Adobe After Effects

[rbmerc]

I have been thinking about getting Adobe After Effects to go along with Adobe Premiere Pro but I am not sure exactly what After Effects does and what I can do with it... Thanks for the help and suggestions!

-merc

[DaveS]

rbmerc - I'm a little confused ... how about starting here http://www.adobe.com/products/aftereffects/main.html

it would also be my recommendation that if you are not sure what it does, you probably don't need it

[BodaZoffa]

Think of it as the photoshop for video.

[rbmerc]

where can i find some tutorials for adobe after effects?

-merc

[BodaZoffa]

where can i find some tutorials for adobe after effects?

-merc

If you want to learn After Effects, save yourself a lot of time & headaches, & go buy the Total Training DVDs for this program. Your going to waiste your time trying to find free training downloads for AE that only last a couple of minutes long & don't do you any good.

I bought the Total Training DVD's for After Effects Pro off of eBay for a pretty decent price, & it was worth every penny. Others will tell you not to spend that kind of money on training, but the software is no good if you don't know how to use it.

Boda

[rbmerc]

i agree, thx for the input i will look around on ebay...

-merc

[dxj40c]

If you are the creative sort, After Effects is good for creating great opening titles (like commercial movie's opening titles). After Effects is really hard to learn. I took a basic After Effects course at local community college and it really got me started right. I have always had trouble understanding the Adobe Manuals, they aren't really made for the absolute beginner (they require a lot of previous knowledge). And like Photoshop, After Effects has a lot of features you may never need or use, but makes for many hours of fun and agony.
The best thing I like about after effects is the ability to make a good presentation and render it as .swf (Flash file). If you do a lot of Video or Flash stuff, you will find After Effects a very useful tool.

[mojo2185]

You can view some sample work of mine, mostly done using premiere and after effects. http://mpmediaproductions.tripod.com
My 2 south park animations were drawn in macromdia fireworks, and then completely animated in After Effects.

After Effects has a very steep learning curve. I am self taught, and have gotten a pretty good hold of it. It is great for text effects, and if used correctly, visual effects.
Some things I have done with it:
Created logos
Star Wars Lightsabers
Effects similar to those in Predator (invisible cloak, glowing eyes, IR vision)
Cartoon animation (South Park parodies)
Matrix Falling Text
... and probably some other stuff I can't remember right now (its 2:35 am)

[BodaZoffa]

You can view some sample work of mine, mostly done using premiere and after effects. http://mpmediaproductions.tripod.com
My 2 south park animations were drawn in macromdia fireworks, and then completely animated in After Effects.

After Effects has a very steep learning curve. I am self taught, and have gotten a pretty good hold of it. It is great for text effects, and if used correctly, visual effects.
Some things I have done with it:
Created logos
Star Wars Lightsabers
Effects similar to those in Predator (invisible cloak, glowing eyes, IR vision)
Cartoon animation (South Park parodies)
Matrix Falling Text
... and probably some other stuff I can't remember right now (its 2:35 am)

Pretty cool.....

How did you get the voices to sink with the movement of their mouths? Did you do the voices first & then key frame to them? Or did you do the animation first & then voice over it when the mouths were moving?

I heard the animators of South Park use Maya for animation. I wonder why they just don't use AE like you are doing.... .

Boda

[BJ_M]

AE is not an application like maya -- two diffferent beasts , like we dont use maya for compositing either (we use shake mostly) ..

[Sugar]

Try this site:

http://www.creativecow.net/articles/aftereffects.html#top


As reported above, AE could be considered for video what Photoshop is for pictures.

Now, the real question is what are you trying to achieve. As you rpobably saw, Premiere Pro includes already a large set of special effects, all of which are drawn from AE.

[rbmerc]

well what i want to get is a realistic looking muzzle flash effect for guns and a bullet dust effect like when a bullet hits a wall or something... any way i can do that in ae?

-merc

[BodaZoffa]

well what i want to get is a realistic looking muzzle flash effect for guns and a bullet dust effect like when a bullet hits a wall or something... any way i can do that in ae?

-merc

ParticleIllusion 3.0

[mojo2185]

How did you get the voices to sink with the movement of their mouths? Did you do the voices first & then key frame to them? Or did you do the animation first & then voice over it when the mouths were moving?

In after effects, you can take audio, and convert it to keyframes based on the amplitude of the sound. Using expressions (scripts), you can write a few lines of code to do the dirty work for you.

I heard the animators of South Park use Maya for animation. I wonder why they just don't use AE like you are doing....

They do use Maya, and honestly it's probably easier done using maya. The characters are 3d models, therefore you can rotate the characters easily and use more movements. Notice in my animation, the characters ALWAYS face forward, and have very little movement.

well what i want to get is a realistic looking muzzle flash effect for guns and a bullet dust effect like when a bullet hits a wall or something... any way i can do that in ae?

Yes. The muzzle flash could simply be a picture, and you keyframe it to match up with the sound of the gun firing. The dust/smoke can be done in AE using the particle playground effect (it is basically a particle emitter). Particle Illusion is a separate program and will cost you a bit, but will probably do better for the smoke/dust effect.

I remember seeing a tutorial online that covered muzzle flashes using AE, and the results were very good. Try searching google, possibly using keywords: After Effects Muzzle Flash Tutorial