Blog by Eran Stern » training

NEW DOWNLOAD – Dust Specs

Eran Stern — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 14:01:03 +0000

Reality is never bright and clear as we would like it to be. Pavements have cracks, roads are bumpy and the air is filled with tiny particles which, of course, are part of the complex oxygen that we breathe. In addition, there are all sorts of dust and specs noises in the air which also appear on film and video footage, due to the nature of the film material and the light conditions. However, When creating computer graphics, the result is always clean and sterile without all the real sense of nature, especially when you combine video, text and 3D rendered animations.
Therefore, most composting apps, such as After Effects, offer some tools to help you add (or remove) Grain from selected videos. This of course helps to get a more realistic results but sometimes it’s still not enough. Regardless of that, the appearance of the “Dust Specs look” has recently become very popular and many also use it to give some character and a special look to their videos.

So here is a free After Effects project, that uses the built in CC Particle World combined with a few additional effects, to create a layer of dust and small particles. You can use the results as is by rendering the project and adding the video using a blending mode of Add or Screen. A more advanced option is to open the project, change it to your preferable resolution (the project currently is in HD 1920 × 1280) and then add your graphical elements and take advantage of the fact that the particles are “living” in three-dimensional space – this should give more depth to the result.

Here are two examples of the use of various video footage (courtesy of Unlimited Stock Media) and text integration in 3D space.
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Download Project

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BTW – If you’re here, may I invite you to check my latest mini product as well.

NEW TUTORIAL – Mind Trip

Eran Stern — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 08:16:58 +0000

The first edition of this 2-part video tutorial delving into the mind of a woman. Learn how to create a tunnel vision effect by applying a few After Effects tricks such as time remapping, motion blur, blending, and color correction to footage from artbeats.com. This cool technique can be used on it’s own or in conjunction with Part 2 (coming soon).
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Watch Tutorial
Download Project
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New Tutorial – Look Ma, No Wires

Eran Stern — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 10:55:54 +0000

In this new tutorial we’ll explore a clever technique for shooting flying fairies in front of a green screen without the use of a crane and wires. Of course it won’t apply to every situation but when it does, it can save you lots of $$$’s and it’s also a lot of fun as well. This shot was kindly given to me by the talented artist Eyal Be and it is part of a pilot for a new fantasy comedy show created by Eyal Be and Nimrod Ben-Moshe, Watch the full trailer.
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Watch Tutorial

Finally, its done…

Eran Stern — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 06:48:09 +0000

I thought to share with you my recent project. I’ve been working on this forever now and its finally done. A new training DVD for Premiere Pro. Hold your horses! its in Hebrew
This is by far the most comprehensive training I’ve ever recorded – 14(!) hours of EVERYTHING you need to know about Adobe’s main editor.
Since I’ve been working with Premiere Pro on a daily basis, I’ve grown to love and appreciate its approach to video and sound. I know that you may not agree with me, but for me it is still the #1 NLE of choice.

This promo below was made using my other favorite tool – After Effects plus couple of plugins such as Boris Continuum Complete, Trapcode Form and Zaxwerks Serpentine. I’m very proud of this product, having worked on it for such a long time, and the promo came out pretty nice as well, if I may say so myself. So although its not in English, I thought it’s still worth sharing. The background movie, BTW, is a free download courtesy of my dear buddy Carl Larsen – check it out here.
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So in case you’re planning to re-visit your Hebrew Sunday school and want to impress your teacher, here’s a quick look at the Promo for this product:
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New Tutorial – Bionic Lab

Eran Stern — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 16:47:57 +0000

A new tutorial on Artbeats.com which involve screen replacing using Mocha for AE, motion graphic design, text animation and some color correction treatment. All done using great clips from the enormous collection of Artbeats taking advantage of the newly addition libraries from Footage Hub
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Watch Tutorial

Pen Tool tips

Eran Stern — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 19:15:57 +0000

Recently I find myself doing a lot of Rotoscoping work using the Pen Tool, and I thought of sharing with you a few tips and shortcuts to help you with your own projects. In fact, I’ve recorded a brand new tutorial to get you started. To summarize, here’s a few important shortcuts you might want to remember:

Hold down CMD/CTRL as you draw your path, then select the anchor point, this will let you move the last point after you set it in place.
If the selection tool (v) is highlighted, you can hold down ALT/Option and press on one of the anchor points and all the points in your mask will be selected.
Clicking on an anchor point while holding down ALT/Option as long as the pen tool is highlighted, will convert it from Corner to Curve point. Another Click using the same modifier will change it back. If you want to do the same while the Selection tool is highlighted, just add the CMD/CTRL modifier as well.
If you want to break the connection between the handles, hold down ALT/Option and then pull one of the handles out, make sure the pen tool is selected.
Context-clicking on the mask shape with the Pen tool, enables the context menu of options for that mask, including all of its settings on the Timeline. One of the important things here is the Motion Blur settings for the mask, changing this value can unlocked the Motion Blur mask from the layer itself.
Double-click on one of the anchor points to get the free transform for the entire mask – then it’s necessary to switch to the Selection tool to perform the transformation itself.

For more tips and tricks check the full tutorial here

Coming soon – Push tutorial

Eran Stern — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 10:16:25 +0000

Playing with my favorite simulation and displacement tools in After Effects, I found a technique to simulate the liquid effect inspired by the recent movie Push and the ancient movie The Abyss. As always I recruited my talented brother, Yuval, to help me with this mission.
Man, I must stop giving him all those powers.

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and Yes, I’m working on a tutorial which will be published on your favorite Creative COW AE podcast soon.

Disco Tunnel Effect Using Form

Eran Stern — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 07:22:25 +0000

A month ago, in cooperation with Creative COW, I published the Color Link tutorial. This tutorial has 2 purposes. The first is, of course, to show you the use of the color link effect to match colors between shots, but what seems to catch most viewers eyes is the Disco Tunnel effect I’ve set up, using the new Wiggle Transform operator, available in CS4.
Since then, I’ve received many requests from people still using CS3 or even AE7, asking how to recreate the same effect without the Wiggle Transform operator.
I thought about it and couldn’t come up with a simple way to achieve the same look using only the built in features of the After Effects. However, if you own Trapcode Form, it’s a matter of minutes to recreate it. Well, this was my answer to most of you guys, but it seems that people can’t figure what to do even if they have all the ingredients on the table, so for all of the frustrated dancers out there – here’s my recipe for the Disco Tunnel effect using trapcode form.
I’ve also uploaded both projects (CS3 and CS4) for you to explore.
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Watch Tutorial

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Download project file
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Haunted Audio Tutorial

Eran Stern — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 06:44:01 +0000

I always enjoy watching the cool tutorials from my friends Aharon Rabinowitz and Harry Frank, but this one is really unique and original because it deals with Audio and almost feels like a duet between the tutors. The technique is simple and quick and you also get two for the price of one Aharon will show you how to create that scary audio heard in Poltergeist using audio software, and Harry shows you how to recreate the same effect in Adobe After Effects.

Like a good horror movie, this episode is a successful combination of laughter and fear.

Watch it here
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New Tutorial on Artbeats – Energy Drink Part 1

Eran Stern — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 07:23:36 +0000

This first tutorial in a two-part series takes you step-by-step through designing a 3D object using Photoshop Extended, animating it in Adobe After Effects and then creating a realistic reflection in water.

Watch Tutorial