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VIDEO COPILOT BLOG News, Updates, Projects Files & Tips |
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Posted at 1:19 am on June 24th, 2011 by Andrew Kramer
After all the exciting announcement for our new Plug-in Element, I forgot to let everyone know, that the stock footage from our recent Set Extensions Tutorials is now online at no charge! Should be perfect to follow along with the tutorial and practice these techniques. The footage is half-hd at 960 x 540 with no watermark thanks to Artbeats.com so if you are looking for a new shot for a project you may working on, check out some of the clips they have, some are even in Stereo 3D.
In the download, I’ve also included, the matte painting PSD file, the smoke/cloud element, the BG sky image and the roto-matte for the front mountains, just in case you don’t want to practice rotoscopting and work on the look.
Posted at 5:54 pm on June 22nd, 2011 by Andrew Kramer
Hey what’s up! It may be Wednesday but I’m excited to share some details about a new Video Copilot plug-in called Element. Formally Code-named Atom, like a secret agent, the new plug-in Element is a 3D geometry-based particle style plug-in for After Effects with many powerful features. I’m working on a demonstration soon that should answer a lot of questions and explain how the plug-in works in detail. Be sure to check out the mini-poster for a list of features that will be available.
All four images were created with Element inside of After Effects.
Posted at 12:57 pm on June 21st, 2011 by Andrew Kramer
In this exciting and detailed tutorial we will transform ordinary stock footage into an evil landscape with 3D fog and mountains. We will cover 3D match moving inside of After Effects using the new Camera Tracker plug-in as well as Particular to create the soft clouds. I know it has been a while since I’ve done a tutorial so I tried to make this one as detailed as possible including many gritty details.
I do my best not to use 3rd party tools as much as possible as you probably know from watching the last 100 tutorials but for this tutorial we needed to generate a 3D camera for the clouds so I used the most inexpensive full featured 3D tracking software around called Camera Tracker. As we get into some more advanced tutorials over the next couple of months we may have to use one or two third party tools but I’ll do my best to keep it to a minimum and only when absolutely necessary! Until then.
Posted at 6:27 pm on June 13th, 2011 by Andrew Kramer
This is going to be a fun week! I started playing around with an Aerial shot from Artbeats.com and decided it needed a castle on the coast along with a sky replacement and a moon.
If you watch the video, you can see that parts of the castle show up behind the cliffs and on the left side, there is a small part of the castle on the far mountain that parallaxes with the main castle to make it feel more three dimensional. This comp plays-off the same ideas of the 3D set extensions tutorial coming out this week. Stay tuned for shot breakdowns and more fun tips!
Posted at 6:32 pm on June 6th, 2011 by Andrew Kramer
Well, if ever there was a companion to the hands-on approach of Video Copilot, it could be this Hand Book designed to improve the skills of upcoming artists.
At Video Copilot, our philosophy is teach with hands-on experience of doing real-world projects. We start with a specific objective like a sky-replacement or car-hit effect and work through the various challenges as they come up, in real-time. We think it is a great way to learn software and understand the concepts of compositing by applying them to real-world scenarios. It is one thing to talk about a ‘track-matte’ but it’s another thing to see how it is used to solve a real problem.
In fact, our upcoming Crystal Ball promo represents a new level of training for Video Copilot because we focused on making a “real” production and intentionally pushed the limits of what might normally go into a standard video tutorial. Not to say that we made lousy rubbish in the past but for this project we are using an actual commercial to drive our visual effects needs. In other words, we didn’t just throw together a single shot for the sake of making a tutorial, but instead we made a real promo with real challenges that required comprehensive solutions. And these solutions should be quite informative as tutorials and tips. BTW, I’m not saying the new video will be good, only that we tried to make it less crummy than usual!
Now where was I? Oh yeah, the VFX handbook!! What I like about this handbook is that it covers subjects and concepts that are important to growing your knowledge and aptitude of the VFX industry beyond the focus of a single tutorial to give you a larger scope for the future. It is also organized nicely into modules that focus on different areas of post production to make it easy to follow. I encourage everyone to read it and let’s all improve our skills together.
PS, Disclaimer, it was sponsored by the UK government, but luckily this version is in English! … Kidding of course… I just have to be careful with my sarcasm, I still have people remind me that the movie with Will Smith, where he tries to find a cure for a zombie infection is not called Independence Day.
Apparently it is called Men in black. Tutorial Reference
Posted at 7:58 pm on June 5th, 2011 by Andrew Kramer
If you are going to be in LA on Tuesday June 21st, I’ll be doing a presentation at the DMALA user group and you should come check it out! We are going to be taking a look a couple of upcoming plug-ins including Optical Flares for Nuke and our all new tool for After Effects that you may have heard by it’s codename : Atom.
It’s a new plug-in, and it does some cool stuff.
Of course, I’ll follow it up on the website with some feature demos and a release date.
Sign up now to get a ticket for the presentation! And follow us on Twitter for info and updates. @videocopilot
Posted at 3:17 pm on May 31st, 2011 by Andrew Kramer
When you want to make an epic trailer, like the one we have been talking about for months, you need some footage of a camera flying through the mountains. It’s pretty much a requirement. For this shot we bought some nice stock footage of a camera fly-through but we wanted to add a little more evil to the countryside. So we used a 3D camera track and added a matte painting of some jagged mountains and even used particular to build a spooky evil Myst across the land. The great thing about this promo we are making is the wide variety of shots and techniques needed to finish each shot so expect some expansive tutorials and information. More to come soon!
Posted at 6:37 pm on May 22nd, 2011 by Andrew Kramer
Good news! Now that I am finished helping out with some visual effects on the new film Super 8, I’m excited to get back to all this awesome Video Copilot action!
As some of you may know, we started shooting this Crystal ball promo a couple of months ago and before I could finish, my schedule filled up with some great opportunities to work on a feature film with director J.J. Abrams. Now I didn’t want to release our promo project until it was completely done so now that I’m back, there are a few last minute effects to do and then we are going to premiere the promo sometime next week.
Until then, here is a short video with some behind-the-scenes coverage.
Posted at 12:43 pm on May 4th, 2011 by Andrew Kramer
I know workflow tutorials and tips aren’t as fun as blowing up a speed boat as it flies off a building but they can be very useful when you are working on a movie called Speed 3: Air Force One. Which is still in development, no stars attached… yet. In any case I wanted to promote a few useful scripts that are available for After Effects.
Great tool for duplicating a comp and all of the pre-comps to make an independent comp for experimenting or building graphics based on a single design. The great thing is how easy it works, just select a comp you want to duplicate and the script makes copies of all the dependencies within.
This script is actually similar and better than our the Trim Compose script we just released and if I knew about it 2 months ago, I probably would have used it instead. Basically it gives you some cool ways to pre-compose layers, including a batch option for multiple selected layers.
This script is pretty insane, especially if you have a decent computer. It allows you to render stuff without having to stop working in AE. Check out the help info to see how it might fit into your workflow. If you find yourself, staring at a progress bar all day, this might be helpful. Unless you want to stare at them… in which case you shouldn’t be reading this.
Another option-based pre-compose script that let’s you decide what stays in the current comp and what goes through to the pre-comp. If you ever thought about leaving the transform settings but moving the masks or whatever, this gives you the options.
This script actually is hard to explain. But the way I understand it, is that it Saves a Comp as a Project 
AE3D Export Camera from AE to 3D
This script exports the AE camera into a variety of formats for your 3D program. This allows you to match camera information for better integration. Check out the 3D ledge tutorial for some tips.
Posted at 12:20 pm on May 2nd, 2011 by Andrew Kramer
Today we have a new After Effects script to help you work with shots on a large VFX project like a Commercial or a music video that has many edits. One of the nice things about doing VFX inside of AE is seeing your shots in sequence to make sure they flow together, but it can get tricky if you start adding hundreds of layers into a single composition as we all know.
A more organized solution is to Pre-Compose each shot into individual compositions and do the work inside. The Trim Compose Script helps make that job fast and easy but wait there’s more. The script automatically takes selected layers and then pre-composes each one into time accurate pre-comps, based on the length of each edit.
Benefits:
- Create edit accurate pre-comps based on final cut
- Keeps projects organized and VFX inside individual comps
- Create proxies for specific range based on the edit
- Batch process shots to work with multiple artists
- Adds frame handles automatically
This probably doesn’t make any sense, check out the video for a full demonstration.
Posted at 9:17 pm on May 1st, 2011 by Andrew Kramer
I was experimenting with some interesting energy fields and I discovered a fun combination of effects. I used the standard fractal noise effect to create a basic turbulent map and then applied a Find Edges effect on top. I added some color correction and a glow to give it more punch and even animated the evolution settings. Feel free to play around with the fractal noise settings with the Find Edges effect applied and see what other interesting looks you can discover.
The project file is only cs5 because I don’t have CS4 on my laptop right now but I took a screen shot of the settings so that should help.
Posted at 2:09 pm on April 25th, 2011 by Andrew Kramer
I went to NAB this year in Las Vegas and attended the Media Motion Ball, it was great to talk with many people in the industry and eat a delicious meal. One of the highlights was a funny and meaningful speech by Brian Maffitt of Total Training, and it was about the issues that arise when artists starts thinking they know everything. You can imagine the issues that might come up but I won’t go into the specifics of the speech because I’ll probably screw it up
However, it did remind me of a interesting piece of advice I heard a few years ago…
“Don’t let what you think you know, get in the way of learning things you don’t.”
In other words, if you start to think you know everything about one particular subject, it might be difficult to keep an open mind when it comes to learning new techniques and solutions. When I do VFX work, I always try to think about the objective as freely as possible so I don’t get stuck working around a technique that causes problems in other areas of the shot. Not every comp will have the same requirements so it is important to identify all of the problems and objectives so you can design a more efficient solution.
Anyone have an experience or story that might relate?
Posted at 2:24 pm on April 20th, 2011 by Andrew Kramer
I’m currently working on some VFX for an upcoming feature film and we are finishing up this month on about 50 shots.
I’m still very anxious to show you what we have been working on at Video Copilot and I think this will represent a solid direction and a new level of content on the site. Needless to say it has been busy as of late, from finishing the FX on my “Magic Orb” project to getting involved on a feature film that actually requires the FX to actually be good. Obviously it has been really fun and sometimes really late but I’ve been exploring some fantastic new VFX and workflows so I can’t wait to share them with you.
Of course behind the scenes, Video Copilot is moving forward on 3 new plug-ins, one of which is being shaped around the needs of real film work and experiences. I believe they represent the next-generation of tools that will open up some amazing possibilities…
Believe me, I don’t mean to tease but I just want everyone to know what we are up to and what we are working on!
Until soon, All the best!!
Posted at 1:47 am on April 4th, 2011 by Andrew Kramer
Build a procedural crumble effect in After Effects using the shatter plug-in in a unique way. We also composite dust elements from Action Essentials 2 and talk about following your dreams.
Posted at 3:31 pm on March 28th, 2011 by Andrew Kramer
Our new project wouldn’t be complete without Sam Loya discovering something magical so we found a way to get him in. I know there has been a lot of mystery on the blog recently and I apologize, it is not meant to be as suspenseful, it is just taking longer than expected
I really want to show you everything we are working on but I don’t want to ruin the surprise by releasing too much so I appreciate your patience. I will try to post small things as we go and we are very close to finishing!
Posted at 9:37 pm on March 14th, 2011 by Andrew Kramer
Things have been busy lately as we have been working on some vfx for a short Video Copilot project that we will be covering extensively on the blog. It is an unusual project but it has been a great opportunity to work on because some unexpected challenges compared to our normal work.
I won’t ruin the surprise yet but we should be close to finishing in about a week.
Posted at 1:33 am on March 10th, 2011 by Andrew Kramer
I’ve been working on a new project this past week involving some magic and maybe some mystery. It seems the closer I get to finishing one thing, the more needs to be done in post. I can’t tell you what this actress is looking at but it is part of a promo I will share online when it is complete. There will likely be some great behind the scenes action and a few visual effects tips to share.
Btw, we shot with a new Sony F3 and a couple Optimo cinema lenses… more to follow!
Posted at 7:29 pm on February 28th, 2011 by Andrew Kramer
As you may know at Video Copilot we like to do things procedurally when possible like in the Shatterize and Disintegration tutorials. Recently I’ve been working on an all-new technique to procedurally carve words into a wall as the pieces crumble away using just After Effects and a few dust elements from our Action Essentials 2 product.
The results are getting better but the technique is quite interesting, first the wall begins to crack followed by pieces falling out of the words, then it is mixed with dust elements and particles.
This method is great for creating disaster movie fx too, I’m planning the tutorial so stay tuned!
Posted at 11:27 am on February 14th, 2011 by Andrew Kramer
Look! Up in the Sky. It’s a Bird. It’s a plane. No, it’s a Galactic Orb!
In this exciting new tutorial we will build a compelling infinite zoom animation inside After Effects with only built-in Plug-ins. We’ll start by building the orb using real-life textures and then animate a camera through 3D particles. Timing is everything and you don’t want to miss this full-feature tutorial, complete with a video introduction!
Posted at 1:38 pm on February 9th, 2011 by Andrew Kramer
So I’ve been working on this exciting new project that I’ll be talking about more later but I wanted to share some work I did on this recently. The idea for the menu was to make the table come under a dark spell once a button is pushed. This included adding wind and blowing the pages of the book open.
There were some interesting challenges and I can’t wait to show you all our behind the scenes work. Until then, check out this sample video and see if you can spot any Easter eggs…