5 Best Ways to Use Blur Creatively in After Effects

We can use the blur effects inside After Effects  in some really unexpected ways. We can use them   to manipulate shapes to create depth to create  some reactive shadows and even some cool looking   vintage effects let's get stuck in using blur to  create uniform around edges this is perfect if you   want to round the corners of something that you've  animated as a stroke or that is an unusual shape   first we should add the blur effect now any blur  will do gaussian is the safest and easiest Carl   Friedrich Gauss would never lead as astray so  let's add that to our layer and let's blur it   by around 20 pixels which blurs out the shape but  in doing so completely destroys our pointy corners   and now we can do something a little clever by  clamping down on the alpha Channel we can do   that with a few effects but the simplest one is  levels so let's add the levels effect and choose   the alpha Channel now at the moment we have a  nice soft blurred Edge but if we move in these   triangles in this histogram towards the middle it  will clamp or crush or squeeze the alpha channel   so the pixels that are kinda transparent will  become fully transparent and the pixel is kind of   opaque will become fully opaque and once they're  close enough there will be nothing in between it   is good to leave a slight Gap here though because  because if you get too close the edge just becomes   a little too harsh and Jagged and just to just do  crusty to be enjoyable so let's leave a slide Gap   here and that's barely noticeable even at 800 and  now we've got nice round corners and now we can   increase the blurriness to increase the radius and  the roundness of those Corners we might need to   tighten up the levels a bit if we blow it a little  further and we can also just whereabouts on the   histogram these triangles meet in order to expand  the edge or bring it in closer this effect is   also really helpful for shapes like this where we  might want rounded inner Corners now you can use   a rounded cap on its stroke but the insides are  still pointy and even if we play with the inner   roundness of the shape it doesn't give us a nice  consistent look so let's remove that stroke and   paste that blur and levels effect onto the shape  that blur is far too much so let's reduce that   and move these triangles back to the middle and  now we've got consistent straight lines down the   star and a nice rounded end on the inside and the  outside and that roundness will stay consistent if   we scale it up or if we adjust the path in any  way which does come in handy next is using the   same effect stack of blurring levels but this time  applied to an adjustment layer for a quick Blobby   liquid look so let's create a new adjustment layer  on top of everything and let's rename it effects   because we always label our layers and we're going  to paste on those same effects again and now when   our layers get close to one another they kind of  melt together and it's kind of gluey a little bit   slimy but you know a nice slimy this happens  again because without this levels effect the   edges of these shapes have been softened so much  and the levels effect doesn't know or care that   they are separate shapes it will just round the  edges of them both together once they are close   enough that their blurs overlap we can push that  blur really far to get some way more interesting   Blobby results and even when we change the color  of one of the shapes we get this nice gradient   as they're kind of mixing into one another which  can be kind of cool too now we can use a similar   method to achieve a completely different look  but still using the blur to degrade our image   and then trying to salvage it back with another  effect and getting some marvelous artifacts in   the process so let's again create another  adjustment layer add our gaussian blur and   let's start by just blowing it to 5 pixels so it's  just the slightest softness and now we're going to   add a sharpening effect regular sharpen is fine  unsharp mask if you're feeling fancy and let's   increase that sharpen amount up to 300 until it's  about as clear as it was before the blur and now   we can see the effect it's creating the sharpen  is essentially undoing the blur creating more   contrast and defined edges where we just remove  them but it's having to work harder and over   compensate for that blur and we get this kind of  nice sort of halo effect where our edges now have   a dark and a light side and that gets more obvious  the more contrast there is between those colors   and it isn't exactly like but it is reminiscent  of maybe a dodgy CRT screen or just some messed   up footage and you can use this really subtly to  just remove that clean digital Sheen if you're   going for a more gritty style or you can increase  them both to make it really obvious at a certain   point if you increase the sharpen too much it  will kind of break around some of these areas   though or you can approach it really subtly  but then copy and paste those effects and add   the blur and sharpen again and again and again  and again and again and it can also be a really   good compositing technique to unify everything  underneath it with that same depravity in this   project I've got some stock footage and textures  and they just don't quite look cohesive these   astronauts look pretty obviously like 3D models  and they just look a bit out of place with   these textures and that smooth gradient in the  background but adding that blur and sharpen over   the top puts them in a more similar World it gives  them a consistency which just makes it a little   more believable and of course that pairs very  nicely with texture add noise and other effects   to make your work look nice and roughed up so  by reducing the Fidelity of your image you're   covering your tracks and you're getting away with  it because no one could identify you at the scene we can also create some really neat reactive  Shadows so let's create a new shape layer and   just start drawing some arbitrary rectangles  around the place that should be plenty and   to this layer we are going to add the effect  CC radial fast blur and if we move the center   around it's blurring our rectangles away from  this point let's increase it to make it more   obvious and let's set the zoom style from  standard to Brightest there we are that is   looking nice almost looks like light leaking  through holes in a window which you could   use this effect for as well and if you want a  different color shadow to your shapes we can   add a fill effect and then add the effect CC  composite back over the top as well now we've   got some shadows and to attach that Center  Point to another layer all we need to do is   alt or option click the stopwatch next to Center  and then drag that pick whip up to the position   property of that layer and when we move that  around it looks like it is casting the Shadows   yes hello sorry I'm in the middle of a tutorial  now I'm afraid I can't plug my master motion   design course at the moment yeah yeah despite the  incredible response from the students I have I've   seen the testimonials on bedmarriot.com yes  yes the student collab project did come out   recently it was it was a lot of fun yeah really  great work that was one of my favorites too   all right is that everything okay bye-bye sorry  about that let's get back to the camera lens blur   is the Rolls-Royce of blurs the Andrew Kramer of  blurs it replicates the blur you get from an out   of focus camera much more than other blurs we  have an absolutely wild cast of settings here   where we can tweak the shape of the bokeh and the  highlights it's more realistic more pleasing just   more satisfying that satisfaction comes with the  price and that's processing power and render time   so keep that in mind if you need to make haste  on a project but the feature in camera lens blur   that I'm excited about is the blow map a blow map  takes some reference footage uses its black and   white values to adjust which parts of the image  are blurred or not if they're white it is the max   blur in your settings if they're black no blur at  all and the Grays are all somewhere in between now   I'm going to be going through the creation of this  whole animation during an online session at Adobe   Max this year but I do want to show off how I used  a blur map to create this focused effect and make   it look like all the shapes on the outside  are gradually going out of focus and how you   can create custom blow maps for your animations to  get similar results so starting with the animation   already done we need a blur map so let's duplicate  this tunnel main comp call it tunnel main blow map   and go inside that duplicate so what we want is  our Center layer to be one color which will make   it white and then the layers beneath it to get  darker and darker and darker until they're black   at the very edge or we could do the opposite with  black in the middle white on the edge as long as   it's black to white it is very easy to invert  later in our effect settings if you do have a   simpler scene you can just grab your layers and  change the fill color of them to between black and   white but because we have so many stacks on top  of one another we can do something a bit clever   to cut down the time so first let's make this top  layer white which we are controlling its color   with the fill effect so it will turn that white we  are going to copy that fill effect with controller   command C select all of our layers here except for  the background and paste that white fill onto them   so now they are all white and now we're going to  drag down all of their opacity properties really   low down to about four percent and because there's  more of them stacked on top of one another in the   middle that is lighter and they get darker towards  the edge lovely to make that more obvious though   let's change the blending mode to add and to an  adjustment layer on top of all of them let's add   a curves effect to really increase that contrast  so we have full control there that is exactly what   we want we've got a perfect black and white blur  map ready to use so back in our main comp let's   drag in our blow map and we can actually hide it  it doesn't need to be visible for our camera lens   blur effect to perceive it but while we're here  let's keep it visible and change its blending mode   to multiply because now we're getting some really  nice accurate Shadows which only affect the outer   edge layers so let's keep them on and now let's  add to our adjustment layer at the top camera   lens blur let's pump up the blur way up to around  50 so it's very noticeable and from the blur map   let's select our layer tunnel main blur map and  it is blowing the center more because our Center   was white so we can just check invert blow map so  now it is blurring our edges our dark areas of the   blow map and now we've got really nice shallow  depth of field effect going on and we can even   rack focus by changing the blur focal distance  property so we can make the center back out of   focus or make somewhere in between the most out of  focus so once you've finished animating your scene   you can duplicate the comp make everything black  and white depending the depth of your scene and   then with camera lens blur you've got complete  control troll over what is in Focus now the   compound blur effect also has a blur map feature  but the blur doesn't look quite as good and you   deserve the best so it's okay to treat yourself  every now and again don't be so hard on yourself   sometimes it's nice to step away from it all for  a bit and remind yourself that your value is not   confined to the work you produce your productivity  or whether what you're doing makes sense to anyone   else at all anyway I hope these blur tricks  help you out in some tight spaces or through   some tough projects and I also used a blur map in  a bit of a different way to create this animated   ink bleed so if you want to go deeper you can  check that one out I'll see you in the next one

Channel: Ben Marriott

Views: 131,377

Keywords: ben marriott, after effects tutorial, motion design after effects, motion graphics, animation tutorial, text effects after effects, after effects paint, mograph, motion design, after effects motion, after effects blur, learn after effects, easy after effect tutorial, blur effect, blur effect tutorial, animation blur effect, motion design tutorial, motion graphics tutorial, reactive shadow, blur, gaussian blur, camera lens blur, blur after effects, fast blur, animating blur

Id: sXt-nfqkrHY

Length: 10min 35sec (635 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 15 2022