Inside the Nebulae – tutorial and AE project

An imagination of flying in the gas clouds of space. Actual images of nebulas taken with the Hubble space telescope were combined in After Effects with CG gas clouds and stars made using Trapcode Form and Starglow.

Tutorial:

Download AE CS5 project file

3D Set Extensions Tutorial by Andrew Kramer

Very inspiring and informative tutorial by Andrew Kramer of Video Copilot. It covers 3D camera tracking (using The Foundry's CameraTracker AE plug-in), matte painting, masking, color correction, sky replacement and uses Trapcode Particular for the fog/smoke. Highly recommended!

http://www.videocopilot.net/tutorials/3d_set_extensions/

THEMYSTICBLACK

THEMYSTICBLACK from Peder Norrby on Vimeo.

Audio-driven animation using Trapcode Sound Keys to drive Particular. Music: Autechre - plyPhon. Here is a quick tutorial showing how the AEP was made:

THEMYSTICBLACK - tutorial from Peder Norrby on Vimeo.

Download AE project file (AE CS4): THEMYSTICBLACK.aep

QuickTip: How to make a spiral using Trapcode Form

Form Spiral - Quick Tutorial from Peder Norrby on Vimeo.

Volumetric Smoke with Trapcode Particular

Particular Volumetric Smoke from Peder Norrby on Vimeo.

This was an attempt at creating a volumetric looking smoke effect. It was totally improvised so it shows how I experiment to get the settings right.

After rendering the final clip I noticed I had to change the Particle>Size over Life curve so the particles size faded out rather than just disappearing abruptly. I also setup Aux>Opacity over Life so the auxiliary particles faded out (using opacity). Tutorial:

Particular Volumetric Smoke Tutorial from Peder Norrby on Vimeo.

Download AE CS5 AEP