Category: Tutorials

  • Understanding Axis Modes

    Understanding Axis Modes

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    Angie Taylor

    After Effects can be a difficult application to learn simply because it offers you so may options. Many of these options are not immediately apparent to users so they muddle through using default settings when a better solution may be available to them. My job is to point you in the direction of these hidden…

  • Control Layers in Adobe After Effects for character animation

    Control Layers in Adobe After Effects for character animation

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    Angie Taylor

    I was asked a question during my After Effects Fundamentals course at The Bridge this wek. I was about how to use control layers in After Effects to adjust animation, using expressions. Funnily enough I’ve recently recorded a movie covering this exact technique so I just asked the guys at video2brain if they could unlock…

  • Uprezzing Comps

    Uprezzing Comps

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    Angie Taylor

    A question appeared on the Video Copilot website today about uprezzing old projects which can be a bit of a nightmare in AE. You can often find that layers positions get messed up and effects change appearance when you scale your comp. Some of the issues that you’ll come across are hard to avoid but…

  • Animating a line drawn on a map – Indiana Jones Style

    Animating a line drawn on a map – Indiana Jones Style

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    Angie Taylor

    I contribute to the Creative Cow Basic After Effects forum (amongst others) where this question was posted recently; “Hi I am newish to after effects and I have created a old map effect that pans from the UK to africa now I want to add a red line that reveals like in the Indiana Jones…

  • ‘Sculpting’ paths in Adobe Illustrator

    ‘Sculpting’ paths in Adobe Illustrator

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    Angie Taylor

    Here’s another free tutorial from my first venture into making video tutorials for Adobe Illustrator. My tutorials are probably what you’d call non-standard! I’m not going to teach you how to ‘the cool look’ that we’ve all seen a million times before, that doesn’t really interest me, and there are plenty of other websites that…

  • Basics on Solids in Adobe After Effects

    Basics on Solids in Adobe After Effects

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    Angie Taylor

    When designing motion graphics in Adobe After Effects there are times you just need to create a plain old layer to apply effects to. Solids are just right for this purpose, and for lots of other uses in After Effects. This video is aimed at a basic level. It shows you how to create solid-color layers…

  • Animated Character Design in Adobe Illustrator

    Animated Character Design in Adobe Illustrator

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    Angie Taylor

    I’m very pleased to offer my readers a couple of free tutorials from my very first video2brain workshop on Adobe Illustrator. This workshop will teach you how to use Illustrator’s tools and features to prepare 2D files for animation in Adobe After Effects. You’ll learn how to make the most of Illustrator’s drawing tools and…

  • Hand-drawn animation with After Effects Paint tools

    Hand-drawn animation with After Effects Paint tools

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    Angie Taylor

    Week four of 2011 brings my fourth FREE Giveaway Tutorial. This tutorial comes from my Adobe After Effects CS5 Learn by Video DVD from video2brain. The paint tools in After Effects are usually used for cloning or filling in mattes, but they can also be used to create stop-motion-style animation. In this movie you’ll see how…

  • Lip Sync in After Effects

    Lip Sync in After Effects

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    Angie Taylor

    Lip-syncing is something that all animators will be asked to do at some point in their career. The following technique automates the process of lip sync in After Effects and uses only built-in features of Adobe After Effects – no extra software is required! This video tutorial is an updated version for Adobe CS5. Tutorial…

  • Tip: Wrapping text around a circle in After Effects

    Tip: Wrapping text around a circle in After Effects

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    Angie Taylor

    I saw a post on the After Effects mailing list today asking how to wrap text around a circle in After Effects. Here’s how it’s done; 1) Create a text layer with the text you want. 2) Select the layer and then, with the Ellipse tool, draw a circular Mask on the Text layer. 3)…

  • Creating a Cityscape in 3D

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    Angie Taylor

    I want to share an example of one of my tutorials that I’m very proud to say inspired a great piece of work, “Black Day to Freedom” by the amazing Rob Chiu. I met Rob after watching a very inspiring talk he gave at the Flash on the Beach conference a few years back. I…

  • Creative After Effects Bonus Tutorials

    Creative After Effects Bonus Tutorials

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    Angie Taylor

    These Creative After Effects Bonus Tutorials are ones created specifically for readers of my “Creative After Effects” books but are also freely available to everyone who visits my website. They were designed for previous versions of After Effects but still contain useful tips, tricks and techniques. These books contain many more in depth tutorials on…