Dynamic Paper Cutouts

iaian7 » tutorials » aftereffects   John Einselen, 25.09.09 (updated 13.01.10)    

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While stop motion can be a fantastic medium, the process is too slow for many productions. Even for simple elements, like wrinkled paper, the time it takes to do things physically is often untenable; for the Microsoft PowerPivot online advertising campaign, Vectorform required lightening quick turnaround on visual elements and animation revisions, often on an hour by hour basis. This is how the paper cutout effects were designed and generated dynamically using Adobe After Effects.

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Lipsyncing with Papagayo

iaian7 » tutorials » aftereffects   John Einselen, 25.09.09 (updated 13.01.10)    

Using freely available tools, lipsyncing a character in Adobe After Effects doesn’t have to be a pain. Papagayo is an open source app for breaking a script down into phonemes and syncing the pieces to an audio track, while LipSync is an OS X dashboard widget that helps translate the resulting moho switch files into After Effects keyframes.

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iPhone Render Notifications

iaian7 » tutorials » aftereffects   John Einselen, 27.07.09 (updated 12.11.09)    

After Effects script to push render queue completion notifications to an iPhone or iPod Touch, as well as speaking the alert audibly on your computer. Requires the Prowl app to actually interface with the push service (available from the iTunes App Store).

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Faking Volumetric Clouds

iaian7 » tutorials » lightwave   John Einselen, 7.02.09 (updated 13.09.09)    

An easier, simpler, and much older technique for simulating volumetric bodies (in this case, clouds) is to use multiple transparent layers of geometry. The nodal texture editor makes this effect all the more convenient, and can give surprisingly good results!

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UB plugins

iaian7 » tutorials » lightwave   John Einselen, 26.01.09 (updated 17.12.09)    

A list of plugins for the universal binary version of Lightwave 9.3 and 9.6.

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UB nodes

iaian7 » tutorials » lightwave   John Einselen, 26.01.09 (updated 27.01.09)    

A list of surface nodes I find especially useful, for the universal binary Lightwave 9.3+

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Autofocus expression

iaian7 » tutorials » lightwave   John Einselen, 13.01.09 (updated 27.07.09)    

Super simple expression that drives the Camera focal distance with a null. Hardly deserving of much description, but I need it often enough, I get tired of redoing it in the Expression builder every time.

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Fading on Distance

iaian7 » tutorials » aftereffects   John Einselen, 15.06.07 (updated 27.07.09)    

Fades layers based on distance from the camera, allowing you to fly through compositions without layer snapping as the camera passes through. Especially effective for flying through layers of clouds.

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Channel Multiply

iaian7 » tutorials » aftereffects   John Einselen, 15.06.07 (updated 27.07.09)    

Multiply a layer’s channels by a specified amount. It’s ridiculously simple, but invaluable when dealing with 3D tracking camera data, where scaling the global animation can really help fix After Effects insistence on importing meters as pixels.

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Null Averaging

iaian7 » tutorials » aftereffects   John Einselen, 14.06.07 (updated 27.07.09)    

Tracking in After Effects can often result in data too jittery to be of any use. If you’re able to get multiple tracks, however, it’s possible to average them into a single, smoother, track. Even if the single tracks are decent, averaging will help increase the accuracy of the data.

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