Trapcode learning

After being told about an effect called trapcoding, i decided to look further into it, and looked up some online tutorials.

'Red Giant' are the people who made the 'trapcoding' effect and have a website full of many tutorials and clever things to help you learn.

I spent about an hour on this website looking at video tutorials. It was rather tiresome and boring, but still very very helpful. The next few days i spent down in the a/v room. I didn't really attempt the same thing, but i felt i had more of a grasp on what i could do with this effect when using after effects. However, a lot of guidance was needed too.

The tutorial begins by showing a video the designer made. He combined video with animation in aftereffects. Using an effect called 'particular' in the trapcode effect. It's very snazzy. The video was actually made to advertise De Montfort university. It involves a lot of glowing lines flying everywhere. It's not quite a look or style I like, but i really like learning about it. This tutorial also had a lot of handy shortcuts too, which too speed things up a bit.

The designer applies a 3D Stroke. This is basically lines (i believe) that you can transform, animate to make them being at a certain point in your video, and effect like you would to something in photoshop. You also can add an effect called 'taper', which basically makes it like a whispy line, more like a head hair. Again, it's not particularly a look i like, but it was interesting to see all these effects and also the way that professional designers set their work out in after effects. 

He then added a lot more lines and played with how curvy they were. He also added a 'sphere' effect to give them an added 3D look. I got slightly lost at this point. 

The designer then played with glow effects and filling. Then applied it to the film he had recorded. Something i never thought about was the pre animation, and how much preparation you should do if you want to combine animation and film. This is something i didn't realise til after filming. The designer in this video does talk about how helpful it is - something i unfortunately didn't listen to. Because the designer knew what he was doing, his film and animation go together so well.