After Effects musings of the hobbyist kind.

I'm a huge LOST fan. And if you're like me then you've probably recreated a popular movie or TV show intro sequence and modified it to suit your audience...perhaps for a fun work, birthday, or wedding video. I was unable to find a tutorial on how to recreate the LOST intro sequence, so I thought I'd create one for anyone else out there who might be interested. Background The opening title was created by Co-Creator/Executive Producer J.J. Abrams on an Apple laptop using After Effects during the filming of the pilot episode (according to the producer’s commentary on the Season 1 DVD extras). What you'll need After Effects CS4 (untested in other versions - leave a comment) Prep Work Get these things taken care of first and once you're in After Effects you will have everything you need to complete your own title sequence. 1.  Download and Install "Futura Medium" - Download | How to Install a Font 2.  Capture sound (or search for it on Googl...

You may find yourself in a situation where you want to capture sound from another video, flash file, mp3, etc. This guide will show you how to do so in Windows XP. Other versions of Windows should be similar. What you'll need The video, flash file, mp3, or what have you that you want to capture the sound from. Step by Step Guide 1. Open the video, flash file, mp3, or what have you in a player.  2. Open Sound Recorder (Start/All Programs/Accessories/Entertainment/Sound Recorder) 3. Click on the Record button 4. Start playing the video, flash file, mp3 or what have you 5. Press Stop on the Sound Recorder when done 6. Save your file 7. That's it. You are now ready to import your file into Premier, After Effects, or whatever you are using.

Ok, I realize this is pretty basic stuff but I wanted to be comprehensive with my step by step guides.  This will show you how to install a font in Windows XP specifically.  Other versions of Windows should be similar. What you'll need The new font that you want to install (.TTF, .FON, .OTF) Step by Step Guide 1. Open your font folder (Start/Control Panel/Fonts) 2. Drag and Drop your new font file into your font folder 3. That's it.  Depending on the program you may need to restart it before the font will be available to use.

I recently found myself trying to figure out how to do 3d text in Adobe After Effects CS4 while trying to recreate the intro from the tv show LOST. The solution that I chose does not require any 3rd party plugins...only the Shatter effect. What you'll need After Effects CS4 (untested in other versions - leave a comment) Step by Step Guide 1. Startup After Effects and create a New Project and add a New Composition to it 2. Add a new Text Layer to the Composition and enter your text (text color does not matter) 3. Hide your Text Layer 4. Add a new Solid Layer to the Composition and set the solid color to the color of text that you want 5. Apply the Shatter Effect to your Solid Layer (search for Shatter in Effects & Presets, then drag "Shatter" onto your Solid Layer) 6. Set Shatter Effect properties Change [View] to "Rendered" Change [Shape/Pattern] to "Custom" Change [Shape/Custom Shatter Map] to your Text Lay...