After Effects Project - The Open

Taught by John Montgomery

Course Number:
AFX211
Software Version:
CS5 
Original Run Date:
April 2010 
Duration:
7 hours 47 minutes 
vfx
mograph
Building upon the popularity of our first After Effects project-based course, AFX208, this AFX211 course will build on a new project from concept through compositing and design. For this project, we'll be creating a new animated show open in the style of programs such as "Top Chef", "Project Runway", and "Make Me a Supermodel". Leading the course will be Danny Princz, a New York City based artist who has taught several courses in the past. Also helping out will be Mark Christiansen, author of "Adobe After Effects CS4 Visual Effects and Compositing Studio Techniques", and fxphd dean John Montgomery.

The project will focus on using After Effects CS5. But like most real world projects we will also be covering other applications for tasks such as 3D camera tracking, creating and rendering cgi for the virtual set, and more.
 
After Effects Project - The Open
Watch our overview of the course

Class Listing

Class 1: Working through the concept

Through design and storyboarding; It's incredibly important to nail down the look and feel of the project before diving into production. Guest designer Mark Ward.

Class 2: On-set for the shoot

We'll be documenting what happens on set and the process beforehand, The goal is to share tips to make your on-set experiences more comfortable and less stressful.

Class 3: The edit

We'll look at working through the edit from a creative standpoint as well as a technical one using both Final Cut Pro and the new Premiere CS5.

Class 4: Diving in and starting the compositing and design

Approaches to working which, if done correctly from the start, will make your life much easier.

Class 5: "Magician" scene

Start to integrate more elements from the board and push it toward a final look. Using provided 3D camera track data in AE, current options for 3D text in CS5 as well as creating a template for reuse, and build out the base environment.

Class 6: Technical ground work for the Perfectionist

With an extreme wide-angle (fisheye) lens. Latest Keylight techniques, lens distortion, Shape Layer usage as an alternative to Illustrator, and tracking with Mocha AE.

Class 7: We create the "magic" for the "Magician"

Using the built-in plugins in AFX as well as enhancing the effect with particular.

Class 8: The Perfectionist shot

Brought closer to the design of the storyboards using Photoshop CS5 to create 3D text and various methods to composite the title and talent over an aerial city shot.

Class 9: The Prodigy scene

Roughed out using a 3D camera solve, elements from the Magician scene are re-used to start building the comp. A simple cube is built in AE as a stand-in element for the Prodigys geomtric animation. AE's 3D lights and shadows are used to further integrate the elements of the comp. The aescripts.com True Comp Duplicator script is used to save time.

Class 10: Animate the stand in cube

Using a building block for the geometric animation from the storyboard. Option parenting is used quickly create offset blocks. AE camera Depth of Field is used to integrate the elements as well as a layer style based Light Wrap. A solution to banding issues is addressed in 8/16bit.