Recently, I have been accused of over-using lens flares in many of my latest projects. To all you flare nay-sayers: This one is for you :)

Macula Lutea started as a happy accident – I’ve been working on one of the projects and wrote a small script to control the movement of the lens flare. Due to the calculation error (my bad) the light source ended up in completely wrong spot, resulting in highly exaggerated flare on the screen. Rather than discard the mistake, I decided to pursue intentionally misusing flares and discovered an entire world of cool abstract imagery that can be created in this style.

At the same time I stumbled upon an audio track U Smile (800% Slower) in which composer Nick Pittsinger stretched and slowed down Justin Bieber‘s song U Smile, resulting in amazing half-hour ambient piece. It was also a perfect match for my visuals.

Due to the busy schedule, the project waited for completion for a few months – I have completely forgotten about it and discovered it today while cleaning up my hard drive :)

Yes, you have just witnessed me linking to the official website of Justin Bieber.

Credits:
Directed and Animated by: Quba Michalski
Audio: Nick Pittsinger, based on a song by Justin Bieber

This video can also be watched on YouTube.

Most of the time it is the best practice to manually control the lights in your After Effects scenes. There are situations however, when you may want to automate the dynamic changes in light color and intensity while maintaining high level of control over the look of your composition. That’s what the Automated Light Rig is all about.

In this tutorial I will show you how to link your lights with automated samplers on an image map, creating an ever-changing, yet unified, light rig. While the tutorial explains the expressions in depth, I am also providing you with presets simplifying the entire process into just few clicks.

As a little extra, I will also show you how to create a 3D light-aware smoke using Trapcode Particular (my method is a bit more involved than the standard Particular setup, but produces results that are much more true to life).

Music used in the trailer comes from Mr. Oizo’s Fiat 55 from the album Analog Worms Attack.

Running time: 45min
Difficulty: Easy-Medium
Required tools: After Effects
Optional plug-ins: Trapcode Particular

Preview video:

Tutorial:

Download the files associated with this tutorial below:

• Automated Light Rig Preset
  (After Effects CS3 and above)
  Localized for US English
  http://downloads.qubahq.com/tutorials/QubaHQ_LightRig_Preset.zip
• Project File
  (includes Automated Light Rig project, presets, demo project and other assets)
  http://downloads.qubahq.com/tutorials/QubaHQ_LightRig.zip
• Tutorial (82MB MP4)
  http://video.qubahq.com/tutorials/QubaHQ_LightRig.mp4

You may also download the tutorial from its Vimeo page. The preview video can also be watched on YouTube.

I have to apologize for a rather flat and non-energetic narration in this tutorial. I’ve had an absolutely nightmarish week and until the very last moment, wasn’t even sure if I will be recording any tutorials this weekend. If your attention span has a low threshold for monotonous voice-overs, here’s a little game you can play: count how many times in the entire tutorial have I used the word basically and post your answer in the comments (just a little habit of mine I noticed while editing this video). Enjoy!

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

In this After Effects tutorial I will demonstrate to you how to build a two-camera rig in order to create perfect 3D reflections. Using this technique, you will be able to reflect not only 3D layers, but also lights, particles, as well as any plug-in that obeys the movement of AE’s 3D camera.

The setup is trivially easy when using hand-animated cameras, but in the second half of the video I also show you how to create a more complex rig for use with Video Copilot’s Sure Target 2 camera controls.

The music used in the preview is a fragment of an Instrumental Mix of Perfect Exceeder by MASON vs Princess Superstar.

Running time: 51 min
Difficulty: Easy (you will be surprised how easy)
Required tools: After Effects (CS3 and above)
Optional plug-ins: VC Optical Flares, Knoll Light Factory, Trapcode Lux, Trapcode 3D Stroke, Trapcode Particular

Preview video:

Tutorial:

Download the files associated with this tutorial below:

• Project File
  http://downloads.qubahq.com/tutorials/QubaHQ_Reflections.zip
• Tutorial (100MB MP4)
  http://video.qubahq.com/tutorials/QubaHQ_Reflections.mp4

You may also download the tutorial from its Vimeo page. The preview video can also be watched on YouTube.

I will not teach you how to create the trailer, but I am attaching the AE file in which I created it. Dissect it on your own :) Also, keep in mind you can animate the floor and the rig is going to hold – well, as long as you don’t tilt it.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

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.

With this new preset I can now satisfy the requests of the clients without using KLFP (which starts showing some serious signs of aging). I can also easily adapt the older, archived projects into a new workflow with just a few simple adjustments.

If you, too are a Chroma Lens 2 addict, or have clients demanding this particular look from your project – you’re in luck. Simply download the preset below, drop it into your VCOP presets folder and you’re good to go.

Due to the differences in the way Knoll and Video Copilot built their plug-ins, the preset is not a 100% replica. It comes close enough though, and can always be tweaked further.

Download Chromatic Lens 2 preset for VC Optical Flares here:
http://downloads.qubahq.com/QubaHQ_ChromaLens2.zip

I have been messing around with Cinema 4D again. This time I built a setup with a number of semi-translucent curtains and a projector rig casting a video on them. The video was pre-processed in After Effects in order to produce a low-res RBG grid typical in the low grade projectors.

I did not really have a good concept for a piece when working on this effect, so after producing this short sample I saved it in my presets depository. Hopefully I will have a chance to use it when a suitable project comes along.

Here is a sample video and some stills from this test:

This effect uses particle system traveling along a 3D path to create a stream of energy. It can be used for magic vfx and is easily controlled by adjusting the guide path.

For this example I simply randomized the paths and camera movement to create more energetic and chaotic composition.

I was playing around with turning images to halftone-screen patterns. Once I had the line pattern, it was just one step away from Star Wars – style holographic projection.

No matter how hard I try, I can’t remember where did I get the footage from and who is the woman in the video :)

This one was created completely procedurally. The central particle mass is created using slightly modified preset of Trapcode Particular. The readouts were created using null objects orbiting the central sphere and feeding position data to series of expressions drawing lines and numbers.

Back in 2003, when I was just getting started with After Effects I shot this little thing to try out some basic 2D motion tracking. The footage was totally under-lit, the tracking had uncorrected errors, but I still like this little piece.