$0cc|1-Adobe After Effects 3.1 Production Bundle



                            by Bolty/Carnage


|1-"Cor Blimey!"


  
$0ffI  have  finally got my mits on this seriously powerful bit of software,
and as you may have guessed from the subtitle, I'm a tad impressed!

$0ccSo  what  is  After  Effects  then?  Put simply, it is the most powerful
digital  video  compositing  and  special effects software in the world!
And  you  can  run it on your PC (or mac) at home!  This type of work is
often done using mega-bucks high-end video paintboxes such as "Harry" or
"Flame".   These  machines are looking increasingly redundant however as
After  Effects  becomes the industry standard tool.  If you see any cool
advert  or  film  special effects, it is quite likely that After Effects
(AE) was involved in some way.

$0ffWhat  is  so  powerful about AE then?  Well if you have used Photoshop a
bit,  and suddenly been smacked in the face by the power of layers, then
After Effects is similar, only it smacks you even harder.  After Effects
is video with layers and key framed everything.  As many pieces of video
as  you  want  can  be  placed over each other, scaled, rotated, masked,
chroma  keyed,  made  transparent,  plus  a million other effects.  Each
variable  and each co-ordinate of each video or effect can be controlled
independently  using key frames and spline graphs.  This can be daunting
at  first,  as AE's interface is quite complex, but you soon get used to
the  twirly  arrows  which  hide  or  reveal more detail about the clip.
Adobe  Premiere  is  a very useful sister tool to AE, as one thing AE is
not  designed  to do is edit final sequences together - Premiere is much
better for this.  The interfaces are very different between the programs
however,  as  AE  was  acquired when Adobe took over Aldus, so they were
originally developed separately.

$0ccSo you still don't get it? Here are a couple of examples:

$0ffI  had  a  short  4  second  clip  done in Lightwave of a zoom through a
computer matrix, but I wanted to spice it up a bit.  I imported the clip
into  AE  and  dragged it 5 or 6 times into separate layers.  Each layer
was  given  a  feathered  spline  mask,  which  changed over time.  This
basically  turns each clip from a square video into a smoothed pulsating
blob.   Each blob was then faded onto screen at different times, and set
to  follow a curved motion path, while rotating slowly.  Several filters
were  applied to make the matrix glow more impressively and to alter its
colour  slightly.   The  end  result  is  a vastly more complex computer
matrix,  pulsating  and  moving  across  the screen.  This took about 30
minutes to sequence and 20 minutes to render the final 7 second movie.

$0ccAfter  effects also features incredibly powerful motion tracking.  I had
a  movie of a car being driven towards and then past the camera.  To add
perfect  headlights  to  the  car  I  simply  placed a lens flare on the
picture,  then  selected  the  area  of  the headlight within the motion
tracker.  The headlight is then tracked through every frame, even though
the  camera  is  wobbling  and  its  size,  position and perspective are
changing.   These  co-ordinates are then mapped onto the lens flare, and
the  flare  is  key framed to get bigger as the car gets nearer.  Repeat
for the other headlight, and hey presto!  Perfect headlights!  Of course
this  is  a bit useless, as my mate said "it would have easier if I just
turned  my  lights  on," but hopefully it demonstrates the power of this
software.

$0ff
Well it's a few weeks later now and I've been using AE loads.  I've just
discovered  AEs  built  in  programming language.  This gives you imense
power  and  control over keyframing.  Its similar to C type languages in
that  you  have  to use lots of { } ; and == but all the commands can be
accessed  and put into the script from pull down menus.  AE comes with a
number  of  usefull scripts, such as one that can vary any other element
in  your  video  depending on the audio volume - good for VU meters, lip
sync  etc.   The first script I wrote simply gives a random value to any
other variable in your movie.

$0cc
So to sum up, After Effects gets a Jizz Factor 10/10, and I've only just
brushed the surface of this package so far...