Cee-Lo’s “F** You” title video has been one of the viral hits of the last few days, mostly because the lyrics are so… righteous and relatable. If you’re a glut for punishment and would like to animate something like this yourself, you’ll need two bits of technology and some patience: Adobe After Effects, and Video Co-Pilot’s Sure Target preset (available here for free, with a video tutorial. If you’re going to spend hours using after effects, please get a wacom tablet, it will speed up your workflow and save you from the ravages of carpal tunnel syndrome. I also recommend geeking out on keyboard shortcuts.
A screen capture of an up-coming ‘How-To’ tutorial for all my illustrator/designer buddies with an aversion to After Effects: draw, scan, edit layered psd, import in AE as layered and cropped composition, keyframe tweens, and a whole lotta ‘loopOut(”cycle”, 0)’ expressions, Camera dollying (use Video Copilot’sSureTarget) present and, most importantly, Tedium. It will also include a quick aside on how to animate lip flap. It took me ages of trial and error before I found a great lip flap toot on Creative Cow, but that seems to have disappeared.
Earlier today I saw this and couldn’t stop grinning. They did a great job on the VFX, but I only wish I could say the same about the soundtrack. Regardless, this was clearly a very streamlined operation, well planned, and sharply executed. I wouldn’t have believed that such an epic scene could have been made of relatively simple elements seamlessly composited together.
I had a recent Computer Rage Experience (CRE) followed soon after by a short-lived, but very intense bout with despair. I couldn’t get After Effects to open… I know right, horror of all horrors. I spent a while beseeching god to please take my pinkie instead. Eventually google answered my prayers and I found an easy solution.
Simply select and delete this folder: Macintosh HD/Users/YourUserName/Library/Preferences/Adobe/After Effects/. When I restarted AE, it regenerated the folder and all its myriad contents. On the downside, my customized keyboard shortcuts reverted to the default and ‘Open Recent Projects’ was grayed out in the ‘Open File’ dialog.
I’ve watched hundreds of After Effects toots, but this one is the most useful workflow toot I’ve found thus far. It’s particularly helpful if you’re working with high definition footage, rendering multiple codecs/formats from one project, or running into hardware limitations during RAM previews.
I’ve watched hundreds of After Effects toots, but