This is the beginning of a series of as-they-come notes on news of assorted After Effects tutorials, tips, and scripts & plug-ins.
In the last several weeks, Mylenium has written on a variety of possible issues some will face with the initial Cinema 4D features of the Next version of After Effects, which were discussed in-depth in details of CINEMA 4D integration with After Effects by Todd Kopriva. Mylenium has gathered his thoughts in a meaty post on the topic, cinelement, and added more in Fractured Reality. See also the forums at cgsociety.
Besides slow rendering and other tradeoffs, Mylenium notes that the “biggest hinderance here is that the plug-in does everything enclosed in the actual C4D scene and where you would use expressions like in the recent car rig demo in Element, you have no means of accessing scene items while at the same time not giving you advanced animation techniques in the 3D program itself.”
Those with a full version of C4D will enjoy a boon, but in the initial stages some C4D Lite users may find Video Copilot Element 3D easier, faster, and more flexible (with gotchas) — even while some C4D users are already using Element 3D too. Either way, the days of pseudo 3D workarounds are fading and the future of 3D in After Effects seems bright.
The recent project mentioned by Mylenium is Simple Car Rig in Element 3D by Andrew Kramer:
Harry Frank has a quick tip, Baking Textures in Cinema 4D for Element 3D:
Here's Realistic compositing of 3D models from FXhome HitFilm, the inexpensive but impressive newer compositing tool.
David Torno on understanding goals, workflow tips, the difference between Expressions and Scripts, and the After Effects Object Model Structure in ExtendScript. See also Using and creating After Effects scripts for a variety of other resources.
In Depth: Rain Generators by Michele Yamazaki is a handy comparative roundup of resources for the simulation of rain. Here's one of here links, After Effects Particular Rain effect from Rasmus Jürs, which even comes with settings info:
Motional shared his After Effects timesaving: Performance tips.
HUD and UI graphics in ‘Oblivion; + titles by Rich Young
'Oblivion,' a new movie that features a unique mix of practical and digital effects. The HUD and UI graphics seem to have been mostly shot in-camera after being created by a team lead by Bradley G Munkowitz, aka GMUNK. The title sequences are also noted.
mocha AE is a planar tracking and roto utility bundled with After Effects CS6. In this 1.5 hour webinar, Dr. Mathias Möhl of mamoworld.com teaches the basics of understanding mocha's powerful tracking technology.
See also An Introduction to Motion Trackers by Adam Everett Miller and other new tutorials from Aetuts+ — like Quick Tip – Text and Expression-Fixing Scripts You Should Use and the 4-part series Create an Organized AE Template by Andre Navarre, and Animate Different Extrusion Levels of a Logo Based on Its Color Range by Mohammad Bilal.
Render Booster is a new Mac-only tool said to speed up After Effects renders; for background and multi-machine renders.
Create Water with Trapcode Particular [Tutorial] by @DinoMFX
Erwin Santacruz noted a slightly older “great series” on Manipulating 3D Space with Expressions in After Effects – Part 1 of 6 – Introduction by @felt_tips.
@aescripts notes “New for #AfterEffects: Paint Out. Take the pain out of painting! Intro special: 33% off until May 31, 2013.” Of course, there are other new scripts worth checking out!
Evan Abrams has several new After Effects tutorials, for example: Spinning Globe, Animate Text On A Path, and Flip Clock Countdown and Up.
How To Move Your Camera Through The Floor Using 3D Projection was posted by Surfaced Studio.
After Effects Technology Preview: Part 4, by Chris Meyer, on better blurring, snapping, scaling, and more was posted on Lynda.com. If you don't belong, see After Effects Technology Preview, an overview of soon-to-be released version. Here's a sample on the Refine Edge tool from the series:
Jonas Hummelstrand (@hummelstrand) noted “Animated typefaces for Adobe After Effects” from Animography. They've had several new ones since the initial releases.
In Red Giant QuickTip #79: Paint Drips with Trapcode Particular, Harry Frank shows you how to create a spray paint effect with paint drips. He also shares the project file.
“Align3D” by Sunrise Moon is the simple 3D space align and distribute script for After Effects. Here's a demo of Align3D, as well a demo by Josh Weiss of the upcoming snapping feature of CS Next. For more on the new versions of Creative Suite, see CS Next Sneak Peeks.
Please note that these roundups are for quick review and comparison. There is almost always vital information from the originating authors at the links provided-and often free presets, projects, or stock footage too.