If you've checked out my Secrets of Particle Playground tutorial on macProVideo, you've seen that Particle Playground is a powerful, if little-known, tool for all kinds of advanced visual effects, esp
You've all seen the popular effect in film and TV titles where the title text is outlined by lights rays that shoot out from the edges of the characters, so that the title looks as if it's illuminated
One of Adobe After Effects' most important functions in film and video production is compositing. This is the combining of separate visual elements to create single integrated imagery, often for the p
OK, who's this guy? I don't know either, but I don't think he's really Italian. However, he is going to be useful in helping to introduce you to After Effects' most basic color correction tools.
(If y
One of the most important concepts that a new user must grasp, in order to do almost anything in Adobe After Effects, are keyframes and keyframing. While there are a few procedural, or rules-based,
What's with the turkey, you say? It's from the video we're using to introduce you to the concept of Time Remapping, a very powerful but somewhat obscure feature in Adobe After Effects that lets you ke
Everyone has his or her favorite key commands, and I'm no exception. Here are my five favorites for Adobe After Effects:
1. Fit To Frame
Command-Option-F (Mac)
Ctrl-Alt-F (Win)
This somewhat obscure
One definition of "spotting" audio, as used in the film and video editing business, is the process of marking points in an audio track or region that you want to synchronize with visual events in the
There are several different types of animated smoke effects you can create in After Effects, and several ways to create them. In this tutorial, I'm going to show you a quick way to simulate a dense ca
After Effects CS5 now includes Digieffects FreeForm AE, a powerful 3D distortion plugin that can do all kinds of warps and displacements in true 3D space that have previously been unavailable in After
Adobe After Effects' Particle Playground plugin is a powerful environment for particle systems special effects, but few After Effects users even know it's there, and many of those who do, find its int