gg_PuppetTools for After Effects Aids in Character Set ups

By lesterbanks | Published: December 3, 2011

Greg Gunn has a new script in AEscripts called gg_PuppetTools for After Effects that aids in the rigging of characters that will use the After EFfects Puppet Tool with two core functions – Pins to Nulls which creates Null Objects where After EFfects Puppet Pins are placed, and Loop Precomp which will automate the looping process for animation cycles. Check out the gg_PuppetTools for After Effects Aids in Character Set ups script here.

Greg Gunn notes: This script has 2 core functions. The first, Pins To Nulls, creates and places nulls where AE Puppet Tool pins are located on the selected layer. If you’re a frequent Puppet Tool user you know what a pain in the butt it is to animate with, especially when you have a lot of pins and separate layers of artwork. Hopefully this null workflow makes things a bit easier. The second function, Loop Precomp, does exactly what the name implies. It was designed to automate the process of looping animation cycles. Basically, it time remaps the selected precomp and applies an endless loop expression to it.

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Natural HDR After Effects Plugin Gets New Name + Beta Download

By lesterbanks | Published: December 3, 2011

NaturalHDR the soon to be released Natural HDR tone-mapping plugin for After Effects has received a new name GINGER – NaturalHDR provides a different approach to tone mapping and uses 4 different techniques for tonemapping HDR scenes – the idea is that if you have a scene with a large amount of contrast and you use 1 technique to tonemap it, the final result will always look unnatural. With NaturalHDR however, you can use several different techniques to push the scene into your target range without losing your overall lighting balance. NaturalHDR is based on pushing and pulling the different settings to achieve your desired look.

Check out the Ginger HDR plugin for natural HDR tone-mapping in after effects here.

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Creating Realistic Animated Grass in Blender

By lesterbanks | Published: December 2, 2011

Andrew Price with a new tutorial from the Nature Academy on creating realistic animated grass in Blender using softbody simulation. Check out the Creating Realistic Animated Grass in Blender tutorial here.

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Unfolding Objects in Cinema 4D using Xpresso

By lesterbanks | Published: December 2, 2011

A look at using Xpresso to unfold objects in a Cinema 4D scene by youmograph with a step by step look at how to achieve an unfolding effect with some expressions and some simple controls. Check out the YouMoGraph site for more great tutorials in Cinema 4D.

You MoGraph writes: In the scene, there are, on the one hand, the polys placed in a hierarchy, and on the other hand, the null objects, free from hierarchy, which have respectively the same position of polys. There is also a Null object called “controller”, which is used to automatically animate the polys.
In the scheme of Xpresso, we have two conditions. In the first condition, we say to the polys to rotate from 0 ° to 180 ° only when the distance, on the z-axis, between null object and the controller is greater than or equal to some constant (in the project is “offset”) .
In the second condition, we say “freeze” the polys rotation to 180°, when on the z axis, the value position null objects is less than or equal the value of position controller.

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Paint Out Tracking Markers in After Effects

By lesterbanks | Published: December 2, 2011

Evan Abrams is back with another tutorial on how to remove tracking markers in a scene using After Effects with a little bit of roto work. Check out more great After Effects tutorials on EC’s site here.

EC Abrams writes “In a rare keeping of promises today I actually talk about a subject referenced in an earlier tutorial. The natural followup to using tracking markers in a scene is how to remove those tracking markers when you don’t want to see them. That’s what this is all about. A process once called “painting” for the hours of painful frame drawing to remove markers is now super easy! Let’s learn.”

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Sculptris Basics & Quick Tips for Sculpting

By lesterbanks | Published: December 2, 2011

Alex Myers takes a look at some of the basics of using Sculptris and provides some quikc tips along the way by covering blocking out forms, using the clay mode for the draw tool, and some other tips.

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The Foundry Continue to Shake-­up 3D Paint with Release of MARI 1.4

By lesterbanks | Published: December 1, 2011

The Foundry have recently updated Mari to 1.4 including which includes some really great new features such as the import entire layered PSD files, support for OpenColorIO Based Linear Color, a new Tri-Planar Shader Module, as well as the addition of an Adjustment Layer Shader and an updated Enviroment Sphere Shader Module. Check out the huge 1.4 additions to Mari at the Foundry here.

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Overview of Multipass Rendering in Maya for Composite in Nuke

By lesterbanks | Published: December 1, 2011

SimplyMaya showing how to get started with creating a multi-pass render out of Maya for compositing in NUKE with Open EXR files. A great overview of creating multipass renders in Maya for creating ambient occlusion, diffuse, specular and shadow passes.

From the tutorial description: Render out multiple passes in maya as an OpenExr file then composite them in nuke. Tutorial aims to get you up and running with multipass rendering in Maya as quickly as possible. In this example we render out and comp an ambient occlusion pass a diffuse pass a specular pass and a shadow pass.

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Controlling Type Attributes in After Effects by Using the Pick Whip

By lesterbanks | Published: December 1, 2011

Ben Halsall looks at a common practice but sometimes overlooked PickWhip tool in After EFfects which can ease the animation process of elements in After Effects by controlling elements in multiple layers in After Effects with a simple control – a simple concept, and a simple application.

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Creating a 3D Pixelstorm with ShapeShifter for After Effects

By lesterbanks | Published: December 1, 2011

Another great look at using the ShapeShifter After eFfects tool for creating some really fantastic animation. Nancy from Mettle demonstrates shape morphs while also exploring some of the features that are available in ShapeShifter for After Effects. Mettle’s ShapeShifter plugin for After Effects represents a true 3D environment using Mettles 3DNAE Mettle’s proprietary, hardware acclelerated, 3D engine making Mettle’s complex 3D operations in After Effects super fast.

Check out the Creating a 3D PixelStorm animation with ShapeShifter for After Effects Tutorial here.

From the tutorial description: “Nancy shows us how to use ShapeShifter AE along with 2D Tools, filters and presets found in After Effects, to create a complex 3D animation. She covers 3D shape morphs and explores many of the features available in Mettle’s ShapeShifter AE. All this, in no time at all”

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