Death Star over San Francisco - nice comps by Mike Horn.

Very cute.



In the authors own words:
"I shot the background video on a 1/3-chip DV camera (TRV25). The Star Wars vehicles are either 2D stills found on the internet, or video I roto-scoped out of the movies, which I then motion-tracked and composited in After FX. I used the trapcode particular plug-in for some steam and smoke effects, and did basic sound design and assembly in Final Cut."
More information here.

SIGGRAPH 2013 : Technical Papers Preview Trailer

SIGGRAPH is on my mind because I'm supposed to be writing a tutorial for one of the exhibitor's that will be included in their magazine and handed out during this year's event. Here is a video of the amazing new stuff that will be discussed this time around.



It's quite possible I don't get the article finished on time, I'm having a difficult time writing it so we'll see.

Photoshop style grouping in After Effects

This just out, a very handy After Effects script that gives us Photoshop style groups directly in the layers timeline. This is a big change to the workflow of an AE artist, keeping the comp clean and saving a lot of space.



More videos over at aescripts + aeplugins.

The Art of Moving Points by Brian Tindal- Released.

Just updating an older post to say that this important book has been released, however only available from ITUNES for the Ipad at this stage.

SPACE ODDITY Chris Hadfield

This just may be the best video of the year.

aescripts + aeplugins new products

Some new products over at aescripts + aeplugins. Here are the ones that interest me.

Firstly for all you puppet pin animators.



Then there's this little distortion controller



Something I don't spend a lot of time doing in After Effect is painting, but if I did I think I'd be using this, great for effects work.



If you need to make your expressions prettier and easier to handle think about this handy script.



And the prize for wow factor goes to Newton. It's been out for a while longer and is pricey, but it brings a physics engine into After Effects. You could find a ton of uses for it plus looks to me like a ton of fun.

In the garden of your mind

Here is the original Mr Roger's Remix...


And for the curious here are the original sources.


Symphony of Science full download can be found here