Yearly Archives: 2009
Expressions and External Documents – Revised for CS4
In the tutorial Expressions and External Documents, I showed some ideas on how to use external documents to drive content inside After Effects. The feedback that I’ve gotten from the community is that this technique can be a real timesaver in projects that require a lot of repetitive content, such as bumpers, lower thirds, interstitials, etc.
In the tutorial, with my own attempt at the idea, I fell short on a couple of challenges. First, because After Effects uses different address structures for Windows and Mac OS X, it’s a little tricky to make one expression that works on both platforms. Second, as I’ve later found out, the #include function was disabled in AE CS4.
Fortunately, scripting and expressions guru Lloyd Alvarez stepped in to fill in the gaps and provide a solution that works in both CS3 and CS4, as well as both platforms. Let’s take a look at the full Source Text expression:
if ($.os.indexOf("Mac") != -1)
myPath = "/Expressions/";
else
myPath = "file://c:\\\\Expressions\\";
myPath += "data.txt";
$.evalFile (myPath);
eval(thisComp.name);
Let’s take a look at what is going on here.
if ($.os.indexOf(“Mac”) != -1)
In this first line, $.os is equal to the name of our current operating system. For example, on my computer this displays “Macintosh OS 10.5.6″. indexOf() simply looks for the content in parentheses. If it finds this, like the letters “Mac”, it is equal to a value of 0. If it is not found, the value is -1. If you’ve not used it before, the term != means “does not equal”.
Therefore, this is an if/else condition that says “if the current OS contains the word ‘Mac’,then do the following. So, we have things set up for both Mac and Windows, and we can handle things accordingly.
The next line is what runs if the OS is Mac based, and it establishes the initial path of where to look for the external document.
myPath = “/Expressions/”;
If the OS is not a Mac, and is therefore Windows based, the path will be formatted for Windows. Note that in Windows, two slashes: \\ need to be supplied to denote a directory, not just one.
else
myPath = “file://c:\\\\Expressions\\”;
Now that we have the path set up, let’s assume that the text document that has our data is called “data.txt”. What can be done at this point is to add the path and filename together like this:
myPath += “data.txt”;
This is the equivalent of myPath = mypath + “data.txt”;
Then, an alternative to #include is $.evalFile, which fortunately works in CS3 and CS4 as a way to look at the contents of an external file. Then, just like in the tutorial, we can use eval() to have the comp name pass as the the value for the source text, as the last value in the expression. Assuming there is a variable in the data file that matches the comp name, it will be displayed as the source text.
$.evalFile (myPath);
eval(thisComp.name);
To have the expression wrapped inside try/catch to eliminate error messages (such as in the case of the text document not having the correct scene number), here is a version like that:
try{
if ($.os.indexOf(“Mac”) != -1)
myPath = “/Expressions/”;
else
myPath = “file://c:\\\\Expressions\\”;
myPath += “data.txt”;
$.evalFile (myPath);
eval(thisComp.name);
}catch(err){“Not Found”}
For some complete training on After Effects Expressions, and to support the site, take a look at my After Effects Expressions training series.expressions
AutoSlideShow Presets
These two After Effects expressions are pretty simple, but they make slide show projects a breeze!! The first, “AutoZoom”, makes a layer zoom (scale) based on the in and out points of the layer.The “zoom” value, is how much it zooms. Positive or negative values will both work.
Next, AutoFade creates fades on head and tail of any clip. The transition is specified in the “transition” variable, which is defined in frames. Note: Presentation is audio only.
GSG Five Second Projects
Exercising the creative muscle is vital to being a designer. Projects like Nick Campbell’s Five Second Project series. I came up with a diddy for this week’s “Peanut Butter and Jelly” challenge.
PB&J Express from graymachine on Vimeo.
Kaboom
The title says it all. This is a couple explosion projects that I made with Trapcode Particular. Each version is available with and without the Death Star Explosion Plasma Ring.
Trapcode Form Training
Now bundled with the 30+ minute “Trapcode Form Design Techniques” !
This series is now bundled with the a half hour chapter covering how to use the plug-in in a production workflow. You’ll learn how to take the next step with Trapcode Form.
The video training includes five chapters:
- Basic Fractal Shape – Duration: 9:42
- Box – Strings – Duration: 11:18
- Audio React – Duration: 7:43
- Layer Maps – Duration: 6:02
- Advanced Techniques – Duration 36:53
Price: $29 | DOWNLOAD ONLY
Earning Residual Income as Motion Designer
As a freelancer, one cannot have enough sources of income. With more and more clients taking 60 or even 90 days to pay an invoice, additional checks each month can bridge the gaps in income and ease the tough times.
You’ve probably seen the articles that tell you to “Sell your stock footage” or “Sell your ideas” online. However, in this article I’d like to talk specifics. How, where, and from whom you’ll be earning these residual checks each month.
Selling Your Animations and Videos
One of the great things about the Internet is that it allows anyone anywhere to easily connect with anyone else. To the person with ideas and products to sell, this means the easy exposure and distribution. What used to be a handful of large conglomerate stock agencies has exploded into a smaller number of companies for you to pick from and work with to sell your ideas.
One I find interesting is videohive.net. This site sells a very high volume of materials (video, Flash, and audio) from its registered users. Although the sister sites have been around longer (Flashden and Audiojungle) there is also a great deal of video and animation content available for sale there. The high volume of sales do yield a decent amount of sales for even the small-time animation content producer. You earn a cut of 35% on sales of materials distributed exclusively through Flashden payable via Paypal each month.
What to create: Create high definition animations (720p or 1080i) that are colorful, seamlessly looping, and work well as backgrounds for videos or websites. Consider a variation of styles: clean, retro, grungey, etc. Create “sets” of backgrounds that have several color variations. Each of these will sell for about $5 – $10 each.
Realistic expectations: Post 10 high quality animation backgrounds staggered every couple weeks to once a month. This should yield about $100 a month, or more.
Selling Your After Effects projects
This is a rapidly expanding area, and is the area that I am concentrating on most these days. Why? Cutting right to the chase: you can easily make $1000 a month if you post just a few projects (about 5 – 6) that people want to purchase.
News Open 01 from Revostock
You may have heard of RevoStock, which sells the above mentioned stock clips as well, but also sells After Effects projects from its producers. They have been quite successful and are moving a lot of projects. The word has gotten out, and there are a lot of producers flocking to Revostock to make a quick buck. Don’t make it a get-rich scheme. Be patient, and spend some time looking at what people are buying and what you can contribute. DO NOT rip off tutorials and submit them as your own.
What to create: Create clean, usable, well designed projects. Pay attention to detail. Make them easy to modify by precomping elements that need to modified by users, and labeling them clearly. Take a look at the the top sellers and see what is popular, what people want, and want people will pay money for.
Sell Training Products
This by far has the most potential, and yet is the most work. A good teacher that can explain things is golden, and people will certainly pay for it.
Granted, reputation is certainly earned. So, it might take some time invested on your part in the form of free tutorials, developing a presence on the Internet as a moderator or frequent helper on the various design forums, and writing your own articles and blog posts to get your name out there.
Also, don’t expect to be able to teach perfectly the first time you try it. Recording tutorials is a lot harder than it looks. Stay out of tangents, do not over-explain, but do not under-explain. It takes time. This is why you really must spend a lot of time recording free content, to fine-tune your skills as well as earn a following.
A great intermediate step that will get you some cash right up front is to author a tutorial for AE Tuts. The existing community of authors is a great mix of experts.
What to create: Keep on top of the tutorial community. Know what is out there so you are not duplicating efforts. Choose topics you know very well and that you can explain well. Produce tutorials that are goal oriented, that have an aesthetically pleasing result, so that your viewers want to get all the way through.
Realistic expectations: Depending on your training, how long, how well, etc. expect to make anywhere from $100 to $2000 per month. To keep your momentum going, try to release a new product for sale every 4 months, and hold the interest of your audience by releasing free tutorials in between.
Sell! Sell! Sell!
So, if you take the steps to create an awesome downloadable tutorial that everyone will want, how does one handle e-commerce options? Enter the commerce partner e-junkie.
E-junkie provides all of the tools you will ever need to provide shopping cart links, receiving payment, and most importantly: getting paid. I’ve used them in the past and will continue to do so for some new things that are coming down the pipe. I highly recommend them!
Overall, you can look at these as investments in your time just like you can invest money. A very small amount of time can blossom over a year into an easy thousand dollars a month. More time will equal more money. Unlike the stock market, however, these won’t deplete and leave you high and dry!
Lens Flare Project
Download this project featuring ideas from the Reviving the AE Lens Flare tutorial, as well as some other ideas. Trapcode Shine is used in this project.
Reviving AE Lens Flares
Use Trapcode Shine and shape layers to revive tired old Lens Flares in After Effects.
Basic Audio Edits in After Effects
Learn how to do basic audio and music edits inside After Effects when you don’t have time to jump out to another audio application.
Tracking and Replacing
Learn how to use motion tracking and masking to replace an object in a handheld shot.