Jungle

Ocean

Reflection

After Effects has been quite the journey, through having many complications as well as some fantastic successes. At first, I wasn’t sure what it was I wanted to do for the end of the year. I was leaning towards Garage Band just because I have a passion for music but then I learned about what After Effects is. After effects is a digital motion graphics and compositing software published by Adobe Systems. Its main purpose is for film and video post-production. As soon as I heard something to do with film, I was hooked. Ever since I was a little girl, I loved movies. Not just the Disney movies like Cinderella but the ones that weren’t actually meant for children, like old black and white romance movies. It was my grandfather that got me into this field of things and I thank him for that. I wasn’t quite sure how to go about learning After Effects because as soon as I opened it up, I had no idea what to do. There were so many new options, things I could play around with and I didn’t even know how to properly add an effect into anything. I realized that After Effects isn’t that similar to Photoshop, which I am now familiar with thanks to Digital Media class. What I learned at first was that it wasn’t just a file I was creating; it was in fact a composition. I didn’t really even understand what a composition was, but now I know that is a formation, a structure and something more complicated than what Photoshop is. I discovered a way to do After Effects with no prior experience using it. This way was the art of using tutorials! The ones I had initially found were solely text and images and that seemed a little too hard to follow for me, constantly having to switch back and forth. Also, the tutorials weren’t of anything very exciting, which was disappointing and made me begin to regret choosing After Effects. I kept researching and stumbled upon a website that had video tutorials instead. The site is called Video Copilot and it was my new best friend. They had a variety of tutorials for people more experienced and for people like me who are beginners. They had tutorials with explosions, title animation and even just little things you can do to make presentations more interesting and dynamic. It was a really cool website and I’m so thankful I found it. What Video Copilot actually is, is a collaborative resource for training, design tools and artists. Their goal is to show us what is possible and how effects can be created so that you can apply these techniques on your own creative adventures. They strive to develop distinctive and innovative tools that improve the quality and speed of your production while offering freedom and flexibility. Andrew is the main guy of Video Copilot; he has hosted over 100 tutorials and is the creator of title sequences for big shows like Fringe and the film Star Trek. He has participated in many forms of production from visual effects to directing commercials. The website started when he was only 20 based out of his apartment in South California. His story inspired me to be all that I can be, if he can start something this big and amazing just at the age of 20, it gives me a lot of hope for my next few years. Anyways, through using his website I was able to learn many different tools. I began by following the tutorials quite exactly but eventually I started to do things on my own. The Video Copilots taught me how to make 3 dimensional images and make things move in 3D space using key frames. My first creation was light balls that came up from the glossy ground one by one and then disappeared and in came my name as a title. It was really fun and enjoyable to create which made me want to jump right into another tutorial. Overall, After Effects was an amazing experience and I’m so thankful for deciding to do it.

I've begun creating a new title image. The image is of the word "Jungle" inside of a jungle. To do this I had to import a simple background picture of a forest. Next I added text into it and to make the text have rough edges and make it appear more like rock, I added a bevel and emboss onto it. This gave it some rougher edging and helped the overall look of the picture. The next step I did was adding different plants. The important part with this was to set up plants behind the text but also in front of it leader closer and closer to the camera. This adds an effect as if the camera is following through the jungle. Next day I will be continuing the jungle effect, so far it is a long process.

3D Ocean

Today I finished creating a 3 dimensional ocean. It began by importing in a picture of a sunset. Next I duplicated the picture and rotated it around. Once it was rotated, I had to blend the two pictures together using different effects. On the bottom layer, it was necessary to create a displacement map. The problem with the map was that it creating blank black areas on the image once having added a camera and key frames to move forward into the ocean. In order to fix the problem I decided to just zoom further into the picture. Unfortunately this made it look worse but I had no other choice, mostly because even in the tutorial, that's what they did as well. To make the water area look more realistic, I had to put a tint and a curve effect on it. This made it darker and differentiated the ocean from the sky a lot better. Overall, the ocean was really fun to make. It was inspired by the show "The Deadliest Catch" although it is a lot more beautiful and peaceful.

Today I was inspired by one of the tutorials I've seen called "The Ring" which teaches you how to build a silver ring in After Effects with a particle wipe and use valueAtTime expression to automate it over time. But instead of that I decided to use an Ellipse effect to create a thick purple ring. Once that was done I added a strong glow to it to enhance the ring, also against a black background. Following these steps, I added a strobe light effect and set it to be very random. Basically the whole thing looks like one seizure right now but I'm planning on adding more next day. Before I completed all that, I added some text into my swirl project and put a Twirl Effect on it which makes it look a lot more loopy which is what I was going for. Overall it was interesting to explore some of the other effects on my own and not just follow what a tutorial tells me to do.  

Today I attempted to create a CC Ball effect but I continued to have trouble with the timings of the different sections. Next class I am going to keep trying to get it right and if I don't I have another effect in mind that I want to try. On another note, I finished the swirl I began making last class by adding a nicer colour to it rather than it just be black and brown. Overall, today wasn't a very successful class and I hope that next time is different. After Effects so far has been really fun especially to play around with and make my own thing.

After Effects Time

I've begun using After Effects by creating a particle explosion. It took several days but it ended up very rewarding. There were a lot of different effects and layers used in the tutorial I followed but it was never confusing so I really think I'm starting to get the hang of it. I of course switched some things around from the actual tutorial to make it more my own, such as the colours, sizes of different particles and titles. After completing this tutorial I'm already onto my next one which is a spinning orb with a title in the middle. I can't seem to do it the way the creator has therefore I'm just going to go my own way with it. I plan on playing around with my different effects this time to manipulate the beginning portion of the tutorial.