Quba HQ

Tutorial: Alphabet Soup (Fake Text Particles)

In this After Effects tutorial I will show you how to create a cool underwater opening title sequence. Rather than using Trapcode Particular (which many of you may not have installed) or CC Particle World (which really could use an update to its coordinate system) the project fakes particle simulation through use of text animators.

This quite lengthy tutorial is derived from another Video Bits project I created a while ago. The original Alphabet Soup used Particular and wasn’t much more than an eye-candy. The new-and-improved one I present to you today can actually be used for something else than ambient displays :)

Let me also give the credit where it is due: The preview video uses an audio clip from Lech Janerka’s song entitled Absolulu. I have been listening to it all day long and I can still take more.

Running time: 66min
Difficulty: Medium (as long as you’re patient)
Required tools: After Effects

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Tutorial: HolOS Password Hacking

Password hacking is usually presented as a quite dull process in Hollywood visuals. It is even more dull in real life. In this tutorial I will show you my take on a HolOS password hacking interface – spicing it up with After Effects 2.5D crossword puzzle look.

The idea for this tutorial comes from one of the Video Bits projects published back in 2008: Crossword Hax. I think enough time has passed since I created that effect, so I decided to share it with the community.

Running time: 41min
Difficulty: Advanced
Required tools: After Effects
Optional tools: Trapcode Horizon

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Tutorial: Text Reveal (Efficient Method)

Revealing handwritten text is one of these unpleasant tasks every motion designer has to deal with at least once. In this tutorial I present possibly the quickest and most efficient way of producing this effect.

Since the reveal effect itself is quite simple to produce and would result in a very short tutorial, I added some bulk to the video by presenting a smart way of guiding a null along the reveal, using it to drive different effects, such as a lens flare or particles.

Running time: 35min
Difficulty: Medium
Required tools: After Effects, Illustrator, Trapcode 3D Stroke and Particular.
Optional tools: Video Copilot Optical Flares

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Knoll Chromatic Lens 2 for VC Optical Flares

One of the most frequently (over)used After Effects lens flares is undoubtedly Chroma Lens 2 preset available in Knoll Light Factory Pro. As many other motion designers I, too am guilty of using this effect in a few projects too many.

As I am currently migrating my flare workflow to Video Copilot’s Optical Flares plug-in, I decided to re-create this client-favorite preset inside the VCOP.

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Tutorial: Enhance Your Images With HolOS

The tutorial for Image Enhancement (Hollywood Style) is ready. As announced last week, this video will teach you how to create your own HolOS (Hollywood Operating System) image enhancement effect using After Effects.

Go and watch it now at:
http://ae.tutsplus.com/tutorials/ae-plus/enhance-your-images-with-holos-ae-plus/

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Photoshop Action: Image to Stencil

Working in Photoshop I often find myself in need to turn an image into a stencil – to remove all the white areas and turn them into transparency. While doing so is not technically very difficult, repeating the same set of commands over and over can get quite tedious on larger projects.

That is why I constructed this simple Photoshop action, which I am now sharing with you. It will allow you to turn grayscale or full-color image into a stencil in just one click.

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