>>ALAN: Hey everyone! I've been getting some
comments asking me how I made my animated intro to my tutorials. So I thought, I'll make a video
of my process that walks you through the different programs and techniques that I used to make it.
So this would be a great time to roll that intro. [MUSIC] Before we get started, if you haven't checked
out my channel, I make tutorials for Photoshop, After Effects and Premiere. If you're new to those
programs, or, you want to see some intermediate and advanced techniques, check out those
videos and don't forget to subscribe and like. This project took me five to six hours from start
to finish and it spans four programs: Illustrator, Blender, After Effects and Premiere.
And it's a five to six second intro. So that really puts into perspective the
amount of work that goes into animating one second of fully custom content. And that
should go into play when people ask you to make a "quick 30 second animation" for
them; there's nothing quick about this. Now, I want to give a disclaimer up front: I'm
going to be using two plugins throughout this tutorial. And I'm telling you this because I hated
it when I was getting started and I was watching tutorials and they wouldn't tell me until halfway
through the tutorial that they're using some $500 plugin. I was like, "I don't have a $500 plug-in!"
So you've been warned - don't hate me when I start using plugins. But I'm using these plugins because
they allow me to do things in After Effects that you otherwise cannot do, such as working with
a 3D object file natively inside of After Effects. So if you're still with me, and you're
ready to move forward, then let's get started! Step 1: Adobe Illustrator. Now, I had my original Alan-clock logo as a
.PNG, so I opened that up in Illustrator. I went to 'Window' down to 'Image Trace'
and that opens up the image trace panel to which I click "Trace' and convert it into a
vector. Now it's time to export my .SVG. 'File,' 'Export,' 'Export As.' I tried this - changed
the pull down to .SVG - and it did literally nothing. I tried it three more times just to
make sure that I wasn't crazy - I was not. So I go to 'File,' 'Save As,' change the
pulldown to .SVG, click 'Save,' and on to... Step 2: Blender. Now, truth be told I don't do 3D, so
I admired this pretty landing screen recognizing that I'd never
make anything as cool as this. So I closed the landing screen and I
admired this default cube long enough until it was time to say goodbye, clicked
'Delete,' and it was time to import my .SVG. 'File,' 'Import .SVG.' I spent about three minutes
wondering why they put it over here. Spent about three more minutes trying to figure out where the
move tool was so I could move it to rough center. Once I figured that out, I had to then erase these
other aspects of the .SVG. So I clicked on them and hit 'Delete' to make these little gaps.
I was feeling pretty good once I figured this out but it was still flat. So I go over to this
little unassuming icon over here, toggle down 'Geometry,' and go to 'Extrude.' I used these
little arrows to extrude to my desired thickness. Whoa, too thick - dial it back. Now it was time to export
my .OBJ. 'File,' 'Export,' 'Wavefront .OBJ.' 'Export .OBJ.'
Now the hard part is over... Step 3: After Effects. Now, because After Effects doesn't actually
natively work with .OBJ files, I'm going to be using the Video Copilot Element 3D plugin. To
get started with Element 3D, you have to create a brand new solid. 'Layer,' 'New,' 'Solid.' I
name my solid "Logo" and, because the color doesn't matter, I like to make mine green.
Apply the effect: 'Effect,' 'Video Copilot,' 'Element.' In your Effect Controls panel, click
on 'Scene Setup.' This opens up Element 3D. Time to import my .OBJ. Click on the 'Import'
button, find my .OBJ, and in the next dialog box choose 'Use Auto Normals.' Now, when I imported
this, nothing showed up. It's because I had to check the box that says 'Normalize Size' and then
there it is. I played with different shaders and ultimately decided on the matte black shader.
Everything else was good, so I hit 'OK.' To make my logo appear normal, I'm going to toggle down
the 'Particle Look,' come down to the 'Particle Rotation,' and rotate the x-value to turn my
logo on its proper face. Now, to view this, I have to make a brand new camera: 'Layer,'
'New,' 'Camera.' I use a two node camera for this, so I click 'OK.' Toggle down my 'One View'
pulldown to make this 'Two Views Horizontal.' In the left hand, I'm going to choose 'Top.' And
now I have my camera; I can move my camera around and start to view my 3D logo now inside of my
Composition panel. To control my camera better, I make a brand new null object: 'Layer,' 'New,'
'Null Object.' I name this "Camera Controller," and then I parent the camera to my null object. I
check the box to make my null object a 3D layer. To learn more about controlling
cameras with null objects, check out my "Understanding
Null Objects" tutorial. Now it's a matter of adding keyframes to my
Camera Controller and the logo itself in the Element 3D plugin. Once I do this, it looks
like the logo is now bouncing off the screen. Let's add some depth. Toggle down 'Camera
1,' toggle down 'Camera Options,' and turn on the Depth of Field. Now
you can change the aperture and the focal distance to allow the camera
to blur in and out as the logo is flying in. To create smooth movement, I go ahead and adjust
some of the timings in the Graph Editor. Time to add some lights: 'Layer,' 'New,' 'Light.' I
like to use Point Lights because they're the easiest to wrap my mind around. I'm going to
make this blue with an intensity of 12,000 and I hit 'OK.' This now creates a light that I can
click and drag around to interact with my 3D logo. After various experiments on lighting position,
I decided on a total of three Point lights with keyframes applied to their Position,
their Color, and their Intensity. And this allowed for an active lighting system
that interacts with my logo over time. Now it's time to create a 3D stroke.
To start, I make a new Shape layer: 'Layer,' 'New,' 'Shape Layer.' And then I add
a very simple blue stroke to this layer. Now, I want to make this a 3D stroke, so
I'm going to use the Red Giant plug-in, '3D Stroke:' 'Effect,' 'RG Trapcode,' '3D
Stroke.' From here, I can adjust all sorts of parameters. I can choose the basic preset of
circle, but the biggest thing here is to turn on 'Taper.' And Taper allows it now to, kind of,
give this thickness to the stroke itself. Using the 'Transform' pulldown, I can now rotate this on
its x-axis. Create a brand new track matte layer: 'Layer,' 'New,' 'Solid.' Apply a track matte. Draw
a mask on this to make it seem like the stroke is circling around the logo. To take this stroke
a step further, I apply another plug-in from Red Giant: 'Effect,' Red Giant Trapcode,' and I
apply 'Shine.' Using the Shine plugin allows me now to create this emanating light from that
stroke itself, giving it some more texture. Now this was looking great but it was lacking
something. As it hit the screen with such force, it just felt a little too rigid to me. So in
Element 3D, under the 'Deform' pulldown, you can enable 'Deform.' And this allows me now to bend
and deform my logo with keyframable properties. And so now, when it hits the screen, I deform it
and then have it flip over the other direction to kind of create this wobble. And this added some
nice squishiness to the logo where previously it just felt way too hard. To wrap up, I added
some pre-made elements to create some texture as the logo came in and out. Now it's time to add
some text. Using a single text layer duplicated three times, I masked out each word then added a
track matte layer that allowed each masked part to come in individually. I then duplicated
all of those text and track matte layers, I changed the color of the original text layers
underneath, and then staggered the keyframes to tie in with the rest of my color scheme.
Once I was done inside of After Effects, I exported this using Adobe Media Encoder.
But now that this is done, on to... Step 4: Adobe Premiere. Inside Premiere, I imported my rendered After
Effects file, made a new Sequence out of it, and then imported a bunch of sound effects that I
had from my sound effects library. I also imported a music track courtesy of Artlist. Taking up as
many audio tracks as I could, I added my wooshes, my swooshes, my swishes, and some textural
atmospheres and soon it was sounding pretty good. I mixed all the sound effects in the Audio
Track Mixer and then I was ready to export. I used a pre-existing preset that I had made using
the H.264 format, changed the bitrate up to 22, and hit 'Queue.' This queued up in Adobe
Media Encoder. Click the green 'play' button, let it export, and once it was done, I had
a finished animated intro for my videos. Thanks for joining me on this whirlwind
tour. If you enjoyed this video, please subscribe to my channel, like this video, and I hope to see you in another tutorial soon.
Again, I'm Alan from itsalantime. Happy creating. [MUSIC]
