Autodesk Combustion has an extremely powerful tool – 3D fog for simulating and rendering realistic fog in your compositions. But 3D fog uses a Z-Depth which is usually obtained from 3D software packages like Maya or 3D Max while rendering. What if you working on 2D composite and need finish it quickly. To speed up things you can use pre-made fog footage. So whenever you want to composite fog onto footage, you can just make use of this footage.

Step 1

Create a new composition – File->New and import your footage – File->Import Footage.

Step 2

Create a new composition and add your pre-rendered fog footage to it.

Step 3

Add a Compound blur operator to footage. Go to operator settings by double clicking on compound blur node. Set the layer input to fog with luminance channel selected. Adjust the blur value to simulate diffraction.

Step 4

Add Set Matte operator to fog. Choose the layer – fog and set the input channel to luminance.

Step 5

Create a new composition “output”. Link the footage and fog node to the output node as shown in schematic diagram. Make sure that fog layer is on top on footage layer.

With this you are done.

Using only the tools available in After Effects, you will learn how to create a audio reactive seismograph. Also you will learn to sync it to rhythm of music using a free After Effects preset. There are lots of ways to do this, some requiring lot of scripting. This is the one of the easiest way to do it in After Effects without any third-party plug-ins. But we would like suggest you to use 3D software, if you have one to do such complex motion graphics. It will give you more control and you will finish it much faster than creating it in After Effects. But for now let us start with After Effects.

Preview

Step 1

Create a new composition “Time” of time equal to your audio track. Create a new solid and add two slider controls to it. Name the first one “Time Multiplier” and the second “Output Time”.

Step 2

Add this little expression to the “Output Time”. Set the value of Time Multiplier to 20, only for this tutorial. You can adjust it later according to your requirement. To get expression input box hold ALT key and click on the stopwatch icon. You can use pick whip tool instead of typing it.

effect("Time Multiplier")("Slider")*time

Step 3

Create a new composition with the name “Paper” and of size 2000*1000.

Step 4

Create a white solid “paper” of composition size. Add grid and fractal noise effect to it. Set the values as shown in the screenshot to give it a look of a graph paper. Or you can skip this step by using premade paper texture. Using premade graph paper texture (JPEG, PSD, PNG) you can render it much faster. Fractal noise effect uses lot of CPU power. And you will be duplicating the paper layer many times and to render it, will take lot of time. So it’s better to use premade texture. Just import your image file and add the expression and that’s it. Only see that edges blend with each other. But the best option would be to use a looped video composition of graph paper moving.

Step 5

Create a new camera and place it below the layer.  Layer->New->Camera

Step 6

Select the solid layer “paper” and press P to get the position parameters. Now add this expression to the position.  

temp = (index-1)*2000;

value+(0,0,temp)

Now every time you duplicate the layer, the next layer will automatically will be positioned at +2000. 2000 is value of width of this composition. Thinking why duplicate layer and why not create a layer of size you need. Doing it this way gives you flexibility. The length of “paper” depends on the speed at which it is moving and the total time of the audio track. So in case you replace the audio track, you just need to duplicate the “paper” layer to fill the blank space. You will understand it more once we animate the camera. Make sure that the camera layer is placed under the paper layer.

Step 7

Select the camera layer and add this expression to the anchor point and position.

x = comp("Time").layer("White Solid 2").effect("Output Time")("Slider");

value+[x, 0,0]

Camera will now move from left to right.

Step 8

Create a new composition “Graph”. Add the audio track to this composition. You can view the waveform by pressing “LL” on keyboard.  Convert audio to keyframe. This automatically creates a new layer with keyframes of all the audio channels in it.

Choose “both channels” and add this little expression to slider control. The values depend upon your audio track. Add this expression to the slider

linear(value,5,70,0,150)

It will map the values from 5 to 70 to 0 to 150. You can choose the value according to the amplitude of your audio track. Use graphical keyframe editor to see the values.

Step 9

Create a new solid with name “Diagram”. The width of the solid should be more than or equal to that of x position of camera in the “paper” composition at the last frame. After that adjust the position so that left side of the solid layer is aligned with left side of composition.

Step 10

Add an expression to the position of the layer diagram.

p = comp("Time").layer("White Solid 2").effect("Output Time")("Slider")*(-1);

value+[p, 0]

Step 11

Add write-on effect to the diagram layer. Set the values as shown in screenshot.

Step 12

Add this expression to the brush position of write-on effect.

x = comp("Time").layer("White Solid 2").effect("Output Time")("Slider");

y = thisComp.layer("Audio Amplitude").effect("Both Channels")("Slider");

value+[x, y]

Basically this takes time value from the “Output Time” layer and assigns it to X position, while Y position is driven by the audio keyframes. Turn off write-on effect for temporary as it slows down previews.

Step 13

Create a new composition “Needle”. Enable grid from view->Show Grid. Create a solid “needle” of the composition size and draw the needle using pen tool. You can also draw a traditional seismograph needle.

Step 14

Add this expression to position of the layer. Needle will move along Y axis with the write-on brush.

temp = comp("Graph").layer("Diagram").effect("Write-on")("Brush Position")[1];
value+[0, temp]

                  OR

Add this expression to rotation of the layer. It calculates the angle by which the needle has to turn when the write-on brush moves. Though x value changes with respect to time, when you consider x position of all three points at any time, it’s basically same as at time 0. Since only the Y position of brush is changing and not x position and therefore you will have to compensate for the error. In simple needle is performing a circular motion whereas the motion of the brush point is in straight line. It’s totally up to you to use it.

point1=comp("Graph").layer("Diagram").effect("Write-on")("Brush Position")[0],comp("Graph").layer("Diagram").effect("Write-on")("Brush Position")[1];

p2x=comp("Graph").layer("Diagram").effect("Write-on")("Brush Position")[0]-transform.anchorPoint[0];

point2=p2x,transform.anchorPoint[1];

q=396;

l=comp("Graph").layer("Diagram").effect("Write-on")("Brush Position")[1]-q;

pi=Math.PI;

r=length(point1,point2);

c=2*pi*r;

theta=(360*l)/c;

value+(theta)

Step 15

Create a new composition with same settings as the previous one. Create a new solid and draw a pointed end of the needle using pen tool.

Step 16

Give your needle a nice metallic look using a gradient. Do the same for the tip.

Step 17

Create a new composition and add “Paper”, “Graph”, “Needle”, and “Tip” to it. Create a new camera and turn on the 3D switch for all the layers.

Step 18

Position the camera and all the layers as shown in the screenshot. Arrange all the composites in 3D space. Place "Tip" below and at end point of the needle. Do not change the size of the needle composition layer from the final composition. Instead change it through “Needle” composition. If you do not you could be out of sync to the moving brush as we have used the expression in that composition.

Step 19

After positioning the tip properly in the 3D space, add this expression to its position.

y = comp("Graph").layer("Diagram").effect("Write-on")("Brush Position")[1];

value+[0,y,0]

Step 20

Position your camera to get a nice view.  Don’t forget to turn on depth of field of the camera. Add a light source, a background layer and a shadow. Turn on the motion blur switch for “tip” and “needle” layer.

For Rhythmic Seismograph

The above animation is driven by the sound amplitude much like the real seismograph that captures amplitude of seismic waves (that is you get exact representation of audio waveform). After all seismograph are used to measure the ground vibration and not for sound. But the working principle is the same. Instead of ground vibration we have sound as for the input. If you like to make it react to rhythm or beat then you will need free Spectrum Analysis Preset from Satya Meka or Trapecode Sound Keys Plug-in.

Step 1

For this create a new solid “audio spectrum” and add Audio spectrum preset to it. Set the values as show in the screenshot. The technique is the same even if you use Trapcode sound keys. For this create new solid layer "Audio Spectrum" inside graph composition and the audio spectrum to it. Increase the height and adjust the frequency bands. See the screenshot.

Step 2

Create new layer "keyframes" and add the spectrum analysis preset to it. Choose the spectrum layer and watch the spectrum while you can hear the audio (hit NUM 0 key on keyboard). You will see that specific sound have specific frequencies which you can easily choose by moving the box. You will see that the range value changes as there is change in the frequency. And hence you can convert it to keyframes and utilize it for animation.

Step 3

After choosing the sounds convert the range value to keyframes. For this select the Final Range value slider and go to Animation->Keyframe Assistant->Covert Expression to Keyframe

Step 4

Now all you have to do is use these keyframes instead of previous one to drive your animation. Also linearize the keyframe value to your range, same way as we did before. Once that is done add this expression to the position of write-on effect.

x = comp("Time").layer("White Solid 2").effect("Output Time")("Slider");
y = thisComp.layer("keyframes").effect("Final Range Value")("Slider")
value+[x, y]

And with few minor adjustments you are done. And in case you do not want go through all these steps or do not want to waste your time then use the After Effects CS4 Project file.

Project Files

Project file will be up soon.

Skin retouching is mostly used for photographs, but rarely used with videos. Doing it with photographs is much easier than with a video. A photograph is a single image whereas a video is made up of many such images called frames and each frame is dissimilar to each other. There could be 15 to 30 frames in a one-second video. Thus making the task of skin re-touching in a video near to impossible. In this tutorial, we will see how to re-touch skin of an actor to remove blemishes and scars with the help of Autodesk Combustion 2008.

Step 1

Create a new composition. File->New

Step 2

You will see black composition screen. Now add footage File->Import Footage. You can change video format, resolution, etc by clicking on Source Option button.

Step 3

You will now see your footage in your composition. You need to do little adjustment to your workspace. You can use the toolbox buttons to add, change, zoom and switch the views. Use two or more view port layout by clicking the “view port layout button”. Change first view port to schematic view.

Step 4

Create new composition with the name “Upper Layer” and attach this composition node to previous one.

Now add discrete keyer and attach the node to “upper layer composition node”

Step 5

Before we do any visual enhancement, we shall create a new composition to see changes done to the final output. Otherwise, every time you will have to shift each composition node to view port to view the changes. Create new composition File->New. Name this composition “Final Composition”. Link it to previous node. Now to view this composition in the view port, select composition layer from the workspace area and drag it to view port. You can now view the final output.

Step 6

Double click on Discreet Keyer node to get its controls. Use the color dropper to select the skin area. Use tolerance offset, softness offset (important for later steps) to cover as much of skin area you can. See that you don`t over do this.

Step 7

Create a new composition and name it “lower layer”. Link lower layer composition node to first composition node.

Step 8

Now add compound blur Operators->Blur/Sharpen->Compound Blur. Link the nodes as shown in the screenshot.

Step 9

Double click on compound Blur Node. Go to compound blur control panel and change the value of blur until the blemishes and pimples disappear.

Step 10

Add Discreet Color Corrector Operator (Operators->Color Correction->Discreet Color Correcter) and add its node between compound blur and the final composition node. This will allow you to change the skin tones. Double click on Discreet Color Corrector node to get the control options. Values will depend totally on the video of the actor that is used. Also don`t over do this. In addition, we will again do this step for entire footage later on. If you are new to this, it is better not to change the values for now. You can come back to this later once color correction for entire picture is completed. Make sure that the layer are properly organised. “Lower layer” should be below “upper layer”.

Step 11

Add sharpen between Discreet color corrector and final composition node. Sharpen just a little bit.

Step 12

Create a new composition and drag it to view port. Add “add Noise” (Operators->Noise->Add Noise) and “Discreet Color Corrector” (Operators->Color Correction->Discreet Color Corrector) Operators and link the node as shown in the screenshot. You can use other color correction tools also.

Step 13

Double click on Discreet Color Corrector to get the control options. Adjust the curves and Histogram for midtones, shadows, higlights and RGB channels. This adjustment totally depends upon your video footage. I used the following vales that work for me with this footage.

Step 14

Double click on Add noise and slightly increase the noise. This gives your video more natural look.

With few minute adjustments you are done. Render the output composition.

Quartz Composer is a powerful tool for processing and rendering graphical data. You can use it easily for manipulating any type of graphics in real time. It uses node based visual programming language and can be easily adopted by non-programmer due to it simplicity. It uses OpenGL, OpenCL in new Mac OS X, Core Image, Core Video, JavaScript, and other technologies. You can drag and drop, link nodes and play with values to create amazing graphics. Using Quartz Composer you can create Screen Savers, iTunes Visualizers, UI for applications, by conjunction with Cocoa. To use Quartz Composer, install Xcode developer tools from your Mac OS X disc.

In this round-up we present best Quartz Composer tutorials for Developers, Visual Effects Artists, Motion Graphics Designers and VJ`s. And Before you begin with any of these tutorials, please read Quartz Composer Programming Guide.

Basic Tutorial on Images and Directories in Quartz Composer

Particle Effects Following Mouse Input

Gradient Image Reflection

Light Ray Text Effect

Double Helix
How to create a rotating double helix in 3D with Quartz Composer.

Turn Quartz Composition into a Standalone Application.

Dashboard Widget

Tutorial to create Mac OS X dashboard widget with Quartz Composer.

Screen Saver
Tutorial shows how to create your own screensavers using Quartz Composer.

Lightning and Audio Reactive Movements

Lighting the 3D Cubes and use audio to make it interactive.

Bouncing Ball
This video tutorial shows the basic steps of how to make a ball bounce to the beat of the music.

Webcam Audio Visualizer Art

Music Visualizer
Tutorial for creating music visualizer.

Small code snippet that will allow you to display random images, every time the page loads. Major advantage of using it is that you no longer have to make use of scripts (JavaScript) which can be bulky, especially on the older browsers. Though we have used this code with images only, it can be easily used for any other object to be displayed in random order. It’s more of PHP than Wordpress.

Code

Place this code anywhere in your Wordpress template – header, footer, etc, with appropriate changes to CSS.

<div id="image<?php echo rand(1,4); ?>"></div>
 

Change (1,4) depending upon the number of images.

CSS

Add this CSS code to the Wordpress template CSS file.

#image1 {
background:url(img/image1.jpg);
width:500px;
height:100px;
}
#image2 {
background:url(img/image2.jpg);
width:500px;
height:100px;
}
#image3 {
background:url(img/image3.jpg);
width:500px;
height:100px;
}
#image4 {
background:url(img/image4.jpg);
width:500px;
height:100px;
}
 

In real world of film making tilt-shift effect is normally added by using special tilt-shift lenses. But when it comes to low budget film making Adobe After Effects software comes in handy. In this tutorial we will see how to digitally manipulate the tilt shift effect to turn an ordinary scene into that of a miniature model.

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Step 1

Drag/add your footage to comp area. Create a new solid layer and name it to ‘top’. Add ramp effect to it with the values as shown in the screenshot.

Step 2

Duplicate the ‘top’ layer and rename it to down. Place it below the ‘top’ layer. Swap the ramp colors for the ‘down’ layer.

Step 3

Set the blend mode of ‘top’ layer to Lighten. Now for the layer bottom, add this simple expression to the start point of the Ramp effect (By selecting the layer Press E to show effect parameters. Then hold down ALT key and click the stop watch).

thisComp.layer(“top”).effect(“Ramp”)(“End of Ramp”)

This will allow you to do easily change the point of focus in the scene without messing with top/bottom effect parameters.

Step 4

Next select both the ‘top’ and the ‘bottom’ layer and pre-compose them (name it gradient). Layer-> Pre-Compose. Place the pre-composed gradient layer below the footage layer. Add lens blur effect to the footage layer. Set the values as shown in the screenshot. Adjust the iris radius depending upon your footage.

Step 5

To the same layer add Hue/Saturation effect. Increase the saturation a little bit.

Step 6

Now add brightness and contrast effect to the same layer. Adjust the value the get good colorful output. Do not to increase the contrast too much. This may led to overall increase in color details. Add curves if you can`t get the desired effect along with brightness and contrast effect, but not necessary. S curve will do the work

Step 7

Now to give it a stop-motion animation effect, lower the frame rate.

Download Project Files

Create a School blackboard animated drawing effect from your footage.

Download Preview

Step 1

Create a new composition and add the footage to it.

Step 2

By adding Hue/Saturation effect, de-saturate it.

Step 3

Add Find Edge effect to the footage layer. Enable the invert.

Step 4

Now add levels to the layer for further adjustment.

Step 5

Add bilateral blur to remove the minute details.

Step 6

Add sharpen effect to sharpen the white lines.

Step 7

Next create a new solid layer (grey or green) and set the blend mode to linear dodge.

Project File

Note: Setting values can change according to the footage used

Give a vintage look to your footage similar to that obtained from Lomo Cameras. Originally lomo cameras are still cameras that are used for causal cheap photography. But the photographs obtained from such cameras have a unique look to it. In this tutorial you will learn to digitally manipulate cross-processed lomo effect and add it to your video footage.

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Step 1

Create a new composition and name it to lomo. Import and add the footage to this composition.

Step 2

Add curves to the footage layer.

Red

Green

Blue

Step 3

Create a new black solid layer. Set the blend mode to hue and opacity to 30%.

Step 4

Add unsharp Mask to the footage layer to sharpen it.

Step 5

Create a new adjustment layer and add elliptical mask to it. Layer->Mask->New Mask. Then with the layer selected press M key to get the mask option. Select the mask layer and go to Layer-> Mask->Mask Shape. Choose reset to ellipse. Next with the mask selected press F key to use the feather option. Feather the mask about 100px and choose the mode to subtract.

Step 6

Now to make the edges darker, add levels to the adjustment layer and set the values as shown in the screenshot.

Step 7

Add lens blur effect to adjustment layer and set the values as shown in screenshot.

Now you have a lomo effect.

Project Files

In this tutorial you will learn how to turn your footage into a colorful painting. Tutorial uses built-in after effects plug-ins .The effect settings value may change depending upon you footage color, brightness and the type. This is the one of the best method which works with most of the camera footages.

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Step 1

Import your footage to project area. Create a new composition named Footage and add your video footage to it.

Step 2

Create another composition named final and add footage comp to it. Now duplicate the footage layer 4 times (CTRL+D)

Step 3

Change the blend modes of the layer as shown below.

Step 4

Add Hue/Saturation effect to second layer and de-saturate it.

Step 5

Add invert effect to second layer.

Step 6

Add Median effect to the last layer and set the radius value to 8.

Step 7

Next add cartoon effect to first layer and set the values to as shown in the screenshot (Play with the values for best output). Remember that Cartoon effect uses GPU processing and will take lot of time to render if you are not equipped with good graphics card.

Step 8

Add bilateral blur effect to first layer and change the values as shown as in the screenshot.

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When your digital photos are displayed like Polaroid, they look more eye-catching. But did you ever used it for videos? This tutorial will teach you to create a simple Polaroid effect which will give your video a vintage look.

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Step 1

Create a new composition – 720*720 of 50 seconds and name it as video.

Step 2

Import your footage to after effects and drag and drop it to timeline. Scale it to fit the screen.

Step 3

Add curves to adjust the footage.

Step 4

Add noise effect and set noise amount to around 11% and uncheck the use color noise option.

Step 5

Add fast blur and set blurriness to 0.9

Step 6

Create adjust layer of comp size and set blend mode to soft light. Add video as the parent for adjustment layer. Add ramp effect to it. Adjust the values.

Step 7

Create a new comp of size 750*900 and name it as Polaroid. Create a white solid and name it as paper. Add the video composition layer to the new composition.

Step 8

Adjust the video as shown below.

Step 9

Add the texture to the timeline. Scale it to fit the comp size and set the blend mode to multiply and change the opacity to around 70%.

Step 10

Next create a new comp for final video.

Step 11

Add new solid and add the Polaroid comp to timeline. Scale and rotate the Polaroid according to your need. Add drop shadow effect to Polaroid comp. Set distance to 0 and softness to 100.

Step 12

Add a light layer. Layer->New->Light. Note you have to change the remaining layers to 3D for light layer to function. Change the intensity and the position accordingly.

You will get something like this

Step 13

Add an expression to the opacity of the Polaroid layer to make it look like projector flicker.

opacity.wiggle(5,50)

Step 14

Add camera Layer-> New->Camera. Choose 24mm –preset.  Change the camera orientation as shown in the screenshot. Do not forget to adjust the position and scale value of the background layer so that it is little bigger than the composition size.

Step 15

Turn off 3D switch for the Polaroid layer (but don`t forget to turn on the switch later) and add key frame to change the rotation. Use graph editor to give it more realistic movements.

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