Archive for the ‘ After Effects ’ Category
I finally got to play with some high frame rate (300 fps) Red Epic footage this past month. With the aid of the Twixtor Plugin for After Effects we created some new snow slang at CP+B for vitaminwater. You can catch them here now or on ESPN throughout the weekend:
First off, if you haven’t seen the documentary “Catfish” you really should rent it. It’s a funny look at a quirky love story that developed over Facebook. Because a lot of the communication of that film happens with computer screens, they decided to do something cool to give it texture. It’s almost like a color grade for computer screens. I love the way it worked in the film so I had to figure out how to do it myself.
I tried shooting close ups with a video camera of LCD screens, which doesn’t give you much control. We also tried using a simple grid created in photoshop and composited that which also didn’t look real. Anyways, it turns out there is a great script available from aescripts.com that does just the job (and really good to boot).
LCD effect can be downloaded here and is a simple file script that runs in After Effects. The only tweak that I recommend is to also place a copy of the “computer screen” image on top of the effect stack and dial the transparency to 90% or so. This will give you the desired texture, but still make it legible.
Thank you to llcheesell for making this so easy for everyone!
Being primarily an editor, things like expressions and command line code tend to intimidate me. However, some expressions are so easy to use and already developed that I sometimes can’t resist but try them. One of my co-workers was using this Inertia expression a lot recently so I thought I’d give it a shot.
It gives a rubbery aesthetic to your animation.
To apply the expression copy the expression below, option + click the stopwatch on the parameter you want to affect, and paste.
This expression allows you to over extend a keyframe value and it will naturally settle back into place. I have used it for scale, position, and rotation. It works great and is super simple. The only values that you need to adjust to your liking are the amp, freq, and decay.
Inertia from Chadwick Shoults on Vimeo.
// Inertial Bounce (moves settle into place after bouncing around a little)
n = 0;
if (numKeys > 0){
n = nearestKey(time).index;
if (key(n).time > time){
n--;
}
}
if (n == 0){
t = 0;
}else{
t = time - key(n).time;
}
if (n > 0){
v = velocityAtTime(key(n).time - thisComp.frameDuration/10);
amp = .05;
freq = 4.0;
decay = 2.0;
value + v*amp*Math.sin(freq*t*2*Math.PI)/Math.exp(decay*t);
}else{
value;
}
I’m never satisfied until I attempt several ways to solve a problem. Here are 2 other results of different algorithms to create slow-mo from the kayaking shot. The first test just below was created using the Timewarp effect in After Effects. This is a free and standard effect in the program. The way frames are created using this is with “Pixel Motion” (the same method with using the solid line with the frame blending switch). Timewarp in contrast to simple Time-Remapping allows you under the hood control of how it works. The downside to timewarp to time-remap is that it is a little messier to work with. You must precomp a clip and apply the effect to the precomp to have access to a full clip.
Pixel Motion After Effects Timewarp from Chadwick Shoults on Vimeo.
The other big way that is very popular now is a $500 plugin called Twixtor. Twixtor works very much like the other time remapping tools that come with After Effects, but does its’ own math to make up new frames. I have seen some really amazing shots created using this tool so I thought I’d try it myself. After spending an hour or so with it, I am convinced that with irregular organic footage (like water splashing) Twixtor is not up to par with Time Remap or Timewarp. If you look closely at the Twixtor sample below you will see weird water come off the bottom of the boat in a very unnatural way that does not happen using Pixel Motion.
Twixtor SlowMo Comparison from Chadwick Shoults on Vimeo.
Anyway, for what it’s worth I’ll stick with mostly using the time-remap method of slowing down clips in After Effects. It allows me to use “Pixel Motion” which seems to be the best for whitewater. Also, I don’t have to precompose anything or periodically go back to the nested comp to extend the comp duration which is slow and annoying.
And guess what?, I don’t have to spend $500 or so on the plugin! Yahooeee! (as my boy says)
Now I guess I have to make a Warren Miller flick. Anyone want to go ski?
This past weekend I had a chance to get some R&R kayaking on the Arkansas River and shot some footage. The goal is to figure out a slow motion workflow that works well for me, for whitewater. This is the effect that came from using After Effects Time Re-mapping solely with pixel motion blending.
T2i Slow Motion Kayaking from Chadwick Shoults on Vimeo.
Later on, I am going try time warp as well as the popular Twixtor plugin to see how they all fair next to each other. I think this will work well so long as I don’t go as “extreme” with the slow-mo. Anyways, this is a rough super slow motion test using the following in camera settings:
Recently, a super cleaver Art Director – Tim Haldeen, showed me a tip that blew my mind for productivity in After Effects. What if I could render out a comp and still continue to work on other comps on the same machine? In addition, what if I could use all of my available ram?
This trick does just that – using the terminal (sorry windows guys) not sure what your solution is.
This begins the render!
Bonus Points if you want to use more than 2GB of ram here is what you do:
Copy/Paste the command into another terminal window and hit return. Each time you do another window you are allocating another 2GB to the render.
Happy animating and designing!
