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
Preview video:
Tutorial:
Download the files associated with this tutorial below:
- Project File
http://downloads.qubahq.com/tutorials/QubaHQ_AlphabetSoup.zip - Tutorial (182MB MP4)
http://video.qubahq.com/tutorials/QubaHQ_AlphabetSoup.mp4
You may also download the tutorial from its Vimeo page. The preview video can also be watched at YouTube.
If you happen to use this tutorial in your projects, let me know. I am curious about what the community comes up with!
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
[…] QubaHQ back again with a new after effects tutorial that shows you how to create a nifty environment of floating type by NOT using trapcode particular or cc particle world – The project actually and quite simply uses text animators. View the tutorial here. […]
This is amazing! Simple yet very very nice, and the soundtrack just makes it even better. Thank you for sharing!
Thanks QubaHQ, tuts very cool. thanks agian for up. you can up tuts Motion graphic and Visual Effects to website? Thanks hi hi hi.
Have fun!
and Compositing in After Effects and 3D….
As I am on holiday/honeymoon at the moment, you will have to wait for new tutorials until I get back. I have some cool things planned though. If everything goes according to plan, you should be able to see 2-3 new tutorials every month.
Thanks for all Quba Michalski. Have fun
Really useful, thanks! One question, how you record this tutorial? I mean smal size video and HQ picture. Please help
kotoffallk you can use software Camtasia Studio record video tutorial.
As luantran said, I am using a program called Camtasia Studio to record the tutorials. I do my main recording with the capture area of 1600×900 and then scale it down to 1280×720 (HD, 720p).
Camtasia has some pretty smart ways of compressing the video of screen captures and only really starts choking when I am recording a video playback.
Thanks Quba & luantran
this is really amazing tutorial dude.
Thanks a lot eminemchris. I am planning some more tutorials based on text animators, as soon as I catch a breath away from the imago projects.
can u post the tutorial how to create ground crack while text reaching the ground.i m badly need that i was involved in a current project.and more over i want to do the ground crack in after effects without using and 3d software like .3ds max or maya etc.pls i m eagerly waiting for ur reply.thanks in advance
As for the ground crack… Not sure if I would be doing anything like that – I am trying to concentrate on more design-based motion graphics, rather than vfx (at least for the moment).
If I recall correctly Andrew Kramer, over at videocopilot.net had a tutorial like that – I think it was called “the meteor” or something like that.
thanks for ur comment
but he used 3dsmax for creating the crack in the meteor tutorial but i want to create the crack only in after effects.i m trusting u a lot but i just want tips from u rather than creating a tutorial for creating crack since ur not concentrating in vfx
As long as the crack on the ground is not too wide (meaning it is a crack rather than a hole or a crater) you should be able to create the image of it in Photoshop and then composite it onto your footage as a 3D layer.
You would probably want to fill it with approx. 85% gray color and then have the black inner shadow around the edges for the graphic to give a little bit of a depth illusion.
For tracking the movement (match-moving) use Mocha, which comes with After Effects since version CS3.
If you have never used mocha, just google “mocha after effects tutorial” and I’m sure you will find quite a few resources to help you figure it out.
Once match-moved you may want to do a very simple reveal animation on your crack layer using either masks or transitions. Something no longer than 1/2 of a second, starting from the center and going towards the edges. Alternatively, use Simple Choker: crank it up until your layer is no longer visible, move 5-10 frames ahead and zero the values to reveal the layer.
If you still can’t figure it out, maybe you could upload the unprocessed shot to YouTube so i could have a look at what you are dealing with.
Best of luck!
thanks for u r comment but according to my project there is nothing im dealing with match movie if u give me ur mail id i ll send u the output wat i have made so far and to be frank i m new to this AE and i didnt learn this software properly i just watched some of ur tutorial and Andrew Kramer with that i made my project i m thankful to and to him also
Going to get in touch with you via email.
fine i guessed correctly no problem let me upload my work in youtube and can i post the link here or can i send u the private msg
since i cant post my project work video to show to everyone since it is offical one so is there any other i can send u private msg
If the email you have registered here with is a real one, you have a message waiting in your mailbox.
kk
fine i m sending my mail to that.thanks
pls chk ur mail
have u got my mail
i have mailed u pls chk it and tell me
[…] like my previous tutorial, SplatterType relies only on After Effects text animators and does not require any additional […]
I have no words..in times better and more creative than Andrew.. man where have you been all those years? OUTSTANDING WORK AND CREATIVITY! Please, keep em coming!
Hi, I am using CS5, how do i link the color to the controller layer like you do at roughly 5 minutes into the video? I cant drag it in cs5 like you do in cs4. is there another way of doing it?
Hey newbie1, welcome.
CS5 features exactly the same set of linking tools as CS3 and 4 did. I am not quite sure why would you have problems doing it. Check the link below, where I provided step-by-step instructions for using the pick-whip, along with the two most common mistakes. Let me know if you get it to work.
http://downloads.qubahq.com/images/PickWhipCS5.jpg
There is absolutely no reason for the pick-whip not to work, but if you cannot get it to do what you want, the only other alternative is to type the expressions by hand… which is rather tedious.
sir i could u plz tell me how could i make same alphabet soup of 5 mins.
as in tutorial it works till 25 secs only i dont understand how i can make it to 5 mins….
plz help me its important
Hey Abhinav,
What can I say… Copy-Paste.
In the tutorial I show you to set things up – the rest is really up to you. Time to fly solo!
thanx for relpying sir!!
actually i hv done d same as u r saying…copy paste…..bt after some time d alphabets do not fly more as in the starting……i mean after 30 secs i can c only the green screen bt no alphabets flying…..
thanx in advance
when i try to render…it says it can’t and asked me to allocate more memories for other application running.
1. Does this mean i have to reduce memory for after effects and increase memory for other applications?
2. how would i allocate more memmory?
thanks alot…great tut btw
I actually talk about this issue in the tutorial…
Since we are not using a plugin, and dealing with a rather simple cheap-and-dirty trick here, there are some things we cannot control/avoid. One of them is some of the characters coming very close to the camera while blurring a lot – After Effects simply cannot create a blur map big enough to deal with those, hence the errors.
I have tried this comp on 4 and 8GB of RAM and in both cases AE could not handle certain characters. I don’t know if having 16 or 32GB could fix that, but somehow I doubt it.
The only solution I can offer in here is to change the random seed of the offending layer and cross fingers hoping the new randomization won’t “hit” the camera. Check the tutorial again, I explain how to do it at some point.
Amazing and simple!!
Hi Quba, thank you very much for posting this tutorial. I very much like your tutorial style and think your patience and effort in creating these tutorials is fantastic.
Looking forward to more of your tutorials in the future.
Keep up the good work!
Regards,
Rich.
eminemchris…
For the crack in the floor, I created a solid and used the Shatter effect to create the crack.
Use Glass for the Shape Pattern and adjust the Force 1 Strength parameter to get the size of the crack you want.
In Physics, adjust all parameters to 0, except Viscosity… this should be at 1, unless you want the crack to continue to widen.
This will give you a basic crack in the floor… now play with the parameters to see how it affects the look you’re going for.
Good Luck…
Rob Mize
eminemchris…
I should have also mentioned that if you keep the solid a 2D object and use the Camera Position X Rotation parameter in the Shatter effect to rotate the solid into the floor position, you get a much cooler 3D effect on the floor.
You can do it as a 3D object, but you loose the Extrusion Depth that the Shatter effect provides.
Let me know how it works for you…
Regards…
Rob
thank you for this great tutorial!!
I really like it!!!!Amazing!
but I have a question, when I try to make this, it shows an After effects error that I can’t render it out.
The error is :
After effects error: invalid image buffer size(114934*84199), (37::102)
How can I solve it?
I use after effect cs4, And I try to decrease the main position, but the problem is still there.
I can’t find the problem.
Can you tell me if you know? Thank you
As I mentioned in the tutorial – when the characters get high amount of blur while at the same time being too close to the camera – AE will halt the render due to the memory limitations.
There is no real workaround here. You may want to decrease your composition size, lower or eliminate the blur and depth of field render, or simply keep trying different random seeds until you find one that works.
Take note of the frame at which the render crashes and go to the one directly before it. Try to spot the offending character and move it around.
It’s pretty much trial-and-error to get it working.
Thank you~~I understand and try my best to avoid this problem.
its tooo great Mr Quba
thx you very much =)
nice one i am the one who donot install a trapcode particular in the ae.
So your tutorial is good .
Your tutorial is best of the internet.
I love it!
[…] like my previous tutorial, SplatterType relies only on After Effects text animators and does not require any additional […]
@Quba – Great tut – always nice to find new high quality tutorials!
@gina – I was having the same problem as you. I precomposed the main comp and added an adjustment layer and used a bit of curves and levels to crush things down. The error went away!
hi , i have problem , i was write “value+[0,0,time”100]” in object null and i have error . my version after effect is cs 5
thanks for help
It is time*100 not time”100. the asterisk (*) stands for “multiply”.
thanks or dzięki wielkie :D , this video have poor resolution . great thanks
Thanks for sharing..it helps me alot.. I have one question. Is their a way I can change the letter to image..:) thanks in advance.i’m new to after effects..:D
I can’t render it out.
I have the same problem “invalid image buffer size..”.
I watched the tutorial twice but i can’t find an answer.
Please help..