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.

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!

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!

Watch Sample Video

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!

Watch Tutorial

See Finished Sample Video

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...

Sample Video