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Life & Style tutorial: Create a TV bumper in After Effects

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Create a cool TV bumper – using mattes in Adobe After Effects and this handy tutorial.
This tutorial will allow you to develop a deeper understanding about mattes, and how they can be used to apply texture and transparency to your layers in After Effects, by putting together a five-second television bumper in Adobe After Effects.
In this first part of a series of tutorials, you’ll learn how to take advantage of greyscale images – mattes – in After Effects. Starting with some basic images (and the AE project file included on this issue’s CD), we’re going to dirty up some clean computer type to give it a realistic feel.
You’ll use 3D space for positioning the image, and use the images and textures supplied to create the five-second effect shown at the end of the masterclass. Remember, the key is to have fun, and apply what you’re learning to your own projects.

01. A matte is completely independent of the alpha channel, but works in a very similar fashion. A matte is any greyscale image that is used to define transparency.
Each layer in After Effects can have its own matte. This can be done in several ways, but one way is to use a layer’s Track Matte setting. Create a new composition called ‘Scene 1’. Let’s start with the words “Coming Up” typed out with the AE Type Tool, as above.

02. Next, bring up the Modes column. If you cannot see the Modes column, right-click the column header, go to columns and select Modes. On the right side of the column, you see a TrkMat section. This allows any layer to use the layer immediately above in the stack order as a matte.
Currently it has no options, because there is not an image above the layer in the stacking order.

03 Place the image texture1.jpg just above the type layer. Now, under the Track Matte menu, four options will become visible.

04. As this image is a JPG, it cannot contain an alpha channel (embedded transparency). However, it does contain quite a bit of Luma (short for luminance) information, or greyscale imagery.
A ‘Luma matte’ disregards the pictures colour information and only looks at the greyscale information. The Track Matte function lets us use the texture of this image as a matte, therefore applying that greyscale information to the transparency of the text.
This is a great way to make ‘perfect’ computer type look more realistic. The other wonderful thing about track mattes is that they’re independent of the layer below.
Need a mask that doesn’t move with the layer? A track matte is a perfect solution. An important note – if the track matte layer does need to move with the layer below, it can simply be parented.

05. Now you need to set the matte filter. Let’s transfer imagery to the transparency of a layer. Refer to the image included with this tutorial, ink_matte1.jpg. This is a greyscale ink splatter image.
There is no transparency in the image, but, as we’ve learned, a greyscale image is just transparency in the waiting. We can easily apply this JPG to the transparency of another image.
This time, instead of a track matte, an effect called Set Matte will be used. Create a new black solid: Layer>New>Solid. Call it ‘Ink1’ and make it the size of the comp.

06. Next, you apply the effect. Click Effect> Channel>Set Matte. Add the file ink_matte1.jpg to the comp and turn off the visibility. In the Set Matte settings, find the Take Matte From Layer setting and select ink_matte1.jpg.
In the Use For Matte setting, set it to Luminance. Also, check the Invert Matte checkbox.

07. Essentially this image works the same way as a track matte. The luminance is used to define the transparency. This allows any layer in the comp to be used, and any part of the image: such as red, green, blue, channels, luminance, and saturation.
One thing to understand with this effect (and any effect in After Effects that references another layer like this) is that it only looks at the source of the layer.
In other words, when the layer ink_matte1.jpg is defined as a matte with Set Matte, none of the transformations, effects, and masks of that layer will be visible to the Set Matte filter, only the source image. However, the solid ‘Ink1’ can be moved wherever we want.

08. Repeat the above process for the image, ink_matte2.jpg, so you have this image.

09. You’re now ready to position the image in 3D space. Turn the type and the ink solid layer into 3D layers by checking the 3D switches for these layers in the switches column.

10. Switch to Custom View 1.

11 You’ll now see these 3D elements from a different perspective. Grab the Z handle of the type and drag it forward in Z space. With the Ink layers, grab the Z handles and push them backward in space.

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Keep Your Eye on the Ball … 3D in After Effects

Animating your After Effects design in 3D space is fun and, for the most part, easy to achieve. However, the camera and objects can have their own agendas in some instances, but a few tricks can change a seemingly uncontrollable camera animation into pure, cool cinematography…
1 CREATE COMP; IMPORT/CREATE FOOTAGE
Start out in a blank After Effects CS3 project, and press Command-N (PC: Ctrl-N) to create a New Composition. In the Composition Settings dialog, choose HDV/HDTV 720 29.97 from the Preset menu, enter 6 seconds for Duration, and click OK. Then create, or double-click in the Project panel to import, an item you wish to move the camera around in 3D space. (For this flyby title animation, I’m importing a clip named SBE173H from Artbeats.com—an HD clip of a 3D-animated soccer ball.) A circular element like this will add even more 3D depth to the scene. When imported, drag the clip into the Timeline.

2 MASK CLIP
In the Timeline, double-click the ball clip to open it in a Layer window, then go to the Toolbar and choose the Ellipse tool (nested under the Rectangle tool [Q]). Position the cursor in the center of the ball, start dragging, and then hold down Shift and Command (PC: Ctrl) to proportionately constrain and center the circle. Double-click a point on the mask to position and scale it to fit the edge of the ball, then close the Layer window and select the main Selection tool (V). If you click the Toggle Transparency Grid icon in the Comp window, you can see that the ball is now separated from the background.
3 ADJUST SPEED; SCALE BALL; ADD SOLID
We want to make the ball spin faster, so click the {} icon at the very bottom left to expand the Stretch pane in the Timeline, then click on the ball’s Stretch value and change it to 25%. Close the time Stretch pain by clicking the {} icon again. With the ball still selected, press the S key to reveal its Scale property, and shrink it to the appropriate size (60% in this example). Now, go to Layer>New>Solid, make the Width and Height 1500×1500 pixels, click the color swatch, choose a bright color for visibility, and click OK. Click OK again, and then click-and-drag the solid below the ball in the Timeline.
4 3D LAYERS; MOVE SOLID
In the Switches column, click the boxes below the 3D Layer icon next to both the ball and the solid—nothing will change, but now we can add perspective. In the Comp window, ensure that your 3D View Popup is set to Active Camera. Select the solid in the Timeline and press P, Shift-R, then Shift-S to reveal the Position, Scale, Orientation, and Rotation properties. Change its X Rotation value to 90° and its Y Position value (the second field on the Position line) to 900 to place the solid below the ball, acting as a floor. Finally, change the Scale to around 2,000%.
5 ADD GRID & ADJUST
Animating in 3D space is much easier when you have reference objects or lines to work with—but a ball and a flat color solid don’t look much different from any angle! So go to Effect>Generate>Grid, and a square grid appears on the solid. Set the Blending Mode (in the Effect Controls panel) to Normal to see the original color of the solid, then change the grid settings to suit your needs. You can always switch Active Camera to Custom View 1 in the Comp window and then use the Orbit Camera tool (C) to view the scene from a different angle—showing the ball as a flat 2D object.
6 ADD CAMERA; AUTO-ORIENT BALL
Switch back to Active Camera view, then go to Layer>New>Camera. Choose 35mm from the Preset menu, ensure the Enable Depth of Field checkbox is turned off, and click OK. As you saw in Step 5, looking at the ball from a different angle reveals a problem—the 3D layers are flat. But here’s a super little trick: Select the ball layer in the Timeline, go to Layer>Transform>Auto-Orient, choose Orient Towards Camera, and then click OK. Now the ball will auto-rotate to stay face-on to the camera!
7 ANIMATE THE CAMERA
Let’s test this by animating our camera now. At 0 seconds in the Timeline, select the Camera 1 layer, hit P to open the Position property, and set the X, Y, and Z values to 2700, 500, and –1000, respectively. Click the Time-Vary Stopwatch icon to add a Position keyframe, then scrub along the Timeline to 5 seconds and change the values to –800, –600, and –300. Now scrub back and forth along the Timeline (or hit 0 on the keypad to RAM Preview), and you’ll see the camera and grid show movement, and the ball always looks totally 3D. Very cool but…
8 ADD NULL; ANIMATE
…the ball is always dead-center of the screen, and this looks fake. So let’s do a small trick to fix that. At 0 seconds, go to Layer>New>Null Object, and then click the 3D box for the new Null 1 layer in the Timeline. Press P to bring up the Position property, change its X, Y, and Z position values to –600, 360, and 0, respectively, and then click the Stopwatch icon to add a keyframe at 0 seconds. Scrub along to 5 seconds and change the Null’s X, Y, and Z position to 500, 400, and 400. This is basically animating the Null to move in close proximity to the ball’s position, but with a different speed and end result.
9 EXPRESSION CAMERA POI
So now we can tell the camera to look at the Null—and not the center of the ball—during its position animation, and this will offset the motion beautifully. Select the Camera layer and hit A to reveal its Point of Interest property (POI). This, by default, is always pointed at the center of the 3D scene, but it helps greatly if this is told to follow an object instead. Hold down Option (PC: Alt) and click on the POI Stopwatch icon, click-and-hold the Expression Pickwhip (swirl) icon, and drag it to the Null 1 layer’s Position value.
10 ADJUST ANIMATION
Now when you RAM Preview, you can see a much more cinema-like feel to the camera movement—the ball goes off-camera slightly to one side, and the final resting position is more controllable, which allows for insertion of text, titles, and other elements. Go back to the Camera Position keyframes (select the Camera layer and press P), scrub to 5 seconds, select the second keyframe, and adjust its values to –800, –1000, and –800. Now Shift-click the final Position keyframe for the Null 1 layer so that it’s selected as well. Go under the Animation menu and choose Keyframe Assistant>Easy Ease In to ease the motion in slowly.
11 ADD SOLID SHADOW; MASK
To give the ball some “lift” from the solid ground, let’s add a shadow. Using a light wouldn’t work very well, as the ball casting the shadow would be—remember—rotating to follow the camera, so the shadow would adjust its shape in a strange way. Instead, at 0 seconds go to Layer>New>Solid, set the size to 750×750, change the color swatch to black, and click OK. As we did in Step 2, use the Ellipse tool to create a circular mask from the center to about half way to the four sides of the black solid.
12 ADJUST SETTINGS; ADD MOTION BLUR
Turn the masked solid layer into a 3D layer. Hit R to reveal its Rotation values, and set its X Rotation to 90°. Hit P to reveal its Position values, then set its Y Position to 898 until the solid is just above the floor. Hit F to reveal the mask’s Feather property and adjust to your desired softness. Finally, hit T to reveal its Opacity value, and lighten it slightly to show the floor through the shadow. Cool, eh? Now, in the Switches panel, turn on Motion Blur for the ball, shadow, and floor solid, and then click on the Enables Motion Blur icon in the Timeline. A RAM Preview sure looks great now!
13 EMBELISH & COMPLETE
Now you’re free to change out the floor for other elements and graphics, adjust the position keyframes and timing, and get more daring with the moves and find keyframe combinations that really suit the project you’re working on. The main thing is, you now have full control of your camera and can accurately animate smooth cinematographic moves without the guesswork. Enjoy!

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Ink Bleeding Effect in After Effects (Like Gnarls)

In this tutorial I’ll recreate a similar look from an older Gnarls Barkley video. The principles I’ll cover are foundational and can be used for some incredible animations other than simply imitating a great music video. Some of what I covered in the Photoshop Bling tutorial is being used here directly in AE. So for those who were wondering why you’d use the Bling effect unless you were designing a hip hop album… remember it’s the principles that that are most valuable… the end result for these tutorials is just to get you excited to go out and create your own. Specifically I will focus on the following in this tutorial:
- Using Alpha and Luma Mattes in After Effects
- Frame by Frame animation using CS3′s Illustrator, Photoshop, and After Effects
A basic to intermediate knowledge of After Effects and Trapcode Particular is needed to follow along.

STEP ONE: Setting up your ink file for creating a matte

Import your video footage of ink. Create a new Comp called “ink blots.” For this shot I actually placed a wet paper towel in the base of a square fish tank and filmed from below the glass fish tank as i dropped food coloring onto the wet paper towel. You don’t need to worry about professional lighting or the deep amount of texture that you see here. That will all be taken care of post as we make some adjustments. If you dont’ have the time or equipment to shoot your own ink bleeding, you can simply download a clip from revostock.com to use for the matte. Here’s what my original footage placed into a Comp in AE looks like:
Desaturate your video footage. [Effect/Color Correction/Hue&Saturation]
Adjust your levels until you blow out your background to be completely white but keep as much detail in your ink bleed as possible. [Effect/Color Correction/Levels]

The result for my footage looks like this

STEP TWO: Creating a Luma Matte

Drag one of these free water color textures from Gomedia into your “ink blots” composition – or buy the whole pack of textures here. This is being used simply to add some texture and an organic feel to our ink bleeding.

Desaturate it repeating the very first step. I scaled the texture to fill the screen as well. Now apply a layer style to it of “Gradient Overlay”
So now I’ve got 2 layers inside of “ink blots” composition. The top layer is the ink I desaturated and adjusted the levels. This layer is going to be used as a Luma Matte for the layer below it. The layer below it is the gradient textured watercolor from Gomedia that we just created. The top layer is the layer that will matte (or mask for Photoshop users) the layer below it.
So by setting the Track Matte to Luma Matte Inverted, we reveal the gradient textured gomedia watercolor in the shape of our ink video footage above it. Luma matte reveals whatever is white and masks whatever is black (and any shades between). We set it to Luma Matte Inverted because our ink is in black and we want that to be revealed, not the white space around it.
The results of a Luma Matte Inverted applied to our gradient textured gomedia watercolor layer:

STEP THREE: Applying an Alpha Matte

The Luma Matte looks great! However, I’m not satisfied with the amount of texture being revealed. I suppose I could adjust the levels of my original ink footage to control that, but here is another way to add more texture to this and cover the usage of Alpha Mattes.
Create a new composition called “new ink blots”. Drag the composition “ink blots” from your project window into the “new ink blots” composition. Then drag a different water color texture from Gomedia into the same comp. You should have 2 layers in the comp “new ink blots” – layer 1 is “ink blots” and layer 2 should be your Gomedia water color texture. Remember the layer on top will be used as your matte (mask). So you will be revealing the water color texture and using the “ink blots” as your matte.
This time you will be using an Alpha Matte. The difference is that an Alpha Matte will only matte the non transparent areas of the layer. So now that we’ve already created a Luma Matte in the “ink blots” comp, all the white space you see is actually transparency. You could change the background color of your “ink blots” comp from white to another color to understand the transparency if needed. Set the Track Matte of the water color textured layer to Alpha Matte.
Each time you choose a track matte the layer being used as the matte is automatically turned off so that you don’t see it. You will only see the layer being matted (masked). This time turn on Layer 1 “ink blots” and set the layer mode to Overlay.
The results:
I decided there is a little too much green in there so I desaturated the water color layer 2. Now we want to make this ink blot symmetrical. Set up a new composition and call it “Gomedia.” Drag “new ink blots” into that composition and apply the Mirror effect. [Effect/Distort/Mirror]
And… I’ve got a symmetrical ink blot! Raaad!

STEP FOUR: Create another ink blot and apply it as a Luma Matte and an Alpha Matte

I set up my 2nd ink blot in a new comp called “ink blots 2″ – repeating the steps from earlier. (Desaturate it, adjust the levels, and apply a mirror effect to it.) My second ink blot looks like this [see pic below] after doing that. (do not apply a gradient overlay layer style to this one):
I added a white solid below ink blots 2 layer. [Layer/Solid...]
Set the white solid Track Matte to Luma Inverted Matted.
I now have my inkblot in solid white and I’ve changed the background of the comp to a dark gray. The gray actually transparent.
I dragged my “ink blot 2″ from my project window into my “Gomedia” comp i created earlier. It now looks like this… the white ink is what we just created and the gray background is transparent.
The white inside the middle of the ink looks good. And the background will be white as well. The only problem is that if i want to put any layer behind white ink bleed in the middle, I will not be able to fly my camera thru that layer because the white is solid rather than transparent. So, that’s easily solved…. we have 2 layers in our “Gomedia” comp so far – layer 1 “ink blots 2″ and layer 2 “new inkblots.” I want to use “ink blots 2″ as an Alpha Matte for the layer “new ink blots.” I set it to Alpha Matte Inverted because I want the area where the white is to be transparent.
Now the white ink is transparent and i can put a layer in back of it or i can fly my camera right thru the center and keep going. Eventually I will set my background to white. But for now it is gray just so that i know which areas are transparent.

STEP FIVE: Working your video footage into the scene

Here is the footage of my singer on a green screen.
There all sorts of tricks and tips to green screening footage. I will not cover those here because with the effects we will be using, we do not need a perfect key. I am using Keylight that comes with AE. [Effect/Keying/Keylight 1.2]
I placed my singer with the background keyed out into my “Gomedia” composition. Made a copy of it and flipped it. Using the steps from earlier, I desaturated and adjusted the levels of the singer until I had results that were solid black & white.
Then I set my layers to screen mode so that only the whites will show.
Now I have repeated those steps (key, desaturate, levels, and place into Gomedia comp) with another shot of my singer that used a different camera angle. Notice my layer order. Because we took the time to Alpha Matte “ink blots 2″ earlier, I can place the footage below the layer “new inkblots” and have it show. If we had left it solid white as it is in our comp “ink blots 2″ we would not have been able to do this.

STEP SIX: Animate birds using Illustrator and Photoshop.

Using Gomedia’s Flock of Birds from the Arsenal, I want to choose one flock to animate.
I chose several individual birds out of the flock and layered them directly on top of each other. Make sure each one is on a separate layer in Illustrator. Choose File/Export/Photoshop.
Make sure “Write Layers” is chosen underneath Options. I don’t need Maximum Editability checked. Name it and the open Photoshop.
In photoshop, I opened the .psd I just exported. Then I need to open the Animation window. [Window/Animation]
In the top right corner of the Animation window I clicked the arrow and chose “Make Frames From Layers”
Now I have separate frames that have been created from each layer in my .psd. I can control the amount of time each frame is displayed by selecting the frame(s) and clicking on the black arrown in the bottom right corner of a frame that is selected. I chose .1 seconds. I can preview the animation by clicking the play button inside of the animation window.
I am ready to make a video clip out of this animation by choosing file/export/render to video. By default, the settings are set up to render the frames on a transparent background. Keep that setting. Now I’m ready to use my new bird flying movie in After Effects.

STEP SEVEN: Add birds into my final composition

I made new comp with my animated bird. I will be using this comp as a custom particle in using Trapcode Particular.
create a new solid (the color does not matter).
With the solid layer selected I then apply Particular
By default, there are white spheres animating out over time from a center point. I’m going to change a lot of the setting for Particular. Each one of those white spheres will be replaced by my movie of the bird flying. so as i adjust the setting for particular and watch the white spheres change direction/quantity/etc. I need to keep in mind that these spheres will be my flock of birds. I’m going to keyframe the amount of particles per second. this will keep my Emitter from continuously creating new particles. I only want a flock of them. Not an endless cycle of birds emitting. I have chosen 100 particles/second and will skip down in my timeline about 1 second and keyframe 0 for the amount. this will cause a slight trail of birds at the tail of the flock rather than an abrupt absence of birds.
I want to change my Emitter shape from a Point to a Box. This will allow me to emit from a larger area and look more natural for my flock of birds.
Now I have the option of changing the size of my Emitter. I can also come back and adjust these after I’ve turned the white spheres into my movie of birds.
Choose “Custom” from the tab under “Particle Type.”
An option to choose my custom particle is now available. When I click the tab it shows the list of my current layers. I chose “birds” from the list.
I need to tell the Time Sampling to Loop my movie of the birds.
And now I need to adjust the size of my particle (birds).
The results of my custom particle. I can go back to my Emitter settings and control the velocity & rotation of the particles being emitted. Each instance is different depending on what I’m trying to emit and the results I want.
I dragged the comp of my birds from my project window into my “Gomedia” comp. Created a copy and flipped it.
The final steps are to create a new camera. Select all of your layers inside of “Gomedia” comp and make them 3d layers. By default the Z position will be 0. I left them at zero and animated my camera towards all of the animated artwork. For additional interest, I could space out the layers in Z space and get a feeling of depth as the camera animates towards the artwork.

Conclusion

I’ve covered Luma Mattes & Alpha Mattes. I also covered frame by frame animation using Illustrator, Photoshop, and AE. Hopefully you’ve picked up on some techniques that can be used in many other creative ways. I also used the same technique of desaturating a layer and then applying a Color Overlay Layer Style to it for a great look. This was originally covered in depth in the Bling Tutorial. Have a great day and feel free to post links to some creative ways you are using this tutorial. Peace.

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