Tag Archive for: after effects script

Zombie VFX Compositing Tutorial!

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Download HD pre-keyed zombie VFX assets here

Continuing from a recent post showcasing our zombie effects, it’s time to put them into action with a quick tutorial!

For the readers who have just joined us, welcome! FootageCrate has a bundle of truly extraordinary stock footage of green-screened and pre-keyed HD zombie effects. This means that you won’t need any fancy make-up artists and actors for your own zombie movies, instead, you can easily composite them into your videos with a few clicks for an unbelievably realistic effect and low budget!

I’ll be showing you an example of how you can add these zombie apocalypse visual effects to your footage to make them look like they are truly part of the scene in After Effects.

If you want to follow along, I’ve taken a stock image from Pexels.com which you can download here.

Download and composite zombie VFX to your video

As for our zombie VFX assets, you can find them all on our category page here. Many of these are free to download if you want to try it out with no cost at all, and Pro members can download the entire collection of pre-keyed 4K assets. Let’s get started!

The easy part is to drop your zombie VFX characters into your footage. I used a feathered mask to cut out the lower portions of their legs so that it appeared they were standing in the middle of the tall grass and fog.

Download and composite zombie VFX to your video

If we take a closer look, you will notice that these zombies look rather “flat”. Perhaps as if they’re paper cutouts stuck onto an image. Luckily for us, we have the solution!

Download and composite zombie VFX to your video

Recently we released the truly-incredible Light Wrap generator. You won’t believe how important this After Effects script is for creating stunningly realistic compositions. It creates a feathered halo glow around the inner edge of our foreground, giving it the appearance that the light is interacting with our zombie VFX foreground. And it’s free for all users! (Thank you, Nate!)

Pre-compose all of our zombies together, and run the Light Wrap generator script. Select the zombie composition as the foreground, and the photograph as the background. Suddenly, once you change a few of the settings in the controls, you’ll have a stunning result. I find that the radius and brightness controls play the most important part in finding the right look for your scene.

Download and composite zombie VFX to your video

And without any trouble, we have an insanely realistic looking zombie in our shot! Apply some final colour corrections, and you can proudly admire the work you’ve created.

Composite zombie VFX with a Light Wrap

If you want to have a go at some more compositing, take a look at our Nuclear Explosion tutorial!

Chromatic Aberrator Script

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Chromatic Aberration After effects ScriptPro Users can download the Chromatic Aberrator Script Here

Chromatic Aberration is a fantastic way to add style and energy to your shots. It’s wonderful for glitches, music videos, space-travel and logo animations. The techniques, while fairly simple, are always time-consuming. We took our 5 Favorite Chromatic Aberration techniques and turned them into an Adobe After Effects Script!

This Script is exclusive for our Pro Users.

Install the Chromatic Aberrator Script in your After Effects > Scripts folder.

To launch, open AE and go to File > Scripts > Chromatic Aberrator

Select the layer you want to apply the Chromatic Abberator to in your composition.

Choose one of the 5 aberration effects. For further customization there are options to adjust the amount of blur, speed, complexity, and even flip the RGB values!

Note: If you want to apply the Chromatic Aberrator to all layers in your composition, just precompose them all together and then apply the script to that precomp. Alternatively, just select all the layers and add the Chromatic Aberrator method you want to use.

The Effects and Controls Null allows you to adjust your Chromatic Aberrator Settings after you have created the effect.

Each effect has different adjustments to further customize your animations. Here, you can also use keyframes if you would like to animate the effect.

This is particularly useful for the glitch and turbulent effects, but can come in handy for any of them. Play with it, and come up with your own custom creations.

After you have your Chromatic Aberration effect looking the way you want, jump back in to your main composition to see how everything looks. You can always go back and make adjustments later.

Check out our 5 Different Techniques you can easily make in the examples below!

See all our Scripts & Plugins Here!

Glitch Effect

Chromatic Aberration Glitch

Lens Effect

Optics Compensation EffectLens Effect

Transform Effect

Transform Effect

Pro Script for Chromatic Aberration

Puppet Pin Null Generator – Script

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Use this Free Script to generate Nulls where your puppet pin points are.

This script will give you the control of your puppet pin points you have been missing out on. Just install it in your After Effects – Scripts folder and launch!

Download the Puppet Pin Null Generator Script Here

See all our Scripts & Plugins Here!

Just select the layer with your puppet pin points, launch the script, and hit Generate Parent Nulls.

The Label via Mesh or Layer will take the color from your selection.

MotionCrate Script – Realistic Motion Reaction!

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Download the MotionCrate Script and give your stock VFX assets some life. This is the BEST script for creating realistic fire in After Effects.

Unarchive the .ZIP and install the MotionCrate Script into your After Effects>Scripts folder.

Launch the script in AE by going to File>Scripts and selecting MotionCrate

Here’s what you will see –

The script works best with Fire and Smoke VFX. It was based off of a tutorial by Wren Weichman

If your Fire, Smoke or other VFX Element is pre-keyed, you will need a solid matte for the script to function smoothly. Create a new solid and drop it beneath your VFX element.

Precompose your Solid and your VFX Element together.

Because this script uses the puppet tool, we recommend drawing a mask around your solid, making sure the VFX Element stays within the bounds of your mask

Navigate back to your main composition so you are no longer in your precomp. Select the ‘Setup Endpoints’ button.

This will create a null with 2 points, Top and Bottom. Move those points to their respective top and bottom of the solid you have masked out.

Enter the number of Nulls you would like to create. 3 is the minimum recommended. The smoother you want your reaction curve, the higher the number of Nulls. We do not recommend more than 7 for any purpose.

Hit the Create Nulls button.

Ignore the Wide Elements button. If you have a wide-based VFX Element, watch the video above to learn how to use the MotionCrate Script with it.

Then enter the amount of Wind, Wind Turbulence, and Delay you would like. You can always adjust these settings later when the Control Null is generated.

Select your precomp with the VFX Element and solid. Find your Puppet Pin tool. You need to put one pin for every Null you generated. Place the Pins approximately at the top left of each null.

Note: Ignore the Endpoint Selector Null, which is usually in the center and Red, when placing your pin points.

After placing your Puppet Pin points near the top left of each null, hit the Generate button.

You may see the image shift as the puppet pin points jump to the null points, but if you were close with your puppet pin point placement, the shift should be minimal.

There will be a Source null created. If you don’t see the null names, select ‘Layer Name’ above your layer window. The Source Null controls all the movement. If you are tracking to an object or person, you will want to parent your source null to that position.

The Control Null allows you to fine tune your Wind, Wind Turbulence, and Delay settings. If you push any of these settings too far, the effect tends to degrade.

And that is how you use the MotionCrate Script!

 

TypeCrate – After Effects Script

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ProductionCrate’s TypeKit AE Script is out!

Our goal is always to provide quality assets and simplify complex processes in video and filmmaking. The TypeCrate script accomplishes both. This script is only available to Pro Users. You will need to download bundled type kits and extract the .RAR archive for the script to function.

Download the TypeCrate script from ProductionCrate!

Pro users can download the script Here.

See all our Video Typekits Here!

To get started with the script in just a few seconds:

  1. Drop the folder containing all of the individual characters in a TypeKit anywhere on your computer.
  2. Launch the TypeCrate script by navigating through File -> Scripts -> Run Script File -> TypeCrate.jsx
  3. You’ve launched the script! Hit the ProductionCrate logo at the top of the UI to open up the preferences. Here we can click “Choose” to navigate to the TypeKit folder containing the characters.
  4. Hit “Done” to save the preferences. We can now enter our text into the text boxes and adjust any setting you need to (The tutorial below goes through each property in detail!).
  5. Once you’re ready, we can generate our TypeCrate text!

Here is everything you need to know about using the TypeCrate AE Script

Enjoy!