Video Copilot BlogDaily Visual Effects And Motion Graphics
2:32 pm on January 4th, 2009
Seems Video Copilot was recently featured in a cool segment on animation over at the G4 network. Needless to say it put a big smile on our faces.
2:10 am on December 31st, 2008
Well actually it is finished, I just need to create a new tutorial for it. The new preset will make it easy to animate the AE camera in 3D space from one spot to another without the hassles of traditional ae animating and the precision of Robocop.
It’s difficult to explain without the video but imagine being able to automatically navigate a camera to any spot in 3D space by simply keyframing a slider from 1 to 2. By selecting two or more 3D layers, the preset will take you to each location as you animate the slider in increments of 1. You can slow down the animation, pause it and of course use ease keyframes for perfect stops and starts. It accepts up to 7 locations with the option to reuse it as needed.
This should make animating big 3D scenes a breeze and require substantially less work than used to animate the camera in Video Copilot promos such as the Basic Training and Evolution.
Preset will be available for AE 6.5 and up. I hope to show you other cool uses too.
2:15 am on December 29th, 2008
Hope everyone had a nice holiday and maybe a bit of relaxation. I know I did. We’ve got some great things coming out this week and some cool projects to discuss.
Have your After Effects fired up because we’re going to take it for a ride!
11:02 am on December 22nd, 2008
Just wishing everyone a safe and happy holiday season. As a special gift for all the editors who need to make holiday promos…
Here are 2 free Christmas tracks arranged by us for perfect 30 second spots or promos. Enjoy!
UPDATE: Yes! They are royalty free like our products. Use for most anything, just can’t sell with stock sites or templates etc. View License
As always our DVDs also make a great addition to any video collection so be sure to check them out. Especially Evolution for this holiday season.
Visit Products Page
6:18 am on December 19th, 2008
I’ve been planning a tutorial based on the heads up display (HUD) from the film Iron Man. After seeing the inspiring work by the Orphanage, I thought this idea could be useful in other forms as well.
Jet pilots, robots or even futuristic interfaces require visual screen information that looks cool and tells a story. Where would RoboCop be without his targeting system?
See Sample Video
4:14 am on December 17th, 2008
In this quick tutorial, you’ll learn to create an animated spinning orb that will impress all of your friends. This technique is similar to a shot in the recent Pro Scores promo video.
If you want to add some particles check out these tutorials for information:
9:30 am on December 16th, 2008
In this new Tutorial, we’ll learn a powerful method of simulating distant falloff for 3D layers with the help of a handy new preset. This preset is free and can be downloaded with the project file.
3:01 am on December 16th, 2008
3D Falloff is the subject of this new tutorial/preset that will give 3D layers a new dimension in After Effects.
The Falloff we are referring to is specifically distance falloff. When a layer reaches a certain distance away from the camera, it begins to fade into the background the further away it gets. Many Video Games feature atmospheric effects that act as falloff for geometry that is far away and this occurs in real life too. For example ,underwater objects and sea creatures can fade into the darkness as they descend or a person can disappear into a snow storm only to emerge as the abominable snowman.
This new preset makes it easy to automatically calculate falloff based on a layers distance from the camera. There are many great settings like when to start and end the falloff as well as color and opacity settings.
In this video there are over 50 layers that react properly to the distance as the camera approaches. Keyframing this manually would take forever and if you change the camera the animation would have to be adjusted. More soon.
BTW, the Pro Scores promo was not rendered with this preset but it is a good example to illustrate this effect, the tutorial will include several techniques as well.
2:17 am on December 15th, 2008
Hey! Just wanted to let you know, I’m developing a new tutorial and preset that will be out this week. It’s so cool, that it’s getting it’s own blog post.
It’s not a specific effect but rather a tool and a technique that will give your work amazing depth (not DOF either). And it’s free! Of course, if you want to support Video Copilot’s ongoing mission to make cool stuff, head over to the products page and check out our great DVDs! I think there’s a banner somewhere around here 
Be sure to check out our new tool Pro Scores while your at it, the audio demo is now online.