Fantastic 3D Motion Trail effects - After Effects tutorial

Hello, everybody! Videolancer is on! In my previous tutorial, I asked you to share your idea of achieving this effect without plugins. Most of you supposed that it was done using the Echo effect. Indeed, Echo enables us to make such a long motion trail. But it looks good only for video captured from a tripod. In this example, the camera moves forward, and as you can see, a long motion trail looks flat. The method we will consider today will enable us to make a motion trail with a fake 3D effect. And all this work without third-party plugins. But before we start, I’d like to recommend my bestseller to you! Are you familiar with these video transitions? Certainly you are! Nowadays they are the most popular transitions on YouTube. Videolancer - motion designer who developed them have created more than 3000 of such Handy Seamless Transitions for After Effects as well as for Premiere Pro. Try them now! free versions are available for all subscribers of Videolancer channel Links for downloading in the description. Well, let’s start our tutorial. First of all, we have to separate a Character from the background. We'll do it with the Roto Brush Tool. So, duplicate the footage layer. Name this copy as Character. Name the lower copy as BG and switch off its display temporarily. Double-click the Character layer to open it in its own window. Select the frame where the character is the most visible. Select the Roto Brush Tool and Indicate the character. To change brush size, move the cursor holding the Ctrl key. To remove a poor selection, move the brush holding the Alt key. Now, pressing the Page Down key, a mask can be created automatically on each frame. Improve mask shape along the timeline where it is required. Go back to the initial frame and do the same for the previous frames. Press the Page Up key and Improve the mask if it is required. Now go to Roto Brush settings. Switch on Motion Blur and Decontaminate Edge Colors. Also, you can shift Edge a little. Now make Pre-compose. Switch on this checkbox and click OK. Add Pixel Motion Blur effect on this Pre-compose. Set Shutter Angle value from 2000 to 5000. Increase the number of samples to make motion blur completely smooth. To provide further comfortable working, let’s make a pre-render. Add this composition to Render Queue. Select Photoshop Sequence format with alpha-channel in Output Module. Click render. Import the finished sequence into After Effects. Make sure that the sequence frame rate matches the composition frame rate. Select the Character layer and drag the sequence to it while holding the Alt key Pixel Motion Blur effect can be removed. Next, we start making the Motion Trail effect. Make a new Solid. Name it - Motion Trail. Add Particle Playground effect on this layer. This effect with numerous settings is rather complicated, but we need only three of them - Cannon, Layer Map, and Gravity. To begin, let’s set parameters in the Cannon section. Set the values in these parameters to zero. Select the sequence layer as a map in the Layer map section. Set "Absolute" for Time Offset Type. Now particles are generated as freeze frames for every frame of the sequence. To make particle source follow the Character, fine-tune the value in Time Offset. It is better to do it in the last frame. Now reduce gravity force. Switch on display of the BG layer. As you can see, the motion trail doesn’t match the camera movement. And unfortunately, the Particle Playground effect doesn’t have settings for effect integration in 3D-scene. However, we can achieve a fake effect of flow movement in 3D-space. To do this, experiment with the settings of speed, motion direction, and gravity force. To make the motion trail disappear at the end, fine-tune these two parameters. Next, we will make the trail look more similar to energy flow. So, change the layer blending mode to Screen. Add Curves, Vector Blur, and Glow effects on the layer. Adjust Curves so that to make trail more contrast with a bluish tinge. Increase the Amount slightly for the Vector Blur. Increase radius for Glow. Set blending mode to Screen for Character layer and then copy these effects on it. To make the flow more turbulent, experiment with Random Spread parameters. Finally, let’s add a little distortion to the background. Make a new Adjustment Layer. Name it "Distortion." Add the Vector Blur effect on it. Select the Motion Trail layer as a map. Set Effects and Masks as the source. Amount set to seven That is all! Subscribe to my channel and leave comments on what tutorials you'd like to watch next time. Well, that was Videolancer. Bye!

Channel: videolancer

Views: 172,899

Keywords: after effects, after effects tutorial, after effect, after effect tutorial, adobe after effects, vfx tutorial, ae, adobe after effects tutorial, ae tutorial, after effects vfx tutorial, after effects vfx, ae effects, vfx after effects, after effects 2020, vfx tutorial after effects, instagram effects, tik tok effects, video trick, echo, motion trail, speed effect, speed trail, smoothing, smoothing effect, motion blur, filmmaker, 3d, 3d motion trail, particle playground

Id: 9Loq6Z_WFc8

Length: 6min 55sec (415 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 28 2020