Bringing Photographs to Life with 3D Layering in After Effects
In this series of After Effects tutorials, we will learn how to create a 3D fly-through effect in After Effects with assets created from images broken down in Photoshop. Software required: Photoshop CS5, After Effects CS6, Knoll Light Factory.
What you'll learn
In this series of After Effects tutorials, we will learn how to create a 3D fly-through effect in After Effects with assets created from images that we break down in Photoshop. We begin in Photoshop with the images and start to dissect the photos to get the parts we need for building our shot. We learn a few masking and painting techniques to fill in the gaps for some of the areas that are covered up in the photos. Then, we dive into After Effects and start building our scene by laying the ground, sky, and tree layers. After we've added and built the assets we need, we start to layer on the atmosphere effects. We create dust and fog particle systems using Trapcode's Particular plugin. We also add a few lens effects to make the whole shot feel more realistic. We finish off the tutorial with two lessons on sound design to make your entire video a truly immersive experience. This training is perfect for the intermediate After Effects user who wants to learn how to create a motion design project using realistic looking assets and sound to bring it to life. By the end of this training, you'll have created your own scary forest scene complete with a seamless camera transition from one composition to the next. You'll have also learned some of the basics for creating a project that uses sound in After Effects. Software required: Photoshop CS5, After Effects CS6, Knoll Light Factory.
Table of contents
- Isolating the Ground in Photoshop 12m
- Placing the Trees on Their Own Layers and Erasing the Backgrounds 13m
- Masking the Area Around the Figures and Placing Them on Individual Layers 11m
- Creating a Character Using Parts of Multiple Characters 18m
- Preparing the Images and Border for the Cards 9m
- Setting up the After Effects Project and Importing the Assets 6m
- Placing the Ground Layers and Sky 9m
- Adding a Camera and Null Object 10m
- Positioning the Trees in Z-space 16m
- Placing the People and Setting Keyframes for Their Movements 15m
- Animating the Man's Face Using Liquify 9m
- Refining the Camera Movement 9m
- Adding a Lens Flare to Mimic a Light Source 13m
- Using the Bird Video 12m
- Creating Dust Particles with Particular 12m
- Making Dynamic Fog Using an Image and Particular 16m
- Changing the Mood of the Scene with an Adjustment Layer and Adding a Vignette 7m
- Creating a New Composition for the Cards 5m
- Setting up Two Lights for the Card Composition 6m
- Placing the Cards in the Scene 12m
- Animating the Card's Positions 11m
- Refining the Card Animation 12m
- Creating the Transition from Our Cards Comp to the Forest Comp 16m
- Changing the Color of the Main Card Using the Tritone Effect 4m
- Adding Dust Particles to the Card Comp 7m
- Creating a PNG Sequence 6m
- Adding Lens Effect to the Shot to Add Realism 15m
- Designing the Ambient Sound for Our Scene 11m
- Adding Punctuating Sounds for Our Scene 16m