I recently received a request from a viewer asking me if I could replicate the kind of satellite tracking display found in the Modern Warfare series of games. CHALLENGE ACCEPTED.
Using a combination of dashed lines, shape layers and opacity expressions, I like to think that I came pretty damn close to the original. So, if you’re creating an epic war movie, then maybe you might want to watch this tutorial to see how I did it – or of course you could just download the project file from this page.
So this year’s free festive-themed After Effects tutorial is a little different from last year’s, but still needs no plug-ins (so you can save your money and spend it on beer and chocolates instead!)
Had a lot of fun putting this one together. Hope you enjoy watching it.
And here’s part 2
Project file can be downloaded from here. If you use it, be nice and give me a shout-out.
Cheers!
:l
One of the questions I’m asked the most is ‘why don’t I have insert CC effect name here in my copy of After Effects?’ To which the short answers are ‘because you’re using the demo version’ or ‘because you ripped the software off a torrent site, you thieving shit’.
But something else I get asked from time to time is ‘how do I loop a pre-comp in After Effects?’ And this one I’m happy to answer. When you consider how many advanced tools there are in AE, it’s surprising that there still isn’t an obvious way to do this. Maybe in CS6 perhaps?
But you’ll be pleased to hear that it is possible, and it’s not that complicated – though there is a small catch you need to be aware of if you’re going to do it successfully. I’d also point out that there’s an older video on how to do this over at John Dickinson’s website – motionworks.com.au – but it doesn’t have an audio track, so it’s easy to miss the important bit at the end. Even so, I’d recommend a trip to his site as there’s loads of useful stuff there. And it’s a lot prettier than mine.
