not only acceptable, it’s yucky spots that are driving me crazy (such as the spot under
actually preferred so that the edges are a little softer, and so my nose), but we’ll talk about improving our key in the next
the subject can be composited a little easier. cheat. SHORTCUTS
MAC WIN BOTH
87
Compoossiting
Pulling a Luma Key
1 We’re going to start with this footage from uberstock.com of a kid dancing in
I N SOME CASES, THE BACKGROUND THAT YOU

NEED TO REMOVE ISN’T GREEN OR BLUE – IT’S
WHITE OR BLACK. In many cases, this is because
front of a white background. In the Luma Key.aep project in the Chapter 04
folder of the exercise files, I’ve added this file to a comp and created a garbage
matte for you. Again, the powers of Keylight are useless against this white
background. So apply the Luma Key effect to this footage.
the footage wasn’t intended to be keyed. In
other cases, the subject has blue or green in it,
making it nigh unto impossible to get a good
key.
Now, to be honest, the end of this cheat is
going to leave you feeling unfulfilled a little
bit. To pull a luma key, we’re going to use the
Luma Key effect, which is a keying tool that our
forefathers used when establishing civilization.
Seriously though, it’s really old and outdated.
In the next cheat, we’ll look at a new effect in
After Effects CS5 that will help us make the
most of our luma key.
3 We have some stray pixels in the background, but I’m not worried about those
because we can just enlarge our garbage matte to fix them. The excess white
around the edges is really the problem here. Increase the Edge Thin value in the
Luma Key effect controls to 1.
88
2 In the Effect Controls panel, change the Key Type drop down from Key Out
Darker to Key Out Brighter. Then we need to increase the Threshold value to
increase the amount of allowable luminance. I found that a value of about 243
worked pretty good. Any higher than that, and it’s going to start eroding the
highlights from this poor kid’s face, and we just can’t be responsible for that.
HOT TIP
Using luma
to pull a key
can also be
helpful for sky
replacement in
video. Often,
video doesn’t
have the
dynamic range
to capture a
bright daytime
sky, so it is
captured as
pure white. This
looks awful and
amateurish on
screen, but it
makes it much
4 Increasing the Edge Thin value definitely helped, but our key still looks
terrible. We can try fiddling with the Edge Thin and Edge Feather values a
bit more, but this key is never going to look good. Zoomed in close, we can see
easier to remove
using this
method.
some major issues here, including motion blur on the right hand. To make it look
awesome and fix these problems, we’ll need the help of another effect, discussed
in the next cheat.
89
Compoossiting
Refining a Matte
W E SAW IN THE PREVIOUS CHEAT THAT

SOME KEYING TOOLS AND SOME
FOOTAGE JUST CAN’T GO WHERE WE WANT
1 I know it’s painful to look at, but we’re going to start where we left off in
the last cheat. This is uberstock.com footage that we have keyed using only
the Luma Key effect. You can see how that didn’t work out all that great. The
edges still have white in them, they are disgustingly blocky, and there’s also some
obvious motion blur from the dancing. You can find this in the Refine Matte START
THEM TO. For that, we have a brand new effect comp in the Refine Matte.aep project.
in After Effects CS5 called Refine Matte.
The Refine Matte effect is actually the spawn
of the new Roto Brush tool in CS5 (which we’ll
look at later in this chapter). When the good
folks in charge of After Effects saw how helpful
some of the matte refining controls in Roto
Brush were, they decided that they should make
those controls its own effect. Hence, the Refine
Matte effect was born.
The Refine Matte effect is pretty incredible
in its own right. Its purpose is not to create a
key or a matte, but to refine what has already
been created. It even allows you to significantly
improve footage that has motion blur! I’ve
found it to be a big help in fine tuning mattes.
3 To improve the Refine Matte results, I took its Smooth value to 1, and I took
the Increase Decontamination Radius value to 4. Now check out how much
better this matte looks! Even the motion blur on the subject’s right hand looks
great.
90
2 Apply the new Refine Matte effect to this footage. Even without adjusting any
parameters, the matte is really improved! Huzzah! I’ve zoomed in to 200% so
you can see the results more closely.
HOT TIP
We didn’t need
to adjust the
Feather or
Choke values in
this case, but
those properties
have come in
handy a lot in
my time using
this effect. In
many (most?)
keying tools,
feather and
choke are pretty
standard fare.
The problem
is that they
are way too
sensitive,
and even
the smallest
increments
are too big.
In the Refine
4 Even when composited on a dark background (the opposite of the white

background that we started with), our key looks fantastic thanks to the Refine
Matte effect.
Matte effect,
these helpful
properties are
just done right.
91
Compoossiting
Using Multiple Mattes
1 In this simple example, found in the Multiple Mattes.aep project, we have an

elephant grabbing some munchies out of a tree, courtesy of uberstock.com.
I N A PERFECT WORLD, EVERY KEYING

JOB COULD BE FIXED WITH JUST A FEW
ADJUSTMENTS OF AN EFFECT. In reality however,
There are three different textures here: that of the leaves and branches, the trunk,
and the hair on the elephant’s head. Here, I tried to key out everything with one
effort. The trunk looks great, but the elephant’s hair and the branches are being
eroded.
most matte jobs need multiple mattes in order

to get the job done. In some areas of your
matte, you might want more hard edges, such
as around a subject’s clothing. In some areas,
such as with wispy hair or partially transparent
fabric, you’ll want completely different settings.
Trying to use one set of settings for an entire
image with different aspects like this is a good
way to drive yourself crazy with frustration, or
create a lower quality matte.
The solution is to break up your footage using
masks. That way, you can give each component
of the key individual treatment and attention.
The final result of this extra effort is a greatly
improved final product, not to mention an
added measure of sanity for yourself. 3 Then apply Keylight (or your keying tool of choice) to key out just that one
component. Here, I took the Clip Black value to 8 and Clip White to 60.
These settings aren’t ideal on the trunk or on the head, but they’re perfect for the
branches.
92
HOT TIP
For more cheats
and information
about creating
and using
masks, check
out Chapter 07!
The secret is to press CdLd twice to make it so that there are three
2 duplicates of this layer, making sure to name them branches, trunk, and head.
Then, on each, make a mask that surrounds that component. For example, on
the branches layer, make a mask that only surrounds the branches. It’s OK (and
actually preferable) if the masks overlap a little bit.
4 After applying Keylight and adjusting its settings for each individual
component of this matte, our finished product looks much better. Shown here
with a dark red gradient background. Considering how compressed this footage is,
the results from using multiple keyed pieces is quite impressive. The hair on the
head of the elephant and the edges of the branches have benefited the most.
SHORTCUTS
MAC WIN BOTH
93
Compoossiting
Intro to Compositing
I N THE WORLD OF AFTER EFFECTS, WE ALL

COME FROM DIFFERENT BACKGROUNDS.
To make sure that all readers of this book are
1 If you’d like to follow along, you’ll find this project in the Intro to Compositin.
aep file. The backmost layer of this composition is some footage actually shot
by my wife. On a drive up the Oregon Coast, she just hung the video camera out
the window and shot the greenery as we drove past. It’s interlaced and looks
terrible, but it still works great as the stuff in the window of the subway.
on the same page for the remainder of this
chapter, I wanted to give you an intro to the
concept of compositing. Sometimes, when we
are working on a project, be it a short film or
a commercial, we are too quick to say that
something is impossible, or that we don’t have
the resources. However, with some good old
fashioned creativity and some compositing
know how, we really can create entire worlds
from scratch.
3 The next layer we’ve seen before. It’s just me with the green screen
background that we removed earlier in this chapter.
94
HOT TIP
This CG subway
render was
rendered
with an alpha
channel – which
is basically
transparency
information.
This means that
the window
is basically a
hole, allowing
us to see
through to the
2 The next layer is a still image. It’s a render from a 3D program by Kymnbel
Bywater of Spilled Ink Animation. Without lighting, it doesn’t look completely
realistic. But again, that’s OK. We’ll fix it when we smoosh it all together.
layer below it.
Alpha channels
are a huge
component of
the compositing
workflow.
4 Once you have the pieces, all you have to do is layer them, add some
animation, lighting, unifying color correction, some shadows (underneath
me), and a reflection (in the window), and you have a somewhat believable scene.
Shown here is the orthographic front view, and a view from the side to see the
stacking of the layers.
95
Compoossiting
Blending Away Dark
S OMETIMES, THE BEST WAY TO ISOLATE A

SUBJECT ISN’T TO PULL A KEY AT ALL. In
some cases, when we have bright or dark areas
1 For this cheat, we’re going to be using the Blending Away Dark.aep project. This
is footage starring my son, from the short film that we made together. Hey, it’s
what nerdy fathers and sons do.
that we want to remove, they can be removed

in an instant with blend modes. In many
cases, the results even look much better when
compared to keying.
In the case of blending away dark colors, this
becomes especially helpful when creating light
effects, as we’ll look at in Chapter 6.
3 We put this on a black solid layer because it’s the opposite of the bright
flare we added. But how do we get rid of the black around the flare? Simple.
With blend modes. Click the Toggle Switches/Modes button at the bottom of the
Timeline panel if you’re not seeing the blend modes drop down. Change the blend
mode from Normal to Add. The black is instantly removed!
96
HOT TIP
Lens flares
created by the
Lens Flare effect
are typically
much brighter
than this, and a
different color.
The reason that
this looks the
way it does
2 This shot needs some help. The lightning looks like it’s just appearing out of
nothing, and the shot is just too dark. So, I’ve created a new black solid layer
for you to apply the Lens Flare effect to. Don’t forget to turn back on the visibility
is that there
is a hidden
adjustment layer
of the lens flare layer. above it in the
layer stack.
4 In the Lens Flare effect controls, adjust the Flare Center value until the flare
is lined up with the end of the boy’s wizard staff. If desired, you can create a
mask to remove some of the extra junk from the lens flare, as shown here. Note
that in the original image at the beginning of this cheat, I used a 3rd party plugin
called Optical Flares by Video CoPilot to create that sweet flare.
97
Compoossiting
Blending Away Light
I N SOME CASES, WE HAVE BLACK OBJECTS

ON A WHITE BACKGROUND THAT NEED TO BE
REMOVED. Similar to the previous cheat, we can
1 In the START comp in the Blending Away Light.aep project, you’ll find this
project. The explosion footage from the very inexpensive Detonation Films
(detonationfilms.com) is of a dark explosion cloud on a white background. I’ve
pretty much just put it in the right place for you. Images in this cheat are shown
at 200% size so you can see detail, so they might appear a little soft or pixelated
use blend modes to instantly remove the white here.
background to blend the dark objects into our
scene.
In this cheat, we’re going to take a simple
photograph of a quiet suburban neighborhood
and apply some stock effects footage from the
great Detonation Films library.
The screenshot above is after applying some
additional compositing tricks to give this
scene the appearance that it was shot with a
handheld cell phone camera.
3 Now we could just end it there. But in professional compositing, there are
typically many components that add to the realism. We could add debris,
shadows, flames, or other elements. In this case, we’re going to make this look
like bad video footage. Create an adjustment layer at the top of the layer stack
and apply the Noise effect to it. I used an Amount of Noise value of 12%, and I
deselected Use Color Noise.
98
2 To composite this explosion, all you have to do is go down to the modes area
of the Timeline panel, and change the blend mode of the BlackMushroom01
layer from Normal to Multiply. That will remove the white background, and also
darken the cloud and realistically blend it into the background. This makes it look
as if there has been an explosion on this house, or immediately behind it.
HOT TIP
As you’ll
probably see me
say over and
over again in
this chapter, any
element shared
by all of the
components of
your composite
will help to
create the
illusion that
they actually
belong in the
same scene.
4 The photo of this neighborhood was taken with a pretty good quality DSLR
camera. The homes and other objects in this scene are just too sharp for the
look we’re trying to achieve. So apply the Fast Blur effect to the adjustment layer
you created. A little Blurriness goes a long way in this case – probably no more
than 1.5 (I used 1.2). What else would make this composite more believable?
99
Compoossiting
Compositing Textures
1 In the Compositing Textures.aep project, you’ll find a

comp with three simple layers. The top layer (and most
B LEND MODES ARE NOT ONLY GREAT FOR

REMOVING LIGHT AND DARK AREAS,
but they’re also really great for compositing
important here) is a concrete surface. It’s important that it
is down the middle of the road luminance-wise, with some
highlights and shadows. It’s a great texture for the overlay
modes.
textures onto a surface.
In the same way that we can use Add (and
other blend modes in that area, like Screen)
to remove dark areas and brighten colors, and
Multiply (and other blend modes in that area,
like Color Burn) to remove light and darken
colors, we can use the overlay category of
blend modes to composite textures. Most of
these blend modes remove 50% gray, and then
brighten bright areas and darken dark areas.
Although this example is simple, there are
several lessons to be learned here. One is
that this text looks like it is part of this rocky
surface. This can be helpful if you want to
create the illusion that text or a logo has been
painted on a surface.
The other lesson is that even a simple solid 4 Take the blend mode of the top layer to Overlay. Again,
this removes midtone gray, and brightens the areas of
the layers beneath where there were highlights, and darkens
can look like a real wall with the proper texture them where it had darker areas.
applied. And again, using these blend modes,
that can be done in a single click.
100
2 The next layer below the concrete photo is some simple

text with the Opacity value set to about 76%. 3
look.
The bottom layer is a simple solid layer with a gradient
overlay layer style applied to create that sort of vignette
HOT TIP
Because the
“overlay”
modes increase
contrast, you
can often make
any layer look
much more
intense by
duplicating it,
and putting the
top copy of the
layer in one
of the overlay
blend modes,
such as Soft
5 If this look is too intense, try using the Soft Light blend
mode. It does the same basic thing as Overlay, but it
doesn’t brighten and darken quite so much. Other than Add,
6 In this case, I actually want this way more intense. I
changed the blend mode to Hard Light here, which is
a much more gritty and intense effect. In the image at the
Light.
this is probably the blend mode that I use most often. beginning of this cheat, I used the Linear Light blend mode. I
just love the way that looks.
101
Compoossiting
Temporal Alignment
T HIS CHEAT IS GOING TO LOOK AT A MORE

UTILITARIAN USE OF A BLEND MODE. Here
we’re going to look at how to align layers. Now
I know that we have an Align panel for that
very purpose. It’s even been upgraded in CS5 to 1 We’re going to work with the Temporal Alignment.aep project. This contains a
video clip from uberstock.com. There are two copies of this layer, and I want to
align them in time.
allow you to align objects to a composition.
But if you have to align layers that have the
same content, but are at different sizes (such
as with an SD clip and an HD version), or if you
have layers that must be aligned in time, the
Align panel can’t help you. However, there is a
blend mode that I’ve found to be very useful in
such cases. This is one of those tricks that you
won’t use everyday, but it can really save your
sanity when you need it.
3 The trick is to use the Difference blend mode. Usually, the Difference blend
mode creates really psychedelic effects, as seen above.
102
2 The challenge with this particular clip is that it’s very similar throughout the
clip. The previous screenshot was from about 9 seconds in. This screenshot is
from about 28 seconds in, almost 20 seconds later. It’s impressive how still this
actress can remain, but it makes it really hard to align this footage in time.
4 But the Difference blend mode has a special trick. When you blend a layer
using Difference, pixels that are the same as the colors beneath will turn
black. As you can see above, two frames that seemed almost identical are now
discernibly different. Now, simply move the top layer in time until your image is
completely black. Then your layers will be perfectly aligned, in space and time.
103
Compoossiting
Compositing with Color
T HE NEXT FEW CHEATS ARE GOING TO LOOK

AT A FEW CONCEPTS THAT WILL HELP
OUR COMPOSITES LOOK BETTER. They will be
1 Here are the two objects we’ll be compositing together: a toy and a photo of a
neighborhood. You’ll find these in the Compositing with Color.aep project.
less hands on, and more concept-driven and

principle-based.
The overriding idea will be that if we can
make objects share more common properties
and attributes, then it will be easier for our
audience to believe that these objects really
were photographed together.
In the first of these concept based cheats,
we’re going to take a toy from my son’s vast toy
arsenal, and try to make it look like a monster
is attacking. We’re going to use blend modes,
and then color enhancements to add to the
believability of the effect.
3 The monster still looks too vibrant for my liking. If we can’t see the bottom
of his legs, then we assume he is far away. Notice the hills between his legs,
and how hazy they are. I hesitate to even share this with you, but I lowered the
toy’s opacity to 80%. It’s not an ideal fix in all cases, but this makes it look farther
away.
104
2 I initially created this composite as part of a short film competition that I was
in. The project was timed, and I was in a hurry. To composite these quickly,
I dragged the toy layer beneath the photo, and put the photo into the Multiply
blend mode since the toy was darker than most of the photo. I then added a mask
to mask out the toy’s legs. This mask has been added for you, just change the
mode of the mask from None to Add.
HOT TIP
I skimmed
through a lot
of techniques
really quickly
here, such
as mask
modes, color
treatments,
and creating
a vignette.
These are all
discussed in
detail in cheats
throughout
this book in
their respective
chapters.
4 To combine these together more, I added an adjustment layer above the toy
and the photo, and adjusted the colors with the Color Balance effect. Mostly,
I took red out of the image to give it a more sinister cyan tint. I also added a
quick vignette to pull attention more to the center of the image. Because these
adjustments are applied to the entire image, it makes a more realistic composite.
105
Compoossiting
Compositing with Animation
M OVEMENT IS ANOTHER WAY THAT WE

CAN MAKE OUR COMPOSITES LOOK
MORE BELIEVABLE. If two objects move in
1 Start in the START comp in the Compositing with Animation.aep project. In the
Timeline panel, make the toy monster layer and the houses background layer
into 3D layers by enabling the 3D switch for each layer.
tandem, there appears to us to be more of a

connection. Continuing with our toy monster
scene from the previous cheat, we’re going to
add a camera and some random movement to
those elements to give the illusion that this was
shot with a handheld camera.
Hold OA while clicking the stopwatch for the Point of Interest property
3 on the camera you just created. This will create an expression field. In that
new text field, type wiggle(2,10) to create some random animation for the camera.
106
Press COScLASc to create a new camera. Go ahead

2 and use the default settings. Then decrease the Z position value for the
houses background layer to bring it closer to the camera. I used a value of –300. I
increased the Z position of the toy monster layer to about 300 to move it farther HOT TIP
away. This will add a little more perspective when our camera moves. You might
prefer to
animate your
camera by
hand so that
you can create
more controlled
random
movements.
The wiggle
expression
typically doesn’t
create huge
random jerks,
which are
common in
handheld video.
In addition, if
motion blur is
enabled, those
random jerks
will create
streaks of blur
which will also
help the look
of the final
4 OK, so if you’re just reading this, you’ll just have to use your imagination, but
the scene now has subtle but random movement, which is shared by both the
toy monster and the background. This again adds more to the believability of the
composite.
SHORTCUTS
composite. MAC WIN BOTH
107
Compoossiting
Compositing with Focus
O UR FINAL CHEAT IN OUR MINI-SERIES

OF COMPOSITING HELPS IS BASED ON
DEPTH OF FIELD BLUR. We’ve looked before at
1 Starting where we left off in the previous cheat, you can find this project in the
START comp in the Compositing with Focus.aep project.
how things look better when composited if

they share common properties, like a similar
movement or color temperature.
Likewise, if we use a shallow depth of field,
we can really heighten the realism of our
composite. In this cheat we’ll borrow from the
rack focus cheat in Chapter 2 to focus on the
houses in the foreground, and then we’ll shift
focus to the monster in the background.
3 When switching back to the Active Camera view, the depth of field isn’t
quite blurry enough, so I’ve increased the Aperture value to 1000. This is a
little too much blur, honestly, but I wanted to make sure that you could see the
difference in these screenshots. A value close to about 600 would probably be
more appropriate.
108
2 In the camera layer, turn Depth of Field on. Adjust the Focus Distance value
while looking at the Top view. Fiddle with that property until the focal plane
of the camera lines up with the houses background layer. A value of about 6810
worked for me, but I’ve offset this just a bit in the screenshot so that you see the
camera’s focal plane.
HOT TIP
For more
control over the
depth of field
on flat layers
like this houses
background
that appear
to cross many
depth planes,
try the Lens Blur
effect. With
that effect, you
can use a map
to control which
part of the layer
has blur applied
to it, as if the
4 We can then animate the Focus Distance property of the camera to get the
toy monster in focus, almost as if the camera person was caught unprepared
and had to adjust focus. This not only adds believability, but it’s also good visual
blur was created
by the lens.
storytelling, building anticipation as we take our time to guide the eye of the
viewer to the scary monster. I used a Focus Distance value of about 7410.
109
Compoossiting
Motion Blur
W HILE WE’RE ON THE SUBJECT OF

BLURRING IN COMPOSITING, let’s take
a look at using (and adjusting) the motion blur
1 We’re going to use the Motion Blur.aep project for this, which contains a matte
painting by artist Daniel Johnson, and a UFO that I created in Cinema 4D. This
is already animated so that the UFO takes off very quickly upwards through the
hangar opening at the top of the image.
in After Effects.
Motion blur is an important part of the visual
experience of watching movies. This started
a while back with film cameras. Due to the
shutter of the camera, when subjects (or the
camera) moved quickly, the shutter wasn’t open
long enough to capture a full, crisp frame of
that action, so the result was a little blurry.
Seems like a problem, right? Well, our
eyes have grown so accustomed to the look
of motion blur that motion doesn’t quite
look right without it! In some cases, such as
with intense fight scenes, or sporting events
filmed in HD, the shutter of the camera will
intentionally be adjusted so that the motion
is not blurred and is very crisp. But typically,
especially when compositing graphics or 3D
renders into live action footage, adding motion 3 This looks much better! It’s important to note that motion blur is not applied
as an effect because it’s automatic. This means that the faster your layer
moves, the more that After Effects automatically blurs it for you. Like late night
blur can do a lot for the realism of the shot. infomercial TV slogan fodder, you set it and forget it!
110
HOT TIP
Motion blur
is turned on
for both the
layer AND the
composition
because of its
massive increase
of render time.
It’s insane to
work with
2 Without motion blur, this animation looks distinctly artificial. Just atrocious.
To turn on motion blur, we must enable it both for the composition, and for
the UFO layer. The icon looks like a little stack of circles.
motion blur
on. With the
two switches,
you can switch
motion blur on
for each layer
that needs it,
and then keep
it off. When it
comes time to
render or check
the project, you
can turn it back
for all layers
with one click.
To adjust this blur, press CkLk to get to your composition settings.

4 Go to the Advanced tab. Increase or decrease the Shutter Angle value to
respectively increase or decrease the motion blur in your comp. A little secret
is that you can adjust the Shutter Angle value on a per layer basis using the oft
neglected Transform effect!
SHORTCUTS
MAC WIN BOTH
111
Compoossiting
Matching Color
1 In this example from the Matching Color.aep project, we again have a piece of
art by matte painter Daniel Johnson and one of my 3D renderings from Cinema
A NOTHER ONE OF THE MOST COMMON

COMPOSITING TASKS is matching the
color of two layers. After all, this is compositing
4D. I chose these two pieces because they couldn’t be more different, thematically
and from a color perspective. If we can make this believable, we’re doing alright!
at it’s most basic level.

So here we’re going to look at an amazing
trick from After Effects wizard Mark
Christiansen. This trick will help you analyze
the separate components, and tweak their color
channels to make objects seem like they belong
in the same scene.
3 The trick is to go through each channel, and match the Output Black, Output
White, and Gamma values in the Levels effect with the appearance of each
channel in the background you’re trying to match. If you put your cursor over
the darkest and lightest spots of the image, the Info panel will tell you the light
output for that channel, so you can match values accordingly. For example, here I
put my cursor over a shadow area, and the Info panel tells me that the value is 25,
so then I changed my Red Output Black value to 25. I additionally, increased the
Red Gamma value to match the brightness of the rest of the red channel.
112
HOT TIP
After Effects
gives you a
great visual
cue to know
which channel
you’re looking
at. If you’re
looking at only
one channel,
there will be a
2 Apply the Levels effect to the robot layer. The key here is that we want to
analyze each channel independently. So, click the Show Channel and Color
Management Settings, and change the channel to Red, so that we’re only viewing
line around the
inside of the
Composition
the red light used to make this image. In the Levels effect controls, change the
panel of the
Channel drop down to Red. color of the
channel you
are viewing.
In step 2, you
can see the red
outline around
the image,
indicating that
we are looking
at the red
channel.
4 Then, just repeat the same process for each channel. MAKE SURE that you are
always viewing the same channel that you are editing in Levels! Once you’re
done, take the Composition panel view back to RGB to see the finished product.
Although we could do further tweaking, this is a fairly believable composite.
113
Compoossiting
Premultiplied Alpha Channels
A LPHA CHANNELS COME IN TWO FLAVORS:

STRAIGHT AND PREMULTIPLIED.
Because alpha channels play such a big role
in compositing, it’s important to know the
difference between the two and how to address
them.
Straight alpha channels are certainly easier
to deal with. These alpha channels are black
and white (no pun intended) – the transparency
is all in the alpha channel, and the colors of 1 Here’s this UFO again that I created against a white background. You can find
this project in the Premultiplied.aep project in the Chapter 04 folder of the
exercise files.
the object are not in the alpha channel. Pretty
straightforward (OK, that pun was kind of
intended).
Premultiplied alphas are a little different in
that the transparency information is also kind
of blended (or “premultiplied”) into the color
data as well. If not interpreted correctly when
imported, premultiplied alphas will create a halo
as we’ll see (and fix).
The reason that premultiplied alphas exist
is that they can create a more believable
composite because the edges are partially
transparent. This makes them blend into a
background more easily – provided, of course,
that the correct color is premultiplied into the
alpha channel. Premultiplied alpha channels
are also compatible with more older systems,
although I’ve never personally run into a
situation where I couldn’t use a straight alpha 3 Select the UFO premult file in the Project panel and press
COgLAg to open the Interpret Footage dialog box. You can
also open this by pressing the leftmost button at the bottom of the Project panel.
channel.
Here, you can change the interpretation of the alpha channel. Click Premultiplied
– Matted With Color. If this UFO had been premultiplied with a color other than
black, it would be very important to choose that color in the swatch next to this
option.
114
2 When we zoom in closely (shown here at 300%), we can see an ugly black
halo caused by the incorrect interpretation of this alpha as a straight alpha
channel. If we were compositing against black, this would look great. But in this
case, it’s icky.
HOT TIP
Another new
feature in After
Effects CS5 is
that you can
preview just
about anything.
This applies to
dialog boxes
with lights,
cameras, solids,
composition
settings,
and you can
also preview
interpretation
settings before
applying them.
4 Once the alpha channel has been correctly interpreted, the ugly halo
disappears, and our alpha is fixed.
SHORTCUTS
MAC WIN BOTH
115
Compoossiting
Tracking with Mocha
O NE OF THE BEST FEATURES OF AFTER

EFFECTS ISN’T ACTUALLY A FEATURE
OF AFTER EFFECTS – it’s Mocha. Mocha is a
1 Open the Mocha application on your computer (it can’t
be launched from After Effects). From the title screen
press Start. In the upper left corner of the screen, click the
Create a new project button. In the upper right corner, click
the Choose button to navigate to the file you want to track.
standalone motion tracking application that In this case, go to Exercise Files>Media>Uberstock>barwoma
n_w.mp4 and press OK.
comes for free with After Effects CS5.
It is far superior to the native motion tracking
system in After Effects. The motion tracking in
After Effects tracks individual points, making
it unreliable. Mocha actually tracks features.
So, instead of tracking a highlighted pixel (that
might change as the light or camera position
changes), you could track an entire object or
surface.
In this introduction to Mocha (before we
dig a bit deeper into it in the next cheat),
we’re going to create a track using a blurry
background surface. This could be a disaster
with the native After Effects tracker, but it’s
a piece of cake in Mocha. We’ll also use this
track to composite a photo of me to create 4 Now it doesn’t really help in this project, but in some
cases, you might want tighter or even pointed corners.
To adjust the angle of a point, simply click and pull its
the illusion that a beautiful girl is flirting with handle. Drag the handle inwards to create a more round
point.
me. No visual effects have ever tackled such a
challenging task.
116
HOT TIP
Although I’ve
created a final
reference
project for
you (Mocha
Tracking.aep),
the size of the
watermarked
uberstock clips
2 This sweet stock video clip from uberstock.com depicts a
woman flirting at a bar. The first part of the video is just
a white screen, though. So, right below the big white screen,
3 Now we need to tell Mocha what area to track. Click the
Create X-Spline Layer Tool. Then click a point in each
of the corners of that rounded rectangle at the right of the
distributed with
the exercise files
are different
you’ll find a timeline with a tiny black vertical line. Drag the image as shown above. Right click to finish the spline. Click than the full
current time to about frame 731. and drag on a point to adjust it after you’ve created it. quality clips I’ve
used for this
exercise.
5 If needed, adjust the handles so that the default

tension is used. Underneath the timeline, click the Track
Forwards button. Mocha will begin tracking the footage, but
6 A great help with the problem of “drift” is the little
widgets that Mocha provides for you that show you an
extreme close up of the currently selected point – both at
be really careful. As soon as you see the first sign of Mocha the current time, and what you set it as last. That way you
drifting, click the stop button and make fixes to the points can tell sooner when Mocha starts to get off track. Above,
to get Mocha back on track. Mocha will even track stuff I have the upper left corner of the shape selected. Note the
when part of it is off screen! When this shape is completely guides in the upper left corner of the frame.
off screen, stop the track (assuming Mocha doesn’t stop it
automatically).
continued...
117
Compoossiting
Tracking with Mocha (continued)
7 The frame that we started tracking on actually wasn’t the first frame we
wanted to track. It was just the frame where the subject we wanted to track
was the most clear. Go back to frame 731. Then click the Track Backwards button
and track the motion until the tracked object is off screen again. When you are
satisfied with the track, click the Export Tracking Data button at the bottom of the
interface.
9 We created a solid layer to store this tracking data because we don’t want
to fiddle with our original layer. This Mocha data also creates a keyframe for
every single frame of Position, Anchor Point, Scale, and Rotation. Import an image
to apply the tracking data to (I used a photo of myself). Select that object and
press p to reveal its Position property. OA click its stopwatch to create an
expression, then drag the expression pickwhip to the Position property of the solid
layer.
118
HOT TIP
Hold down the
Z key and drag
with the mouse
to zoom in and
out in Mocha.
Hold down the
X key and drag
with the mouse
8 From the Format drop down, choose After Effects Transform Data. Then go
back to After Effects. Import the same clip we’ve been tracking, and make a
new comp that has the EXACT same dimensions as the clip by dragging the clip
to pan around.
to the Create a new Composition button at the bottom of the Project panel. Then
create a new solid with the same size and duration, and press CvLv to
paste the Mocha tracking data on to this solid layer. Note that the solid layer
doesn’t need to be visible.
10 Because we used an expression instead of pasting directly, the Anchor

Point and Scale properties of the tracked object are still available for
adjusting and animating, if needed. I animated Anchor Point to make it appear
that I’m coming in to frame. It’s actually really amusing, and I recommend
checking it out. I’ve also applied some color correction here. My new lady friend
and I wish you luck with this tutorial.
SHORTCUTS
MAC WIN BOTH
119
Compoossiting
Mocha Shapes
1 In Mocha, select File>Open Project. Then navigate to Exercise Files>Chapter

04>Mocha Projects>handheld sunset.mocha. This image of a sunset was shot
T HE NEW VERSION OF MOCHA THAT

SHIPS WITH AFTER EFFECTS CS5 HAS A
POWERFUL NEW FEATURE. It allows you to
from inside my house looking out. There’s a bit of wall between the two window
panes, and also a house in the distance. I’ve already created a mask to track
these in Mocha using the same techniques we covered in the previous cheat. It’s
certainly not a perfect track, but I mainly wanted to mask out the middle black bar
so that we can add a UFO in the background, as if it were flying around outside.
create and track shapes, and then export that
shape data back to After Effects.
Since we’ve already gone through the
Mocha tracking process in depth, and because
the process of tracking shapes is identical to
tracking motion, we’re going to go through
this rather quickly. But it’s easy to see how
significant this one feature is when you’re
trying to composite objects together.
3 When you paste this data, it first appears as if nothing has happened. This is
because it has created a hole where our tracking mask was. I’ve added a green
solid layer below this to show you what I mean. To fix this, go to the new mocha
shape effect that has been added to this layer. Click the Invert checkbox. Now you
have a layer of just the mask area.
120
HOT TIP
It is very
important that
when you paste
Mocha data of
any type that
you are using
a comp of the
same duration
as the footage
you tracked, and
2 In Mocha, with Layer 1 selected in the Layer Controls area in the upper left
area of the interface, click on the Export Shape Data button at the bottom
of the interface. Then click Copy to Clipboard. Then go to After Effects, and in
that your CTI
is on the first
frame of the
the Mocha Shapes START in the Shapes from Mocha.aep file, select the handheld
comp.
sunset layer and press CvLv to paste in this shape data.
4 The trick is to duplicate this layer and have the top copy be just the mask, and
then the bottom copy be just the regular old layer. Then you can stick stuff
in between them (like a layer sandwich) and the objects – such as this UFO – will
appear to exist behind the front object but in front of the bottom object. When
you play this UFO animation, it actually looks pretty cool the way it zips through
the scene, which is actually just one video clip.
SHORTCUTS
MAC WIN BOTH
121
Compoossiting
Using Roto Brush
1 We’re going to start by importing another sweet stock video clip from
uberstock.com. Found in Exercise Files>Media>Uberstock, open the
crosswalk_w.mp4 clip and make a comp with the same settings and add it to it.
R OTO BRUSH IS CERTAINLY THE KEY NEW

FEATURE IN AFTER EFFECTS CS5. It’s the
one thing that everyone has been talking about.
Then double click this layer to open it in the Layer panel. Then select the Roto
Brush from the Tools panel at the top of the interface. Move in time to 0;00;13;05.
Click and drag the Roto Brush tool down the leg as shown above.
Roto Brush is a very intelligent tool that helps

you extract stuff from a clip. Its name comes
from the traditional process called rotoscoping,
where frames are manually fixed by hand,
frame-by-frame. To put it bluntly, rotoscoping
sucks. It is perhaps the most monotonous and
frustrating job in the entire After Effects world.
Although Roto Brush isn’t an instant fix (as
it appears to be at first glance), it is instead
a tremendous help and timesaver in the
rotoscoping process. Take, for example, the
screenshot above. Big deal, right? But it is, in
fact, a pretty big deal. Look at the motion blur
on the right leg. That kind of thing is nearly
impossible to remove. Not only that, I got 3 At the bottom of the Layer panel,
click the new Toggle Alpha view to
see just our matte.
4 In the Roto Brush effect controls,
click the Use Motion Blur check
box (as we did earlier in this chapter
this result in a matter of seconds. And going with Refine Matte), check Higher
even further, Roto Brush almost instantly and Quality, and take Samples Per Frame
to 20. Check out how intelligently
automatically gave me similar results from all it removes the background from our
of the surrounding frames. Although it’s not motion-blurred leg!
perfect, it’s an incredible start.
122
2 Once you let go of the mouse, Roto Brush goes to work trying to guess what
you want selected. The purple outline represents the foreground that Roto
Brush has selected. If Roto Brush selects something in the background, hold
the OA key while you drag on it, as shown above. Continue selecting and
deselecting until all of the legs are selected (and none of the background is).
HOT TIP
Once you’ve
got your roto
brushing where
you want it,
click the Freeze
button to lock
in your efforts.
This will make
it so that Roto
Brush will not
need to be
calculated on
every frame,
and it will also
save this cache
with the project
file. For more
info on the ins
and outs of this
amazing feature,
including setting
the base frame,
time span and
the rules of
5 One of the absolute best parts of
Roto Brush is that it automatically
guesses what the matte on the next
6 When we switch back to the
Composition panel, we can see
that a pretty decent matte has been
propagation,
check out the
frame is going to be! Simply advance pulled for us by the Roto Brush. I still free online
to the next frame, and this is what you can’t get over how magically that help for After
get without any extra effort on your background was removed from the Effects.
part! It’s not perfect, but it’s certainly motion blur!
a great leg up (pun intended, because
the leg is actually up. That amuses me SHORTCUTS
quite a bit). MAC WIN BOTH
123
Compoossiting
Restoring Opacity
O CCASIONALLY I’LL RUN INTO THIS

PROBLEM THAT WILL FREAK ME OUT for
a split second. Then I’ll remember that there’s a
quick fix.
The problem is that an object will have a
slightly lowered opacity. Normally, this wouldn’t
be a problem because we can just increase the
Opacity value of the layer, right? But what 1 In the Restoring Opacity.aep project, we see this same annoying picture of
me (sorry about that). Even against a white background, it appears like the
background has been completely removed.
happens when a layer (or part) of it already has
reduced transparency, and the Opacity value for
the layer is at 100%?
I actually ran into this problem a few times
in this book already. In Chapters 2 and 3, the
robots vs. pirates art contains a mast on the
pirate ship that has lowered opacity. And then,
in this chapter, in the cheat on tracking in
Mocha, I noticed that my Photoshop work was
crappy, and I left some partial transparency
above my head. In this quick cheat, we’re going
to look at a quick fix for this dilemma.
3 The solution is to apply the Levels effect to this layer. Change the Channel
drop down to Alpha. Then we can process just the alpha channel, making the
opaque areas less opaque, or the transparent areas more transparent, or vice versa.
124
2 But when I exaggerate this alpha channel, you can see some definite problem
areas. The gray above my head indicates semi-transparency, and in this case, I
only want transparent and opaque pixels, and nothing but.
HOT TIP
Another way
to tell that
this is an alpha
channel fail is
by using the
Info panel. As
you put your
cursor over
areas that are
completely
transparent,
the A value
in the Info
panel should
be 0. Anything
higher means
that something
is there, and
that area is
not completely
4 I increased the Alpha Input Black value to about 7, which was enough to
remove all of the extra junk and compensate for my Photoshop blunder. Even
the delicate matte of my hair on the top of my head remains as it should be. Pretty
transparent.
cool trick.
125
Compoossiting
Manual Shadow
I DEALLY, WE SHOULD BE CREATING SHADOWS

WITH AFTER EFFECTS LIGHTS. However,
sometimes, it’s tough to get shadows to look
1 Open the Manual Shadow.aep project from the Chapter 04 folder of the
exercise files. This contains the project we looked at earlier in this chapter
when we covered creating multiple mattes. I’ve precomped our 3 masks, and
duplicated that nested comp.
exactly the way we want them to in a timely
fashion.
This cheat is a true cheat in every sense of
the word. Again, we should be using real 3D
shadows. I can already hear the After Effects
gurus and professors of the world whining
about how unprofessional this is. And they’re
probably right. There’s much less control over
this method of creating shadows, especially in
3D. But sometimes we know exactly where we
want a shadow to go and exactly what we want
it to look like. Trying to position the light in
3D space to achieve that look is another story
altogether. So, this cheat is for those times
when you’re completely desperate and want to
create a “fake” 3D shadow in a hurry.
3 Turn back on the top copy of the layer, and adjust the shadow layer as desired.
We can adjust its opacity and blurriness using the controls in the Drop
Shadow effect, and we can use its layer transforms, such as Position and Scale, to
control it further.
126
2 Turn off the top copy, and apply the Drop Shadow effect to the bottom copy.
The trick to this effect is to check the Shadow Only property in the Effect
Controls panel. This removes the regular content of the layer and leaves only the
shadow, and therein lies the power.
HOT TIP
I realize that
the shadow here
doesn’t match
the lighting of
the scene. But
the gradient on
the background
gives the illusion
of a light source
coming from
the direction
of the camera,
so I created a
shadow from
that imaginary
light source. It
might not have
been the best
choice. Don’t
judge me.
4 Remember that this shadow is now its own layer, so we can even make it a 3D
layer and move and transform it in 3D space if desired. Here, I’ve also adjusted
the solid background in 3D as well.
127
Compoossiting
Guide Layers
G UIDE LAYERS AREN’T THE MOST

INTERESTING SUBJECT IN THE WORLD.
I’ll give you that. But they really can make life
easier if you know how to use them.
How many times have you created a layer just
to test something out? Maybe you’ve created a
temporary solid layer as a background to check
a key. Or maybe you’ve created a temporary
1 Here’s this project I made with some sweet motion graphics. We’ll be working
in the GUIDE LAYERS START composition in the Guide Layers.aep project. Be
aware that this is a fairly complex comp, which has been nested in an even more
complex parent comp.
adjustment layer to brighten a layer to make
sure you’re seeing all the details. Or maybe you
created a layer to display timecode, or some
other type of helpful text. You probably don’t
want any of things to render, or even show up
in a parent composition – EVER. After Effects
understands your situation, and has created
guide layers for this very purpose.
3 The problem is that when we go up in the chain to the parent composition,

the white solid shows up and ruins the art. What to do, what to do?
128
2 It’s hard to see what’s going on, so I added a white solid background. It’s much
clearer to see what’s going on here with the bright background.
HOT TIP
Most layers –
even nulls and
adjustment
layers – can
be turned into
guide layers.
However, be
aware that
lights and
cameras are
immune, and
can’t be turned
into guide
layers.
4 The solution is to simply right click on the white solid layer and choose Guide
Layer. This will make it show up in the current comp, but when you go to
render, or even when you go up to a parent composition, you don’t see it! Isn’t that
brilliant? I use guide layers all the time, especially when testing mattes.
129
I N T E R L U D E
Shooting Better Green

Screen Footage
BECAUSE KEYING OUT GREEN SCREEN FOOTAGE IS SUCH A HUGE PART
OF COMPOSITING, I wanted to take this interlude to share with you some tips
for shooting green screen footage properly. I realize that many times, a client
might provide footage to you that has already been shot, and you’ve got to get
to work pulling a key. But if you can help it at all, you can pass some of these
tidbits on to clients so that they can create footage that is much easier for you
to work on. Even some really talented directors of photography that I’ve worked
with don’t understand what can ruin an otherwise great green screen shot. Help
them help you.
First and foremost is lighting. It’s important that footage is lit well. When
video cameras record footage that is underexposed, the footage gets grainy.
Trying to key grainy footage is next to impossible, as the keying tool is thrown
off by the grain around the edges of the subject changing every single frame.
This usually results in a subject with “dancing” edges, which looks horrible.
In those cases, you might be forced to apply a choking effect (such as the new
Refine Matte or Matte Choker), which erodes the edges of the subject, and that’s
not good either.
The green screen not only has to be lit well, but the screen should be lit
evenly as well. Uneven lighting will create multiple shades of green, making it
challenging to key out. Wrinkles in a green screen will also provide this icky
unevenness. It’s also best if the subject is standing a few feet away from the
green screen so that they don’t get light from the green screen spilling on them.
This is referred to as spill, and it can be a pain in the hind quarters to remove
in post. I’ve seen some directors of photography put a backlight on the subject,
just to avoid any accidental spill from the green screen.
Another problem that I’ve seen amateurs make is that they let the movement
of the subject go out of frame. If you were shooting a movie, this isn’t that
big of a deal. But if you’re shooting cheerleaders against a green screen to
composite them in a field really far away, and their hands go off screen, then
130
they’ll be cut off when they’re composited really far away.

It kind of goes without saying, but make sure that you’re subject isn’t the
same color as the screen behind them. Green is typically used for video because
it’s the most unlike flesh tones, so it’s easiest to remove. But if you’re shooting
a green alien against a green screen, good luck trying to isolate it! In that case,
you might want a maroon screen. Sometimes directors and producers don’t
realize that allowing an actor to wear a green tie in front of a green screen will
mean that the actor will have a tie-shaped hole in him in post.
Be sure to use the highest quality video when shooting green screen as well,
especially when it comes to color. Use as many colors as your camera has.
Typically, HD cameras can capture more colors than DV cameras, which will
help you when removing the green screen.
This isn’t really a tip for removing green screen, but if you are shooting a
talking head against a green screen (say for an interview, or a host for a video
podcast), you can actually get HD footage from an SD shot. Turn your camera
sideways to record the host. This will create a frame that is 480 pixels wide by
720 pixels tall. In 720p HD video, the height of the frame is only 720 pixels,
and your host will only be a narrow part of the frame anyway. It works. And
it’s cool. Trust me.
The final tip is probably the one that I’ve seen ruin more keying tasks than
anything else. As an After Effects trainer, I’m constantly compressing videos
to distribute to people so y’all can practice with them as exercise files. Videos
get big, so I try to compress them as much as possible. Problem is, compression
causes artifacts in many cases, even if you can’t see them. You’ll probably get
a taste of this when you try using Roto Brush and Keylight on some of the
provided footage from uberstock.com. It might look pretty good, but when you
try to pull a key from it, it’s literally impossible. And you can actually see the
huge blocky edges in the matte resulting from the compression. So, try to shoot
with video as high quality as possible, and try to get it as uncompressed and
pristine as you can get it.
You might feel that shooting green screen footage isn’t your job, and your
client should worry about that. But if this footage is coming to you eventually,
then you’re going to be inheriting a big headache. It’s much better to offer to
help with advice and feedback if you can, even if you have to volunteer. It only
takes a tiny amount of effort to save loads of time in post, and to create a much
better final product.
131
Animation
THE ACT OF PLAYING DR. FRANKENSTEIN and bringing
stuff to life has always been one of the best things
about After Effects to me. Taking a still illustration from
Illustrator and making moving characters out of static
lines and shapes is just incredible, and it never gets old.
In this chapter, we’re going to look at some great tricks

for imbuing objects with a sense of life and organic
movement. Included in these tricks is what it takes to
animate a still image and bring it to life.
I’m well aware that this is a book, and that I’m using a
static medium to talk about a topic that is inherently
non-static. So we’re not going to get into perfecting
motion and movement. Instead we’re going to focus on
HOW to bring a variety of objects to life in a variety of
different ways.
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Animati
tion
The Puppet Pin Tool
T HE PUPPET TOOL IS ONE OF THE GREAT

MIRACLES OF MODERN SCIENCE. OK,
maybe that’s a tad hyperbolic, but maybe not.
It certainly is one of the greatest animation
tools I’ve ever had the privilege of playing with.
It’s the best way to bring a still image to life. It
uses the paradigm of a puppeteer, controlling
pins like a marionette to deform a layer. It’s
1 Open The Puppet Tool.aep and go to the Puppet Tool comp. We’re going to be
moving the crazy tongue of this green monster around.
fantastic for animating elements from a photo

or a graphic from Illustrator, or even making
photo adjustments. Is it any wonder that the
Photoshop team has borrowed this technology,
now that Photoshop CS5 has a Puppet Warp
feature as well?
In this cheat, and in the few to follow, we’re
going to be looking at this amazing tool (it’s
actually a series of 3 tools) and all that it offers.
It has saved my neck on many occasions, and
it is just a joy to use. In this cheat, we’ll have
a brief overview of the main feature of the
Puppet tool. And in the next few cheats, we’ll
look at the other, lesser-known Puppet tool
features.
3 Click on one of these pins to organically deform the layer. The Puppet Pin tool
automatically creates keyframes for you at the current frame when you apply
the pins. As you move in time and change the location of the pins, animation is
created.
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HOT TIP
I strongly
recommend
putting all of
your pins in
place before you
begin moving or
animating your
object.
2 Select the Puppet Pin tool in the tool bar at the top of the After Effects
interface. As we’ll look at in the next cheat, the Puppet “tool” is actually
3 tools. The Puppet Pin tool is the main tool used for deformations. Select the
tongue layer and click a point on the back of the tongue (as an anchor of sorts),
and on each curve of the tongue, and on the tip of the tongue as shown above.
The above is zoomed in 400% to show detail.
4 Continue to adjust other points as desired. Note that if you accidentally

deselect the layer, the pins will become invisible. You can see them again by
selecting the Puppet effect in the Effect Controls panel.
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Animati
tion
Puppet Overlap
1 Open the Puppet Overlap comp in the project with the same name. This
contains the same art from Dan Grady that we saw in the last cheat. I’ve added
W HEN YOU USE THE PUPPET TOOL,

you’re basically folding a single layer.
But what happens when that flat layer folds
deformation pins for you on the tentacle middle layer.
over on itself?
Another one of the Puppet tools – the Puppet
Overlap tool – allows you to have control over
what happens when Puppet pins overlap one
another.
3 In the Tools panel at the top of the interface, choose the Puppet Overlap tool.
Now place new Puppet Overlap pins over the layer. Note that you’re given an
outline of the original shape of the layer to use as a guide. I put my pins about
where I put my original pins. Whenever possible, apply Puppet Overlap pins before
deforming a layer with the Puppet Pin tool. Also, with each Puppet Overlap pin
selected, increase the Extent value in the Tools panel. This controls the area of
influence of the pin.
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2 Grab these Puppet pins and move them around so that the layer overlaps
itself. What we want is for the tip of the tentacle to go behind the rest of the
tentacle. And we also don’t want it to look terrible, which is what mine looks like
now.
HOT TIP
The third Puppet
tool is the
Puppet Starch
tool. Use this
tool if there
are areas of
your layer that
are getting
deformed that
you don’t want
to deform.
Thankfully, all
of these pins are
different colors
so they don’t
get confusing.
4 And now, just select each overlap pin and change its In Front value. Whatever
area has a higher In Front value goes in front of the area with a lower In Front
value. I put the In Front value of the overlap pin at the bottom of the tentacle
Deformation
pins are yellow,
higher than the In Front value of the tip of the tentacle. And now order is restored. overlap pins are
blue, and starch
pins are red.
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Animati
tion
Puppet Animation
1 Open the Puppet Animation START comp in the project of the same name. I
have this duck graphic that I’ve already applied Puppet deform pins to.
A S IF THE PUPPET TOOLS THEMSELVES

WEREN’T COOL ENOUGH, there is also
a built-in method for doing motion sketch
animation. It’s a little hidden because it needs
to be accessed by a keyboard shortcut. But this
is an incredible feature of the Puppet tools that
just can’t be missed.
3 You can see that After Effects has created keyframes for you as you moved
that Puppet pin around.
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Put your cursor over the Puppet pin on the beak of the duck. Hold the CL
2 key. Notice how your cursor turns into a stopwatch. Now drag that point
around. After Effects will capture your movements in real time! Be aware that in
order to capture your movements in real time, you will only be able to deform a
yellow outline of your object.
HOT TIP
As your object
animates with
the Puppet
tools, you may
notice some
undesirable
blocky edges. If
that happens,
select your
object and
select the
Puppet Pin
tool, and then
increase the
Triangles value.
This will increase
the resolution of
the mesh that
After Effects is
4 This duck now animates in a very organic way, and it took me no time at all to
create this complex and lifelike animation.
using to deform
your object.
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Animati
tion
Bouncing Ball
1 Open the Bouncing Ball START comp in the Bouncing Ball.aep project. Since
T HIS IS SO COMMON IN ANIMATION

CLASSES THAT IT’S FAIRLY CLICHÉ BY THIS
POINT. But that doesn’t change the fact that
our focus here is on advanced animation, I’ve already animated the ball doing a
simple bounce. The keyframes are linear. The animation looks awful.
knowing how to bounce a ball is an extremely

educational experience.
As beginners in After Effects, we were all
introduced to easing. But easing just isn’t
enough. We need the ultimate animation
control and power of the Graph Editor.
3 This graph represents the velocity of our object. The higher the line goes, the
faster the object is traveling at that frame. The lower, the slower. This graph
is totally wrong for a bouncing ball. We want it to start slow as it drops, then pick
up speed, and hit full speed as it hits the ground, and then slow at the top again.
Click the center points and drag them upwards as shown above.
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Select the ball layer. Press p to reveal its Position property. Then click the
2 word Position in the Timeline panel and press the F9 key to add easing to
these keyframes. That will do almost nothing for us here, but it will add some
curves in the Graph Editor. Click the Graph Editor button in the Timeline panel
to open the Graph Editor. From the Choose graph type and options menu at the
bottom, make sure Edit Speed Graph is chosen.
HOT TIP
Be aware as
you’re dragging
speed points
higher to make
things faster
that the graph
automatically
re-scales itself
to include all
points. This is a
very convenient
feature, but it
also makes it
easy to create
animation
that is way too
fast. Just be
cognizant of the
speed values (in
4 This is already looking much better! But to add some fine tuning, drag the
outer handles inwards a little bit. You may need to drag the center points
upward more to maintain the shape of the curves. Note that our work in this cheat
px/sec) on the
left side of the
graph.
didn’t change any keyframe values, only velocity. The Graph Editor is where real
masterful animation takes place, and it’s important for all users of the program to
be comfortable with what you can do here.
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Animati
tion
Parenting
1 Open the Parenting.aep project and the comp of the same name. This is
some sweet Illustrator art work by Dan Grady. Because we set this up with
layers in Illustrator, each component of the robot captain (above) is a separate
layer. We want to animate his right arm coming up, and then down to rally the
P ARENTING IS A BRILLIANT WAY TO

CONNECT LAYERS. When layers are
connected through the parenting relationship,
troops. Because each component of the arm is a separate layer, this can be really
challenging. Well it would be, if it weren’t for parenting.
you can animate or adjust the parent object,

and the child object will automatically
follow suit. While this is useful in a host of
circumstances, this is especially helpful when
animating characters.
3 We want the torso to be like the granddaddy of all of these layers. So grab the
pickwhip on the shoulder layer (always grab the pickwhip of the child) and
drag it to the torso layer. Parent the hand to the arm, and the sword and fingers to
the hand.
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2 In the Timeline panel, create a parenting relationship by dragging the

pickwhip on the robot captain R arm layer to the robot captain R shoulder
layer as shown above.
HOT TIP
Be aware that
if you dissolve
the parent/child
relationship
(by taking the
parenting drop
down in the
Timeline panel
to None), then
the objects
will remain as
they are at the
current frame.
So make sure
you get the CTI
in the right spot
for your children
to divorce their
parents.
4 Now when we adjust Position, Rotation, Anchor Point, or Scale (and ONLY
those four properties!) of a parent, the child also changes in the same way,
using the anchor point of the parent. Note that the child can still be adjusted
independently. Adjust the Z Rotation of the robot captain R hand layer to 75
degrees, and the Z Rotation of the robot captain R arm layer to 30 degrees.
You can now see the relationship created in the arm, and it’s so much easier to
animate this character!
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Animati
tion
Waving Sail
T HERE ARE SOME ANIMATION TRICKS THAT

EVEN THE PUPPET TOOL CAN’T HANDLE.
Taking a flat surface and making it look like it’s
1 Open the Waving Sail.aep project. I want the ship’s sail here to wave.
Thankfully, it’s on its own layer.
waving fabric is one of them.

Thankfully, there are other tools. One of my
favorites is an effect called Turbulent Displace.
The Turbulent Displace effect has a slightly
intimidating name, but it’s purpose is just to
turn a layer into a wavy surface. It will work
perfectly for breathing life into the sail of this
pirate ship, and it’s surprisingly easy to use.
3 We want this to look like big gusts of wind are flying through this. To make
the size of the turbulence bigger, increase the Size value to 175. Then take the
Amount value to 30 to it’s not as intense.
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2 Apply the Turbulent Displace effect to the pirate ship sail layer. And instantly,
we see a difference. But we can make this look even better.
HOT TIP
Sometimes,
Turbulent
Displace creates
ugly, blocky
edges. If that
happens to you,
you can usually
fix that by
either increasing
the Complexity
value or by
taking the
Antialising for
4 Finally, take the Pinning drop down to Pin All Locked to pin the corners of
the sail to the mast a little bit more. Then all you need to do is animate the
Evolution property, and this sail will come to life in all of its simulated windblown
Best Quality
drop down from
Low to High.
glory.
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Animati
tion
Animating the Blob
T URBULENT DISPLACE IS GREAT, DON’T GET

ME WRONG. But there are times when I
want more control over edges and Turbulent
1 Open the Animating the Blob.aep project. We want to animate the edges of this
blob in a blobby way. OK. The spellchecker is freaking out with “blobby”. We’ll
animate it in a blobbish way. Nope. That’s not a word, either. Whatever. You know
what I mean.
Displace just doesn’t get me where I want to go.

Enter: the Wave Warp effect. The Wave
Warp effect is an auto-animating, wave-
based distortion effect. I don’t think I’ve ever
actually used it on waves, but it works great for
distorting the edges of objects. Because it auto-
animates, it’s great for those times when you
want a slender object to look like it’s waving in
the breeze.
3 In the Wave Warp effect controls, change Wave Height to 3, Wave Width to
70, and Wave Speed to 0.4. Now the blob animates in an organic way.
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2 Apply the Wave Warp (NOT the Wave World!) effect to the blob body layer.
Play this comp back and you’ll notice that this blob animates automatically. It
doesn’t look very blob-like yet, though.
4 As another example of this effect, I also used it with the Parenting.aep project
to animate the tails of the bandanna of the robot captain.
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Animati
tion
Animating a Photo: Part 1
O NE OF THE MOST COMMON TRICKS

IN AFTER EFFECTS is to animate the
elements of a photograph. I’ve heard many
After Effects users question how this is done.
Like many tricks in After Effects, this effect is
achieved through the clever use of Photoshop
and After Effects together. So we’re going to
break from the standard path here, and go over
into Photoshop a bit over the next few cheats
1 We’re going to animate this image of the Tacoma, WA rock band You Yell You
Kick. Photo courtesy of Zombie Crush Photography. We’re starting with the
file Exercise Files>Media>PSDs>YYYK Cut Up START.psd, but I’ve provided a final
version of this PSD for you in the file YYYK Cut Up FINISH.psd.
as we dig deep into this project. Because this is
a bigger project and it’s quite involved, we’ll be
doing a high level overview of what this effect
entails, rather than going step-by-step.
Because this is an After Effects book and not
a Photoshop book, I’m going to assume some
basic Photoshop knowledge here. For more
information on Photoshop techniques, I heartily
recommend my brother book, How to Cheat in
Photoshop.
3 Do this for each person, the pool table, each of the billiard balls, the lights,
and anything else you want to animate in After Effects. The downside is that
this leaves a bunch of holes in our background (and yes, it also takes FOREVER!).
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HOT TIP
2 Our task here is to isolate each person. Using your selection tool(s) of
choice, select the girl on the pool table. If you give up, I’ve stored a selection
for you. Just choose Select>Load Selection and click OK. Once selected, press
You kinda have
to be judicious
CSjLSj to cut this out of the background and make it a new about the areas
layer. that you restore
with cloning.
This is a very
labor intensive
process and
knowing
the correct
shortcuts to
take is the only
way that you
can make this
trick worth
the effort. For
example, in this
case, I didn’t
feel that the
gradient on the
TV screen in
the background
was worth
recreating. The
same goes for
the neon sign
in the upper
right area of the
background.
4 Now comes the time consuming part. We have to use Photoshop’s Clone
Stamp tool to sample from the background that still exists, and fill in the
blank space in the background. That way, when we move our characters, we will SHORTCUTS
see the background. Above is my completed background. It’s not perfect, but it will MAC WIN BOTH
be good enough for the animating that I want to do.
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Animati
tion
Animating a Photo: Part 2
1 Import the YYYK Cut Up FINISH.psd file that we discussed in the last cheat.
Make sure that you import this as a composition, and in the Import As drop
C ONTINUING ON FROM THE LAST CHEAT,

we’re now going to bring this to life in
After Effects. I think you’ll agree that the magic
down, I recommend choosing Composition – Retain Layer Sizes. This will make
sure that your anchor points are in the center of each layer, and not in the center
of the entire composition.
of this trick really is in Photoshop. Once you

have it your Photoshop document cut up into
layers, the steps in After Effects are a piece of
cake.
As with the last cheat, this won’t be a step-
by-step cheat, it will be more of a high level
overview of some things you can do to bring an
image to life.
3 When I was working in Photoshop, I also isolated the cue stick and the finger
on top of the cue stick so that I could animate it in After Effects. And animate
it, I did. I actually used the Puppet tool to deform the guy and make it look like he
was hitting the ball. I also animated the position of the cue stick and the white
pool ball as seen in the before/after above.
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2 The first thing that I did was to distribute these layers in 3D space and create
a camera. That way, I could navigate a camera through this scene or pan
around it. That’s really what makes animating a photo look cool – when you rotate
a camera around it or zoom into it with all of the layers staggered in 3D space.
Contrast this image with step 1 and note the camera movement. I also applied the
Glow effect to the lights with a wiggle expression on the Glow Threshold property.
That makes them flicker and creates the feeling that you’re watching a video
instead of a still image.
4 After some color correction and some displacement (which we’ll look at in
the next cheat), I called it a day on this piece. To get the full effect, you really
have to animate the layers in 3D and watch it for yourself.
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Animati
tion
Displacement Mapping
1 This trick also has its roots in Photoshop. Open the YYYK Displace FINISH.psd
file from the PSDs folder in Exercise Files>Media. Let’s take the Marian layer for
W E CAN’T LEAVE THE SUBJECT OF

BRINGING STILLS TO LIFE without first
taking a brief look at displacement mapping.
instance.
Displacement is just what it sounds like –

movement. We are going to use a luminance
map to tell After Effects how to move pixels
around. If we do this craftily, and we will, then
we can create some 3D roundness to our still
images.
This will be our last look at the You Yell You
Kick image that we’ve been looking at in the
last few cheats. But this trick will give a large
amount of additional realism.
3 Import this PSD into After Effects as a composition. Turn off the visibility
of the displacement (DIS) layers. Restore opacity to the other layers as
needed. Apply the Displacement Map effect to the Marian layer. In the Effect
Controls panel, choose DIS Marian as the Displacement Map Layer. From Use
For Horizontal Displacement, choose Luminance, and choose Off for Use For
Vertical Displacement. Take Max Vertical Displacement to 0 and Max Horizontal
Displacement to –25.
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HOT TIP
Displacement
maps are also
really good for
objects that
cross depth
planes (like the
girl in steps 1
and 2). Or in
other words,
2 Now this is an art not a science, and it took me many attempts before I could
create a decent displacement map. But I create displacement maps by pressing
CjLj to duplicate the layer, then I lock the top copy, lower its opacity,
objects that
come towards
you. Those are
and then fill the bottom copy with black. I then paint with white the areas that the objects that
I want closest to the camera, and then I paint on the subject, with darker tones typically don’t
where the subject is farther away from the camera. As you can see, it should not animate very
have hard edges. believably in
After Effects’
normal 3D
environment. So
I also created
a displacement
map for the
pool table.
4 Then animate the Max Horizontal Displacement to change over time to a

positive value of 15. Look at the length of her arm, and its relation to her
body, as well as her hair. These values may seem extreme, but it will look great
when animated. It’s just amazing how you can bring people and images to life by
using this technique! Now try it on the pool table!
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153
Animati
tion
Resizing Animation
1 Open the Resizing Animation.aep project. Here, I’ve animated this UFO from
Cinema 4D. It starts off at the bottom and zig zags its way to the top (see the
motion path above), scaling down as it goes up. We want this scaling to be larger
and take more time, and we also want the trip to the top to take longer as well.
I OFTEN FIND MYSELF WISHING MY

ANIMATIONS WERE JUST A BIT LONGER OR
SHORTER. If you only have two keyframes, this
is not a big deal – just drag them farther apart.
But what happens when you have a complex
animation and you want everything to stay in
proportion? Well, the Graph Editor has a quick
fix for us. And we’re not going to look at how
to just resize our animations proportionally
in time, we’re also going to look how to take
a group of keyframes and exaggerate the
animation! So, it’s kinda 2 cheats for the page
count of 1.
3 Click the Position property in the Timeline panel to select all of its keyframes.
In the Graph Editor, you’ll see a transform box around the keyframes. Click the
white square on the right side and drag it to the right to proportionally scale your
animation in time and increase its duration.
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2 Open the Graph Editor. From the bottom, choose to Edit Value Graph. Enable
the option next to that one – Show Transform Box when multiple keys are
selected.
HOT TIP
Another way to
proportionally
lengthen an
animation is
to select all
keyframes, and
then OA
drag the last
keyframe
in time. All
other selected
4 Click the Scale property in the
Timeline panel to see its keyframes
in the Graph Editor. Click and drag
5 This time, drag it to the right to
lengthen it in time, AND drag it
upwards to proportionally increase the
keyframes will
scale in time as
you drag.
a marquee to select both keyframes. amount of scaling. Quick. Easy.
Notice the values on the left.
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Animati
tion
Text Messaged Animation
T HIS LAST CHEAT IS GOING TO BE LESS OF

A CHEAT, and more of just a fun trick. We
are going to send text message data via a text
1 We’re going to be starting in a project similar to what we saw in the last
cheat, using the Text Messaged Animation.aep project. Select the UFO layer
and press p to reveal its Position property. Select the Position property and press
CcLc to copy its keyframe data.
message.
When you copy keyframes, it’s actually
copying text data. This data can then be pasted
inside of a text document, emailed, or even
sent in a text message. After this text has been
passed around, it can then be pasted back into
After Effects to create an animation.
3 Here is the keyframe data in a text message. Also notice my dedication here.
I’ve sent my wife a text message of After Effects keyframe data at 4am so
that I could get this one screenshot, thereby ensuring that I sleep on the couch for
the next week. That probably deserves a 5 star review on Amazon, right?
156
Go to a text editor and press CvLv to paste the data. See – it’s just
2 text! You can now copy this in an email, or text message, or any other text
application that can copy and paste.
4 Back in our project, we can turn the visibility on for the yellow solid. After
selecting the text from the email or text message or whatever it is, I can
select this layer and press CvLv to paste it in. Contrast this with the
motion path from step 1, and you’ll see that only linear data (i.e. not interpolation)
is copied in the keyframe data. Still, it’s kind of a cool trick.
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I N T E R L U D E
Walt’s Principles
BACK IN THE DAY, WALT DISNEY AND HIS TEAM OF ANIMATORS created
the unofficial rules of animation. These basic principles of animation are still
in full effect today, and critics, students, and people hiring animators still use
these as the standards by which animation should be judged. I want to share a
few of my favorite animation principles here that apply to After Effects users.
But if you really want the full story about animation, I strongly urge you to
check out the book The Illusion of Life by Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston
(two of Walt’s most important animators). This book is still considered the bible
of animation, and will help you whether you’re doing Maya or Flash or After
Effects or illustrating characters or motion graphics. It’s expensive (and huge),
but worth every penny (and second).
The first principle that applies to almost every After Effects user is
anticipation. This principle states that in order for an action to have maximum
impact, there needs to be something to build anticipation; a warm-up act, of
sorts. If you were going to do a high jump, you would first squat down and
cock your arms back. This is anticipation. Try this in motion graphics. Before
you zoom that text in, try scaling it back a little first, then zooming. It is
incredible how much more emotional impact an action has when there is proper
preparation for it.
The next idea is that of exaggeration. Exaggeration in animation was really
exemplified by Chuck Jones and the old Warner Brothers cartoons (e.g. Bugs
Bunny, Daffy Duck, etc.). The principle here is to make sure that the key action
is clear and obvious. It doesn’t have to be Chuck Jones/broadway musical/over
the top obvious. But it should be obvious and appear deliberate. In the case
of motion graphics, this may actually mean creating sparkles or an additional
element to call greater attention to the key action.
When an object is animating, it’s important that we as animators are aware
of the concept of weight, another Disney principle of animation. Especially as
it pertains to computer animation, there is no set weight for any object. If we
158
don’t imbue objects with a sense of weight, our audience won’t sense it either.
Now, many objects in After Effects (like text, for example) might not have an
inherent weight to them. But if we are aware of this concept, we can apply fake
weight by the way we animate objects. Even if you’re just aware of this idea,
it will make a difference in your final results. For example, you may want that
text to feel a little heavier. So it might take a little longer to start animating,
and a little longer to slow down and come to a full stop. Other objects around it
might move as if influenced by its gravitational pull.
It’s also important that action happens on a smooth curve. One of the things
that is very clear from Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man is that oftentimes, even when
we move things in a seemingly linear way (such as moving your arm from
straight down to straight outwards), the movement is curved. Be aware as you
create animation that very few things in the real world move in straight lines.
Easing is big in the world of After Effects; in other words, starting out
slow and then ending slow. This is also one of Walt’s principles. Like most of
the principles of animation, if you want to do this right, you really need to be
working in the Graph Editor. However, this is one that After Effects can do on a
basic level right out of the gate. Just right click on a keyframe in the Timeline
panel and choose Keyframe Assistant>Easy Ease In/Out.
Once an action has been performed, it’s important that there is follow
through. If you threw a ball, it wouldn’t just land on the ground and stop.
Depending on the surface and the ball, it will probably bounce and continue
rolling a bit. In this case, the throwing would be the key action, and the
bouncing/rolling afterwards would be the follow through, another principle of
animation. So perhaps, after your text zips off of the screen, there is a little bit
of blurred motion trails, or dust particles, or something else to kind of wind
down from the action.
There are many more principles of animation, which can be found online
(such as on wikipedia.org). The ones I’ve shared with you here are the ones that
I think are the most helpful to After Effects users, but they’re all very good to
be aware of. Also, the ones we’ve just looked at pertain to the building up of
the action, then the quality of the action itself, and then what happens after
the action. And again, just an awareness of these ideas can make your work
better. But mastery of these skills can make your animations significantly more
engaging.
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Light Effects
WE TALKED ABOUT AFTER EFFECTS LIGHTS IN CHAPTER
2, BUT THIS IS DIFFERENT. In this chapter we’re going to
look at how to make sweet lighting tricks, and we won’t
be using After Effects lights to do it.
We’ll be looking at how to create volumetric light (where

you can see the light rays), and we’ll also be talking a
bit about HDR (High Dynamic Range) color. If you’re
unfamiliar with that concept, the interlude at the end of
the chapter is all about that.
In the same way that color really makes things come

alive, light (or simulated light) can do the same thing.
Knowing these light tricks can also help save time.
Instead of trying to adjust After Effects lights to do
exactly what you want, you can just fake it, as is the case
with the sheen effect in this chapter.
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HDR
1 In the HDR.aep project, you’ll find this shape layer full of shapes. It’s an
intentionally plain layer.
I NTRODUCED BACK IN AFTER EFFECTS 7, 32

BIT FLOAT POINT COLOR allows us to create
natural lighting effects that are just beautiful.
This is also referred to as High Dynamic Range
(HDR) color. We’ll discuss this in more detail in
the interlude at the end of this chapter. But
in this cheat, we’ll look at the practical side of
HDR that everyone can take advantage of, even
if you’re just starting out with generic white
text.
3 Now let’s make this HDR. First, go to the bottom of the project panel and
OA click the bit depth setting at the bottom twice. It should say 8 bpc,
then 16 bpc after one click, and then 32 bpc after a second click. Now the project
is in HDR mode (32 bits per channel). Now select the shape layer and click the
white Fill color swatch at the top of the interface. What’s cool about HDR is that
we can have tones whiter than white. In 32 bit mode, 1 represents regular white.
Take the RGB color values to 2.7, 1.5, 1.
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2 Apply the Fast Blur effect to this, and increase the Blurriness to 19. It
gets blurry like you probably thought it would, and it doesn’t look all that
awesome.
HOT TIP
It’s important to
remember that
we change the
bit depth of the
project, not the
composition.
Thus, all comps
in your project
will have the
same bit depth.
4 Once you click OK, the blur has a completely different effect. The lighting
burn is a very natural one when we have this much color depth. As we go
throughout this chapter, we’re going to be sticking to 8 bit mode, but keep in mind
what you could do if you took the same cheats into 32 bpc mode!
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Volumetric Light
1 We’ll start with this matte painting by Daniel Johnson. You can find it in the
Volumetric Light START comp in the project of the same name.
V OLUMETRIC LIGHT IS LIGHT THAT YOU

CAN SEE. These streaks of light are most
obvious when light comes through the clouds
or through a window. You can see the light
because of the particles (dust, smoke, etc.) in
the air.
I once did a commercial where I had to show
light pouring down from the heavens and this
is very similar to the technique that I used.
Be aware that this is another one of those
techniques that looks sufficient in screenshots,
but looks really incredible when animated.
4 We need to create soft feathered edges, so select the solid layer and press
CScLSc to precompose this layer (choosing the “Move all
attributes...” option). Create a mask around the light rays. With the solid selected,
press f to reveal the Mask Feather property. Increase this as desired to soften the
edges, as shown above.
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2 I’ve already created a solid for you in between the

background and the arch. Apply the Fractal Noise effect
to this solid layer. In its effect controls, take Contrast to 150.
3 To apply some roundness to our light, apply the Warp
effect, and take its Bend value down to –100. This will
seemingly adjust the placement of the layer. To compensate
Then open the Transform area, uncheck Uniform Scaling, and for this, decrease the Y position value of the solid layer to
take Scale Height to 4000. –267.
HOT TIP
If you’re really
into this
volumetric
light effect,
I recommend
checking out
the 3rd party
plugin Lux by
Trapcode. The
purpose of Lux
is to create
volumetric light
from After
Effects lights.
5 For the final step, I applied the Tint effect, and changed the Map White To
value to a slightly warmer color to help the light composite better. I also took
the blend mode of the precomp layer to Screen. To bring this to life, double click
the precomp to get back to the Fractal Noise effect, and animate the Evolution
parameter. If the effect is too intense (or not intense enough), you can adjust
the opacity of the layer, or go back to Fractal Noise and adjust the Contrast and
Brightness values.
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Silhouettes
A LTHOUGH THE OLD IPOD LOOK IS RATHER

OUTDATED AT THIS POINT, it’s still rather
helpful to be able to know how to create
1 We’re starting in the Silhouettes.aep project and the Silhouettes START comp
with a video clip of a kid dancing, from uberstock.com. I’ve already created a
garbage matte for you. We’ll also be going through the next steps pretty quick
because we’ve covered these ideas in detail back in Chapter 4.
silhouettes. It kind of opens the door to new
possibilities. Because light tricks are really just
about contrast, putting a layer into silhouette
can help exaggerate details in a scene.
3 Let’s polish up this matte a bit. Apply the Refine Matte effect. The default
settings make this look much better. And silhouettes are very forgiving, so this
is good enough.
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2 In order to create a silhouette, we have to isolate the subject. Apply the Luma
Key effect to the layer with the video clip. Change the Key Type drop down to
Key Out Brighter, and change the Threshold to 242. It looks bad, but that’s OK for
now.
HOT TIP
You can also
fill the layer by
right clicking on
the layer and
applying a Color
Overlay layer
style. The layer
style also gives
you the option
to blend the
color with the
original layer by
using a blend
mode.
4 Finally, make this a silhouette by applying the Fill effect and changing the
Color in the Fill effect to black. Apply cheesy satire text as desired.
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Effect
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Light Whips
1 Start in the Light Whips START comp in the Light Whips.aep project. Create
a new solid at 1280 x 200 pixels. Apply the Fractal Noise effect. In its effect
controls, change Contrast to 600, Brightness to –150, and Complexity to 2. In the
Transform area, uncheck Uniform Scaling and take Scale Width to 6000 and Scale
Height to 5.
Y OU’LL SEE LITTLE “WHIPS” OF LIGHT ALL

OVER THE PLACE, especially in the world
of broadcast. Often, you’ll want little animated
lines of light to come in and underscore,
highlight, or pull your attention towards
something in an ad. There are a probably no less
than a billion (yes, a billion) different ways to
do this, but we’re going to look at one of my
favorite ways in depth. I’ll also mention another
way to create this effect as well.
3 Rotate, position, and reorder this layer in the layer stack as desired. Then
change the blend mode of the layer. Dragging this layer beneath the
adjustment layer makes the whips get all magic and glowy and awesome.
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2 Apply the Warp effect. In its effect controls, change Bend to –50, Horizontal
to 50, and Vertical Distortion to –13. Apply the Fast Blur effect to smooth
things out a bit. I used a Blurriness value of 6.
HOT TIP
As in most cases
with the Fractal
Noise effect,
create some
nice pulsating
animation by
animating the
Evolution value.
4 At about 1 second into the final version of this animation, you’ll see another
light whip enter the scene and reveal the INSPIRE text. This light whip was
created by using the Vegas effect. Because this effect relies heavily on masks, we’ll
look briefly at it in the next chapter.
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Stage Lights
I T’S FAIRLY FEASIBLE TO THINK THAT YOU

MIGHT BE CALLED UPON to create stage lights
one day. Creating virtual stadiums is becoming
1 Make a new comp at 1280 x 720. Make a new solid at 1280 x 250. Apply the
Cell Pattern effect.
increasingly popular, and being able to create

the type of lights that they have in stadiums
is really helpful. However, that’s not really the
purpose of this cheat.
The purpose of this cheat is to help us to
think creatively about creating light sources.
We take tutorials and read books and do all
that we can to learn After Effects. But all of
that goes out the window when a client asks
for something we’ve never seen made before.
At that point, we need to use the tools we have
to meet the demand. In many cases in my own
experience, thinking creatively about non-
traditional tools has saved me on a number of
occasions.
3 Apply the 4-Color Gradient effect. At the bottom of the effect in the Effect
Controls panel, change the Blending Mode value to Multiply.
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HOT TIP
For fashion-
style dots that
are smaller,
increase the
Contrast value
to a much
higher number,
such as 2000.
2 In the Cell Pattern effect controls, take the Disperse value down to 0. Increase
the Contrast value to 700.
4 To make these dots look like lights, apply the Glow effect. In its effect
controls, change Glow Threshold to 30% and Glow Radius to 20. To animate
the colors (and location of the colors) of these lights, adjust the Positions & Colors
properties in the 4-Color Gradient effect.
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Energy Cube
T HIS CHEAT PROBABLY HAS ITS ROOTS

IN MY LOVE OF SATURDAY MORNING
CARTOONS. Before it was turned into its current
1 This is the thing that I started out with from Photoshop. Two white rectangles
smeared by one of the worst tools in Photoshop.
movie franchise, Transformers was perhaps my

all-time favorite cartoon growing up.
So this is my take on the energon cubes that
were such a staple of those old plots. But there
is a more important reason for this cheat here.
This again helps us to realize that we can often
find answers to problems in unconventional
places. This will be less of a hands on cheat, and
more of a case study.
I actually created this object on a dare to
myself. I created the cheesiest object I could
think of in Photoshop (2 rectangular marquee
selections filled with white, then smudged with
the Smudge tool), and I challenged myself to
make it cool in After Effects. I really like the
results, but it also underscores the importance
of using After Effects and Photoshop together.
3 The next part was a little challenging. I selected all of these brackets and
precomposed them so that I could adjust all of these brackets at once. I then
duplicated that precomp, and arranged them in 3D space to form a cube.
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2 I then duplicated it a few times and made it the edges of an imaginary square.
4 At this point, all that was left was to create an adjustment layer and apply
a liberal dose of color correction, including a healthy amount of the Glow
effect. The project here is included with the exercise files to look at if you’re
interested.
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Searchlights
1 Start in the Searchlights START comp in the Searchlights.aep project. All other
layers have been hidden and locked for you, so you can concentrate on the task
at hand.
W E’VE ALL SEEN SEARCHLIGHTS,

whether they’re promoting a large
concert, or summoning Batman, or if it’s just
the local used car dealer trying to move some
inventory. Here’s a quick way to recreate them
in After Effects.
3 For a basic searchlight, all that’s left is to apply the Fast Blur effect and
increase the Blurriness value to taste, put the layer in the Screen or Add blend
mode as desired, and reduce opacity to taste. Oh, and you should also probably
click the master Shy button in the Timeline panel to see all layers and then reorder
this searchlight so it’s behind the front buildings (beneath layer 20).
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2 Our searchlight is going to be created by a shape layer. So in the Tools panel,

select the Pen tool. Then click 3 times to create a triangle, as shown above.
Make sure that the fill is a pale yellow and that there is no stroke.
HOT TIP
To animate
these
searchlights,
hold the y key
to temporarily
use the Pan
Behind tool, so
you can drag
your anchor
point to the
bottom of the
searchlight.
Then when you
rotate it, it will
move like a
searchlight does.
4 If you’re looking for a little more richness in your searchlight texture, apply
the Fractal Noise effect, and change the blend mode (at the bottom of the
Fractal Noise effect controls) to Multiply, or another mode of your choosing.
This creates the illusion of smoke or dust particles in the air. The noise has been
exaggerated so you can see it above. And don’t forget to select this layer and press
CdLd to make copies so you can put them in other places if needed.
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Sheen
1 In the Sheen START comp in the Sheen.aep project, you’ll find this 3D text that
I created in Cinema 4D. It’s very dark, but I kinda like it like that. It’s supposed
to be scary. I have a few options here to reveal this text and keep it scary. I could
put a faint glow behind it. But we’re going to go for the sheen effect.
S HEEN REFERS TO A SMALL LITTLE STREAK

OF LIGHT bouncing off of an object. This
effect can be used to create suspense on a dark
subject (such as our example in this cheat)
to reveal content, or it could be used for the
opposite – as a regal highlight on a bright and
illuminated subject.
This trick is especially great for those times
when the main part of an animation has
completed and things aren’t supposed to move
that much; almost like the aftershock of the
animation. The sheen is a perfect thing to
maintain interest without being too distracting.
3 One of the things that this effect does is that it appears to create a beveled
edge because of its Edge Thickness property. This is shown here above (on a
different object so it’s easier to see) on a completely flat object. We don’t want
this fake bevel conflicting with the bevel created in Cinema 4D, so take Edge
Thickness down to 2.
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2 Apply the CC Light Sweep effect to this layer. Instantly we have a pretty cool
light sheen on our subject.
HOT TIP
If you want the
bevel added by
the CC Light
Sweep effect
to be removed
entirely, take
the Edge
Intensity
property down
to 0.
4 Adjust the angle of the light sheen using the Direction parameter. Adjust
its position using the Center property. Animate the X position of the Center
property to have the light sweep go across the object. Here, I created a more
subtle effect by increasing Width to 120 and by taking Sweep Intensity down to
12. It’s subtle, but it’s obvious when compared with the screenshot in step 1.
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The Glow Effect
1 All of the mini-projects in this cheat are found in the

Glow.aep project, with each project being named in order,
and whether it’s the start of the project or the final version.
So we’ll be starting with the 01 START comp, which contains
an ugly volcanic rock render from a 3D program.
T HE GLOW EFFECT IS ONE OF THE MOST

USED EFFECTS in the world of motion
graphics. It just has a way of making things
come alive and look better.
To me, the Glow effect has two main
purposes. It can make footage glow,
exaggerating the colors that are already there.
But it can also be used to colorize graphics as it
adds glow. Almost everything looks better with
a prudent application of the Glow effect. In this
cheat we’ll take a mini-tour of Glow being used
in a few different circumstances.
4 Apply the Glow effect to the adjustment layer. At first,

it just brightens what is already there. To colorize this,
change the Glow Colors drop down to A & B Colors, and then
change the white Color A swatch to orange, and the Color B
color to red. Then take Glow Threshold, Radius, and Intensity
to 10, 400, and 3, respectively.
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2 Apply the Glow effect. The main Glow properties are the
first 3. Take Glow Threshold (which determines what
tones have glow applied to them) to 30%. Take Glow Radius
3 Move over to the 02 START comp. Because we have
multiple layers here, we’ll need to create an adjustment
layer, which you can do by pressing COyLAy.
(the size of the glow) to 50. Take Glow Intensity to 0.5. It These layers were created by using the Vegas effect.
made this image really come alive.
HOT TIP
To use the
Glow effect to
create a glow
on the outside
of an object,
change the
Glow Based On
drop down to
Alpha Channel,
and take the
Composite
5 Another example of adding glow color can be found in

the 03 START comp. By the way, this was created with
the Fractal Noise effect, distorted by the Radial Blur effect.
6 Apply Glow, and change the Glow Colors drop down to A
& B Colors, and then change Color A to the RGB values
of 5, 65, 180, and change Color B to 5, 100, 180. Take Glow
Original drop
down to On Top.
Threshold to 15 and Glow Radius to 20. Note that in the

previous example, we had to increase brightness a lot after
using A & B colors, but not in this example. Just something
to be aware of.
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Laser Beams
1 In the Laser Beams START comp in the Laser Beams.aep project, you’ll find this
project set up for you.
L ASER BEAMS AND LIGHT SABERS ARE JUST

THE COOLEST. In this cheat, we’ll look at a
simple way to create those and other effects of
that ilk with the Beam effect.
3 To shoot this laser beam, all you have to do is animate the Time value. If 3D
Perspective is checked (it’s on by default), you can have some fun. Here, I took
Length to 3%, Time to 5%, Starting Thickness to 24, and Ending Thickness to 1.
This looks better as a still frame, but when the Time property is animated, the laser
appears to shoot into deep space. It’s a cool effect.
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2 Apply the Beam effect to the white solid layer called BEAM. Notice that the
while solid layer instantly disappears and is replaced by the beam. With the
Beam effect selected in the Effect Controls panel, you can see the effect control
points. Put the Starting Point next to the gun turret and put the Ending Point next
to the planet.
HOT TIP
To use this same
effect to create
light sabers, just
increase the
Length value to
100%.
4 You can also add extra flourishes, like more beams and lens flares. It’s a pretty
cool result for such little effort.
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Trapcode Shine
1 In the Trapcode Shine.aep project, you won’t be able to see anything. This is
because this project contains the silhouette we created earlier in this chapter
on a black background (I added a temporary white solid background for this
screenshot). This will be another cool trick that you can do with silhouettes.
T HE SHINE EFFECT IS SEEN EVERYWHERE,

including commercials by McDonald’s,
Captain Morgan, and other major brands. This
effect just won’t die. Like lens flares, they were
cool for a while, then out of style because the
effect was so overused, and then the effect
came back in style again.
The Shine effect by Trapcode is perhaps the
easiest, fastest, and best looking way to create
these awesome light rays that shoot out from
behind objects. Because light rays are emitted
from behind the subject, it makes the subject
seem more important, interesting, and powerful.
The Shine effect is not included with
After Effects CS5. If you don’t own it,
you can download a free trial of it from
redgiantsoftware.com. It really is the ultimate
effect for light tricks.
3 There are loads of preset color schemes that you can choose from. In the
Colorize area in the Shine effect controls, change the Colorize drop down to
Enlightenment.
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2 Apply the Shine effect to the PRECOMP kid dancing layer. In the Shine effect
controls, change the Colorize>Base On drop down to Alpha. Oooooooh......
HOT TIP
If you don’t own
Shine, you can
try checking out
the CC Light
Rays effect that
ships with After
Effects. I find
that Shine is far
superior, but CC
Light Rays may
work for you.
4 In my opinion, the real magic of this effect comes when you adjust the
Source Point. Adjust its X value (and Y value, if desired) to the right of the
subject. Note that the subject has not moved since step 3. Not only does this look
incredible when animated, but notice how quickly it renders! Unbelievable!
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I N T E R L U D E
High Dynamic Range

THERE’S A LOT OF CONFUSION ABOUT HIGH DYNAMIC RANGE (HDR) COLOR.
So I wanted to take these next couple of pages and see if we can’t clear some
stuff up.
First of all, let’s talk about bit depth. HDR color is often referred to as 32 bit
color. What does that mean? Well, let’s back up a bit. A bit is the most basic
level of a computer’s understanding, and it has two possible values – a 1 or a
0. Old GIF images (remember those?) were 8 bits of color. If something is 8 bits,
the way we express that mathematically is to say 28, which is 256 (where the 2
comes from the bit options – 1 or 0 – and the 8 comes from the bit depth).
Often times, we refer to an image as being 8 bit, when we actually mean
that it is 8 bits per channel. So, in a standard image or video clip, there are 256
(28) color variations in the red channel, 256 in the green, and 256 in the blue.
We arrive at the total possible RGB color choices by multiplying those together.
My calculator tells me that this works out to about 16.7 million colors. That’s
already more colors than the human eye can see. So why add more?
When we go up to 16 bit per channel images, that’s 216, or 65,536 color
possibilities in each channel. That creates the ability to produce much finer
color refinements. I think of this like a toaster. If your toaster had only two
settings – raw and burnt – that doesn’t leave you much choice in toasting
preference satisfaction. If your toaster had 400 different levels of toasting,
you would be guaranteed to get your toast the exact way that you wanted it,
even though you might not be able to tell the difference between each level of
toasting. Having more color choices gives us similar control.
But isn’t 16 bit enough, then? Why do we need to jump up to 32 bit? There
is a slight but important difference with HDR color. HDR color attempts to
simulate the way that light works. On a computer, white is white, right? But
that’s not the way that white works in real life. If you have a piece of paper,
you may say that’s white. And you’d be correct. But then if someone shines
a flashlight in your face, that would also be white, but that’s a much more
184
intense white. Likewise, if we were to then look at the sun: it’s a much brighter
white. HDR attempts to recreate this by allowing you to create colors that are
“superwhite”. In the HDR cheat in this chapter, we increased the color levels of
some of the channels beyond white. That’s why when we added blur, the colors
channels that were emitting more light appeared to shine through with more
intensity, just like light in real life.
Be aware that HDR is also a big deal in photography, where it also suffers
from some confusion. Digital photography (and digital video as well) suffers
from having a much smaller dynamic range than film does. It’s just impossible
to capture bright brights and dark darks simultaneously. Image editing tools like
Photoshop allow you to combine multiple exposures of the same image so that
you can create full 32 bit, HDR images.
But some people that are using HDR images have created a very distinct
visual style with these images. You’ve probably seen those beautiful shots of
celebrity faces in magazines that are very sharp and stylized, and you can see
every pore and detail on the face. Well, this isn’t necessarily HDR, but it’s kind
of become equated with it. There’s even a new adjustment in Photoshop CS5
called HDR Toning, to simulate the look of HDR images on an 8 bit image. Thus,
HDR is further confusing because it’s now not only a technical concept (which
is really all that it should have ever been), but it’s also a style.
Hopefully this helps to clear something up, if there was confusion.
Remember that it’s never as important to know how something works, as it is to
be able to get it to do what you want it to.
185
Masks and Shapes
A LOT OF THE MAGIC OF AFTER EFFECTS LIES IN WHAT
YOU DON’T SHOW, as much as it does in what you do
show. So, in this chapter, we’re going to look closer at
masks – what makes them tick, and also some cool tricks
that you can do with them.
We’ll also spend some time looking at tangential topics,

such as shapes and mattes. After surveying other books
and tutorials online, I find that the real jewels of these
features aren’t really discussed that much. So hopefully,
there will be some new tricks in this chapter that allow
you to take your art to the next level.
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Maassks and Shapes
Mask Options
1 Open the Mask Options.aep project and the Mask Options START comp in that
project. Then select the Rectangle Tool from the Tools panel at the top of the
interface.
I N OTHER PLACES IN THIS BOOK, WE PLAY

A LITTLE with mask feathering and mask
expansion. But there are several other options
for masks, including the ability to animate
their shape and position, and blend modes that
control how multiple masks interact with each
other.
In this cheat, we’ll create a frenetic,
fragmented look on a sports clip from uberstock
using multiple masks and blending them
together.
Press mm to reveal all mask properties, including the mask modes drop
3 down, and Mask Opacity. It’s important to know that the mask modes change
how the mask interacts with the masks above it. The top mask affects the alpha
channel of the layer. My top mask is the vertical mask over the subject’s right eye.
As I lower the Mask Opacity to 50%, you can see that only the areas where that
mask is have lowered opacity. In the bottom right corner, I change the mask mode
to Difference, which creates a hole where other layers overlapped it. Note that
Intersect does the opposite.
188
2 Make sure this layer is selected, and then click and drag to create several
rectangular masks. The default mask mode is Add, which will combine the
contents of the mask to form the opaque areas of the layer, and anything not
masked will become transparent.
HOT TIP
Note that even
though the
mask modes are
considered blend
modes, they only
blend between
masks on the
current layer.
4 Adjusting these masks can create some pretty cool effects. In the Mask
Options FINAL comp, I’ve played with this a little more. Here I’ve also added
an adjustment layer with some color correction. I’ve also taken this screenshot
with my masks active so you can see what I did here. It’s a little time consuming,
but a really cool result.
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Maassks and Shapes
Instant Vignette
1 Start with a video clip or still image. I’m using this clip from the Zen Chemists
music video that I did. You’ll find this in the Vignette.aep project. It’s a cool
shot in my opinion, but there’s a lot of stuff to look at with all of the textures
everywhere. It’s a bit distracting from the rap guy who we want to be the focus.
O K, SO IT IS NOT EXACTLY INSTANT, but it’s

pretty darn close.
Vignettes are just all the rage these days. They
help to focus your attention, which is what
visual storytelling is really all about.
In this cheat, we’ll create a vignette in just
a few steps, and we’ll look at some cool mask
tricks as well.
3 In the Timeline panel, take the mask mode drop down from Add to Subtract.
Now this mask will cut an elliptical hole in our layer. Almost there!
190
Press CyLy to make a new black solid the same size as the comp. We
2 want to create an elliptical mask that fills this composition. Select the Ellipse
tool in the Tools panel. Now, we could click and drag an elliptical mask, but there’s
an easier way. With the solid layer selected, just double click the Ellipse tool in the
Tools panel. It instantly creates a mask for you that fills the comp. Perfect!
HOT TIP
If you’re not
seeing the mask
options, just
press mm
(that’s the letter
“m” twice) to
reveal its mask
options.
Select the solid layer and press f to reveal the Mask Feather property.
4 Looks good, but the black is too intrusive. Do we need to manually resize it?
No way! In the mask options area, change the Mask Expansion value to 40. I also
selected the solid layer and pressed t to reveal its Opacity property and took
that down to 80%. This makes the effect very subtle (and probably hard to see in
the screenshots), but that’s exactly what we want. We want the vignette to be felt
and not seen. Turn the visibility of the vignette on and off to compare, and you’ll
see that the difference is massive. SHORTCUTS
MAC WIN BOTH
191
Maassks and Shapes
From Video to Shape Layer
1 We’re going to start with a project very similar to the silhouette project we
looked at in the last chapter. It basically contains an uberstock.com video clip
of a kid dancing. The background has also been removed.
T HIS NEXT CHEAT IS GOING TO BE A LITTLE

BIT OF A MIND BLOWER. Here’s the deal – I
LOVE shape layers, introduced back in After
Effects CS3. They are so powerful, and I don’t
feel like I’ve really tapped their potential, so I’m
always trying to find new ways to use them.
Shape layers have all of these really cool
operators that allow you to do very cool things
with them, including the ability to wiggle their
transform properties and edges, and the ability
to create multiple repetitions of objects as well.
I’ve always thought that it would be cool
to have these operators as controls on regular
layers, and I just figured out a way to turn
video outlines into shape layers. We’ll learn a lot
about masks and shapes in these few steps! 3 We need to get this mask data into
a shape layer. The way to do this
is a little weird and tricky. Deselect all
4 Now select Mask 1>Mask Path
on the auto-traced layer. Press
CcLc to copy this mask.
layers by pressing F2. Then press g to Now open the shape layer up. Go
select the Pen tool. Then click to create to Contents>Shape 1>Path 1>Path,
a new shape layer. It doesn’t matter and click that Path (the one that has
what you make with the Pen tool. Even the stopwatch next to it) to select it.
a single point will work. If you did it Press CvLv to paste the mask
right, the outline will be blue. date into the shape layer. If you did
it correctly, you’ll see the dancing kid
with a blue outline.
192
2 We need to first make a mask around this shape, and we need to do it for
every frame. Sound tedious? It’s not at all, provided we use the Auto-trace
feature. Select the layer, and from the Layer menu at the top of the interface,
choose Auto-trace. Make sure the Channel drop down is set to Alpha, and change
the Time Span to Work Area, and click OK. Note that this process will take quite a
while. But when it’s done, you’ll have a mask around this layer on every frame!
HOT TIP
Once you’ve
created a shape
layer from the
video, you no
longer need it in
your project.
5 Once this is a shape layer, we have all kinds of options, because it’s a regular
old shape layer. Here I changed the Fill and Stroke, and added some repetition.
In the Timeline panel, click the Add flyout and choose Repeater. This allows you
to create multiple duplicates of your shape, as seen above. This is after adjusting
the number of copies, as well as the Anchor Point and Position properties in the
Repeater area. Don’t forget that this layer is like video! Shown above is this layer a
few frames later in time. Contrast this with the previous screenshots – this is our
video!
SHORTCUTS
MAC WIN BOTH
193
Maassks and Shapes
The Vegas Effect
1 This project is similar to what we saw in the last chapter’s cheat on light whips.
You’ll find this project in the Vegas START comp in the Vegas.aep project. Vegas
can use the contours (around the alpha channel) of an image, or a mask. I usually
use the mask option because I usually get more predictable results with it. So, I’ve
already created a mask here for you. A big, sloppy mask.
T HE VEGAS EFFECT WAS CREATED TO

SIMULATE THOSE OLD STYLE Vegas
marquee lights (as in the example above). But
this effect actually has a few more tricks up its
proverbial sleeve. In this cheat, we’ll look at one
of those tricks.
3 We could shorten the Length value to create the old Vegas style marquee
lights, but let’s do something different. Take the Segments>Segments value
down to just 1. This makes it so that there is only one streak of light traveling
around our mask.
194
2 Apply the Vegas effect to the Whip layer. You won’t see anything yet. In the
Vegas effect controls, change the Stroke drop down from Image Contours
to Mask/Path. You still won’t be able to see much. That’s because Vegas was
(unfortunately) designed to have a tiny yellow default stroke, but masks are also
yellow! To see what’s going on here, take the Rendering>Width value to 15.
HOT TIP
If you like this
effect, you
might want to
check out the
last cheat in this
chapter, where
we’ll look at
the 3rd party
plugin Trapcode
3D Stroke. It
creates results
similar to this,
but with some
enhanced
features.
4 Now all that remains is to animate the Segments>Rotation value (from a

higher angle to a lower one in this case). I’ve also reduced Segments>Length
to 0.15 to create shorter streaks of light. What’s cool about this is that the
segment will go all the way around a closed path, which is why I took a wide
screenshot of the mask in step 1. Try creating a crazy path and animating multiple
segments along it.
195
Maassks and Shapes
Luma Matte
1 In the Luma Matte.aep project, you’ll find two layers in the Luma Matte START
comp. One of them is an uberstock clip that shows black ink dripping on a
L UMA MATTES ALLOW US TO USE THE

BRIGHTNESS OF ANOTHER LAYER AS A
MASK for the layer beneath it. In this cheat,
white background. This layer is on top because we want it to be the mask.
and in the next, we’re going to look at ways to

mask without creating masks – by using mattes.
Kind of like blend modes, the downside of this is
that there is no manual control over the results.
But, also like blend modes, the other side of the
coin is that when the setup is right, it works
instantly and looks great.
3 In the Modes area of the Timeline panel, in the drop down in the TrkMat
column, change the drop down on the Pattern layer to Luma Matte. If you’re
like me, you can never remember if white creates the hole or black. Apparently,
dark tones make a mask. That’s not what we want.
196
2 The other layer is a cheesy fractal noise background. This layer is on the
bottom because we want it to be the texture that fills the mask.
4 Not to worry, just change the TrkMat drop down to Luma Inverted Matte,
and the white areas will mask out the layer beneath it. This trick is great for
creating really intricate and beautiful patterns as motion graphics backgrounds.
197
Maassks and Shapes
Track Matte
1 The steps in this trick are really easy, but let’s take a look at our layers first.
The matte layer on the top of the layer stock is just simple text. Because it’s
T RACK MATTES ARE VERY SIMILAR TO LUMA

MATTES, except that instead of using the
luminance of the layer above to create a mask,
red, it would create a weak luma matte. But its outlines will make for a great
alpha matte.
it uses the alpha of the layer.

Because the last cheat was our first look at
mattes, we took it kinda easy. In this one we’re
going to use three layers to show how you
can create even more complexity by using a
cool background as well. So again, the three
components are:
1. The top layer, which is the mask
2. The middle layer, which is the mask fill
3. The bottom layer, which is the background
3 Remember that when we create our matte, that the video from step 2
will only exist as a fill for the matte in step 1. This leaves the background
(everything that isn’t the text) as empty. So now we have this third layer on the
bottom of the layer stack, and this will serve as the background.
198
2 The next layer – the one that will be used to fill the inside of the text mask
we’ll create – is another video clip from uberstock.com.
HOT TIP
As with luma
mattes, the
object that is
creating the
mask can be a
video, or it can
be an animated
layer, or both.
Sometimes, you
can create the
most interesting
results by having
a traveling
(e.g. animated)
matte.
4 On the uberstock video clip layer, in the Modes area of the Timeline panel,
go to the TrkMat drop down and choose Alpha Matte. Again, this uses the
alpha channel of the layer above it (the ROCK text) to mask out the current layer,
allowing the background to show through.
199
Maassks and Shapes
Animating Masks
1 We’re going to be working with this fish in the Animating
T HE NEXT COUPLE OF CHEATS ARE GOING

TO HAVE BONUS INTEGRATION tips built
into them. In this cheat, we’re going to look
Masks.aep project. This fish is actually an orange solid
with a fish-shaped mask applied to it. Select this orange
solid layer and press m to reveal its mask options. Click the
stopwatch for the Mask Path property.
at the powerful ability that masks have when
animating. We’ll then bring in a shape from
Photoshop and paste it into After Effects. This
will create a shape tween; basically a morph
between shapes. We’ll then polish the tween
using another great After Effects tool. There’s a
lot of cool stuff in this one.
4 Now we’re going to paste this shape into our fish layer,
but we have to do it carefully. If you select the layer and
paste it, it will create a separate mask. That’s not what we
want. You need to actually select the Mask Path itself, then
press CvLv to paste this shape into the same mask.
200
2 Move the CTI later in time and adjust some points on the
fish. A new keyframe is automatically created for you,
and the original fish shape will morph into whatever you just
3 Now, hop on over to Photoshop. Open the bird shape.psd
file from the Exercise Files>Media>PSDs folder. Click the
vector mask thumbnail for the Shape 1 layer. This will select
changed it into. the mask. Press CcLc to copy this shape. Then head
back on over to After Effects, and move a little further in
time.
HOT TIP
You can hold
your cursor over
the different
options in
the Mask
Interpolation
panel to get a
better idea of
what they do.
5 If the procedure was done correctly, the fish now morphs

into the bird! Isn’t that awesome? But there’s a problem
with the way the fish morphs into the bird. No worries. After
6 Click the Mask Path property in the orange solid layer
to select all of its keyframes. In the Mask Interpolation
panel, take the Matching Method drop down to Polyline,
Effects provides a fix for that, too. Go to Window>Mask and click the Apply button. Now we have a much smoother
Interpolation to open this panel. transition between the two shapes.
SHORTCUTS
MAC WIN BOTH
201
Maassks and Shapes
Motion Paths from Illustrator
N OW WE’LL LOOK AT WHAT ILLUSTRATOR

CONTRIBUTES to this whole pasted shape
thing. Instead of pasting paths as a mask, we’re 1 We’re going to use the Motion Paths.aep project. I love my wife very much,
and I’ve always had this fear that I’m going to flush my wedding ring down the
going to paste a shape as a motion path. toilet on accident. So while you’re learning how to cheat in After Effects, I’ll be
conquering some longtime fears.
This is one of the biggest reasons to use
Illustrator in conjunction with After Effects.
You may have noticed that position keyframes
in the Timeline panel become anchor points in
the motion path in the Composition panel. The
converse is true with Illustrator – anchor points
from Illustrator paths become keyframes when
pasted into After Effects. It’s an incredible time
saver, and it usually creates much better looking
motion paths as well.
I should also point out that even if you’ve
never used Illustrator, you’ll be able to follow
along here.
Head back to After Effects. Select the wedding ring layer and press p
3 to reveal its Position property, and select it (the Position property, not the
entire layer). Press CvLv to paste the shape data from Illustrator into
the motion path of the wedding ring. The ring now follows this path, without
clicking a single stopwatch or adjusting a single property! The keyframes are also
automatically roving keyframes so you can just drag the last one to stretch this
animation in time proportionally as desired.
202
Now go over to Illustrator. Press CnLn to make a new document of

2 any size. Then, in the Tools panel on the left of the interface, hold your cursor
down on the Line Segment tool to see the Spiral tool, and select the Spiral tool.
Click and drag to create a spiral. The fill and stroke don’t matter in this case.
HOT TIP
You can also
copy and paste
masks from
After Effects as
motion paths as
well.
4 Now – a couple of tips here. There’s not an easy way to scale a motion path,
so make sure that your spiral in Illustrator is about the same size as you want
the motion path to be in After Effects. Also, in Illustrator, you’ll want to make sure
that your File Handling & Clipboard settings in the preferences are set like the
ones above if you’re having problems copying and pasting only the path.
SHORTCUTS
MAC WIN BOTH
203
Maassks and Shapes
Trapcode 3D Stroke
1 In the 3D Stroke.aep project, I’ve already created a big mask for you to use.
I THINK IT’S PRETTY OBVIOUS FROM THIS

BOOK that Trapcode makes my favorite
plugins for After Effects. Along with Shine, 3D
Stroke is an oldie but a goodie.
The 3D Stroke effect allows you to stroke a
mask. Pretty standard, right? But the options
– oh, sweet options – are so fantastic that
this effect always seduces me into playing
with it for way too long. Also, it’s completely
3D, allowing you to use a comp camera to
navigate its three dimensional shapes. And
remember that 3D Stroke is a 3rd party effect
that is not included with After Effects, but
you can download a free trial version from
redgiantsoftware.com.
So, in this cheat, we’ll have just a basic
introduction to what 3D Stroke can do. Oh, by
the way, sorry that the background of my 3D
Stroke example kinda clashes with the orange
banner at the top of the page.
3 My two favorite areas in this effect are the Taper controls and the Repeater
controls. Open each of those categories and check the Enable checkbox to
turn them on. Even their default conditions look great.
204
2 Apply the 3D Stroke effect, and the background of the solid disappears. Click
the Color swatch and change the color from white to black.
HOT TIP
All you have to
do to bring 3D
Stroke to life is
to animate the
Offset property.
4 For this shape, I decreased Thickness to 5, increased

Start to 9, set Taper>Start Shape and End Shape to 2,
and Repeater>Instances to 5, and Repeater>Scale to 96.
5 Remember that this effect is also 3D! Create a new
camera. Then, in the camera area, check the Comp
Camera checkbox and move the comp camera as desired.
This view is the bottom of the shape from step 4.
205
Particles
IN THE AFTER EFFECTS WORLD, IT DOESN’T GET MORE
FUN THAN PARTICLES. I just love particles. Particle
systems allow us to easily control multiple objects. This
is almost akin to being the CEO of a very large company,
where we just offer some direction, and our underlings do
all the hard stuff while we get all the credit!
In this chapter, we’re going to start out by looking at

what a particle system is exactly, as well as some common
controls. That way, we’re up to speed for the rest of the
chapter. Then we’ll make rain, snow, confetti, fireworks,
smoke, and much more (even flowing chocolate!) from
scratch. We’ll also check out some powerful and popular
third party effects from Trapcode: Form and Particular. If
you don’t own these effects, you can get free demos of
them from redgiantsoftware.com.
207
Partttiiclles
Particle Bootcamp
J UST SO WE’RE ON THE SAME PAGE, I

wanted to take these couple of pages
to introduce the world of particles. If you’re
already familiar with particles, or if you just
want to jump in and get playing, then feel free 1 In a new After Effects project, create a new comp that is 1280 x 720, and a
new solid (of any color) at the same size. Apply the CC Particle Systems II effect
to this solid. This is a basic and yet still powerful particle system that follows many
to skip ahead. standard conventions. Note that, like most particle systems, particles just start
The thing is that particle systems – whether spitting out automatically from frame 1 once applied. No keyframing necessary.
they’re found natively in After Effects or in
a 3rd party solution – typically work in the
same basic way, and even often use the same
verbiage.
The most important thing to realize about
particles is that you don’t hand animate them.
There is a system or multiple systems that create
the particles, and we control that system. So
if you create a snow storm for example, and
you don’t like one of the flakes of snow, you
typically can’t change it manually. You would
need to change the settings of the entire
system, which would then adjust the individual
flakes. Let’s look at a few common particle
properties and concepts in action. 3 Particle systems usually think of
particles as living things in the
sense that they are “born” when first
4 The color at the beginning of the
particle’s “life” is called the birth
color, and the default setting here is
emitted, and then have a lifespan, and that it will fade into its death color as
then typically die out at some point. it fades away. Click on the Birth Color
At the top of the effect controls, take swatch and change it to green. Change
Birth Rate down to 0.8 to reduce the the Death Color to purple.
amount of particles being emitted.
208
2 Like almost all particle systems, the particles emit from a central point,
typically called the emitter, or in this case, the “producer”. The producer
typically emits a bunch of the same thing (the particles), and these usually can be
changed. Right now, it’s emitting a bunch of little lines, which creates a fountain
that looks somewhat like fireworks. In the Particle area in the Effect Controls
panel, change the Particle Type from Line to Star. That’s a very different result!
HOT TIP
If you like your
settings, but
aren’t a big fan
of the exact way
the particles
are positioned,
adjust the
Random Seed
value (found in
most particle
systems),
which will give
you another
5 At the current frame, I’m not

seeing any purple. This is because
the lifespan of these particles is set
6 Another cool and common trick with particles is to
animate the producer (emitter). In the Producer area,
I animated the Position property, moving the producer
iteration of
your particles
with the same
so long that it’s not dying yet. At the from left to right over time. This creates a very cool spray settings.
top of the effect controls, reduce of sparkles going across the screen. In this case, I’ve also
the Longevity (sec) value until you reduced the size of the particles (Birth Size and Death
can see the particles begin to die Size), and increased the Birth Rate a bit to get these
and fade to purple. I hope you don’t results. Notice how different this is from our starting
find me cruel, but I’m really enjoying point! And here is the challenge and fun of particles:
watching these particles meet their just a simple adjustment can produce radically different
maker. results.
209
Partttiiclles
Sparkles
D ON’T FIGHT IT. SPARKLES ARE AWESOME.

In this cheat, we’ll get more familiar
with CC Particle Systems II as we create better
1 In the Sparkles START comp in the Sparkles.aep project, you’ll find a blank
solid layer with CC Particle Systems II already applied for you, and a null
object that moves around. Open the Producer area of the CC Particle Systems II
effect controls. OA click its stopwatch to create an expression, then drag its
expression pickwhip to the Position property of the null object. Now the Producer
looking sparkles. will follow the path of the null (as shown highlighted in cyan above).
Sparkles are used all the time to spice
up logos and text in motion graphics, or to
enhance explosions in visual effects. However,
notwithstanding their ubiquity, they are
remarkably challenging to create using the
native tools in After Effects.
Well, I should say that it’s hard to make GOOD
sparkles using native After Effects tools. We
created shabby looking sparkles in just a few
seconds in the previous cheat. But to create
amazing sparkles is really an art form. Honestly,
the particles we’re going to create here aren’t
exactly perfect, either. One of the things that
makes sparkles so challenging is that there
really isn’t a perfect reference in real life. There
aren’t really fairies that spew pixie dust as they 3 These stars are just way too big. Take the Particle>Birth Size value down to
0.07 and the Death Size down to 0.03. To make them follow the path more
closely, reduce the Physics>Velocity value down to 0.1. Ah, that’s much better. Let’s
fly around that we can videotape and study. also create a finer tip to our particles by taking the Producer>Radius X down to 0,
and the Radius Y down to 2. These values control the size of our emitter, which we
Who really knows what sparkles look like?
don’t want that big. Let’s also take the Longevity (sec) value down to 0.8, so that
Hopefully these ideas and tools will get you they die out sooner, creating a shorter trail of sparkles, and also so that we can see
a bit more of that red Death Color come in.
on the right track to creating more impressive
sparkles on your own.
210
2 In the Particle area of controls, change the Particle Type drop down from Line
to Star. This simple act changes the whole feel of our particles! Particles are
everywhere, and we’ve lost the sense of direction and order that we had.
HOT TIP
These particles
fall down rather
quickly. For a
lighter and more
fanciful stream
of sparkles,
take the
Physics>Gravity
value down to
zero. You might
also want to try
what happens
when you use a
negative Gravity
value!
4 The sparkles already kind of look cool as is, in my opinion. But if you wanted,
you could increase or decrease the Birth Rate value to make more or less
sparkles, respectively. Another thing that I did, was I duplicated the layer and
put it in the Add blend mode, then I adjusted the Particle Type of the duplicate
to Shaded Sphere, and changed the Particle>Transfer Mode value to Add. I then
slightly increased the Velocity and toyed with the Birth Rate a bit. I duplicated
layers a few more times to create the effect in the screenshot at the beginning of
this cheat. Playback the animation to get the full effect. Hey, I kinda like this!
SHORTCUTS
MAC WIN BOTH
211
Partttiiclles
Smoke Trail
I T’S JUST INCREDIBLE HOW YOU CAN CHANGE

JUST A FEW SETTINGS, AND END UP WITH A
COMPLETELY DIFFERENT RESULT when it comes
1 In the Smoke Trail START comp in the Smoke Trail.aep project, I’ve already done
some of the tedious setup for you. I’ve imported the animation of the UFO,
created a starry background (which we’ll create from scratch later in this chapter),
and applied CC Particle Systems II. I’ve also animated the position of the Producer
to follow the backside of the UFO, and I’ve changed the Birth Color to blue.
to particles.
In this cheat, we’re going to (intentionally)
take the same effect we’ve been working with
– CC Particle Systems II – and tweak just a
few parameters to come up with some pretty
realistic smoke trails.
In this instance, we’re creating smoke trailing
out of a UFO. But if you didn’t animate the
position of the Producer like this, you could add
this smoke to a fire to give it increased realism.
Or perhaps you could reduce the size of the
particles and use it to create cigarette smoke.
3 The real “magic” of this trick is found in the Particle>Transfer Mode value.
Change this from Composite to Screen (or Add, if desired). This removes the
dark outer surface of the particles, and makes this smoky look!
212
HOT TIP
Try fiddling
with the Extra
2 Lines don’t look very smoky. Change the Particle>Particle Type drop down from
Line to Shaded Sphere. The animation of these particles looks terrible. For
now, change the Physics>Animation drop down to Direction Normalized. It doesn’t
property in the
Physics area
of this effect.
look like smoke, but don’t lose faith! It appears to
control the
circumference
of the shape
of the emitted
particles. A
high value can
create a three
dimensional
tube of
particles, while
a small value
can create a
single streak
of particles.
Both can be
very helpful
in different
circumstances.
4 From here, it’s just a matter of tweaking to taste. Try increasing Birth Rate,
lowering Longevity, reducing the size of Radius X and Radius Y, reducing the
Gravity, and adjusting other Physics properties until your smoke looks the way you
want it to. Check out my settings in the Smoke Trail FINAL comp to see what I did.
Mine is definitely not perfect, but it might be helpful as a reference.
213
Partttiiclles
Foam Basics
I CAN COUNT THE NUMBER OF TIMES I’VE

NEEDED TO CREATE DIGITAL BUBBLES
PROFESSIONALLY ON ONE FINGER. Many After
1 Create a new 1280 x 720 comp and create a new solid of any color of the same
size. Apply the Foam effect to this solid. The default view is an ugly draft view
so it renders faster. This was more important, like, ten years ago. So in the Foam
effect controls, change View drop down at the top to Rendered. Move out in time
to check out the bubbly awesomeness.
Effects users have a similar need for bubbles.
This is probably the reason that many people
shy away from the Foam effect.
However, Foam is actually my personal
favorite when it comes to native particle
effects in After Effects. It’s powerful. It renders
quickly. It’s intuitive. And it has a few extra
features that aren’t found in every particle
effect, but that really come in handy (such as
wind, wobble, and luminance map control over
particle flow).
In this cheat, we’ll look at how to make Foam
do what it does best – bubbles. But later in
this chapter, we’re going to make Foam spit
out everything from snow to music notes. I’m
man enough to admit that I have a crush on
the Foam effect. I’m confident that if you took
3 There are also loads of
preset bubbles for a variety
of circumstances. Change the
4 Now change the same drop down
from Spit to Magma Bubbles.
Rendering>Bubble Texture drop down

the time to get to know it, you’d begin to have
to Spit.
feelings for it as well.
214
2 By default, Foam emits bubbles from a point in the center of the layer. In the
Producer area of the effect controls, increase the Producer X Size value to its
maximum (0.45). This will make bubbles emit across the width of the entire layer.
Adjust the Y value of the Producer Point value to put the emitting line of bubbles
on the bottom of the comp (720 will work). Then, in the Physics area, increase the
Initial Speed value to 2 so that these bubbles travel upwards like fizz.
HOT TIP
If you just want
to create really
quick, simple,
and much uglier
bubbles, you
can use the CC
Bubbles effect.
It doesn’t hold
a candle to my
beloved Foam,
but do what you
must. Be aware
that the bubbles
it creates get
their color from
the source layer.
5 Import an image (I used bottle.jpg from Exercise Files>Media>Images) and

bring it into this comp. Choose this new layer from Rendering>Environment
Map in the Foam effect controls. Increase Reflection Strength to 1. You can now
So, if you apply
CC Bubbles to a
black solid, just
see your layer reflecting in the bubbles! You gotta admit, for bubbles, that’s a know that it
pretty cool trick, and we’ve only scratched the surface of what Foam can do. By will create black
the way, I also switched back to the default bubbles for the above image because bubbles.
they have softer edges than most other bubble presets.
215
Partttiiclles
Custom Particles
T HE TRUE POWER OF PARTICLES COMES

FROM USING A CUSTOM OBJECT AS A
PARTICLE. It’s as simple as that.
1 Open the Custom Particles.aep project and go to the Custom Particles START
comp. It’s pretty complex, so it might load a little slowly. We’re going to take
the music note graphic on the right, and change two properties to tell Foam to use
those as particles instead of the bubbles.
If Foam can only emit bubbles, then we would

rarely use it. But if we tell Foam to replace
those bubbles with any object of our choosing,
then it becomes infinitely more valuable. If
we replace those bubbles with, for example, a
graphic of a fighter plane, then Foam will shoot
out loads of fighter planes, making an entire
squadron!
In this easy example, we’re going to take a
simple graphic from Photoshop and prep it
for use as a particle. Then we’ll have Foam use
that graphic instead of bubbles. And life will be
complete.
3 Select layer 10, the sixteenth notes layer, and precompose it by pressing
CScLSc, and check Open New Composition. I’ve created
a mask around the sixteenth notes for you already. Notice all the stuff on this
layer (when the mask mode is set to None). Now press CkLk to view the
Composition Settings for this precomp. Change the dimensions to 428 x 484 and
center the masked notes.
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2 Foam has been applied for you on layers 14-17. Choose one of those layers,
and in the Foam effect, change Rendering>Bubble Texture to User Defined.
Then, in the Bubble Texture Layer drop down right below that, choose the
sixteenth notes layer (layer 10). The problem here is that Foam is seeing the entire
layer, which is a black and white layer that consists of multiple shapes.
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To keep things
simple, we’ve
used a still
image here, but
Foam is capable
of using movies
as particles!
Think of the
possibilities!
4 Now that the notes are precomposed, the music notes and dark red tint (from
the Tint effect) are “baked in”, and can be seen by the Foam effect when used
as a custom particle. Here, I’ve adjusted the Foam effect (as described in step 2) on
layers 14-17 so that they emit music notes instead of bubbles. These music notes
can now float around, pop, wobble, and do anything else bubbles do! Note that
layers used as custom particles do not need to be visible.
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Partttiiclles
Simple Rain
1 This is going to be challenging to see in screenshots, so I’m going to exaggerate

my settings for the purpose of these screenshots. In the real world, we don’t
W ANNA MAKE RAIN IN A HURRY?

The CC Rain effect provides semi-
believable rain in a split second. You apply it,
seem to need that much rain to tell our eyes that it’s raining. Additionally, this rain
looks a lot stronger when it animates, as opposed to just looking at a still frame.
That being said, open the Rain.aep project, and go to the Rain START comp, where
there’s an uberstock video clip and a black solid layer waiting for you.
and badda-bing – you’re good to go.

And such is the case with many of the Cycore
effects, as we’ll see. They lack the professional
flexibility of the After Effects particle effects
(like Particle Playground and Foam), but they
certainly win in the speed department. If you’re
not picky about quality, or if you’re just doing
a quick comp sample, the speed of the Cycore
effects just can’t be beat.
Later in this chapter, we’ll use the Cycore
effects to create snow. Then we’ll look at how
to create more complex weather systems using
Foam.
3 First, let’s handle the compositing issue. In the Timeline panel, change the
blend mode of the solid layer to Lighten. This will remove the black of the
solid layer, and show your rain on the subject below.
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2 Apply the CC Rain effect to the solid layer in this comp. It instantly applies
fairly decent automatically-animating rain to this layer. We have two
problems here though: this rain applies to this layer and doesn’t allow for
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CC Rain can
compositing through to the layer beneath, and this is made worse by the second also be used
problem, which is that this is very pixelated and blocky rain. in conjunction
with the equally
easy to use
CC Drizzle. CC
Drizzle creates
the look of rain
hitting a wet
surface. Just
know that CC
Drizzle works
like many
Cycore effects,
in that it uses
the color of the
original layer.
So if you use
a black solid,
you won’t see
anything.
4 Now we need to soften this rain. Apply the Fast Blur effect and take the
Blurriness value up to about 2 or 3. In a pinch, you could just apply the CC
Rain effect to a layer that you wanted rain on, but then if you wanted to soften
the rain, you’d be stuck because this Fast Blur would also blur the original layer.
Note that in this screenshot, I have increased the Amount value in CC Rain so that
you can see the rain more clearly. In the screenshot at the beginning of this cheat,
I also applied the Color Balance effect to make the temperature of the piece a
little cooler.
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Partttiiclles
Basic Snow
T HANKFULLY, BASIC SNOW IS JUST AS EASY

TO MAKE AS BASIC RAIN. Thanks again
to another wonderfully easy Cycore effect, we
1 Open the Basic Snow START comp in the Basic Snow.aep project. It contains a
photo I took of a snowy neighborhood. There’s snow on the ground, but none in
the air. This is a great reason to create digital snow.
can also instantly apply a single effect and

have some decent looking snow (complete with
automatic snowfall).
For my liking, the effect comes on a little
strong at first. So we’ll also look at how to
temper the effect, and enhance it for a more
realistic look.
Now, automatic effects like this are great in a
pinch. But for a professional production, you’ll
want more control. So be sure and check out
the benefits of creating snow from scratch in
the next cheat.
3 But again, as with CC Rain, it does not remove (or allow you to remove) the
layer that the effect is applied to. So again, in the Timeline panel, change the
blend mode of the black solid layer to Screen so we can remove the black and have
the snow show through.
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2 Apply the CC Snow effect to the black solid layer on top of the neighborhood
image. As with CC Rain, the results are pretty good right off the bat, and the
particles also auto-animate.
4 I see two problems with the default settings. First, it’s not really deep enough
from a 3D perspective. It looks like a shallow facade of snow. Secondly, the
snow particles are much too large for my liking. To fix these problems, I reduced
the Flake Size value to about 1.5, and added the Fast Blur effect with a low
Blurriness value. Then I pressed CdLd to duplicate this entire layer. Then I
took the Flake Size in the CC Snow effect on the bottom layer even lower, to about
1. This creates another layer of depth. Perhaps it needs another one?
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Partttiiclles
Windblown Snow
I T’S NOW TIME TO TAKE OUR SNOW MAKING

CAPABILITIES UP A FEW NOTCHES. We’re
going to be creating our own custom snow,
1 Open up the Windblown Snow START comp in the Windblown Snow.aep
project. It again contains a background image and a black solid. Apply Foam to
the black solid. Thankfully, it removes the content of the layer it was applied to so
we don’t have to worry about any additional compositing there.
using Foam.
You might be asking why we would want to
make snow, when we just made basic, quick,
easy snow in the last cheat. The reason is
because, frankly, that snow isn’t good enough.
We ought to expect more of our snow. Real
snow is so light that even the slightest breeze
moves it powerfully. If we were creating a
cartoon – fine, use CC Snow. But for a realistic
setting, we need to have two forces control
our snow: one for telling it how to fall, and
another force for acting on it while it falls.
Foam gives us these capabilities, and once you
see it animate, you won’t be able to settle for
anything less. Now, in these screenshots, you
won’t get the power of this, so you’ll really have
to trust me and try this out on your own. 3 Increase the Producer>Producer X Size value to its maximum. Drag the
Producer Point to the top of the screen so that our snow falls from the top
down. Increase the Physics>Initial Speed value to about 2.5. The snow is now
falling upwards, so we can’t see it. Change the Initial Direction value to 180
degrees. Adjust the Bubbles>Size and Producer>Production Rate as desired. There’s
still a big problem here. Don’t the particles look squashed to you?
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2 This comp also contains a shape layer that will serve as the custom particle
we’ll be using. Because I’ve softened the particle with the Fast Blur effect,
we’ll need to precompose it. If you’d prefer, you could just use this layer and
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then apply Fast Blur to the completed snow. Select the shape layer and press If you’re having
problems with
CScLSc to precompose it. Then in the Foam effect controls,
the snowfall not
change Rendering>Bubble Texture to User Defined, and then in the Bubble Texture
being strong
drop down, choose the precomposed shape layer.
enough at the
beginning of
the layer, you
can trim the
layer and drag
it in time to
compensate. In
other words,
if you trim off
the first few
seconds while
the snow is
getting started
and then drag
the layer a few
seconds earlier
in time, no one
will ever know!
Also remember
that because we
applied Foam
to a solid, we
can extend the
4 The particles look squashed because Foam squishes the entire layer onto a
square for each particle. Our layer was 1280 x 720, so it got squashed a lot
on the X axis. Go back to the precomp layer and double click it to open it. Press
beginning of the
ending of the
layer in time as
CkLk to open the comp settings, and make the comp size even, like 500
far as we want.
x 500. Then to add wind, increase the Physics>Wind Speed value. Add the Fast
Blur effect and duplicate the layer as desired. These settings are great for book
screenshots, but they’re overdone for professional snow. You should probably
use much smaller snow than this (and perhaps a little more blur and a little less
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Partttiiclles
Molten Gold
S O WE’RE NOW GOING TO VENTURE OFF

INTO UNCONVENTIONAL TERRITORY.
Sometimes it pays to just see what particle
1 Start off in the Molten Gold START comp in the Molten Gold.aep project. Apply
the Fractal Noise effect to the Deep Red Solid layer. Just leave the settings at
their defaults. Then apply the Tint effect. In the Tint effect controls, click the color
swatch for the Map White To and choose a golden color.
effects are out there and what they’re capable

of. I think I’ve used them all at one point or
another.
In this cheat, we’re going to take a look at the
relatively obscure Cycore effect, Mr. Mercury.
This effect is great at creating blobby liquids. I
just used this effect in an iPhone game that I
did some post production work on. Interestingly
enough, I used it to create digital vomit. It’s
gross, but it had to be done. There really isn’t
a better and faster liquid simulator in After
Effects, and it worked perfectly for the job.
I recently discovered how to make Mr.
Mercury look metallic. It’s super easy, and with
a quick tweak, we can even play the role of
alchemist as we turn a simple solid layer into
gold. Next, OA click the stopwatch
3 for the Producer property and link
it to the Position property of the null
4 The gold is still melting too much.
Take the Gravity value to 0 as well,
and that should help things. You might
object in this comp, which will take also want to reduce the Radius X and
the path in a dollar sign shape. Reduce Radius Y values to 0.5, and the Blob
Velocity to 0 to have the particles stick Death Size to 0.4.
to the shape a bit more.
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2 Then apply the CC Mr. Mercury effect to this solid. Instantly, we have flowing
molten gold. How about that!
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You may also
want to try
adding the Glow
effect to the Mr.
Mercury effect.
The results of
this can be seen
in the intro
screenshot of
this cheat. It
helps the gold
to feel more hot
and molten.
5 Another cool attribute of this molten gold is that it is (somewhat) 3D.

Although you’ll need to fork out some extra cash to get the HD version of the
Cycore effects to control the lighting here with an After Effects light, there is a
pretty complex lighting system built into the effect. Compare this screenshot to
step 4. You’ll notice a change in the direction and angle of the lighting. That can
help you add a 3D shimmer, and make this gold way more attractive.
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Partttiiclles
Light Ribbons
1 Open the Light Ribbons.aep project and go to the Light

Ribbons START comp. For now, ignore the For Light
Ribbons layer, and apply the Radio Waves effect to the layer
T HIS THING RIGHT HERE IS WHY I LOVE

AFTER EFFECTS SO MUCH. I’m sitting here
right now in my office trying to get this book
called empty solid (which, true to its name, is just a simple
black solid). The Radio Waves effect creates concentric
circles emanating from the center of the comp. It also
replaces the content of the layer, showing the background
layer beneath it.
written to meet my publisher’s deadlines, and
I can’t for the life of me stop playing with this
exercise!
We’re going to be looking at another old
After Effects effect called Radio Waves that just
really isn’t appreciated enough. Interestingly
enough, it was created by Brian Maffitt, my
After Effects hero. Brian also created Shatter,
Foam, and Colorama, among others. His
creativity really shows in these effects that are
still viable, and challenge us to find new and
more creative uses for them.
Radio Waves generates concentric circles in
its default state. It was designed to simulate
the emitting of radio waves. But as we’ll see,
the capabilities of this effect go far beyond
4 Concentric circles are all fine and good, but when you
animate the Producer Point, it creates much more
interesting animations. Here we see the Producer Point
animated from the center to the right of the comp about 2
that. In this cheat, we’ll look at an effect that is seconds later.
incredibly beautiful (especially when animated),
but really hard to describe. So, I’m calling it
light ribbons.
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2 For this cheat, the key property here is Frequency, which

controls how often the radio waves are emitted. Increase
the Frequency value to 10, and notice the difference.
3 One of the features that I like about Radio Waves is that
the particles fade out when they “die”. To see this in
action, decrease the Lifespan (sec) value to about 4.
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The concentric
circles of Radio
Waves can
also be used
to create rain
drizzle on a
wet surface, or
psychic brain
waves emitting
from someone
with extreme
mental powers.
What else can
5 So that about wraps up our Radio Waves primer. Now
delete the empty solid layer, and turn on the visibility
of the For Light Ribbons layer. This layer has Radio Waves
6 It’s not much to look at now, so increase the Frequency
value to 50 (for now), and decrease the Lifespan (sec)
value to 3.5 (for now). Now that’s what I’m talkin’ ‘bout.
you do with this
effect?
applied for you, and I’ve applied a wiggle expression to the
Producer Point value, so it jumps all over the place over time.
continued...
227
Partttiiclles
Light Ribbons (continued)
7 The Stroke area in Radio Waves provides options relative to the opacity and
appearance of each wave. Take the Profile to Bell to add some fall off to each
ring. Then take the Start Width down to 2, so that the waves start a little thinner.
9 Apply the Glow effect. Take the Glow Threshold to 70 and the Glow Radius to
40. Adjust all parameters to taste. And there you have it.
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By default,
Radio Waves
uses a polygon
as its particle.
This polygon can
be adjusted in
the Polygon area
in the effect
controls. But be
8 OK, brace yourself. Increase the Frequency value to its maximum – 500. This
will slow things down significantly, but the beauty is far worth it. Also, in the
Stroke area, change color from blue to a pale gold. Take the Opacity value down to
aware that you
can also change
the particle in
0.3. I also took the Fade-in Time value up to 1. the Wave Type
drop down.
Radio Waves
allows you to
use the contours
of a layer in the
comp, or a mask
on the current
layer. Below
is the result
of taking the
Polygon>Sides
value to 5,
creating a series
of pentagons
instead of
circles.
10 As you move in time, you’ll notice that the wiggling of the Producer Point
will create these beautiful ribbons of movement that really need to be seen
to be believed. Here’s a few seconds later in the same comp. Note that if you’re
seeing undesirable lines in the shapes, these can usually be removed by playing
around with settings. I also might go back and reduce the lifespan of these waves
so that the outer edges are a little softer.
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Partttiiclles
Steam
S OMETIMES, WE MAKE “PARTICLES”

WITHOUT PARTICLES. This is because
sometimes it’s preferable to fake the results of
1 Open the Steam.aep project and go to the Steam START comp. Here you’ll find
a stock video clip courtesy of uberstock. In this clip, the cutest girl you’ve ever
seen has some kind of hot beverage on an apparently cold day. The thing is, steam
can be really hard to capture on video, and we’re not getting too much here. I
think we can add a lot to the vibe of the piece if we add some fake steam. Isn’t she
particles using another method. This might be just adorable? Holy cow.
for a variety of reasons – anything from the
fact that faking it is sometimes easier or faster,
to the fact that sometimes faking it actually
looks better than using real particles.
In this cheat, we’re going to create pretty
realistic steam, like the type that comes off of a
hot beverage in the winter time. But we’re not
going to use a particle generator to do it. But
if we do it carefully (and we will), then we’ll
still have total control over this, including the
ability to animate it in a very organic way.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m a huge fan of
particles. But slavish devotion to a particular
way of doing things is never a good idea, and
knowing multiple methods to achieve results
always is. So here we go.
3 With the solid layer selected, select the Pen tool in the Tools area at the top
of the interface, and click a rough mask around the area above the cup where
the steam would be. Press the f key to reveal the Feather value for the mask,
and increase that until the edges of the steam are soft enough for you.
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2 On the solid layer on top of this video, apply the Fractal Noise effect. In the
Fractal Noise effect controls, reduce Brightness to –45, uncheck Uniform
Scaling in the Transform area, take Scale Width to 20 and Scale Height to 700.
Then, in the Timeline panel, change the blending mode of the layer to Screen. It’s
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already looking a little steamy (you know what I mean). To bring this
steam to life,
animate the
Y position of
the Offset
(Turbulence)
property in
the Turblulent
Displace effect
controls.
Animate it from
a high number
to a lower
number over
time. This will
automatically
create rising
steam that
continues to
warp. For added
realism, you
may also want
to gradually
animate the
Evolution value
of Fractal Noise
4 This steam really comes alive by applying the Turbulent Displace effect to this.
In the Turbulent Displace effect controls, take the Size value down to 40. Also,
take the Opacity of the layer down to about 70%. I also applied the Tint effect
over time.
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Partttiiclles
3D Fireworks
I N THIS CHEAT, WE’RE GOING TO LOOK AT

CREATING A 3D PARTICLE SYSTEM. We’ve
used CC Particle Systems II several times, but
1 Open the 3D Fireworks START comp in the 3D Fireworks.aep project. This comp
contains some buildings and sky stuff that I made (it’s all locked so don’t
worry about accidentally messing something up), and a black solid layer. Apply CC
Particle World to the black solid called Fireworks.
here we’re going to be introduced to CC Particle

World. It’s basically a beefed up, 3D version of
CC Particle Systems II, with many (most?) of the
same controls.
We’re going to be creating an extremely
simple and rudimentary fireworks system. It’s
kind of crappy because CC Particle World (like
CC Particle Systems II) allows you to emit simple
lines. Those lines would be perfect for fireworks,
but they don’t give you any controls over the
look of those lines (such as size or opacity
falloff). I think the lines are meant to be kind of
a working view so you can see the particles. But
they create these fairly cool simple fireworks in
a pinch. They are unique because they are also
3D.
So the purpose, then, of this cheat is twofold:
to show you how to create quick fireworks, and
3 While you can spend a while perfecting this result, the real trick in creating
fireworks comes from animating the Birth Rate value. If you click the
stopwatch for this property at any point (say, at 7 frames in), and then on the
also to show you native 3D particles in After next frame change the value to 0, the particles will stop creating an apparent
explosion. The animation is shown here at frame 12, and the particles are
Effects. obviously dissipating.
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2 Assuming the effect is selected in the Effect Controls panel, you’ll see the
familiar default particles that we saw with CC Particle Systems II. But then
you’ll also see all these crazy widgets everywhere. These are to help with moving it
in 3D, which we’ll do in just a bit. Remember that the helpers disappear when the
effect is no longer selected in the Effect Controls panel.
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If all the 3D
widgets are
bugging you,
just open the
Grid and Guides
area in the CC
Particle World
effect controls
to control what
helpers you’re
seeing.
4 But again, the magic here comes from the 3D-ness of these particles. While
you can open the Producer controls to move this emitter in 3D space, you’ll
need to use the widget in the upper left hand corner in order to rotate it in 3D.
Once rotated, you can create some interesting effect. Above we see the bottom
side of the fireworks (at frame 12, as in the previous screenshot), as if we were
standing under the fireworks as they went off. It kinda looks like fiery rain, or
maybe like we’re going through warp speed. This effect will allow you to create
sparkles and smoke trails with the added benefit of being able to move them in 3D
space!
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Partttiiclles
Psychic Waves
S OMETIMES, BORING PARTICLES CAN BE

MADE AWESOME by other effects that we
apply to them. Here, we’re going to use a pretty
1 Start out with a new comp and solid, 1280 x 720. Apply the Radio Waves effect
to the solid. In the Stroke area of the Radio Waves effect controls, change the
color to white. Then bump up the Start Width value to about 77, and change the
Fade-in Time value to about 10. If you want, you can use the Psychic Waves.aep
project as a reference.
basic and simple application of the Radio Waves
effect as our foundation. Then, we’ll use these
waves as a map to displace the pixels on a video
layer from uberstock.
I’ve actually seen this look (or something
similar) on several movies and TV shows lately.
It’s often used when superheroes read someone
else’s mind, or think powerful, destructive
thoughts. You could also use this effect to
visually show the attractive woman from
Chapter 4 sending out flirty vibes. Either that or
she’s having the mother of all headaches.
3 Import a video layer into this comp. You may need to go back to the
precomposed waves to adjust the position of the producer. Apply the
Displacement Map effect to the video layer. Take the values for Use For Horizontal
Displacement and Use for Vertical Displacement to Luminance. Take Max
Horizontal Displacement to about 75, and Max Vertical Displacement to about 45.
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2 In the Stroke area, it’s important to change the Profile drop down to Sine.
This will make the edges of the rings soft, so that it will create a better
displacement map. Displacement maps really don’t like hard edges. Then, select
this layer and press CScLSc to precompose it. If we didn’t do
that, the displacement effect we’re going to add wouldn’t see the radio waves. Be
sure to turn off the visibility of this precomposed layer.
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You could also
use this same
Radio Waves
displacement
map with
FreeformAE. In
that case, you’d
be creating
actual three
dimensional
ripples!
4 To make the effect more pronounced, turn on the visibility of the

precomposed radio waves and take the Opacity of that layer down to 30%.
Also, notice the tearing on the sides of the image. For a quick fix, go to the
Displacement Map effect controls and check the Wrap Pixels Around option. It’s
hard to see the results as clearly in a still shot, but the displacement rings animate
out with the radio waves, and I think it’s a pretty cool effect.
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Partttiiclles
Particle Deflection
O NCE UPON A TIME, PARTICLE

PLAYGROUND WAS THE KING OF THE
PARTICLES. These days, most people find it far 1 I’ve created Particle Deflection.aep for you as a reference, but we’re going
to start from scratch. Create a new comp and solid, each at 1280 x 720.
Apply Particle Playground to this solid. Holy parameters, Batman! That’s a lot of
too confusing (unless you know the difference
properties! The way that Particle Playground works is that there are 4 different
between Persistent and Ephemeral Property emitters to choose from (Cannon, Grid, Layer Exploder, and Particle Exploder),
and Cannon is the only one on by default. Change Cannon>Direction to see these
Mapping), not to mention slow to render, and
particles a little better. Its default settings create a fountain of tiny red squares.
just ignore it completely. Heck, it’s still just an
8 bit effect. And these days, if you’re a native
effect and you’re still only 8 bits, it basically
means that Adobe hates you.
Now that’s not to say that some 8 bit effects
don’t have their merit. Certainly, most old
effects are still extremely useful, depending on
the circumstances. Particle Playground is one of
those.
In this cheat, we’re going to learn some
Particle Playground basics, and we’ll also
explore one of the features that Particle
Playground does really well that most other
particle systems in After Effects don’t: the
ability to bounce particles off of a “wall”, using
a simple mask. If these walls are used well, you
can create some interesting effects from cool
3 From here, just play around with the settings. In the Cannon area, I changed
the Particles Per Second to about 700, Direction Random Spread to 0, Velocity
to 250, and Velocity Random Spread to 10. I also adjusted the Direction so that the
particles point at the mask wall that we made. Hey look, isn’t that the Star Trek
geometric patterns to a swirling tornado. logo?
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2 And here is one of the (many) great limitations of Particle Playground. There
are no settings to change the life of the particles, opacity over time, the
shape of the particles, and so forth, without using another layer as a map, which
brings it’s own set of challenges. For this cheat, we’re going to stick to the default
particle shape. With this layer selected, press g to select the Pen tool. Then
click around the layer to create a closed mask. Then, in the Particle Playground
effect controls, choose the mask you just created from Wall>Boundary. Now the
particles bounce off of the mask! Way sweet!
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Another
cool feature
of Particle
Playground is
that the Info
panel will give
you a readout
of how many
particles exist
on the current
frame. This
is especially
important if
you’re using the
Grid emitter
because the
amount of
4 For the final result, I also took the Gravity>Force value to 0. Note that the
results will vary wildly as the position and angle (i.e. Direction) of the Cannon
are changed. I also changed the Cannon>Color and added the Glow effect.
particles on
screen can get
ridiculous pretty
quickly.
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Partttiiclles
Star Field
Y OU NEVER KNOW WHEN YOU’LL NEED

TO RECREATE OUTER SPACE. To that end,
I wanted to provide a cheat here on creating
1 Create a new white solid and comp at 1280 x 720, and apply the CC Star Burst
effect. It’s VERY important that your solid is white! The CC Star Burst effect
uses the color of the layer it’s applied to when creating stars. If you had a black
solid layer, you wouldn’t see anything. Now, back to these stars – what’s the deal?
Oh my [way too big] stars. I’m not sure that there’s a place in the entire universe
your own custom star field. where you could possibly be that close to so many stars at once.
This is extremely easy to do poorly, and just
slightly more challenging to do well. You see,
Cycore has a nice little effect called CC Star
Burst that will do 99% of the work for us,
creating a star field that automatically animates
as if a camera was zooming through the galaxy.
The problem is that the default settings aren’t
all that great. So we’ll fix those, and then we’ll
also look at a few other things you can do to
play with the look of your star field.
3 To make these stars stand out a little bit more, you can add several effects
(such as Glow). I applied the 3rd party effect Trapcode Starglow here. That
effect adds a little glow, but it also adds some nice little spikes of light, turning
these into a little bit more of a star shape. It’s subtle, but subtle often means
better.
238
2 In the Effect Controls panel, take Size down to 60, Grid spacing to 2, and
Scatter to about 315. So now our stars look better, but if you press the
spacebar, they still animate way too fast. Take Speed all the way down to 0.2. In
many cases, even this is too fast.
HOT TIP
If you take the
Speed value
down all the
way to zero,
the stars will
be stationary.
You can then
increase their
size back up a
bit to create
some very quick
dust particles.
4 To make these stars look like they’re going through warp speed, I applied the
CC Radial Fast Blur effect, increasing the Amount to about 90. I also changed
the Zoom drop down to Brightest to make the light streaks pop more. In this
screenshot, you’re seeing some cool purple and blue streaks, which were created
from the Starglow effect. For compatibility reasons, I have not included the
Starglow effect in the Star Field.aep project.
239
Partttiiclles
Confetti
1 Make a comp and solid at 1280 x 720. Apply the Ramp effect.
T HIS IS GOING TO BE THE QUICKEST,

EASIEST CHEAT in the entire book. We’re
making confetti. Ready? Here we go.
3 Apply the CC Star Burst effect. BOOM. Confetti.
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2 Apply the Colorama effect.
HOT TIP
If you don’t
want your
confetti to
animate like
stars, take the
Speed value to 0
(recommended).
4 For better looking confetti, take Grid spacing to 15. Badda-bing. Done.
241
Partttiiclles
Water Surface Disruption
W E’RE NOW GOING TO LOOK AT A

COUPLE OF RARELY USED EFFECTS:
CAUSTICS AND WAVE WORLD. These two effects
1 This cheat is pretty involved, so I’ve already animated the image of my hand
moving around the comp for you in the Water Surface Disruption START comp
in the Water Surface Disruption.aep project. Apply the Wave World (NOT the Wave
Warp) effect to the waves displacement layer.
aren’t really particle effects, but if you’re

looking for a liquid surface, they may be your
best bet. I have yet to see a particle system
create the surface of water as quickly and as
attractively has does the pairing of these two
effects.
So, we’re going to take this cheat and the
next one looking at these interesting buddy
effects. The Wave World effect is intended to
create liquid-like displacement maps. And that’s
it. The purpose of the Caustics effect is to create
a watery looking surface using displacement
maps like the ones created by Wave World. It’s
a match made in heaven (if the mind of Brian
Maffitt is heaven).
In this cheat, we’ll create the illusion that
we’re disrupting the surface of water by
dragging a finger on it. In the next cheat, we’ll
4 Now the waves displace in the
same place that my finger seems
to touch. Take Simulation>Grid
5 Select the original hand
and CL click the waves
displacement layer and press
create flowing rivers of delicious milk chocolate Resolution to 100. Select the my finger. CScLSc to
tga layer and press CdLd to precompose these layers and call it
using the same effects. Who doesn’t love that? duplicate it. Turn off the visibility of waves DIS and turn off its visibility.
the original. Apply the Caustics effect to the water
layer. Choose the waves DIS layer from
the Water>Water Surface drop down.
242
2 The default view shows you a side

view of the displacement map it’s
creating for you. The empty planes
3 In the Wave World effect controls,
change the View to Height Map.
This is what your displacement map
above and below the white wave area will actually look like. Waves emanate
represent the highest (brightest) and from the Producer 1 point, which is in
lowest (darkest) points of the wave. the center by default. OA click the
Any part of the wave higher or lower stopwatch for the Producer 1>Position
will get clipped to white or black property, and drag the expression
respectively. pickwhip to the Position property of
the my hand.tga layer.
HOT TIP
In the last
screenshot,
you’ll notice
water bouncing
off of the edges
of the “pool”.
This effect
is created by
going to the
Simulation>
Reflect Edges
drop down and
choosing All
(or whatever
6 Also in the Water area of the Caustics effect controls, increase Smoothing
to about 13. I’ve also changed the water color to be a little more faded and
slightly more green, and played with the lighting controls a little bit. Note that the
surfaces you’d
like to have
ripples reflect
Caustics effect will also allow you to use a composition light as the main Caustics from).
light source if desired.
SHORTCUTS
MAC WIN BOTH
243
Partttiiclles
Flowing Chocolate
D ELICIOUS, DELICIOUS CHOCOLATE. In this

cheat, we’re going to make flowing rivers
of chocolate, and not only that, but we’re going
1 For this somewhat complex cheat, you’ll want to open up the Flowing
Chocolate.aep project. In the Flowing Chocolate START comp, you’ll find this
layer of text. It’s turned off and should remain invisible. Apply the Wave World
effect to the wave world layer, and change the View drop down in the Effect
Controls panel to Height Map. Then in the Ground>Ground drop down, choose the
to create the (very believable) illusion that this chocolate outlines layer.
chocolatey goodness is flowing over some text.
It’s a very realistic final result, and screenshots
just don’t do it justice. So I recommend that
you open up this project and play the animation
back to check it out.
For this, we’re going to again be using
the great partnership of Wave World and
Caustics, although this cheat will be a bit more
complicated. So, if you’re looking for more
information on these effects, check the previous
cheat.
Also be aware that in order to have really
clean final results like this, it will slow down
your render time A LOT. If you have a weaker
computer – that’s fine. No one is judging you
here. But you may not want to take the Grid
Resolution up quite so high in the Wave World 3 Select the wave world and chocolate outlines layers and press
CScLSc to precompose these layers so that Caustics can
recognize them. Apply the Caustics effect to the caustics layer. In the Caustics
effect. effect controls, choose the precomposed waves from Water>Water Surface.
244
2 Change the Y position of Producer 1 to 0, and Producer 1>Width to 0.4 so

that this looks like a waterfall from the top of the screen. In the Ground area,
change Steepness to 0.2 and Height to 0.42. Then, increase the Simulation>Grid
Resolution value as much as your computer can take it. I used a value of 700, and
you probably don’t need more than that. Increasing this will slow down Caustics
considerably, but the enhanced quality will be worth it. You can now see the
grayscale waves dripping over the text in a very organic way. I love it.
HOT TIP
Try going back
and opening
up the nested
composition
with the blurred
text in it, and
removing the
blur. Notice
what effect that
has on the final
result.
4 Change the Water>Surface Color to brown, and then increase Surface Opacity
to its max value of 1. You may also want to increase the Smoothing value
to about 9 so that you don’t get those little tiny caustics lines. You can also go
back inside the nested precomp to tweak Wave World if desired. The results will
automatically show up in your chocolate. And again, the results really have to be
previewed when animated to get the full effect. This trick can be used to create
organic chocolate, paint, or any other thick flowing liquid.
SHORTCUTS
MAC WIN BOTH
245
Partttiiclles
Trapcode Form: 4D Fractal
T RAPCODE FORM IS AN EXTREMELY UNIQUE

PARTICLE GENERATOR. In most particle
systems, particles are emitted. In Form, those
1 Make a new comp and solid at 1280 x 720 and apply the Form effect to the
solid. By default, you can see the 3D grid Form creates for you. In the Base
Form area in the Effect Controls panel, take Size X to 1100 and take Size Y to 600.
That increases the size of the grid, but doesn’t add any more particles. Increase the
Particles in X and Particles in Y values to 400 each. In the Particle area, change the
particles just are. There’s no birth, no death. It’s color from white to blue.
like a John Lennon song.
Form creates a grid of particles that is often
displaced by a three dimensional fractal. This
object is often called a 4D fractal because you
can move it in all three dimensions, and then
you also have the added dimension of time. It’s
a beautiful look that is quite easy to achieve,
and it’s getting quite popular.
This is tutorial will be a very basic
introduction to Form, but the results will still be
stunning. If you like this effect, you can buy it
from Red Giant (redgiantsoftware.com). If you
don’t have it, you can go to the same website
to download a free trial version (this goes for
Particular in the next cheat as well).
3 To make this thing really pop, increase the Fractal Field>Affect Size value to
6. This makes it so that displaced particles actually change size based on the
fractal map. It’s those little wispy white highlights that really make me fall in love
with these results. By the way, this is a result of having Particle>Transfer Mode set
to the default value of Add.
246
2 In the Fractal Field area, increase Displace to 150. This uses a fractal noise
pattern to displace particles in all three dimensions. This is already looking
rather cool. Pretty easy, right?
HOT TIP
One of the best
things about
Form is that you
can animate this
fractal “passing
through”
your particles,
without moving
the particles!
It’s almost
like a wave of
displacement
rippling through
the scene.
The effect is
incredible, and
it’s really easy to
do. Just animate
4 Another one of the great things about this effect is that it is totally three
dimensional. Here, I added a comp camera and rotated it so that I could see
the bottom of these 3 fractal layers (I also increased Base Form>Size Z to spread
the Flow X, Y,
and/or Z values
them out a bit so you could see them more easily). As you can see, each is a in the Fractal
separate, three dimensional fractal. You can add or subtract three dimensional Field area of the
effect.
iterations of these fractals by adjusting the Base Form>Particles in Z value.
247
Partttiiclles
Particular: 3D Light Streaks
W ITHOUT A DOUBT, THE MOST POPULAR

AND POWERFUL AFTER EFFECTS
PARTICLE EFFECT IS PARTICULAR. Particular is
1 Open the Particular - 3D Light Streaks.aep project, and go to the 3D Light
Streaks START comp. There is a light in this comp that I’ve already animated
also made by Trapcode (the same brain behind in 3D with the wiggle expression. Particular can use this as the emitter, which
is really helpful. It’s also important that the light layer is called Emitter. Apply
the Form effect that we looked at in the
Particular to the solid here. In the Emitter area in the effect controls, change
previous cheat). Particles/sec to 2000, Emitter Type to Light(s), Velocity to 0, Velocity from Motion
to 0, and Emitter Size for X, Y, and Z each to 0.
Particular (version 2) is kind of like the
particle system that everyone has always
wanted. It can have After Effects lights shine on
it, it’s relatively easy to use, gives you control
over every possible parameter you could ever
want, and it also renders rather quickly for how
great the results look.
Oh, and did I mention its particles are 3D?
Yeah. So much so that they even show up in
orthographic viewports! They respond to After
Effects cameras, lights, and even depth of field!
The more you use Particular, the more you will
love it. I strongly urge you to at least download
a free demo of it if you haven’t played with it
yet.
In this cheat, as with the previous cheat with
Form, we’re just going to scratch the surface 3 Also in the Particle area, increase Life [sec] to about 6. Change Opacity to 35.
Then open up the Size over Life and Opacity over Life to see this really cool
graph that you’ll see often in Form and Particular. You can manually click and drag
as we introduce Particular. Also, as with Form, a shape, or choose one from the presets on the right. I love that! I chose a hill-
shaped preset for both.
we’re going to be making the quintessential
particle creation – 3D light streaks, as initially
made popular in an iPod commercial years ago.
248
2 In the Emitter area, take Position Subframe to 10x Linear. In the Particle
area, change Particle Type to Streaklet, Size to 15, Transfer Mode to Add, and
change the color to whatever you’d like. In the example at the beginning of the
cheat, I used blue. Here I’m going to use the generic red/orange.
HOT TIP
Both Form
and Particular
come with an
impressive array
of animation
presets that
are very well
designed. You
can use these
as jumping
off points in
your projects,
or to see what
these effects
are capable of.
You could also
use them as
tutorials. After
you apply them
(discussed how
in Chapter 10),
4 Also remember that, like Form, this shape is completely 3D! Here is the exact
same frame after rotating around the shape with an After Effects camera
(no setup required for that, by the way). Particular is the new darling of the After
you can then
look at the
settings in the
Effects world and completely deserves its place as one of the most popular (if not Effect Controls
THE most popular) After Effects plugins available. panel that were
used to create
that effect.
249
I N T E R L U D E
Particle Alternatives
THIS MIGHT BE SHOOTING MYSELF IN THE FOOT A LITTLE BIT. But I wanted
to share with you an alternative to creating particles in After Effects, and that
is to use live action video footage of particles, and then composite them into
After Effects using blend modes.
The great downside of this of course, is that you completely lose control
over the particles. Also, they are completely flat. and they will look like it. So
if you’re compositing in 3D, you’re kind of stuck there. You also might have to
spend some money getting footage of explosions and so forth, and the native
effects in After Effects are free.
The great benefit to this of course, is that it typically looks much better.
Creating a smoke trail is one thing, but creating an exploding building or
a photorealistic flamethrower are entirely different challenges. Live action
footage of almost any particle type is usually going to look much better than
creating from scratch with a particle generator.
Another great benefit is that it’s much, much faster. As much as I love
Particular and could spend all day playing in it, that’s just the problem: I
can spend all day playing in it, trying to get the perfect settings. With stock
particles footage, I find the clip I need and I’m done.
While there are many great resources all over the place for footage elements
like this (from Digital Juice to Video Copilot), I’ve found a tremendous resource
that I wanted to share with you. It’s called Detonation Films (which you can
find at detonationfilms.com). They have a huge assortment of clips, they look
great, but the best part is how cheap it all is! I can’t believe it. They even have a
huge assortment of free effects clips! So, if you’re thinking about trying out the
live action particles thing, I recommend heading on down to their website and
picking up a few of their many freebies. And even if you do want to fork out
some cash for their other clips, you won’t break the bank doing it. For example,
I just saw a collection of HD (1080p) fire bursts on their site for $12. You can’t
beat that! I’ve personally used their stuff before in a variety of arenas, and I’ve
250
found the quality to be just fantastic. Just so you know, Detonation Films is not
paying me to say this. They don’t even know that I’m mentioning them, actually.
They’re just good people with a great product, and an incredible price. And it’s the
combination of price and quality that makes it a good experiment to see if live
action particles fit into your workflow.
You’ll notice that I’ve used their clips a few times in the book already. I used a
black mushroom cloud back in Chapter 4. And, after heavy color correction and
stylizing, I’ve used one of their explosions in the Chad Show bumper piece we’ve
seen throughout the book.
251
Color Correction
COLOR IS THE SECRET TO GREAT ART, motion or otherwise.
Whether creating a movie or creating motion graphics,
enhancing your art with color correction can make all the
difference. If footage looks beautiful at first glance, it
becomes instantly compelling.
In this chapter, we’re going to have standard cheats, but

I’ve arranged them in such a way that we’ll also learn
a great deal about the native color correction tools in
After Effects and some color correction concepts and best
practices along the way.
As with Chapter 8, we’ll start with native effects, then

adventure into 3rd party effects: Color Finesse (which
is included for free with After Effects) and Magic Bullet
Looks.
253
Color Correcti
tion
Reading a Histogram
1 Open the Histograms.aep project and go to the 01 comp. Here you’ll find a
video clip from uberstock.com. It mostly shows a piece of paper. There are a
lot of bright tones in this image, and not much in the way of shadows. But what
about the pencil lead? Isn’t that dark? The histogram will tell us! Apply the Levels
effect. The histogram is a readout of the brightness in our image. The dark tones
are represented on the left of the image; brights on the right. The higher the spike
L EVELS IS PERHAPS THE SINGLE MOST

FREQUENTLY USED COLOR CORRECTION
tool out there. While it can correct colors as
in the graph, the more of that particular value is in our image. In this histogram,
we see huge spikes on the right (highlights), but really nothing in the shadow
areas on the right. The shadows only seem dark compared to the rest of the image.
well, it is mainly used to correct luminance (i.e.

brightness) issues.
The Levels effect is also unique in that it
does something most effects don’t. It gives
you a readout showing you the various levels
of brightness in your image. Also, as of After
Effects CS5, it can now show you the various
levels of colors in your image. It provides this
information in the form of a histogram.
Histograms are extremely helpful, not just
in After Effects, but you’ll also find them in
Photoshop, Color Finesse (shown above), video 3 OK, let’s put this to use a bit now. Move to the 03 comp where we have
another Zen Chemists clip. Apply the Levels effect to this clip. Here we have
a lot of shadows, and some decent midtones, but the image seems lackluster
editing software, and still and video cameras. because there aren’t any highlights. What we can do is drag the right most arrow
Knowing how to read them correctly can really (the one below the histogram, NOT the one below the gradient) to the left. This
forces the tones that are the brightest in the image to go all the way to white.
help you understand what is actually happening Make sure to stop dragging at the very first pixel in the histogram.
in an image, as opposed to what it seems like is
happening. Knowledge of histograms can also
help prevent you from damaging an image. So
this info will help us throughout this chapter.
254
2 Let’s move to the 02 comp. This clip is from a music video I directed by the
Seattle rap group Zen Chemists. Apply the Levels effect. If you never saw this
image, could you guess how the tones were distributed? There is tons of contrast
here – huge spikes on the left (shadows) and right (highlights) of the histogram,
but not much in the way of midtones. This histogram tells us that there might be
too much contrast in this image. While contrast is great, in most cases it’s better
to have a better balance – at least some highlights, some shadows, and some
midtones.
HOT TIP
The Levels effect
doesn’t make
any adjustments
by default. So
you can feel
free to apply the
Levels effect at
any time to any
layer just to see
its histogram. I
often apply this
4 It’s very important to look at the
histogram and NOT the image!
In this case, things might appear to
5 This is what the histogram
probably should look like in this
case. Visually, the results are very
after applying
multiple
look OK, but I’ve actually dragged the similar, but the highlights are not effects to make
slider too far, beyond the blue and cyan blown out (i.e. all pushed to white). To sure that my
pixels in the histogram. This forced too add additional brightness, I dragged luminance
many pixels to white, and lost highlight the midtones slider (in the middle) to values are still
details, such as in the collar of his shirt. the left a bit. You can see how much where they
That’s not good. the histogram has helped us – to both should be.
identify problems and to fix them
without creating more of them!
255
Color Correcti
tion
Cinematic Color: Warmth
C OLOR CORRECTING SHORT FILMS IS ONE

OF MY FAVORITE THINGS TO DO. If used
appropriately, color can be used to help shape
1 So here’s this clip from uberstock.com in its default state. Again, notice that
there really isn’t too much emotion here, meaning that this frame is not happy,
sad, scary, etc. You’ll find it in the Warmth FINAL comp in the Cinematic - Warmth.
aep project. Apply the Color Balance effect to this clip, which is perhaps my
favorite cinematic color adjustment tool.
the story the way a supporting character
can. I’m well aware that there are many
filmmakers that would disagree, saying that
color correction gets in the way of the actual
story. To me, the soundtrack helps tell the story,
as does the wardrobe, and the props, and the
location – why not color as well?
In the next few cheats, we’re going to create
different vibes with the same uberstock video
clip. This clip intentionally has no inherent
emotion to it – just a girl with a drink. Using
color, we can help the audience begin to
feel how the director of photography and
screenwriter are already trying to get them
to feel. As we’ll see, color correction has a
massive impact on the emotional response of an
audience to a scene.
3 Color correction is a constant balancing act; a kind of push/pull motion, where
you adjust one component (such as the shadows, or the contrast), and then
that throws off another component (such as the highlights, or the saturation). So
balance adding red, removing green (to add magenta), and removing blue. Above
are the settings that I settled on.
256
2 The Color Balance effect allows us to play around with the balance of
different colors. The task at hand is to make this warmer, perhaps to create
sympathy for this character or to show how she is thought of fondly by someone
else. To create warmth, we add warm tones. But there’s no yellow or orange here.
In this case, it pays to know a bit about color theory. Removing blue actually adds
yellow. Thus, adding red and removing blue will create an orange color.
HOT TIP
Be careful as
you’re going
back and forth
with your color
changes. If you
subtract too
much blue,
the image will
become too
yellow, which
makes the
image look
too vintage.
If you add too
much red, the
4 There’s definitely a much more welcoming feel with the color changes we’ve
added. I’m worried that this is feeling a little too strong to feel warm, though.
Let’s lighten things up a little bit by applying the Levels effect, and then dragging
image will feel
too intense.
the slider in the middle of the histogram to the left. This image now tells a much Again, like color
different story than the original image. correction itself,
it’s a balance.
257
Color Correcti
tion
Cinematic Color: Horror
1 So let’s start in the Horror START comp in the Cinematic - Horror.aep project.
This again uses the same clip from uberstock.com as seen in the previous and
next cheats. Again, this is the default state, which is comparatively emotionless.
N OW WE’RE GOING TO TAKE A TRIP TO THE

DARK SIDE. We’re going to take the same
clip from the previous cheat, and make it feel
We want to create the illusion at a single glance that either this woman means
trouble, or that she’s in grave danger. Perhaps she’s drinking something sinister?
like it’s something out of a horror movie. And

all of this, just by changing the color a little bit.
It’s often good to reflect on what colors mean
to us. Why are red/orange/yellow associated
with love? Why are cyan/green/blue associated
with horror? This discussion is kind of getting
away from the subject of an After Effects
book, but it really pays to understand the
psychological effects of color.
3 Now, apply my beloved Color Balance effect. Here, we want to remove red –
the color of warmth and safety. The opposite of red is cyan, which is basically
green and blue, and we need a bunch of both of those colors. Above are the
settings I used.
258
2 This image has way too much color in it to be scary. First step, apply the
Vibrance effect. Take the Saturation value down to –70. Ah, much better (and
by better, I mean worse – you know what I mean!).
HOT TIP
With the Color
Balance effect,
it’s generally
a good idea
to add more
color when
you want a
brighter image,
and subtract
colors when you
want a darker
final result.
The purpose of
the Preserve
Luminosity
checkbox is
to attempt to
compensate for
4 I love the colors here, but it needs to be more intense from a luminance
perspective. So, check the Preserve Luminosity checkbox. I also applied
the Levels effect, and brightened the highlights and darkened the midtones.
the gain/loss of
light from the
adjustments
Desaturated? Check. Greenish-blue tint? Check. Intense contrast? Check. Well, of the Color
folks, it looks like we’ve met the qualifications for a creepy movie color motif. Balance
properties.
259
Color Correcti
tion
Cinematic Color: Flashback
T HE FLASHBACK IS THE BANE OF THE

SCREENWRITER. Nevertheless, as After
Effects professionals, we are often called upon
1 Open the Flashback START comp in the Cinematic - Flashback.aep project.
This is the now-familiar uberstock video clip in its default state. Shown for
comparison.
to create the illusion of a flashback through

color correction.
In our final cheat, we’re going to go back
in time. But this is only one way to create this
effect. There really isn’t a rule book on what
it looks like when you go back in time. I don’t
think so, anyway. Some movies create the
look of vintage film, with dust and scratches.
Some flashbacks just desaturate the footage.
In this cheat, we’re going to give our flashback
a dreamlike quality, and also an aged look. In
my feeling, memories are kind of like that –
exaggerated, dreamlike, and yet still old and
faded a bit.
3 The next step is to add some yellow. We could use Color Balance, but a better
way to do it in this case is to apply the Curves effect. In the Curves effect,
change the channel drop down from RGB to Blue. Then drag the upper right point
down to the first line, as shown above. This reduces the amount of blue light,
adding yellow.
260
2 Apply the Vibrance effect and reduce Saturation to –25. Then apply the Glow
effect. In the Glow effect controls, take Glow Threshold to 25%, Glow Radius
to 35, and Glow Intensity to 0.4. The Glow effect creates the diffuse glow that
adds some dreamy softness to our image.
HOT TIP
It’s a good idea
when color
correcting to
always look out
for flesh tones.
It’s a common
amateur mistake
to have blue
or yellow flesh
after color
correcting.
This is one of
the reasons
that I love
Color Balance
so much, as it
lets you play
with the colors
a lot and still
look believable.
Our yellowing
4 The final step is kind of a naughty one. This is something you should normally
never do. But we’re going to degrade the quality of the image to create a
more vintage look. In the Curves effect, change the channel back to RGB. Then
of the skin
here is perhaps
bordering on a
drag the lower left point upwards a bit to taste. This lightens the shadows. Again, bit too much.
that’s usually a very bad practice, because it washes out the image. But in this
case, that’s exactly what we want.
261
Color Correcti
tion
Day for Night
N IGHT SHOOTS ARE EXPENSIVE. Because of

that, they will often shoot footage in the
day time that the script says should be at night.
1 Open the Day for Night START comp in the Day for Night.aep project. This
simple comp contains a video that I shot of some stuff in the light of day in
Seattle.
The director will then hunt down a color person

and ask them to digitally make it look like it’s
nighttime. This type of shot is called a “day for
night” shot.
That may seem very foreign to you if you’ve
never heard of this idea, but day for night shots
are used all the time in the broadcast world.
So, I’m going to show you some ideas for both
creating the effect, and what type of shot make
it easier or harder to make this trick work and
look good.
3 Now let’s make it night. Apply the Curves effect. The upper right corner
represents the highlights in the image. Dragging them downwards reduces the
brightness of the brightest areas of the images, which is what happens at night.
I then dragged the middle of the curve downwards (as shown above) to further
reduce the brightness of the midtones.
262
2 Other than in Las Vegas, nighttime is usually very desaturated. There’s not
that much light, and what little there is naturally is from the moon, and
that’s typically a very dim blue light. So apply the Vibrance effect and reduce the
Saturation value to –85. HOT TIP
This shot works
OK for day for
night purposes.
But be very
careful. Intense
sunlight can
create shadows
that make it
impossible for a
believable day
for night shot.
Even in our shot
here, some of
the windows
have very bright
highlights,
which is a clue
to our fakery.
Additionally,
notice the front
of our buildings.
They are bright
on the front on
completely black
on the sides. The
moon doesn’t
4 Now we have to add a blue moon-ish tint. Apply the Color Balance effect. I
took Shadow Blue Balance to 8, Midtone Blue Balance to 20, and Hilight Blue
Balance to 15, and check Preserve Luminosity. Not bad.
typically create
such directional
light, and
when it does,
it’s never that
powerful. Just
something to
watch out for.
263
Color Correcti
tion
Reference Monitor
R EFERENCE MONITORS ARE USED TO HELP

YOU KEEP COLOR CORRECTIONS IN CHECK.
After Effects does not offer a reference monitor,
1 Open the Reference Monitor.aep project, which contains an uberstock video
clip. Setting up a reference monitor is kind of an interface trick. So just note
that mine is currently just a standard layout.
per se. Thankfully, however, there is a fairly easy

way to set one up.
As we go forward in this chapter, you may
want to use this technique to check your work.
Color is a wacky thing. If you make subtle
changes over time, you’d be surprised at what
you’ll let yourself get away with. But when you
compare your work with the original, it’s often
surprising how drastic your changes have been.
3 This will create the Layer panel and Composition panel side-by-side. But the
problem is that they’re the exact same view, and effects applied to either
layer will show up in both panels.
264
2 Double click the layer in the Reference Monitor comp to open it up in the
Layer panel. Click and drag on the grip marks (or the color swatch) to the left
of the padlock next to the name of the Layer panel at the top of the interface.
Dragging this panel over the Composition panel will show you several drop zones.
Release your mouse as it highlights the one on the left side, as shown above.
4 At the bottom of the Layer panel, uncheck the Render checkbox. Now, when
you apply effects, you can see the original layer (in the Layer panel) side-by-
side with the color adjusted version (in the Composition panel).
265
Color Correcti
tion
Before and After
S IMILAR TO REFERENCE MONITORS, WE

CAN ALSO QUICKLY VIEW BEFORE AND
AFTER snapshots of our comps. After going
through the last cheat, you may feel that 1 Open the Before After.aep project. This contains another uberstock video clip of
someone who is apparently very excited about color correction.
changing your entire interface may be too

much effort. Although this is not a constant
view like the reference monitor, it is a very
quick view of a previous state of your image.
In addition, the reference monitor thing only
allows you to see the original content of the
layer. This trick allows you to see the before and
after of anything you want. So you can see the
before and after when adjusting parameters
if you want to. Check the “hot tip” on the
opposite page for information on how to save
and preview up to 4 previous states of your
work.
3 Now, in the Tint controls, change the Map White To value to green.
266
2 Apply the Tint effect to this layer. Let’s say we’re not sure what color we want
to tint this – red or green. In the Tint effect controls, click the Map White To
color swatch and change it to red. Then, at the bottom of the Composition panel,
create a snapshot by clicking the camera icon. You’ll hear a sweet little camera
noise indicating that it now remembers the current shot, as if it had taken a
photograph of it.
HOT TIP
You can actually
take up to
4 different
snapshots. The
Show Snapshot
button just
shows you the
last snapshot
that was
taken. To take
snapshots,
press Shift+F5,
Shift+F6,
Shift+F7, or
Shift+F8.
Press the
corresponding
F key to see
that snapshot.
For example,
after taking a
snapshot with
4 At the bottom of the Composition panel, click the Show Snapshot button
(to the right of the camera icon) and while you hold that button, it shows
you the picture it took when you clicked the camera icon back in step 2. This is a
Shift+F7, press
F7 to view it.
great feature for quickly comparing the before and after state of anything in After
Effects, not just with effects (e.g. chroma key settings, lighting changes, design
and layout changes, etc.).
267
Color Correcti
tion
Colorizing
C OLORIZING IS ONE OF THOSE THINGS that

I find myself doing all the time. Whether
it’s recoloring a flat layer from Illustrator, or a
pasted shape from Photoshop, or a black and
white texture like fractal noise, or even a full
color image, it seems like I’m always colorizing.
The “problem” is that there are so many tools
1 TINT. The easiest effect in the bunch is Tint. There
are three controls – one for remapping black, one for
remapping white, and one for blending the results into the
original layer. In this case, we have a black shape on a black
to add color in After Effects that it can be
background. Apply Tint. Change the Map Black To color to
confusing as to what does what. Most are really blue. Done.
easy to use though. So, this cheat is going to be
a little different. It’s going to be six mini-cheats
in one as we look very briefly at a host of ways
to add and change color.
Note that for this power cheat, we’ll be
using the Colorizing.aep project. Each comp is
numbered with its corresponding step number
and effect name. For example, we’ll be looking
at the Leave Color effect in step 6, and the
comp with those files is in the comp called 06
LEAVE COLOR. Also, in each comp, you’ll find a
visible layer called START (which is the layer for
you to play with), and an invisible layer called
FINAL so you can see the finished product for
reference if you’d like to. 4 BLACK & WHITE. Before CS5, I used to use Hue/
Saturation to colorize a full color image with one color
tint. CS5 provides a much better way with the Black and
White effect. Apply Black & White to this image and check
the Tint checkbox. The conversion is muddy. Take Reds to
110, Yellows to –100, Greens to 110, Cyans to –50, and Blues
to –150. This makes the robots’ headbands all bright (and the
same color), and darkens the pirates a bit, and the waves a
lot. The composition is much better now.
268
2 TRITONE. For those times when you want a bit more

control over colorizing (e.g. Shadows, Midtones, and
Highlights, instead of just black and white like in the Tint
3 COLOR BALANCE. By now, you know how much I love
Color Balance. I use it whenever I can, even to colorize.
It’s useless for colorizing when colors are flat – in other
effect), try the Tritone effect. Apply the Tritone effect to this words, just solid white or black. But when there are shades
grayscale fractal noise pattern. Change the Highlights color of gray (like in a fractal noise pattern), Color Balance can
to RGB values of 250, 250, 150. Change Midtones to 200, work its magic. Here, I subtracted red and added green and
100, 0. Change Shadows to 75, 0, 0. blue as we did earlier in this chapter.
HOT TIP
In Chapter 10,
we’ll use the
Colorama effect
all over the
place, and learn
a little bit more
5 COLORAMA. The most powerful effect to colorize that

I’ve ever seen is the Colorama effect. It’s so powerful
that people often avoid it. Its colorization features are so
6 LEAVE COLOR. Although technically not a colorizing
effect (just the opposite actually), the Leave Color effect
allows you to remove color from an image, except for one
about it there as
well.
rich, that we can almost recolor this matte painting by color. I’m including it here, because the final result creates
Daniel Johnson. Change Output>Use Preset Palette to Fire, the illusion that you’ve colorized a black and white image.
and change the Blend With Original value to 30%. We have this clip from uberstock (flip back a few pages if
you want to see it in full color). Apply Leave Color. Change
Amount to Decolor to 100%, Tolerance to 4.5%, and Edge
Softness to 3.2%. Then use the Color To Leave eyedropper to
click the red drink that she’s drinking.
269
Color Correcti
tion
Hue Shift
S OME COLORIZING JOBS CALL FOR A

DIFFERENT TOOL. In this case, the standard
tricks just won’t work, so we’re going to use
1 Here are some Illustrator graphics that I assembled in After Effects. You can
find this in the Hue Shift.aep project. In the Hue Shift START comp, press
COyLAy to create a new adjustment layer. As in Photoshop,
adjustment layers affect all layers beneath them, and that’s really the most
efficient way to colorize this entire composition. Apply all effects to this
the good old faithful Hue/Saturation effect to adjustment layer.
aid us here. I actually use Hue/Saturation far
more than the amount of cheats about it in this
chapter might suggest. It may not be the best
solution in every instance, but in my experience,
it’s usually the fastest. We’ll also look at
adjustment layers a bit in this cheat as well.
3 However, when I apply the Hue/Saturation effect and change the Master Hue
value to 135 degrees, only color tones shift.
270
2 Because there is only one color besides gray (including black and white), you
might be tempted to use Tint and Tritone, but they don’t work because they
will shift some of the grays that we want left alone (notice the wings especially).
4 And not only did our adjustment layer help colorize this entire comp in one
fell swoop, but we can also move it up and down in the layer stack to change
which layers are affected by it. In the Timeline panel, drag this layer beneath the
Rock logo precomp layer (layer 2) to have the Hue/Saturation color adjustment
only affect the layers beneath the Rock logo precomp.
SHORTCUTS
MAC WIN BOTH
271
Color Correcti
tion
Stylizing
C LOSELY RELATED TO COLORIZING IS

THE PROCESS OF STYLIZING. Essentially,
stylizing is when we change the look of footage
1 In the Stylizing comp in the Stylizing.aep project, I’ve gone ahead locked all
layers except for the Detonation Films explosion footage. I’ve also turned
off the visibility of that crazy dude in the middle. This looks very organic, and it
doesn’t match the style or color of the piece at all.
so much that the look is no longer organic. We

might create a painterly look on live action
video, or we might posterize footage to make it
look cartoony.
In this case, I wanted to have an explosion
in the background, but I wanted it to feel very
cartoony. A real explosion wouldn’t match
the feel of the piece, or the very limited color
scheme I’ve created here. But how do you go
about creating cartoony explosions?
I decided to take some sweet explosion video
footage from Detonation Films and stylize that
using a series of effects in After Effects. The
result is kind of an interesting cocktail of color
tweaks and stylizing adjustments.
3 I then applied the Cartoon effect to make it look even more stylized. Honestly,
I’m not a big fan of this effect. It usually looks bad, and it takes forever to
render. But it worked in this case, so I went with it. In the Cartoon effect controls,
I took Fill>Shading Steps to 2, and Edge>Softness to 95.
272
2 The first step was to apply the Levels effect and enhance the contrast a lot
as described earlier in this chapter. I brightened the highlights a little, and
darkened the shadows a lot. It’s already looking a lot more stylized.
HOT TIP
In the final
version of this
project, I also
applied the
Roughen Edges
effect to smooth
out and stylize
the edges of the
explosion.
4 At this point, I think I’m happy with the explosion. It definitely looks stylized
and fits in better with the rest of the project. Now, I want to just apply the
Tint effect, and change the Map White To value to be the same green as used in
the rest of the project. Yep. I like it.
273
Color Correcti
tion
Faking Dimension
1 So we have this really cool art by Dan Grady in the Faking Dimensions START
comp in the project of the same name. I want to add some moon light on his
head to give it some apparent roundness.
C OLOR DOESN’T JUST MAKE STUFF LOOK

PRETTY. In some cases, we can use color
changes to simulate lighting, and thereby create
the illusion of volume.
To accomplish this, we’re going to use a layer
style because it will give us a lot of flexibility.
In After Effects CS3, Photoshop layer styles
became native to After Effects. If you aren’t
familiar with those, I strongly recommend
checking them out. I find those little guys
extremely helpful quite often.
3 Open the layer properties in the Timeline panel, and in the Layer
Styles>Gradient Overlay>Blend Mode drop down, choose Screen. Now our
white outline is back.
274
2 Select the robot captain head layer. Right click on it and choose Layer
Styles>Gradient Overlay. This initially replaces the content of the layer with a
gradient. Unfortunately, that also means the stroke around the edges of our object
have been replaced as well.
HOT TIP
I usually use the
Ramp effect
for this type of
thing because
there are fewer
options and
they’re easier
to get to. But
in this case,
we needed to
use the layer
style because
the layer styles
allow you to
blend modes,
which allowed
our outlines to
4 Also in the Gradient Overlay settings, change the Angle to about 250 degrees,
and adjust the Offset to put the gradient in the correct place. If desired, you
can click the Edit Gradient text to open the Gradient Editor and make changes
show through.
The Ramp effect
to the gradient. I made the white a little darker and more blue. You can also doesn’t allow
select the actual text that says Layer Styles in the Timeline panel and press blend mode
CcLc to copy this style, and then CvLv to paste it onto other blending.
layers (as shown in the initial screenshot at the beginning of this cheat).
SHORTCUTS
MAC WIN BOTH
275
Color Correcti
tion
Secondary Color Correction
P RIMARY COLOR CORRECTION IS WHAT

WE’VE DONE SO FAR in this chapter.
Primary color correction is when your
1 We’re going to be using this cute clip of my kids from the short film The Young
are the Restless. You’ll find this in the Secondary CC START comp in the project
of the same name.
adjustments change the entire image. It’s

usually a good idea to start out the color
correction process with primary color
correction.
But even after adjusting colors in the
document, there are often places where certain
colors are still not the way you’d like them to
be. Secondary color correction is the process of
tweaking certain colors without affecting the
rest of them.
In this cheat, we’ll do some light secondary
color correction with my favorite quick and
easy tool for the job – Hue/Saturation. In the
next cheat, we’ll continue on as we discuss spot
color correction.
3 It looks much better after the primary color correction, but I don’t like the
way the colors in their outfits work in the scene. The cyan sleeves on my
daughter are distracting. Apply the Hue/Saturation effect, which is pretty good for
secondary color correction. Change the Channel Control drop down to Cyans to
work on only those color tones. Above are the settings I used.
276
2 First, I’m going to do some primary color correction. It’s important to do that
first because sometimes color problems can be exaggerated or diminished by
doing the main (primary) color correction. Here, I added Levels and Color Balance
and adjusted them as we’ve done earlier in this chapter.
HOT TIP
You can get
even more
control over the
color ranges
selected by Hue/
Saturation by
adjusting the
sliders in the
Channel Range
graph.
4 Now her sleeves look much better! And this doesn’t need to be keyframed –
every frame with those same color tones will be adjusted in the same way
automatically. If there are some areas of the sleeves that aren’t changing, you can
change the Channel Control drop down to Greens, and make changes there.
277
Color Correcti
tion
Spot Color Correction
1 Open the Spot CC START in the Spot CC.aep project to begin where we left off
in the last cheat. Because of the limitations of CMYK ink, you’re not getting
the full effect here, but the boy on the left is far too bright. I used a very shallow
depth of field for this shot, and both the boy and the background are out of focus,
while the girl (who is the subject) is in sharp focus. But the boy is so bright still
that it’s distracting. Using Roto Brush, we’ll isolate and adjust just the boy.
S POT COLOR CORRECTION ISOLATES

CERTAIN AREAS, even as secondary color
correction is used to isolate certain colors.
We’re going to continue where we left off in
the last cheat with the clip from The Young are
the Restless. Here, we’re going to use the new
Roto Brush tool to isolate a character, and then
perform some spot color correction.
3 When you switch back to the Composition panel, you’ll see only the boy.
Now we can spot color correct. Darken and desaturate this layer (with Levels,
Vibrance, etc.) as you see fit. Then press CdLd to duplicate this layer.
278
2 Double click this layer to open it in the Layer panel. As described in Chapter
4, select the Roto Brush tool and select only the boy. Remember that you can
draw while holding OA if you want to subtract from the selection (as shown
above). In the Roto Brush effect controls, take the Feather value up to 100%.
HOT TIP
Once you’re
happy with your
Roto Brush
settings, make
sure to click the
Freeze button
(in the Layer
panel) to cache
your Roto Brush
settings and
save them with
the project. Not
only that, but it
will also make
rendering the
matte go much
faster from
frame to frame.
4 Put the top copy into the Multiply blend mode and reduce its Opacity value to
50%. On the bottom copy, delete the Roto Brush effect and the other effects
you added in step 3. And that’s it! Because Roto Brush will automatically trace
content from frame to frame, we don’t need to worry about doing anything else
for this scene. Before CS5, I would usually do something like this with a mask, but
then you would have to animated it to follow the subject. Roto Brush makes this
process much easier. SHORTCUTS
MAC WIN BOTH
279
Color Correcti
tion
Color Finesse Basics
C OLOR FINESSE IS ONE OF THE MANY

3RD PARTY EFFECTS THAT SHIP FOR FREE
with After Effects. Although I really love After 1 We’ll be working in the Color Finesse.aep project with one of my favorite
uberstock.com video clips.
Effects’ native color correction tools (and use

them more often, honestly), Color Finesse
is truly a professional powerhouse of color
correction features.
In Color Finesse, you’ll find all kinds of graphs
to display information about the current image,
as well as a host of color correction tools. Many
of the color correction effects we’ve used in this
chapter so far can be found in Color Finesse.
Know that Color Finesse does come with After
Effects CS5, but unfortunately, it is a separate
download and installation, and it even has its
own serial number. It’s very common for After
Effects users to miss this one altogether for that
reason.
3 In the default state, all effects are turned off and there is no change. Change
the Saturation value to 70. As soon as you make the change the property is
activated, as it were. As we look left, we can see that this is part of the bigger
Master property, which is under the HSL>Controls category. Note that we have all
of these parameters for highlights, midtones, and shadows as well.
280
2 Apply the Color Finesse effect to this layer (it’s actually called SA Color Finesse
3). Then, in the Effect Controls panel, click the Full Interface button to launch
the main Color Finesse window. Wow look at all that stuff! On the left, we see a
bunch of monitors, including a waveform monitor, vectorscope, and a histogram
per channel, as well as one for the composite. On the right side of the interface,
we see our footage. Note that we’re not seeing it above because the screen
capture software I’m using won’t capture it. But it’s there. The bottom of the
interface has all of our effects.
HOT TIP
As mentioned
earlier in this
chapter, color
correction is a
constant push/
pull as you go
back and forth
when you make
changes. As
you change
luminance,
saturation and
color balance
will often need
to be fixed
afterwards.
Color Finesse
gives you (in
most cases) the
4 Click on the RGB tab on the far left to get access to controls similar to Color
Balance, only much more detailed and powerful. As checked above, there are
also adjustable levels, and a much more powerful curves system. And this only
most powerful
tools for the job
skims the surface of the possibilities with Color Finesse. We’ll explore a few extra all in one place.
features in the following cheats.
281
Color Correcti
tion
Color Finesse “Looks”
1 We’re going to use the Color Finesse

Looks.aep project for this cheat. This
is another clip of one of my kids from
2 Apply Color Finesse and click
the Full Interface button. On the
left side of the interface (where all
the short The Young are the Restless. the charts and monitors are) choose
E VEN IF YOU DON’T USE COLOR FINESSE,

YOU CAN STILL EASILY TAKE ADVANTAGE
OF it’s incredible selection of preset “looks”. As
This is the original untouched color
from the camera.
Gallery. You will see two folders. Open
the one that says Settings Presets
(System). You will see a lot of folders
that contain different preset looks.
Open a folder and double click a look
we’ll talk about later in this chapter, one of the
to apply it. Note that each time you
most popular 3rd party effects for After Effects apply a look, it completely replaces
whatever was there before.
is Magic Bullet looks. One of the reasons that it
is so popular is that it has so many impressive
looks that you can apply with the click of a
button. Many of those “looks” as they are called
resemble film stock quite a bit.
The great secret is that Color Finesse has a
massive library of looks that are just as easy to
apply! Many of these attempt to recreate the
look of particular film stocks as well. Even if you
don’t ever want to master Color Finesse, you
can still easily take advantage of these presets.
What we’re going to do here is take just one
video clip, and apply a bunch of different looks
6 Filters>Tobacco 2 Tiffen.
7 Filters>Tropical Blue1 Tiffen.
and see what we can come up with. Think of

this cheat like a Color Finesse presets sampler.
282
3 Open 35mm Filmstocks>Eastman

Kodak and double click Eastman
5231 Plus-X B&W to apply it.
4 Now try 35mm Filmstocks>Fuji
Films>Fuji 8563 Eterna 250D. 5 This is Filters>Coral 4 Tiffen.
HOT TIP
If you’re really
into emulating
film, you may
want to try
to check out
the Add Grain
effect, which
allows you to
add film grain
that matches
specific film
stocks. Some of
the film stocks
you can match
the grain of
8 Gels>Rosco Cinegel>Rosco
Cinegel_3304_Tough Plusgreen
Windowgreen.
9 Misc>Faded Color Neg 1.
10 Processing>Bleach Bypass.
with Add Grain,
are some of
the same film
presets in Color
Finesse!
283
Color Correcti
tion
Using Color Lookup Tables
S O WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU WANT TO

REUSE A COLOR ADJUSTMENT? Or say
you wanted to use a color correction look that
someone created in a different application?
What do you do then?
Well, the industry decided a while back that 1 We’re going to start with the Make Color LUT comp in the Color LUTs.aep
project. This is a video clip courtesy of uberstock.com.
this could be a problem. So they created a type
of file called a Color Look Up Table (LUT). These
files are cross platform and, because they are
an industry standard, can be used by many
applications. And as of After Effects CS5, you
can add After Effects to the list of applications
that can take advantage of this technology.
In this cheat, we’re going to both create a
color LUT and apply one. It’s surprisingly easy
to do.
3 Now move on over to the Apply Color LUT comp. Apply the new Apply Color
LUT effect to this footage. As soon as you apply it, a browser will pop up. The
only thing you can do with this effect is to use a color LUT with it. So navigate to
the color LUT you made in step 2 and click OK.
284
2 Apply the Color Finesse effect and click Full Interface. Make some drastic
changes. Feel free to use one of the presets that we looked at in the last
cheat. I desaturated this a lot, and removed some red, and then faded the image a
bit. When you’re done, in the Color Finesse interface, choose File>Export>Settings
to Autodesk 3D LUT>Smoke, and save your color LUT file.
4 Instantly, the color is changed with the exact same settings you created
in step 2. Using Color Finesse, you can create color LUTs for most popular
programs out there. Using the new Apply Color LUT effect, you can now apply
them from outside applications as well. But these color LUT files are not only good
for sharing, they’re great for creating a library of your own custom looks.
285
Color Correcti
tion
Improving 3D Renders
I REALIZE THAT THE AUDIENCE FOR THIS

CHEAT MAY NOT BE THAT LARGE. But it’s just
astonishing how much more beautiful you can
1 We’re going to be using the 3D Renders START comp in the Improving 3D
Renders.aep project. This contains a 3D project that I created in Cinema 4D. It’s
really not much to look at, but it’s the best I could do.
make 3D renders using color correction tools in

After Effects.
For me, I’m honestly not that good at 3D
apps, but I can make stuff that looks halfway
decent thanks to After Effects. So, it’s almost
like After Effects makes me a better 3D artist.
Hopefully someone out there will benefit from
this tiny 2 page tidbit.
3 Next, let’s improve the colors a little bit. Apply the Color Balance effect.
Increase blues and greens and decrease reds as desired. OK, now I’m starting
to have a little hope in this 3D image.
286
2 Let’s first apply the Levels effect and punch the highlights and adjust the
midtones as discussed in the beginning of this chapter. It doesn’t look quite so
bad after that.
4 For the final step, let’s make this really pop by applying the Glow effect. In
the Glow effect controls, take Glow Threshold to 35%, Glow Radius to 50,
and Glow Intensity to 0.2. Wow. I have to admit, I love it. These amazing color
correction tools here in After Effects really breathed a whole new life into this 3D
render.
287
Color Correcti
tion
Checking Dark Areas
I REALLY LOVE INTENSE CONTRAST. But the

challenging side of that is that often, shadow
areas look black on my monitor, and then when
I see my final product in some other arena, I can
see problems in the darkness that I missed when 1 In the Checking Dark Areas.aep project, you’ll find this clip from the short film
I Hate Basketball by Jef Faulkner. I was visual effects supervisor on this film,
which features a gang of possessed basketballs as its antagonist. In this shot,
I was working on my computer. several crew members are throwing out the army of basketballs. I was charged
with removing the crew, but I can’t see them.
After Effects actually has a very quick fix to
this problem. It will allow you to temporarily
adjust the exposure using a little obscure
button in the interface. That little button
doesn’t actually change anything in your
document, so there’s no way to accidentally
render your comp with it on. It’s really a great
feature that doesn’t get a lot of attention.
3 With the exposure raised, I can now see all the background activity that I
need to remove. But I certainly wouldn’t want to inadvertently render this
looking like that.
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HOT TIP
If you’re not
seeing this
button, make
sure you’re not
in the Layer
panel. If you in
fact are in the
Composition
panel, make
sure that your
Composition
2 At the bottom of the Composition panel, you’ll find the Adjust Exposure
value. It’s the numbers on the right end of the buttons at the bottom of the
Composition panel. Increase this value to temporarily raise the exposure of this
panel is sized so
that you can see
all of its buttons
view. I took it to a very high value of 5.4. Also note that when you’ve adjusted this at the bottom.
property, the button immediately to its left glows letting you know that you’ve You may also
tweaked this option. Reset the exposure by clicking that button. need to increase
your screen
resolution to see
them.
4 Thankfully, it’s impossible to render with this adjustment turned on. It’s a
preview feature only, so you don’t have to worry about turning it off. I love
that. Note that you can also use this feature to find the darkest pixels in the
image. Turn it up full blast, and whatever pixels don’t get turned white are the
darkest pixels in that frame. I find this feature very helpful.
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Color Correcti
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Magic Bullet Looks
M AGIC BULLET LOOKS IS, ALONG WITH

TRAPCODE PARTICULAR, THE MOST
POPULAR AFTER EFFECTS PLUGIN on the market 1 In the Magic Bullet Looks.aep file, you’ll find the
uberstock clip that we’ll be using as we take our tour
through Magic Bullet Looks.
today. And there’s good reason for that. It’s a
great color correction tool, but it’s even more
than that. It is laid out in a very intelligent and
useful way. If you want to build your look using
various customizable components, you can do
that. Or if you prefer, you can instantly click to
choose from a massive library of well designed
and extremely diverse looks.
Similar to what we did a few cheats back
with Color Finesse’s “looks”, we’re going to just
go through a sampler of what Magic Bullet
Looks has to offer.
Remember that this is a 3rd party plugin that
does not come with After Effects CS5. If you
don’t own this plugin, you can download a free
trial of it from www.redgiantsoftware.com.
4 Here I chose Basic>Basic Warm.
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2 Apply the Looks effect (in the Magic Bullet category

of effects). In the Effect Controls panel, click the Edit
button to open the full Magic Bullet Looks interface. If
3 On the left side of the interface, you’ll find the looks.
These are tons of presets that you can instantly apply to
your footage. I find that these are a little heavy handed and
you hover your cursor over the right side, you can see the need to be toned down a bit to use professionally, but they’ll
tools. Here you can drag individual components (such as make the changes extra easy to see in the screenshots.
Saturation, Exposure, Vignette, or tons of others) on to your
footage in the center of the interface.
HOT TIP
When you
apply looks,
the various
components
used to create
the look are
visible at the
bottom of
the interface.
This can be a
great way to
learn more
about creating
impressive,
5 Popular Film>Blockbuster.
6 Music Videos>Berlin.
cinematic color
adjustments.
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I N T E R L U D E
Shooting Filmlike Video

ALMOST EVERYONE THAT SHOOTS VIDEO WANTS IT TO LOOK LIKE FILM.
And hey, I’m totally in that boat myself. Film just looks better than video. But
many people really aren’t aware of what it means to shoot video like film.
Oftentimes, people will just add tons of contrast and call it filmlike. While most
major motion pictures do have more than their fair share of contrast, that’s not
what makes it inherently filmlike. Following just a few tips can really help you
shoot video that will not only look more professional and filmlike, but it will
also help you achieve better results in your post production color correction.
The first thing that you should do is to make sure that you are shooting at
24 frames per second, and that those frames are progressive (i.e. not interlaced).
Our eyes are quick to detect the difference in 24 and 30 frames per second.
Although 30 frames per second looks cleaner (especially when animating),
there’s just something very filmic about 24p. And perhaps it’s my ignorance,
but I find that it’s kinda challenging taking regular 29.97 frames per second
video and converting it to 24p and making it look good.
Perhaps the most striking way that video is different from film is in its
limited dynamic range. Point a film camera at a bright sunset, and you’ll get
beautiful footage. Point a video camera at a bright sunset, and you’ll either
get blown out highlights or very, very dark footage. Video just can’t capture
dark darks and light lights at the same time. So, in order to make your footage
look more like film, make sure that your exposure is low enough so that your
highlights are not all blown out. Also, once highlights are blown out, there’s
no way to recover them in post. Once that detail is lost, it’s lost. Most of the
footage that I shoot is a little too underexposed because I’m just so paranoid
that I’m going to blow out the highlights.
Now, you have to be very careful that you don’t follow my bad example
an underexpose too much. The reason is that video gets really grainy when it
is underexposed. Although in theory we can lighten dark footage, sometimes
underexposed footage is just too dark to work with because the noise can make
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it unusable. In my opinion, when shooting filmlike video, I think it’s best to

slightly underexpose the footage. It’s much easier to brighten dark footage than
darken light footage, but again, you don’t want to underexpose too much.
While we’re talking about my opinion, allow me to share another one with
you. Now if you’re working with a talented director of photography, they may
not go along with this one, but I like to also shoot flat. This means that I shoot
very low contrast, with as little processing as possible. If the camera allows me
to adjust things like saturation and sharpness, I usually turn that stuff down or
even all the way off. My footage isn’t much to look at on its own (and this is
why directors of photography don’t like to shoot this way, because it doesn’t let
them show off their skills!). But the reason I do this is so that I have the most
control in post production.
When I first bought my Canon 7D camera, everyone raved about how great
the footage is right out of the box. But I hated it! It looked great, but it already
had tons of contrast. But what happens if I want less contrast? Or what happens
if I want to remove the sharpening? If I shoot it flat, then I have much more
control over the final product. In some cases, such as when I made the short
film The Young are the Restless, I knew I wouldn’t have time to color correct in
post, so I tried making the footage look more rich on its own. But most of the
time, I try to record footage that is as bland as possible.
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Backgrounds and Textures
CREATING ANIMATED BACKGROUNDS is perhaps one
of the things I find myself doing very frequently, and
most After Effects users would probably agree. Whether
putting something behind a client logo, compositing
something on a background element, or creating an
interesting track matte, knowing how to create animated
textures from scratch is a necessary weapon in the
arsenal of the cheating After Effects user.
In this chapter, we’ll not only look at how to create a

variety of textures from scratch with fun recipes, but I’ll
show you a few ways to come up with your own textures.
Then we’ll look at how to use After Effects features
to quickly create an entire library of your own custom
textures.
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Fire Texture
1 Create a new comp. Let’s just go with the standard NTSC DV preset for
right now. Create a new solid by pressing CyLy and make sure the
T HIS TRICK IS AN OLDIE BUT A GOODIE.

It also helps demonstrate the versatility
of the Fractal Noise effect. It’s important to
dimensions of the solid match the dimensions of the comp. The color of the solid
will be completely replaced by the Fractal Noise effect, so it is irrelevant. Apply the
Fractal Noise effect (NOT the Fractal effect) to the solid. Poor Fractal Noise ain’t
much to look at with its default settings.
remember that as cool as this fire is, it is limited

to remain forever as a background. Fractal Noise
is an impressive pattern generator, but don’t
make the mistake of thinking it can act as a
particle system.
Although Fractal Noise probably won’t
single-handedly create the class of explosion
that Tom Cruise might walk away from in slow
motion, it can be very useful in adding texture
to components of that explosion. Later in this
chapter, we’ll use this same fire as the basis for
other cheats.
3 Maybe it’s just me, but this gray stuff is getting tough to look at. And even if
you’re not visually bored yet, it’s really hard to look at this and envision what
our fire will look like. Now we have color, but it looks like a TV weather pattern.
So let’s apply the Colorama effect to this. In the Colorama effect properties in
the Effect Controls panel, open up the Output Cycle area and from the Use Preset
Palette drop down, choose Fire. OK. Now we’re talking.
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2 Change the Fractal Type (the drop down at the top of the Fractal Noise
effect in the Effect Controls panel) to Dynamic Twist. This basically adds a
twist to the noise pattern being generated, and this extra twist is going to make
our noise look more fiery in a moment.
HOT TIP
Our fire is
already looking
more believable.
However, in my
own opinion,
it seems like
the majority of
that realism is
coming from the
color scheme
and not from
the fire itself.
So be careful
that you don’t
use Colorama’s
wicked cool
colorization as a
4 This texture is already pretty fiery as is. And fire comes in a wide variety
of fiery flavors – camp, bon, candle, explosion, flamethrower, etc. Each
has their own distinct shape, texture, and movement. So the fire we’re creating
crutch, and just
settle for any
in this cheat maybe just a jumping off point for your own custom fire. But for old texture.
our purposes here, there’s just too much fire, and it’s just not as intense as I’d
like it to be. You can address both of those concerns by increasing the Contrast
parameter. I’m going to use a value of 300, but you can use whatever you’d like.
SHORTCUTS
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Fire Texture (continued)
5 At this point, I’m liking the contrast, but I still think there’s too much fire.
Whenever you want to get rid of some of the noise in Fractal Noise, try taking
down the Brightness parameter. It works in kind of an interesting way. It doesn’t
darken every pixel. It allows white to stay white. Often, this has the effect of
thinning out the noise. A value of around –40 works for me.
7 OK. We got some fire going on here, but it still is too “noisy” for what I’m
looking for; too much texture. I’m kinda going for a look as though the
camera is shooting something on the other side of the fire and the depth of field
is creating blurry fire. The Complexity property controls how many virtual layers of
noise are being generated, and in this case, we’ve got too many. With this property,
a little adjustment can make a fairly big difference, so be careful. I’m going to take
Complexity to 3.6.
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HOT TIP
Fractal Noise
generates
patterns based
on random
noise. Because
of this, your
fire may look
different than
mine, even if
you’ve used
the exact
6 I want this to look like campfire-style fire. Fire in a campfire has a definite
direction. So open up the Transform area in the Fractal Noise effect, uncheck
Uniform Scaling, and increase the Scale Height property a lot. No, seriously. A
same settings
throughout.
You may also
LOT. I’m going to try a value of 1000. Note that you can only go to 600 with this have a tough
property if you use the slider. time getting the
exact same look
with the same
setting as well.
The solution
to consistent
Fractal Noise
patterns is to
use Animation
Presets,
discussed later
in this chapter.
8 Alright! This fire looks pretty awesome! But what about animating it?
Typically, we bring to life the patterns created by Fractal Noise by animating
the Evolution property. But here, Evolution doesn’t work, because it will make the
flames go both up and down simultaneously. That’s not what flames do! In this
case, we only want the flames to travel upwards. To do that, animate the Y axis
of the Offset Turbulence parameter in the Transform area of the Fractal Noise
controls from a larger value to a smaller one. Unfortunately, this property moves
all of the virtual layers of noise in one solid unit. For added realism, enable the
Perspective Offset parameter, which will move the noise layers as if they were
staggered in 3D.
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Candle Flame
T HIS IS GOING TO BE A QUICK CHEAT, but

quite fun nonetheless. We’re going to
start where we left off in the last cheat (where
1 Because Fractal Noise generates random patterns,
this will take an artistic eye on your part. Fiddle with
properties (such as Evolution, Offset Turbulence, Scale Width
or Scale Height) until you see a candle flame shape at the
bottom of the comp. In this image, there’s a flame on the
we learned how to make a fire texture with right side that I’m liking.
the Fractal Noise effect). So, if you just jumped
here, back up a few pages and do that tutorial
first. With a very quick adjustment, we can
turn that wall of fire into a very realistic candle
flame.
Technically, this doesn’t really count as a
background or a texture, I realize. But the real
point of this chapter is to expand on what you
can do with textures you create in After Effects.
And this is a great eye opener as to what Fractal
Noise is capable of.
Select your layer and press the f key on your

4 keyboard. This will show the Mask Feather property.
Increase this property just a little to soften the edges of
the mask we just created. I went with a value of 15, but I’m
wondering if even that isn’t too much feathering here.
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HOT TIP
Wondering why
we precomposed
this layer?
If we didn’t
precompose
before
feathering
the mask,
the Colorama
effect would
have made all
of our semi-
transparent
feathered edges
2 Precompose this layer by selecting it in the Timeline

panel and choosing Pre-compose from the Layer menu
at the top of the interface. You can also use the keyboard
3 The next step is a little more challenging. Select the
Pen tool from the Tools area in the upper left portion of
the interface. Create a mask in the shape of a candle flame
completely
opaque. And
that would have
shortcut CScLSc. Choose the option Move around the part of your fractal flame that you’ve chosen. looked terrible.
all attributes into the new composition. I’ll explain why
precomposing this layer is important in the tip on the side.
5 In the previous figure, you may have noticed that my flame isn’t perfect. With this flame, the hotspot should be in the
center of the candle where it is burning brightest and the colors SHOULD get darker as they go away from the center.
But on the left side of my flame, they get brighter alongside the edge. So double click the precomp to go back to Fractal SHORTCUTS
Noise and reduce the Brightness value. I’m also going to adjust my mask. And while I’m at it, I think I’ll just take that Mask MAC WIN BOTH
Feather down to a more realistic value of 8. Ahhh.... now that’s a more believable candle flame!
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Creative Playing
I ’VE DECIDED THAT I WANT TO TAKE A LITTLE

BREAK from the whole “cheat” thing.
What I want to do here is to just play around.
Sometimes as After Effects users, we lose sight
of the big picture – that After Effects is just
the most fun application on the planet, and
it’s a beautiful thing to just create and explore.
Creative playing is also just a great way to
become more familiar with the application and 1 Well, first things first. We have to start with a new comp. Let’s just start with
a standard NTSC DV preset comp. And I think instead of starting with a solid,
I’m going to start with one of my favorite AE features: a shape layer. So, I’m going
problem solving in it. However, it can be a little to select the Ellipse tool in the Tools panel, and I’m going to just click and drag to
create a circle in the Composition panel. I’m going to hold S while I’m creating
intimidating to just venture off the beaten path
it to make it a perfect circle. I’m not really feeling it in the center though. I think
and just play around in After Effects, especially I’ll put it in the upper left corner, which you can do by just clicking and dragging
once the shape has been created.
if you’re new to the program.
So I wanted to just start from scratch and
experiment with you watching. I have no idea
where we’ll end up, but I’m just going to play
around the way I do when I’m goofing off when
no one is looking and I don’t have any hardcore
deadlines. I’m hoping that you’ll benefit from
the process, and even more, I’m really hoping
that what we make here isn’t total crap because
that would be embarrassing. But oh well. There
is joy in the journey, right?
3 I’m going to increase the stroke thickness by clicking on the number to the
right of the word “Stroke” at the top of the interface. I think I want a thick
stroke, so I’m going to try a value of 130. Similar to what we did with the fill,
click on the word stroke in the Tools area, but this time change the stroke to a
radial gradient (the option on the far right). I think I want the gradient stroke to
be black on the inside, and then gradually fade to white on the outer edge. Here
are the settings for the gradient that I went with and the result. As you can see,
I made the left side black and the right side white, and then scooted the black
swatch to the right so that the black center would be larger. Cool.
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HOT TIP
OK,this looks
terrible so far.
This sounds
more like advice
in a self-help
book than a
software book,
but you’ve got
to have enough
faith in yourself
to allow yourself
2 The first adjustment I want to make to this is to adjust the default red fill
and white stroke. They’re not working for me. I actually don’t think I want a
fill here. So, I’m going to click the word “Fill” in the Tools area at the top of the
to play around!
Many extremely
talented artists
interface with the shape layer selected, and then click the None button on the are working the
left. night shift at
the local fast
food restaurant
because they
are paralyzed
by a fear of
failure. Instead
of getting
discouraged
about how bad
something looks,
ask yourself
what could be
done to improve
it, even just
a little. You’ll
be amazed at
how asking
such questions
will often
yield powerful
answers and
solutions,
whereas self-
doubt rarely
Now let’s add a gradient background. Press CyLy to create a
4 new solid of any color. Drag it below the shape layer in the layer stack in
the Timeline panel. Right click on the new background solid and choose Layer
does.
Styles>Gradient Overlay. I’m really thinking that I want a warm color scheme.
So, I’m going to open up the layer properties for this solid layer, and then Layer
Styles>Gradient Overlay. For the Colors property, click on Edit Gradient. Click on
the first gradient color stop and select an orange color, and change the gradient SHORTCUTS
stop on the right to a deep red. MAC WIN BOTH
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Creative Playing (continued)
5 Dang it all to heck! I did that backwards – I wanted

orange on top and red on bottom. Stupid confusing
layer styles gradient editor! Oh well. Just find the Reverse
6 Next, let’s add more shapes. The most powerful way to
do that is by adding a Repeater operation to the existing
shape layer. Open the shape layer’s properties in the Timeline
option in the Gradient Overlay area and click Off to change panel and on the right you’ll see a tiny circle with an arrow
it to On. Now, we need to blend the shape layer into this in it that will allow you to add all kinds of adjustments to
background better. I’ll use a blend mode for that. In the your shape layer. Go ahead and choose Repeater. This will
blend mode drop down for the shape layer, change the blend add a whole new area (Transform:Repeater 1) and will allow
mode from Normal to... um... let’s try Add. you to make and transform multiple copies of your object.
9 Now I think I might try to see what this shape would

look like if I changed the blend mode from Add to
Soft Light. Pretty sweet. But it’s a little dark. What if we
10 I like this, but it’s a little too dark still. I think I’m
going to create a new adjustment layer by pressing
COyLAy. Make sure that this adjustment layer
now duplicated the layer? After putting this layer into is the topmost layer in the layer stack in the Timeline panel.
the Soft Light blend mode, duplicate the layer by pressing I think I’m going to brighten this with two of my “go-to”
CdLd. brighteners – the Levels effect and the Glow effect. Here
are the settings I used.
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7 In the Repeater 1 area, I increased the Copies value

to 14, then just started playing around until I found a
design that I liked. As the author of this book, I would love to
8 I like the way this looks. But I want to try something
else. There’s just so much there to play with. So, I’m
going to try a distort effect to kind of change the proverbial
say that I knew ahead of time exactly what settings to use, scenery. Let’s apply the Polar Coordinates effect. In the Effect
but in reality, I just kept goofing around until it looked cool. Controls panel, I’m going to adjust the Interpolation value to HOT TIP
I adjusted Anchor Point, Position, Scale, and Rotation in the about 36% or so. You may want to use a very different value If you’d like
Transform:Repeater 1 area, which allowed me to control the or just skip this step altogether. But I actually like the shape to see my
look and behavior of the repeated copies. I’m getting now. projects from
this section,
I’ve created a
folder of the
steps here called
Creative Playing
in Chapter 10
of the Exercise
Files.
11
circle!
So here’s the final result. I kinda like it! Pretty
impressive, coming from a single, unattractive 12 You might be wondering now, well how exactly
does this thing animate? You could try several
things. Try doing a slow animation of the Interpolation
property of the Polar Coordinates effect on the duplicate of
the shape layer. You’ll also get really cool results by playing
with the Offset property in the Repeater 1 area of the main
shape layer. The possibilities are endless. Just keep playing!
SHORTCUTS
MAC WIN BOTH
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Hot Grill
L AST IN OUR SERIES of

fire-like backgrounds,
we’re going to look at how to
create a hot grill. What is this
hot grill cooking? You decide
1 Create a new comp using the HDV/HDTV 720 29.97 preset. Then create a new solid of the same size
and, using the Fractal Noise and Colorama effects, create some fire as we did at the beginning of
this chapter. Except this time, don’t mess with the scaling, and take complexity down to 2. That will give
us a nice blurry look to the coals. I’m going to name this layer Fire.
what goes on it! Possibly some
text? Perhaps it’s cooking up
your logo? This trick is even
cooler when brought to life
with the Evolution parameter.
Because hot coals are not
directional like the campfire-
style fire we created previously,
the oscillation created by
Evolution creates a very
organic hot coal animation.
3 Apply the frequently-ignored Grid effect to the Grill layer. Our first order of business is to hop on
over to the Effect Controls panel and change the Color value in the Grid effect from white to black.
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2 Create another new solid, but this time change the size. Leave the Width value at 1280, but
increase the Height value to 800 pixels. I’ll explain why a little later on. I’m going to name this
layer Grill.
HOT TIP
Oh, by the way,
the reason why
we made the
Grill layer a
little bit taller
than the comp
is because the
Grid effect
adds that bevel
style to its grids
and also to the
edges of the
layer it’s applied
to. This usually
looks really
fake. So by
making the solid
a little taller, we
never see that
garbage.
4 This “grid” looks less like a grill and more like a tennis net. Next time we have a doubles match
with our BBQ, we’ll be sure and remember these settings. For now, we want a grill! So, in the Grid
effect, increase the Border value to about 20, increase the Y value of the Corner value to about 700 or
so, and increase the X value of the Anchor property somewhere between 700 and 740. And we’re done!
I really like the lowered Complexity value on the fractal fire because it gives the illusion of blur created
by a shallow depth of field, which adds more believability. To bring this to life in a very realistic way, just
animate the Evolution property in the Fractal Noise effect on the Fire layer.
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It’s Curtains For You!
1 Create a new comp. Use the HDV/HDTV 720 29.97 preset.

Create a new solid with matching size. Apply the Fractal
Noise effect to this solid. When creating curtains, there are
a variety of ways to achieve the effect. The way I use is just
one of the many ways, so feel free to improvise and use your
own settings. I’m going to use Dynamic for the Fractal Type.
Open up the Transform area, uncheck Uniform Scaling and
increase the Scale Height value a bunch, to about 3000.
C REATING A PROMO FOR AN

INDEPENDENT FILM or play? Want to
create a video to reveal a new product line?
Aspiring to reach the top of the cutthroat
drapery industry? Then you may one day want
to create curtains from scratch in After Effects!
4 This next step is optional, but I’m going to apply the

Levels effect to give these curtains more punch. By
dragging the right slider to the left, the highlights are
brightened. By dragging the left slider to the right, the
shadows are darkened. For more info on color correction,
check out Chapter 9. If you feel like following along, here
are my Levels settings.
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2 The previous figure is looking very curtain-ish. But

there is too much texture. Take the Complexity value
down to 5.5. There’s still too much going on here texture-
3 I think that’s all that we need to do with the Fractal
Noise effect here. I think they need more contrast,
but I’m going to add that with the Levels effect. First, let’s
wise, but if I lower the Complexity value any more, the add some color by applying the Tint effect to our curtains.
curtains will appear blurry. The solution? Change the Noise In the Tint effect controls, click the Map White To color
Type at the top from Soft Linear to Spline. This is a more swatch and change the white color to a deep red.
advanced calculation of the noise used to create this fractal
noise. It takes a little longer to process, but in this case it
makes our curtains look much more realistic.
HOT TIP
If you wanted
to animate
the curtains
opening, you
could create two
smaller comps,
each with their
own fractal
curtains. Then
combine them
in a larger comp
and have them
opening using
Position. For
added realism,
use an effect
from the Distort
category of
5 The final touch here is to add an After Effects light. First, make the layer with the curtains a 3D layer by clicking the
box in the 3D Layer column in the Switches area of the Timeline. Then create a new light by going to the Layer menu at
the top of the interface and choosing New>Light. From the Light Type drop down in the Light Settings dialog box, choose
effects or the
Puppet tool
to bend the
Spot. All other properties can stay at their defaults. The spot light not only adds more focus and interest, but the falloff of curtains in
the light on the sides of the image really heightens the realism. realistic and
organic ways.
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Background Bars
1 Create a new comp using the HDV/HDTV 720 29.97

preset. Create a new solid with matching settings. Apply
the Fractal Noise effect. The key to achieving this effect is to
change the Noise Type from Soft Linear to Block.
F REQUENTLY IN THE WORLD OF BROADCAST,

we see this background of animated fractal
bars. For example, this type of background was
seen in the intro to The Bernie Mac Show on
Fox.
This trick appears really complicated, as if
someone has animated a series of bars by hand.
In reality, this is an extremely simple and quick
trick, made so by the ever powerful Fractal
Noise effect.
4 The final step is to colorize these bars. For that, we’re
going to apply the Tritone effect. That effect allows us
to recolor our layer using three colors: one for highlights,
midtones, and shadows. I’m going to use a light blue for the
highlights, a slightly dark red for the midtones, and a very
dark blue for the shadows. Then all you need to bring this to
life is to animate the Evolution property and those bars will
shuffle around horizontally in a very organic way.
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HOT TIP
Simply taking
the Noise Type
to Block opens
up a whole
plethora of
possibilities.
2 There’s too much going on here. Lower the Complexity

value to 2.5. 3 Can you guess how we make these squares into bars?
That’s right! We open up the Transform area, uncheck
Uniform Scaling, and increase the Scale Height value all the
With Noise Type
set to Block, try
playing around
way up to about 9000. If you see wacky horizontal lines, with different
you may need to adjust the Y axis of the Offset Turbulence levels of
property. A value of –640 worked for me. And there’s our Complexity, as
bars! well as different
fractal types. If
you’re looking
for any kind of
background with
squares, this is
a great place to
start!
5 If you wanted to get creative, you could also use these bars as textures in other instances. Here, we see the fractal bars
as the background texture and as the texture using the text as an alpha matte. This example is kinda lame, honestly,
but you can see that with a little more effort it could yield a pretty cute result.
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Basic Water
1 Create a new comp using the HDV/HDTV 720 29.97

preset. Create a new solid layer of the same size and
apply the Fractal Noise effect to it. Change the Fractal Type
to Smeary, the Noise Type to Spline, and check the Invert
checkbox (right below Noise Type). It’s not much to look at
yet, although this texture could be used as the basis of an
I SUPPOSE IT WOULDN’T BE FAIR TO THE

ELEMENTALS if we were to cover the making
of fire and skip over water. So here it is. As
electric texture.
before, we’ll be using the versatile Fractal Noise

effect to make our water.
Be forewarned that making water is a little
more challenging. If you ever watch large
amounts of water, like in a pool, you’ll notice
little “whips” of light. These are called caustics.
Thankfully, Fractal Noise has an option called
Wrap Back which makes it much easier to
create these caustics. We’ll also delve a little
deeper into the powerful colorization tools
in Colorama. In the next cheat, we’ll keep the
party going by making this water look even
more realistic. 4 Apply the Colorama effect, which essentially converts
all colors in an image to shades of gray and then
allows you to recolor it using a gradient. Yes, it’s complex.
But it gives you more power to recolor a layer than anything
else, even in Photoshop! Open the Output Cycle area in the
Colorama effect controls. That color wheel indicates the
colors that will be used to remap the colors in your artwork.
As a jumping off point, change the Use Preset Palette
value right above the color wheel to Ramp Blue. This wheel
contains two triangles, one blue, one black. The highlights
are mapped to blue (at the top), then the values at the
bottom of the circle are mapped to gray, and the black color
stop (also at the top) is mapped to black.
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2 In other cheats, we’ve played around with Contrast and

Brightness. They behave as expected. But we’re going
to turn that world upside down. In the Overflow drop down,
3 To make this come a little closer to the appearance
of water (and to help this render faster), take the
Complexity value down to 1.9. Then open the Transform
change the setting from Allow HDR Results to Wrap Back. area in the Fractal Noise effect controls. Uncheck Uniform
This will make it so that when we brighten white areas or Scaling, and take Scale Width to 170 and Scale Height to
darken white areas, they begin to “wrap back” in the other 25.
direction. This creates really psychedelic effects, but it can
also be used to create caustics when making water. With
Wrap Back selected for the Overflow property, change the
Contrast value to 137, and the Brightness value to 62, and
prepare to have your mind blown.
HOT TIP
If, while fiddling
around with
the color
stops on the
Output Cycle
color wheel in
the Colorama
effect controls,
your top most
colors get
moved a little
bit, hold down
the S key
while moving
5 Double click on the blue color stop at the top of the

color wheel and your system’s color picker will pop
up (Mac or Windows). The color pickers on both systems
6 If desired, apply the Hue/Saturation effect and tweak
the Master Hue value a little bit to add more of a green
tint. Here I used a value of –20. Nice water!
them back into
position. That
will force them
feel kind of archaic, but they both do the job. For this color to snap back
stop, use the RGB values of 0, 50, 100, respectively. Then to the position
click right outside the wheel at about the 7 o’clock position that they should
to create a new color stop, and use the RGB values 25, 70, be in.
and 150. Click at about the 3 o’clock position and create a
color stop with the values 25, 100, 200. Finally, click the
black color stop that is hiding behind the first blue stop, and
change that stop’s value to pure white (0, 0, 0). SHORTCUTS
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Better Water
W E’RE GOING TO BE
CONTINUING HERE
WHERE WE LEFT OFF in the last
cheat, where we learned how
1 You may either continue where we left off in the last cheat, or you can open the Advanced Water.
aep project from the Chapter 10 folder in the Exercise Files folder, and start with the Advanced
Water START comp.
to make basic water.
In real life, water is just a
complex thing. Aside from
the caustics discussed in the
last cheat, there are multiple
colors and reflections that add
complexity to its appearance.
To create more beauty in our
water, we’re going to duplicate
the layer we’ve made and
make a few more adjustments.
3 In the Fractal Noise effect on the duplicated (top) layer, open up the Evolution Options area and
adjust the Random Seed value until you’re happy with the results. Essentially, the Random Seed
value takes all of your settings and gives you a random version of them. This makes it so that our
duplicates are not exactly the same, which adds a lot of complexity to our water.
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First, just duplicate the Basic Water layer by selecting it and pressing CdLd. Then put the
2 duplicated layer (the one on top) in the Soft Light blend mode. This adds more contrast, but not
much else. We’ll fix that in the next step.
4 This last step is an optional one. I like the way it looks when the colors of the original and the copy
are slightly different. So, I’m going to go to the Hue/Saturation effect controls on the duplicate
layer and further reduce the Master Hue value to add more green. A value of about –40 looks good on SHORTCUTS
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TV Noise
O NE OF THE THINGS THAT YOU MAY BE

CALLED UPON TO DO on occasion is
to create TV noise – the static that is on a TV
1 Open the TV Noise.aep project from the Chapter 10 folder of the exercise files,
and go to the TV Noise START composition.
set when it can’t find the channel. Although

this phenomenon isn’t really all that common
anymore with the phasing out of rabbit ear
antennas and analog TV signals, it is one of
those cultural things that still has significant
value. Like 8 bit video games, LP records, and
old black and white movies, analog TV static has
retro appeal. It also has symbolic significance
and is used to suggest a communication
disconnect. This effect is also often used in
connection with horror movies to add grungy
texture to broadcast messages.
3 Now, if the previous step got your noise the way you like it, feel free to skip
this step. But I think that this noise needs a little bit of random color. To get
that random noise, I’m going to apply (what else?) the Noise effect. After Effects
has 6 effects with the word “noise” in it, so make sure that you apply the one
that is simply called Noise. Leaving the other settings the same, take the Amount
of Noise value in the Noise effect controls to about 80% or so. The difference is
subtle, but I like it much better than having just plain black and white noise.
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HOT TIP
This noise looks
OK, but what
about animating
it? Typically,
we bring
Fractal Noise
to life with
the Evolution
parameter,
but that
creates smooth
animation over
time. Instead,
open up the
Evolution
2 Apply the Fractal Noise effect to the Noise layer. In the Fractal Noise effect
controls, take the Complexity down to 3.0. In the Transform area of the
Fractal Noise effect controls, take the Scale value down to 3.0 as well.
Options area
in the Fractal
Noise effect
controls, and
animate the
Random Seed
value. Every
time the
Random Seed
value changes,
it gives you
a completely
different
image, which
creates more
believable noise.
To animate the
Noise effect,
simply animate
the Amount
of Noise value
over time (e.g.
from 80% to
90%). Like
Random Seed,
any adjustment
in this property
4 At this point, you could also add a video layer. I’ve brought in a clip from
uberstock.com into the TV Noise DONE comp. I’m going to put the video
clip directly on top of the Noise layer in the layer stack in the Timeline panel.
will create an
entirely new
I’m going to put the video in the Soft Light blend mode, and reduce its Opacity noise pattern.
value to about 50%. It still looks a little too clean and crisp to me. I’m not buying
that this is a noisy image. So I’m going to apply the Fast Blur effect, and take its
Blurriness value to about 40.
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Ornate Vintage Patterns
1 Open the Ornate Vintage.aep project from the Chapter

10 folder of the exercise files. In this project, open the
Ornate Vintage START composition. I’ve already created a
blank background for you. This layer is just a simple solid
with a radial Gradient Overlay layer style applied to it.
O NE DAY, WHILE PREPARING SOME VIDEO

TRAINING TUTORIALS, I just happened
to play around with some of the Cycore effects
that ship with After Effects (the Cycore effects
are the ones with the “CC” prefix). One of
the Cycore effects that I played with was CC
Kaleida, which can be used to instantly create
extremely rich and ornate patterns. What’s
even better is that with a slight tweaking of a
single parameter, that ornate pattern can look
completely different. When you’re looking for a 4 Before we go any further, let’s make this look a lot
better by changing the blend mode of the new solid
layer we’ve created from Normal to Overlay. This will
great Victorian or steampunk texture, or even if remove the gray base and create transparency there so that
the green gradient shows through underneath.
you’re just looking for a little more complexity
in a background, this is a great effect to be
aware of.
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2 Create a new solid layer the same size as the comp

and make sure it is on top of the Background layer
in the layer stack in the Timeline panel. To this solid layer,
3 Right away, we have a beautiful texture, but we can
make this better. In the CC Kaleida effect controls,
reduce the Size value to about 7, or whatever looks good
apply Fractal Noise. The reason why we’re doing this before to you.
applying the CC Kaleida effect is because CC Kaleida needs
something to turn into a pattern. And certainly, there is
not a better pattern generator than Fractal Noise. After
applying Fractal Noise to this new solid layer, then apply
the CC Kaleida effect.
5 If the texture is too intense for you at this point, you can reduce the contrast in the Fractal Noise
controls. Remember that the pattern that we’re seeing here is being generated by Fractal Noise and
distorted by CC Kaleida. So any changes you make to the Fractal Noise effect will noticeably affect the
appearance of the final image. Here, I left the CC Kaleida settings exactly the same, and just increased the
Fractal Noise Contrast value to 200 and changed the Fractal Type to Threads. And look at how different
the pattern became! This effect really is infinite in its possibilities!
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Cells Through a Microscope
B EING ABLE TO CREATE CELLS in a

petri dish, or as if looking through a
microscope, or as a solid background is one of
1 Open the Cells.aep project in the Chapter 10 folder of the Exercise Files folder,
and go to the Cells START comp. I’ve set this up a little bit for you here. I’ve
created a gray ring indicating the microscope, and I’ve also created an adjustment
layer with the bulge effect applied so that the center of what we’re seeing in the
“microscope” looks distorted as when you look through a cheap microscope with
those things that you may not use all the time, lens distortion.
but it does come up on occasion. After Effects
has a built in effect called Cell Pattern that does
the bulk of the work for you.
Not only does this effect look pretty good
in these screen shots, but it animates in an
extremely organic way. Further, if you’re
familiar with Fractal Noise, Cell Pattern will
be a piece of cake. One of the most powerful
features of Fractal Noise is that it allows you to
play with multiple layers of noise. Cell Pattern
has only one, so it’s much easier to master.
3 In the Cell Pattern effect controls, increase Contrast to about 300, increase
Disperse to its maximum value (1.50), and take Size to about 20 or so.
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2 Select the Cells layer and apply the Cell Pattern effect. Like Fractal Noise,
Cell Pattern is a grayscale pattern generator. As you can see the default
settings of Cell Pattern already look fairly cell-like. For the first adjustment,
simply click the Invert checkbox to invert this pattern. It creates a really cool
X-ray type of look.
4 Now we need to colorize this. Apply the Colorama effect. In the Colorama
effect controls, open up the Output Cycle area. In the Use Preset Palette
drop down, choose the Moldy preset, which seems quite appropriate.
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Retro Video Game Maze
1 For this cheat, we’re going to just start from scratch.

Create a new composition that is 800 x 800. Create a
new solid to match that size, and apply the Cell Pattern
effect to it. Change the Cell Pattern value in the Effect
Controls panel from Bubbles to Tubular.
W ITH A SMALL AMOUNT OF FIDDLING,

you can take the cells of the Cell
Pattern effect and turn them into all kinds of
things that make great backgrounds. In this
cheat, we’re going to turn the Cell Pattern
cells into the walls of a maze, like the kind you
might find in an 8 bit video game with a certain
yellow chomper and some ghosts.
4 Finally, we need to colorize this. Apply the Tritone

effect. For the Highlights color value, I used a light
blue color. For the Midtones value, I used a medium blue,
and I left the Shadows black.
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2 This looks too blobby. Increase the Contrast value to

about 1000. 3 Make these tubes more orderly by reducing the
Disperse value. This is a tough one. I used a value of
0.08, but there’s wiggle room here depending on what you
HOT TIP
Although I
want. If you take the value lower, you’ll start getting less didn’t mess
“walls” and more dots. If you take the value higher, you’re with the Size
going to start to notice warping as the tubes begin to property,
disperse. feel free to
explore the
difference that
this parameter
makes to
your maze.
Essentially, it
is like a zoom
control in this
instance.
5 If you wanted to give it more of a video game look,

you could apply the Glow effect. Here, I used a Glow
Threshold of 60%, a Glow Radius of 25, and a Glow
Intensity of 1.5.
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Quick Variations
M ANY TIMES, WHEN I’M CREATING

BACKGROUNDS for something, I’m not
exactly sure what I’m looking for. I’m just kind
1 Open the Brainstorm.aep project from the Chapter 10 folder of the exercise
files. Open Comp 1. In this comp, I’ve created a solid layer and I’ve applied
Turbulent Noise (which is almost identical to Fractal Noise) and the Tritone effect
at their default settings.
of experimenting until I find something that I
like. But there are so many options! Going back
and forth between different choices in texture
and color takes so long, and it also really
interrupts the creative process.
To remedy this, the After Effects developers
came up with something that I think is
incredibly brilliant and useful to all users of the
program. It is called Brainstorm. It allows you to
select a single property, or multiple properties,
or an entire effect, or even multiple effects,
and just randomize the values to show you a
multitude of different options at a glance. This
works with shape layers, effects, animation, and
all over After Effects in places where it’s easy to
get stuck because of all the options available to
you. Later in this chapter, I’ll show you how to
use Brainstorm in conjunction with Animation
3 Initially, Brainstorm usually isn’t all that impressive. That’s because the
default value for the Randomness parameter in Brainstorm is a very
conservative 25%. This means that Brainstorm can only have about 25% wiggle
room. Let’s go crazy. Give her all she’s got, captain. Take Randomness all the way
Presets to quickly create an entire library of up to 100%. Then press the big button that says Brainstorm on it to get 9 more
your own custom backgrounds. variations of these two effects.
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2 In the Effect Controls panel, click on the Turbulent Noise effect and, while
holding the S key, click on the Tritone effect. This selects both effects,
and allows Brainstorm to randomize all properties of both. Making sure both
effects are selected, press the Brainstorm button in the Timeline panel (the
button looks like a little light bulb in a thought bubble).
4 Each time you press the Brainstorm button, After Effects will give you 9
more variations. It also saves each variation temporarily. Like a web browser,
you can press the left facing arrow on the left side of the Brainstorm button to
go back to previous brainstorms, or the right arrow to go to the next ones you’ve
made. Keep clicking the Brainstorm button until you find a pattern you like. I
kinda like the rusty red texture at the top. I’m going to hover my mouse over
that square. Four buttons will appear. The leftmost button shows a dot with four SHORTCUTS
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Quick Variations (continued)
5 Like the person across the crowded room at the party, on closer inspection this tile isn’t as
attractive as I thought it was. But I’m getting closer. I’m going to put my cursor over the tile to
get the four Brainstorm buttons again. Now the leftmost button will restore the tile size. Now what I’m
going to do is put my cursor over that same tile again, but this time, I’m going to choose the rightmost
option, which looks like the Brainstorm icon. Click that button to tell After Effects that it’s on the
right track. This tile will be included in the next brainstorm, and After Effects will also try to make the
other tiles match this one more closely. So, before hitting the Brainstorm button again, take down the
Randomness value to about 50%.
7 If you create animation with the objects that you’re mixing up in Brainstorm (say, in this
situation, with the Evolution property) before entering Brainstorm, you can preview your existing
animation with the brainstormed tiles by pressing the play icon in Brainstorm! They thought of
everything!
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HOT TIP
6 Now that After Effects is in the ballpark, it didn’t take many more Brainstorms before I found the
pattern that I liked. So I’m going to use the bottom center image from the previous figure. Hovering
my cursor over this tile, I’m going to choose the checkmark with the composition icon on it. This will
In order to use
Brainstorm,
you’ll need
apply these settings to the effects in my project. It’s just that easy! to select
properties,
effects,
keyframes,
or groups
containing them
(such as the
Transform group
in a layer’s
properties in
the Timeline
panel). Note
that selecting
an entire layer
will not work.
8 Now I’m back in my comp, and I can see the pattern Brainstorm helped me to create. Never
before has there been a way in After Effects to preview so many options so quickly and with such
little effort. This is just an ingenious feature. I should also point out that it’s a great way to learn the
application as well. As Brainstorm creates textures, you can apply them, and then look at the settings to
see how you can create a similar effect on your own.
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Animation Presets
T HIS CHEAT IS GOING TO BE MORE LIKE

VEGETABLES for many of you. But just
like many veggies, if you try it, you’ll like it, and
they’re good for you! Most After Effects users
want to just get in the program and go fast. We
don’t want to worry about things like making
complex expressions, naming layers, or using
animation presets. But all of these things are
used by the pros because they save time in the
long run. 1 First, let’s apply an existing animation preset. Make a new comp using the
NTSC DV preset, and make a solid of the same size. MAKE SURE that your
current time indicator is at the beginning of your timeline. This is very important.
Animation presets allow you to save the
The animation stored in animation presets will be applied wherever the current
settings of an effect, or even multiple effects, time indicator is. If your current time is 5 seconds when you apply the animation
preset, then there won’t be animation for the first 5 seconds. With the solid
and this includes not only keyframes, but
layer selected in the Timeline panel, go to the Animation menu at the top of
expressions as well! Imagine if you had a the interface. Choose Animation>Apply Animation Preset. Navigate to Exercise
Files>Media>Animation Presets. Choose the EXPLOSION OF FURY!.ffx preset.
massive library of backgrounds and animations
that you had created, that you could apply at
the touch of a button. Imagine how you could
charge clients a fortune for a tiny amount of
work because of the library of presets you’ve
created. It’s all possible with animation presets.
In this cheat we will apply one and create
one. Later in this chapter, I’ll show you how to
use Brainstorm to create an arsenal of preset
backgrounds that you can use whenever you
want.
I’ve also included a folder of animation
presets in the Exercise Files folder for you
to play around with. Though you may not
redistribute or sell them, feel free to use them
in your projects however you’d like. 3 Now let’s create an animation preset from scratch. Choose File>Open and
navigate to the Maze.aep project in the Chapter 10 folder that we created
earlier in this chapter. In the Maze DONE comp, select the Black Solid 1 layer,
and notice the effects we’ve applied to this: Cell Pattern, Tritone, and Glow. With
the Effect Controls panel selected (you can tell if it’s selected if it has an orange
highlight around it), press CaLa to select all of the effects.
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2 With that last step, you’ve instantly created a churning aerial explosion,
created by Fractal Noise and Colorama. It also uses expressions. You’ve
created it instantly without any effort. Here are the parameters changed from
their default values. It would take a while to input all of this information, even
if you knew exactly what you were doing, even longer if you were just fiddling
around. Think of all the time saved by animation presets!
HOT TIP
After Effects
might warn
you about this,
but if you save
your animation
preset in the
Presets folder
inside of the
After Effects
application
folder, then
your preset will
show up in the
Effects and
Presets panel
when doing
searches. If you
save your preset
outside of this
folder, you’ll
have to navigate
to it manually
when you want
4 With all of these effects selected, create a new animation preset by clicking
the Create New Animation Preset button at the bottom of the Effects and
Presets panel (not the Effect Controls panel). Alternatively, you could also choose
to use it.
Save Animation Preset from the Animation menu at the top of the interface.
Navigate to a place on your hard drive to save the new FFX file, and you’ve
created an animation preset that you can use again in an instant! I recommend SHORTCUTS
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Presets and Adobe Bridge
L IKE ANIMATION PRESETS, THE USE OF

ADOBE BRIDGE is one of those things
that many people avoid, but can really come
1 We’re going to launch Bridge from After Effects, so please close it if you’ve
launched it from another application. Bridge intelligently remembers which
application it was launched from. If you double click an image in Bridge, it will
open in Photoshop if you opened Bridge from Photoshop, but will import into After
Effects if you launched Bridge from After Effects. You can launch Bridge from After
in handy. Adobe Bridge is a file browsing Effects by going to File>Browse in Bridge. But there’s a better way. In the flyout
menu of the Effects and Presets panel, choose Browse Presets.
application that comes with After Effects for
free. It really is a tremendous file browser,
allowing you to preview most movie and audio
files, and file types that you typically can’t
browse in large batches including Photoshop
(PSD) and Illustrator (AI) files. For After Effects
users (especially motion graphics designers),
that feature alone is worth using Bridge.
However, it gets even better than that. You
can also import files into After Effects straight
from Adobe Bridge. This applies to animation
presets as well. Presets that ship with After
Effects (including the very valuable text presets)
have a visual representation, but all presets can
be applied from Bridge.
3 Double click the Backgrounds folder to open it and browse all of the cool
background presets that After Effects ships with.
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To increase or
decrease the
size of the icons
in Bridge, use
the slider at the
bottom of the
interface.
2 Opening Bridge by using this command will take you straight to the Presets
folder in the After Effects application folder.
4 Go back to After Effects and create a new comp using the NTSC DV preset
and a new solid of the same size. Make sure that the layer (not the comp)
is selected in the Timeline panel. Then go back to Bridge, and double click the
Racing Rectangles.ffx preset. It will instantly apply the animation preset to your
solid in After Effects! Bridge is a very efficient way to browse large amounts of
assets and presets, and bring them into your projects as well.
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Library of Custom Textures
1 Open the Custom Library.aep project from the Chapter 10 folder of the exercise
E ARLIER IN THIS CHAPTER, we learned how

to use Brainstorm and create animation
presets. In this quick cheat, we’re going to
files. Comp 1 contains a simple solid with the Turbulent Noise, Tritone, and
CC Ball Action effects applied to it. As we’ll soon see, the CC Ball Action effect is
capable of yielding some really cool results.
look at another feature of Brainstorm that you

can use to create your own library of custom
background textures. This trick will also work
for creating animation presets of any type.
3 This is a tremendously easy way to create an entire repository of cool

effects. After you’ve closed Brainstorm, you can go back to your Project
panel, and open up your new collection of comps. Open them up and save those
new creations as your own animation presets.
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Select the Effect Controls panel and press CaLa to select all of
2 the effects applied to this layer. Then press the Brainstorm button in the
Timeline panel to open up Brainstorm. Increase the Randomness value to taste
and click the Brainstorm button until you find a variation that you like. Hover
your cursor over the desired tile to see the pop up of the four buttons we saw
earlier in this chapter. The checkmark button that we used previously applies the
current brainstorm to your currently selected layer. But if you select the Save
as Composition button, After Effects will perform the extremely kind gesture of
creating a new composition for you in your Project panel with a new solid with
the same settings and effects as your current setup.
4 In just a few minutes, you’ll have a huge library of your own that you can
draw from in a future pinch.
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MAC WIN BOTH
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I N T E R L U D E
Generic Background
Texture Recipe:
Generate, Distort, Stylize
AS A FINAL TIP IN THIS CHAPTER, I WANTED TO SHARE WITH YOU A
RECIPE that has gotten me out of a few creative jams. The formula is to take
any of the effects in the Generate category (which typically make stuff from
scratch), tweak it with one of the effects in the Distort category, and then polish
it up with one of the effects in the Stylize category. It sounds crazy, but it really
works.
To demonstrate this, I’m going to pick a random effect from each category
and hope for the best. From the Generate category, I picked 4-Color Gradient,
which basically makes a gradient with four colors. So, I’m not off to the best
start. I’m going to leave the settings at their defaults and then apply a Distort
effect. Wave Warp was the effect selected from this category. I decided to adjust
this one a bit. I’m going to take the Wave Type to Square and reduce the Wave
Height value to about –190. Then, I’ll apply the Stylize effect – Motion Tile.
After reducing the Tile Height value to about 25, this is what I came up with.
While it isn’t the greatest texture I’ve ever seen, it’s not too shabby considering
it was totally random. I can even imagine using this background in a retro
motion graphics piece.
While it might not work in every instance, I recommend giving this recipe a
shot if you’re ever in a creative pinch for a texture.
334
335
How to Cheat in Photoshop CS4
HOW TO
cheat IN
After Effects
Chad Perkins
AMSTERDAM • BOSTON • HEIDELBERG • LONDON • NEW YORK • OXFORD

PARIS • SAN DIEGO • SAN FRANCISCO • SINGAPORE • SYDNEY • TOKYO
Focal Press is an imprint of Elsevier
Focal Press is an imprint of Elsevier
The Boulevard, Langford Lane, Kidlington, Oxford, OX5 1GB, UK
30 Corporate Drive, Suite 400, Burlington, MA 01803, USA
First published 2011
Copyright © 2011. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved
No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including
photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Details
on how to seek permission, further information about the Publisher’s permissions policies and our arrangement with organizations
such as the Copyright Clearance Center and the Copyright Licensing Agency, can be found at our website: www.elsevier.com/
permissions
This book and the individual contributions contained in it are protected under copyright by the Publisher (other than as may be
noted herein).
Notices
Knowledge and best practice in this field are constantly changing. As new research and experience broaden our understanding,
changes in research methods, professional practices, or medical treatment may become necessary.
Practitioners and researchers must always rely on their own experience and knowledge in evaluating and using any information,
methods, compounds, or experiments described herein. In using such information or methods they should be mindful of their own
safety and the safety of others, including parties for whom they have a professional responsibility.
To the fullest extent of the law, neither the Publisher nor the authors, contributors, or editors, assume any liability for any injury
and/or damage to persons or property as a matter of products liability, negligence or otherwise, or from any use or operation of any
methods, products, instructions, or ideas contained in the material herein.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Control Number: 2010932688
ISBN: 978-0-240-52202-9
For information on all Focal Press publications visit our website at www.focalpress.com
Book cover art and concept by Chad Perkins. Photography by Zombie Crush Photography. Models: Pink Tattillac, Hot Rod Heidi,
Holly Rose, and Jordan Daryn Knightley.
Printed and bound in the United States
10 11 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
The cheat format
The cheat format

This whole “cheat” thing was created by Steve Caplin for the epic book, How
to Cheat in Photoshop, which I think is in its zillionth edition (give or take).
So, I’m proudly and unashamedly ripping off of Steve’s brilliance in creating
what I consider to be the ultimate software training book format.
Instead of going through and describing stuff as most computer software
books do (including my previous book, The After Effects Illusionist), this book
tackles one trick (aka “cheat”) at a time in a very visual way. There are a few
steps to follow, and pictures guiding you the whole way. It’s a very visual
process, and in my opinion, it’s a fun way to make a computer book.
Because this book is more focused on little mini recipes of sorts (usually
2 pages, and rarely up to 4 pages), we’re going to be focusing more on what to
do than how to do it. Against every tendency in my body, I’m just going to be
barking out orders (such as “set this property to this value”, etc.) without much
explanation. Although, I admit that I do fight convention and try to explain
things as much as possible. But that’s not really the point of this book.
I mentioned the recipe metaphor, and that’s precisely what this book is
like. On a cooking show, the veggies are all pre-cut, the spices are already
measured out and in their own separate bowls, and the chef/host doesn’t
always explain why they are baking at a certain temperature or what the
heck cardamom is doing in the dish. They just make the dish in a very visual
way, so that it is clear how to create the final product. This book is like that
cooking show, but for wicked cool After Effects tricks instead of food.
Now, where possible, I’ve tried to just stuff this book full of extra tidbits
of information. In the right column of most of the right hand pages, I’ve
included extra bonus tips with optional methods to achieve a result, additional
insight or information on related concepts, or ways that you could expand the
current cheat and make it even better.
At the end of most chapters, you’ll also find a little break from the hot,
non-stop cheat action of the rest of the book. We call this break an “interlude”.
And the interludes are filled with tons of extra information to help you get
more out of the After Effects experience. These interludes cover topics from
how to shoot better green screen video so that it’s easier to key, to the story
behind HDR (High Dynamic Range) color and bit depth, and much, much more.
vi
As far as difficulty goes, the book is pretty simple and easy to follow, but
it’s meant for people with a little bit of After Effects knowledge already. There
just isn’t time enough to explain basics like how to apply an effect, or what a
solid layer is, or how to create a new composition, or the difference between
importing and opening, and so on. These are basics that After Effects users in all
disciplines should be familiar with. But I realize that if you’ve spent your time
as a compositor and now want to perfect the craft of animation, there may be
some new terms there. So, I try to explain core concepts where possible. Don’t
let your pride be offended. This is still an intermediate book. But not everyone
is intermediate in everything. Still, I won’t be able to explain all concepts from
scratch as much you’d like, or might need. To that end, I’ve created an interlude
at the end of Chapter 1 to help you find your own solutions if I refer a feature
that you’re unfamiliar with and would like to learn more about.
Because users are often slow to upgrade, I should also point out that this
book was made with After Effects CS5. You’re welcome to use the book with
any version of After Effects, but know that After Effects will not open up future
projects. So if you’re using CS4, you won’t be able to open the projects from
the book. You’ll still be able to import the assets (e.g. video, audio, images, etc.),
just not the projects. This is the way Adobe made their software, and there’s not
much I can do about it. But for those of you that do have CS5, you’ll be happy
to know that many CS5 features are covered in cheats here, including Roto
Brush, Mocha Shape, applying color look up tables, and Freeform AE.
The moral of the story is that this cheat format is ridiculously fun. You
can jump around where you’d like to, and only in a few instances are cheats
predicated upon knowledge from previous cheats (and those instances are clearly
noted in the text). For the most part, these are little bite-sized tidbits of sweet
tips and tricks that will enhance your workflow, get you out of sticky situations,
and spark your creativity. You’re gonna love this.
vii
Acknowledggments
This book is dedicated to Heather, Mikey, Natty, and Lizzie, who have been so
infinitely patient as I’ve been laboring away at this book. I love you all so much.
I’m also really grateful to the following peeps:

Dennis and the entire crew at Focal Press. The experience of writing with Focal
Press has been incredible. I feel like I’ve missed every deadline, and they’re always
very professional when telling me how much I suck. I’ve written books with other
publishers, but Focal is my favorite. They also make most of the filmmaking books
I like to read as well. Way to go, team.
Steve Caplin. He has been an incredible resource. I’m not sure that a more helpful
person exists on this planet. This book would have looked worse than the local
high school newspaper had he not coached me through the page layout process for
this template. He’s also created a brilliant system with this book.
B-dub and the seminary kids. You guys had to deal with a lot of instability from
me because of this process, and I’m so sorry for that. But we still had an amazing
year, right?
The models on the front cover. The cover was a last minute thing, and a few
friends/models showed up at the last second, did what they were supposed to, when
they were supposed to, and looked freaking awesome doing it. And thus this book
has a unique and visually interesting cover. And having beautiful people on the
front cover creates the illusion that I’m beautiful, too (well, in the minds of those
that have never seen me in real life).
I’ve been able to use some incredible art from some great artists and content
providers. Thanks to Daniel Johnson for the incredible matte paintings. Thanks
to Dan Grady for dropping everything and creating some sweet vector art for me.
Thanks to uberstock for providing great high quality stock video to my (picky)
specifications.
Aharon Rabinowitz and Red Giant Software. I desperately wanted to show off some
of your amazing products in this book, and you guys were so willing to participate.
I’m in awe of the plugins you put out there, and the whole After Effects world is
benefited by them as well.
viii
How to use this book

As mentioned, feel free to jump around as you please. You certainly don’t need
to go in order.
As you do go through this book, be aware that the project that
accompanies each cheat can be found in the corresponding folder of the
current chapter in the Exercise Files folder on the book’s DVD. Because that
was the most confusing sentence in the book, here’s an example - if you’re
learning about how to make molten gold in Chapter 8, then you’ll find the
accompanying project (surprisingly called Molten Gold.aep) in the Chapter 08
folder in the Exercise Files folder on the DVD. In most cases, you don’t really
need to use the project file or even follow along to get the most out of this
book. I think the screenshots are sufficient enough to see what’s going on. So
feel free to take this book with you on the subway, or some other public place
where potential book buyers are found. That was a joke. There will be many of
those. Fortunately, they will get better as we go along (in most cases).
For this book, I’ve used a Mac, but that really doesn’t matter. Adobe
made After Effects look almost exactly the same on both platforms. When
keyboard shortcuts are used, I have provided both the Mac version (color
coded red) and the Windows version (color coded blue). Shortcuts that are the
same on both platforms (such as Shift or a letter on your keyboard) are shown
in black.
This book has also been tremendously blessed by a very generous
and helpful supply of high quality stock video provided to us by uberstock.
com. Because they’ve provided so many clips for us to use, they have been
watermarked, and their quality and resolution is a little different than what is
seen in the screenshots. But I’ve adjusted the projects so that the difference is
as minimal as possible.
1
Ind
ndex
3D: Renders, 286-7 Luma Key, 88-9

applications, 58, 80-1, 110 Text, 62-3 Luma Matte, 196-7
cameras, 42-3, 81 Animating Magic Bullet Looks, 290-1
CC (Cycore) effect, 72 the Blob, 146-7 Mask Options, 188-9
distortion, 68 Masks, 200-1 Master Solid, 18-19
Environment application, 81 Basic Shadows, 24 Matching Color, 112-13
fireworks, 232-3 Basic Snow, 220-1 Molten Gold, 1, 224-5
light, 46 Before After, 266-7 Motion Paths, 202-3
light streaks, 248-9 Blending Away Multi Camera Render, 40-1
motion blur, 110 Dark, 96-7 Multiple Mattes, 92-3
nested compositions, 78-9 Light, 98-9 Negative Light, 30-1
The Parallax effect, 50-1 Blooming Flower, 10-11 Orient to Camera, 44-5
Photoshop, 55, 56-7, 76-7 Bouncing Ball, 140-1 Ornate Vintage, 318-19
planetscape, 73-5 Brainstorm, 324-5 The Parallax Effect, 50
postcards, 64-5 Cells, 320-1 Parenting, 142-3, 147
renders, 286-7 Chad Show Bumper Final, 78 Particle Deflection, 232-3
Repoussé feature, 52-5 Checking Dark Areas, 288-9 Puppet
shadows, 126-7 Cinematic Overlap, 136-7
shatter scenes, 58-61, 61 - Flashback, 260-1 Tool, 134-5
space, 71, 79, 127 - Horror, 258-9 Rack Focus, 36-7
text, 8, 62-3 - Warmth, 256-7 Reference Monitor, 264-5
Trapcode Stroke, 204-5 Color Finesse, 280-1 Refine Matte, 90-1
3D objects: Looks, 282-3 Resizing Animation, 154-5
applications, 80-1 Color LUTs, 280-1 Restoring Opacity, 124-5
distortion, 68-71 Colorizing, 268-9 Searchlights, 174-5
echospace, 76-7 Compositing Shatter Scenes, 58-61
introduction, 49 Animation, 106-7 Sheen, 176-7
nested compositions, 78-9 Color, 104-5 Silhouettes, 166
The Parallax effect, 50-1 Textures, 100-1 Smoke Trail, 212-13
Photoshop, 56-7 Compression of videos, 131 Spot CC, 278-9
planetscape, 72-5 Controlling Shadows, 28-9 Stained Glass, 27
postcards, 64-5 Custom Library, 332-3 Star Field, 239
Repoussé feature, 52-5 Custom Particles, 216-17 Steam, 230-1
shatter scenes, 58-61 Damaged Film, 16-17 Stylizing, 272
solids, 66-7 Day for Night, 262-3 Text Messaged Animation, 156-7
text, 62-3 Depth of Field, 35 Tilt Shift, 12-13
3DS Max application, 58, 80 Distortion, 68-71 Trapcode
4-Color Gradient effect, 170-1, film Noir Lighting, 32-3 3D Stroke, 204-5
334-5 Fireball, 4-5 Shine, 182-3
Flowing Chocolate, 244-5 TV Noise, 316-17
A Focus, 108-9
Growing Vines, 6-7
Vegas, 194-5
Vignette, 190-1
Active Camera view, 108 HDR, 162-3 Water Surface Disruption, 242-3
Add Grain effect, 283 Histograms, 254-5 Waving Sail, 144-5
Adobe Bridge, 330-1 Hue Shift, 270-1 Windblown Snow, 222-3
After Effects projects (.aep): Intro to Compositing, 94-5 Alpha channels:
3D Keying, 86-7 CG subway, 95
Camera Path, 42-3 Laser Beams, 180-1 failure, 125
Distortion, 68-71 Lens Distortion, 39 Glow effect, 179
Fireworks, 232-3 Light glow light effect, 178-9
Light Streaks, 248-9 Ribbons, 226-7, 228-9 mask options, 188
Planet, 72-5 Whips, 168 opacity, 124-5
336
premultiplied, 114-15 Basic snow effect, 220-1 Light Rays, 183

Track Matte, 199 Basic water, 312-13 Light Sweep, 177
video to shape layer, 193 Bernie Mac Show, 310 Lights option, 29
Amazon (company), 156 Better water, 314-15 Mr Mercury, 224-5
Animation: Bit depth, 184 Particle Systems II
blob, 146-7 Bit Point Float Color, 162 3D Fireworks, 232-3
bouncing ball, 140-1 Black and White effect, 268 Ink spatter, 14-15
compositing, 106-7 Blend modes: Particles, 208-9
displacement mapping, 152-3 align layers, 102-3 Smoke Trail, 212-13
introduction, 131 multiple, 105 Sparkles, 210-11
masks, 200-1 Blob animation, 146-7 Particle World, 232-3
parenting, 142-3 Blooming flower, 10-11 Radial Fast Blur, 239
photos, 148-9, 150-1 Blur: rain, 218-19, 220
Photoshop, 148 compositing, 110 snow, 221, 222
puppets depth of field, 108 Sphere, 72-3
duck, 138-9 motion, 110-11 Spotlight, 33
overlap, 136-7 Bouncing ball animation, 140-1 Star Burst, 73, 238-41
pin tool, 134-5 Brainstorm effect: Cell Pattern effect:
resizing, 154-5 description, 324-7 animation presets, 328
text messaged, 156-7 library of custom textures, 332-3 cells through a microscope, 320-
Walt Disney, 158-9 Brush Time properties, 7 1, 322
waving sail, 144-5 Bubbles: stage lights, 170-1
Aperture adjustment, 35 foam, 214-15, 216 Cells through a microscope, 320-1
Applications (3D): windblown snow, 222 Chocolate (flowing), 244-5
3DS Max, 58, 80 Bugs Bunny cartoon, 158 Christiansen, Mark, 112
Cinema 4D, 58, 80-1, 110, 176 Burn Film effect, 17 Cinema 4D application, 58, 80-1,
Environment, 81 Bywater, Kymnbel, 95 110, 176
Maya, 58, 80-1 Cinematic color:
objects, 80-1
C flashback, 260-1
horror, 258-9
B Cameras:
3D, 42-3, 81
warmth, 256-7
Citizen Kane film, 34
Backgrounds and textures: Canon 7D, 293 Clone Stamp tool, 149
animation presets, 328-9 DV, 131 CMYK ink system, 278
bars, 310-11 Focus Distance, 109 Color:
basic water, 312-13 hand held, 107 channels, 113
better water, 314-15 HD, 131 compositing, 104-5
candle flame, 300-1 multiple angles, 40-1 HDR, 184-5
cells through a microscope, 320-1 orient to, 44-5 introduction, 252-3
creative playing, 302-5 Candle flame, 300-1 matching, 112-13
curtains, 308-9 Canon 7D camera, 293 “superwhite”, 185
fire, 296-9 Captain Morgan, 182 Color Balance effect:
generic recipe, 334-5 Card Wipe effect, 64-5 3D renders, 286
hot grill, 306-7 Cartoon effect, 272 cinematic color
introduction, 294-5 Cast Shadows feature, 24-5 horror, 258
library of textures, 332-3 Caustics effect, 242-3 warmth, 256-7
ornate vintage patterns, 318-19 CC (Cycore) effects: color composition, 105
Presets and Adobe Bridge, 330-1 3D, 72 colorizing, 269
quick variations, 324-5 bubbles, 215 day for night, 263
retro video game maze, 322-3 Burn Film, 17 secondary color correction, 277
TV noise, 316-17 Cylinder, 69 Color correction:
Bars, 310-11 Kaleida, 318-19 3D renders, 286-7
337
Ind
ndex
before and after, 266-7 130-1 Difference blend mode, 102-3

cinematic color guide layers, 128-9 Digital Juice, 250
flashback, 260-1 introduction, 83, 94-5 Disney, Walt, 158-9
horror, 258-9 light blending away, 98-9 Displacement mapping, 152-3
warmth, 256-7 luma key, 88-9, 90 Distortion (3D), 68-71
Color Finesse, 253, 280-1 manual shadow, 126-7
Color Lookup Tables, 284-5
colorizing, 268-9
mattes
multiple, 92-3
E
dark areas, 288-9 refinement, 90-1 Edge Detection 17, 200
day for night, 262-3 Mocha shapes, 120-1 Easing in after effects, 159
faking dimension, 274-5 motion blur, 110-11 Echospace (3D), 76-7
histograms, 254-5 opacity restoration, 124-5 Ellipse tool, 191, 302
hue shift, 270-1 premultiplied alpha channels, Energon cubes, 172
introduction, 253 114-15 Energy cube, 172-3
Magic Bullet Looks, 253, 290-1 restoring opacity, 124-5 Evolution parameter, 306-7, 317
primary, 276 Roto Brush, 122-3
reference monitor, 264-5
secondary, 276-7
textures, 100-1
tracking with Mocha, 116-19
F
spot, 278-9 Compositions (3D nested), 78-9 Faking dimension, 274-5
stylizing, 272-3 Compression of videos, 131 Fast Blur effect:
Color Finesse: Confetti effect, 240-1 3D planetscape, 75
basics, 280-1 Controlling shadows, 28-9 basic snow, 221
effect, 285 Creative playing, 302-5 blending away light, 99
histograms, 254 Cruise, Tom, 296 CC (Cycore) Radial, 239
introduction, 253 Curtains, 308-9 HDR, 163
“Looks”, 282-3, 290 Curves effect: rain, 219
Color Lookup Tables (LUT), 284-5 cinematic color, flashback, 260-1 searchlights, 174
Colorama effect: damaged film, 17 star field, 239
Animation presets, 329 day for night, 262 TV noise, 317
basic water, 312-13 Custom particles, 215-16 windblown snow, 223
Brian Maffitt, 4 Cylinder effect, 69 Faulkner, Jef, 84, 288
candle flame, 300-1 Fill effect, 167
cells through a microscope, 321
colorizing, 269
D Film noir lighting, 32-3, 66
Filmlike videos, 292-3
fire texture, 296 da Vinci, Leonardo, 159 Fire breathing dragon, 2, 4-5
fireball, 4 Daffy Duck cartoon, 158 Fire texture, 296-9
hot grill, 306 Damaged film, 16-17 Flowing chocolates, 244-5
Star Burst, 241 Dark areas, 288-9 Foam effect:
Colorizing and color correction, 268- Dark blending away, 96-7 bubbles, 214-15
9, 270 Day for night effect, 262-3 custom particles, 216-17
Compositing: Deflection of particles, 236-7 windblown snow, 223
animation, 106-7 Depth of field: Focus, 108-9
blending away blur, 108 Focus Distance (cameras), 109
dark, 96-7 creation, 34-5 Fractal Noise effect:
light, 98-9 focus, 109 3D planetscape, 72, 74
color, 104-5 “long” lens, 37 animation presets, 329
matching, 112-13 miniatures, 13 bars, 310
dark blending away, 96-7 Detonation Films: basic water, 312-13
focus, 108-9 Library, 98 better water, 314
garbage matte, 84-5 particle alternatives, 250-1 cells through a microscope, 320
green screen removal, 86-7, 94, stylizing, 272 curtains, 309
338
damaged film, 16 Help feature, 20-1 cinematic color - warmth, 257

fire, 296-9, 300 Heroes (TV show), 8 creative playing, 304
fireball, 5 High Dynamic Range see HDR curtains, 309
hot grill, 306-7 Histograms, 254-5 histograms, 254-5
light whips, 168-9 Hot grill effect, 306-7 secondary color correction, 277
Luma Matte, 197 How to Cheat in Photoshop, 148 stylizing, 273
ornate vintage patterns, 319 Hue/Saturation effect: Library of custom textures, 332-3
searchlights, 175 basic water, 313 Light effects:
steam, 231 better water, 315 blending away, 98-9
TV noise, 317 hue shift, 270-1 energy cube, 172-3
volumetric light, 165 secondary color correction, 276-7 glow, 178-9
FreeformAE effect, 70-1, 72, 75 high dynamic rays, 162-3
I introduction, 160-1
G I Hate Basketball (IHB), 84-5, 288

laser beams, 180-1
Rays, 183
Garbage matte, 84-5 Illustrator, AI files, 330 Ribbons, 226-7, 228-9
Glow effect: motion paths, 202-3 sabers, 180-1
3D renders, 287 Ink spatter, 14-15 searchlights, 174-5
Animation presets, 328 INSPIRE text, 168-9 sheen, 176-7
cinematic color - flashback, 261 Instant vignettes, 190-1 silhouettes, 166-7
creative playing, 304 Soft, 101, 304, 315
energy cube, 173
light, 178-9
J stage, 170-1
Sweep, 177
light ribbons, 228 Johnson, Daniel: Trapcode Shine, 182-3
Retro Video Game Maze, 322 motion blur, 110 volumetric light, 164-5
star field, 238 negative light, 30-1 whips, 168-9
Gradient overlay, 303-4 volumetric light, 164 Lighting:
Grady, Dan: Johnston, Ollie, 158 film noir, 32-3, 66
depth of field, 34 Jones, Chuck, 158 green screen, 130
faking dimension, 274-5 introduction, 22-3
multiple camera angles, 40
The Parallax effect, 50
K negative, 30-1
secrets, 46-7
parenting animation, 142 Kaleida effect, 318-19 Looks effect, 291
puppet overlap, 136 “Key” light, 46 Luma Key effect, 88-9, 90, 167
Graph Editor: Keying project, 86 Luma Matte, 196-7, 198
bouncing ball, 140-1 Keylight effect: LUT see Color Lookup Tables
easing, 159 compression, 131 Lux plugin (Trapcode), 165
resizing animation, 154-5 green screen removal, 87
Green screen:
removal, 86-7, 94
luma key, 88-9
multiple mattes, 92-3
M
shooting, 130-1 shadows, 46 Mac computer, 1
Grid effect, 306-7 McDonalds, 182
Growing vines, 6-7
Guide layers, 128-9
L Maffitt, Brian:
radio waves, 226
Laser beams, 180-1 shatter effect, 58
H Leave Color effect, 269

Lens Blur effect, 12
water surface disruption, 242
Magic Bullet Looks:
Hand held cameras, 107 Lens distortion, 38-9 color correction, 290-1
HDR (High Dynamic Range): Lens Flare effect, 97, 181 Color Finesse “Looks”, 282
color, 161, 184-5 Levels effect: introduction, 253
light effect, 162-3 3D renders, 287 Manual shadow, 126-7
339
Ind
ndex
Mask Feather option, 191, 300 Spot color correction, 279 animation and After Effects, 150
Masks: steam effect, 231 bird shape, 201
animation, 200-1 Orient to camera option, 44-5 energy cube, 172
instant vignettes, 190-1 Ornate vintage patterns, 318-19 histograms, 254
introduction, 186-7 PSD Files, 330
Luma Matte, 196-7
opacity, 188
P Puppet Warp feature, 134
Planetscape (3D), 72-5
options, 188-9, 191 Pan Behind tool, 175 Polar Coordinates effect, 30
Track Matte, 198-9 The Parallax effect (3D), 50-1 Postcards (3D), 64-5
The Vegas effect, 193-4 Parenting animation, 142-3, 147 Premultiplied alpha channels, 114-15
video to shape layer, 192-3 Particle Playground effect, 230-1 Presets and Adobe Bridge, 330-1
Master solid, 18-19 Particle Systems II effect: Previews in After Effects, 115
Matte: 3D fireworks, 232-3 Primary color correction, 276-7
Choker effect, 130 particles, 208-9 Primatte Keyer Pro software, 87
Luma effect, 196-7 smoke trail, 212-13 Psychedelic effects, 102
multiple, 92-3 sparkles, 210-11 Psychic waves effect, 234-5
refining, 90-1 Particle World effect, 232-3 Puppet:
Track, 198-9 Particles: animation, 138-9
Maya application, 58, 80-1 3D overlap, 136-7
Mocha: fireworks, 232-3 Overlap tool, 136-7
shapes, 120-1 light streaks, 248-9 Pin tool, 134-7, 139
tracking, 83, 116-19 alternatives, 250-1 Starch tool, 137
Molten gold effect, 224-5 confetti, 240-1 tool, 138-9, 150
Motion Blur: custom, 215-16
compositing, 110-11
hand held cameras, 107
deflection, 236-7
flowing chocolate, 244-5
Q
refining a matte, 90 foam effect, 214-15 Quick variations, 324-7
Roto Brush, 122 introduction, 207, 208-9
Motion paths and Illustrator, 202-3
Motion Tile effect, 334-5
light ribbons, 226-7
molten gold, 224-5
R
Mount Doom, Lord of the Rings, 86 psychic waves, 234-5 Rabinowitz, Aharon, 79
Mr Mercury effect, 224-5 rain (simple), 218-19 Rack focus effect, 23, 36-7
Multiple camera angles, 40-1 smoke trail, 212-13 Radial Blur effect, 179
Multiple mattes, 92-3 snow Radial Wipe effect, 10-11
Multiply blend mode, 105 basic, 220-1 Radio Waves effect, 226-9, 235
windblown, 222-3 Rain effect (simple), 218-19, 220
N sparkles, 210-11
star field, 238-9
Ramp effect, 275
Red Giant software:
Negative light, 30-1 steam, 230-1 Echospace, 76
Nested compositions (3D), 78-9 Trapcode Form: 4D fractal, 246-7, Primatte Keyer Pro, 87
Noise effect, 98, 316 248-9 Trapcode Form: 4D Fractal, 246
water surface disruption, 242-3 Redgiantsoftware.com, 246
O Particular effect, 248-9

Pen tool:
Reference monitors, 264-5
Refine Matte effect, 90-1, 130, 166
O’Brien, Conan, 86 candle flame, 300 Repoussé feature (3D), 52-5
Opacity: searchlights, 175 Resizing animation, 154-5
3D Light Streaks, 248 steam, 230 Retro Video Game Maze, 322-3
color compositing, 104 Photo animation, 148-9, 150-1 Roto Brush tool:
light ribbons, 229 Photoshop: compositing, 83, 122-3
masks, 188 3D, 56-7 Refine Matte effect, 90
psychic waves effect, 235 After Effects, 148 Spot color correction, 278-9
restoring, 124-5 animation, 148 video compression, 131
340
Roughen Edges settings, 5 “Superwhite” color, 185

U
S T uberstock.com videos:
compression, 131
Science Fiction Museum, Seattle, 46 Talking bird, 2, 8-9 histograms, 254-5
Searchlights, 174-5 Temporal alignment, 102-3 kid dancing, 192-3
Secondary color correction, 276-7 Text: matte refining, 90
Shadows: 3D, 8-9, 62-3 steam, 230-1
3D, 126-7 INSPIRE, 168-9 stock, 1
casting, 24-5 messaged animation, 156-7 Temporal Alignment, 102
controlling, 28-9 satirical, 167 Track Matte, 199
“key light”, 47 tracked, 8-9 TV noise, 317
keylight, 46 Textures, compositing 100-1 woman flirting at bar, 117
manual, 126-7 see also backgrounds and textures UFOs (unidentified flying objects):
stained glass, 26-7 The Young are the Restless, 46, 276, Mocha shapes, 120-1
Shapes: 278, 293 motion blur, 110
creative playing, 304 Thomas, Frank, 158 premultiplied Alpha Channels, 114
introduction, 187 Tilt shift, 12-13 smoke trail, 212-13
layers, 192-3 Tint effect:
Shatter scenes (3D), 58-61 before and after, 266-7
Sheen light effect, 176-7 colorizing, 268 V
Shine Effect, 182-3 curtains, 309 The Vegas effect, 169, 194-5
Silhouettes, 166-7 hue shift, 271 Venetian Blinds effect, 71
Smoke trail effect, 212-13 stylizing, 273 Vibrance effect:
Smudge tool, 172 volumetric light, 165 cinematic color - flashback, 261
Snow effect: Track Matte, 198-9 cinematic color - horror, 259
basic, 220-1 Tracked text, 8-9 day for night, 263
windblown, 222-3 Tracking with Mocha, 83, 116-19 Video Copilot, 250
Soft Light: Transform Data option, 119 Video to shape layer, 192-3
compositing textures, 101 Trapcode: Videos:
creative playing, 204 3D Stroke plugin, 195, 204-5 compression, 131
TV noise, 317 Echospace plugin, 76 filmlike, 292-3
water, 315 Form: 4D fractal effect, 246-7, Zen Chemists, 190-1, 254-5
Solids: 248-9 see also uberstock.com videos
3D, 66-7 Lux plugin, 165 Vignettes (instant), 190-1
master, 18-19 Shine light effect, 182-3 Vitruvian Man (da Vinci), 159
Sparkles effect, 210-11 Starglow effect, 238 Volumetric light, 164-5
Sphere effect, 72-3 Tritone effect:
Spilled Ink Animation, 95 animation presets, 328
Spot color correction, 278-9 bars, 310 W
Spotlight effect: colorizing, 269 Warner Brothers:
curtains, 309 hue shift, 271 cartoons, 158
film noir lighting, 33 Retro Video Game Maze, 322 museum, 46
Stage lights effect, 170-1 Turbulent Displace effect: Warp effect, 165, 169
Stained glass shadows, 26-7 blob animation, 146 Water:
Star Burst effect, 73, 238-41 steam, 231 basic, 312-13
Star field effect, 238-9 waving sail, 144-5 better, 314-15
Starglow effect (Trapcode), 238 Turbulent Noise effect, 325 Water Surface Disruption effect,
Steam effect, 230-1 TV noise, 316-17 242-3
Stylizing, 272-3 Wave Warp effect, 146-7, 334-5
Sunsets, 120-1 Wave World, 242-3
Superman (character), 86
341
Ind
ndex
Waving sail animation, 144-5

Whips (light effect), 168-9
Wide angle lens, 39
Wikipedia.org, 159
Windblown snow effect, 222-3
Wrap Pixels Around option, 235
Write-on-effect, 7
Y
You Yell You Kick (YYYK) image, 148-
53
Z
Z space, 39, 76, 79, 107, 143
Zen Chemists, 190-1, 254-5
Zombie Crush photography, 12, 148
342

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Cool Tricks Appetizer!

WE’VE GOT A LOT OF JUICY STUFF TO COVER IN THIS

This chapter will be a great warm-up for the rest of the

W HAT BETTER START TO A BOOK COULD

T HIS CHEAT IS A LITTLE MORE INVOLVED

E VERY EPISODE OF THE NOW-DEFUNCT

B ECAUSE OF THE STATIC NATURE OF

demonstrated. These include the transition

T ILT SHIFT IS A TRICK IN PHOTOGRAPHY

commercials these days, as entire cities appear

2 When miniatures are photographed, the depth of field is so shallow that

T HE GRUNGY LOOK OF INK SPATTER SEEMS

3 In the Producer area, take Radius X to 30 and Radius Y to 7. In the Physics

W E SPEND SO MUCH MONEY

quality of video cameras seems to be improving

The Master Solid

T HIS MIGHT NOT BE THE COOLEST TRICK to

Using the Help

In this chapter, we’re going to become virtual

Casting Basic Shadows

1 Open the Basic Shadows.aep project from the Chapter

O NE MIGHT THINK THAT SHADOWS

4 Now, it is conceivable that you’ve followed the

5 In the Top view, the light source (indicated here by the

Stained Glass Shadows

H ERE’S A QUICK CHEAT FOR CREATING

I N THE NEXT FEW CHEATS, WE’RE GOING

1 We’re going to be working with this really impressive Photoshop document by

A NOTHER IMPRESSIVE VIRTUAL

Film Noir Lighting

D ON’T YOU JUST LOVE THOSE OLD FILM

was just so dramatic, often only showing the

Press COSlLASl to create a white spotlight using the

Creating Depth of Field

P ERHAPS THE MOST SOUGHT AFTER

of field refers to the area in a shot that is

N OW THAT WE KNOW HOW TO CREATE

1 In this 3D scene, we have a bunch of square solids floating around in space.

C AMERA LENSES DON’T JUST REGULATE

Multiple Camera Angles

O NE OF THE TRICKS TO MAKING

Create a new camera by using the keyboard shortcut COSc

A LTHOUGH AFTER EFFECTS HAS

sometimes those dang cameras are just so hard

A FTER EFFECTS HAS A COOL (AND SIMPLE)

camera goes. Although this trick is obviously

Lighting is the Secret

But what we’re going to examine in this chapter is a load

The Parallax Effect

are distant from us. This is

O K, SO TECHNICALLY, THIS CHEAT DEALS

3 Behold Repoussé! Even without adjusting any parameters, we see that

2 To make this simple layer a 3D object, click on it to select it in the Layers

8 Go ahead and click OK to accept this object. Photoshop

6 This is looking a little funky. So let’s use another

Photoshop 3D in After Effects

N OW THAT WE KNOW HOW TO CREATE 3D