Tag Archive for: after effects

Crate’s Free Text Animator script for After Effects! (Download)

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Download the Crate’s Text Animator script for After Effects here

All ProductionCrate members can now download the exciting Text Animation script for free!

This exciting addition to the range of tools gives you the power to create fun animations for your text – with a single click.

With 25 hand-made presets to choose from, you’ll never run out of a fresh way to liven up your videos, commercials or presentations! The presets include glitches, fly-ins, slides, spins and more.

Without the script, to create a text animation graphic in After Effects, you may spend hours manually adjusting countless keyframes and meticulously modifying their speed, opacity, motion blur and many other parameters. This script puts an end to the suffering, doing all of the work for you within seconds!

To give you even more control, our script creates a Null object that contains adjustable parameters, so you can tweak your design to perfection even after generation.

Let’s take a look at the After Effects script:

Free Crate's Text Animator script for After Effects! (Download)

 

 

Choose Animation – This opens up the range of presets that you can choose from.

Eye Icon – Generate a preview that helps you see what the animation looks like.

Text – Enter what you want to be displayed!

Preset Parameters – Once you’ve selected a template, a number of sliders will appear that lets you customize each preset to meet your expectations. These are also accessible through the Null object that is generated with the preset.

Create New Comp – Enabling this creates the new text in a new composition. Disabling will generate the text in your selected composition.

Preview All – A handy tool that creates a grid previewing all the available presets

Create – Once you’re happy with your settings, hit this and let the script make your text come to life!

 

The script has been built to balance simplicity with function, so whether you’re a Vlogger wanting to spice up your editing skills, or are building a title card for a blockbuster movie, this script is for you!

Crate's Text Animator script for After Effects! (Download)

To install the script, extract the files from the download, and drop  “Crate’s Text Animator.jsx” folder into your After Effects > Scripts folder. You then can run the script by heading through File -> Scripts -> Crate’s Callout Script.jsx.

We’re excited to see what you create with this script! If you’re interested in our other After Effects scripts, extensions and plugins, check out this page here. 

 

Create Callouts for Free in After Effects (Script Download)

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Creating callouts for your video can often be a complicated and time-consuming process, though all that is about to change…

We’ve created a free powerful script for Adobe After Effects that can do all the work for you in seconds: Crate’s Callouts!

Download the Free Callout Script here.

 

Callouts are the small infographic labels that overlay a video, highlighting an important feature to inform the viewer of a name, statistic or the anatomy of a seal:

Create Callouts for Free in After Effects (Script Download)

The script is packed with a huge bundle of presets, all fully customizable and ready for you to composite onto your video. This means that if you work for an organization or run a YouTube channel, you will be able to match the branding by adjusting the colours of the templates with one click!

To get started, you’ll need to first use a Null object to mark the position of what you want to be featured by the callout. The best part about this script is that it can be completely animated, so if you need the callout to follow a moving subject then this is the script for you.

Create Callouts for Free in After Effects (Script Download)

For the next step, we’ll need to install our script. Extract the files from the download, and drop the “productioncrate-callout-script.jsx” file into your After Effects > Scripts folder You then can run the script by heading through File -> Scripts -> Crate’s Callout Script.jsx.

Now let’s take a look at what features we have at our disposal:

Create Callouts for Free in After Effects (Script Download)

 

 

 

 

 

Arrows: Navigate through the presets to find the one you want.

 

Track Layer: Select the Null object you want the callout pointer to follow.

Title + Subtitle: Here’s where you input the text you want to be displayed.

Animation direction: Which way would you like the callout to come in from?

Color tools: Adjust the look of the preset to match your brand.

Smart Color Change: This nifty feature will automatically adjust any other colours that can be controlled to match your theme.

In/Out: What period (in seconds) do you want the callout to be on screen?

Base Point/Outline: Control the shape of the feature mark.

 

F: Click this to open up the text composition after creation, so you can adjust the font manually.

 

Once you’re happy with all the settings, hit “Create”, and you’ll save hours of time while the script creates your dream callout card within seconds!

Each preset has been carefully designed animated to give it the most professional appearance possible, helping you increase your production value at no extra cost!

If you want to control and customise the callout card after it has been generated, that is no problem! There will be a control null generated in your main composition window, clicking on this will reveal all of the various colour settings that you can adjust instantly in the effects window.

We’re excited to see how you make use of these free After Effects callout presets. If you’re interested in how else you can boost your workflow, take a look at our Lower Thirds script.

Create Callouts for Free in After Effects (Script Download)

 

 

Download the Powerful Lower Thirds Script for After Effects

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Download Crate’s Lower Thirds Script here (Pro) Updated 8-17-2022

Ever wondered how to create lower thirds in After Effects? Pro members can now download the latest After Effects script to generate your own customized lower thirds! We have just updated this free script with 20 New Lower Thirds for Social Media and Youtube Call to Actions!

For those new to the term, lower-thirds are the banners that overlay the base of a video, containing text that helps provide information. This can be the name of the person on-screen, context to some archive footage, or even as the countdown card for a Top 10 video!

Download Crate's Lower Thirds After Effects Script

Download our script today, and create your own lower-thirds with our one-click solution!

With an astonishing 75 templates to choose from and a huge range of customizations to make, you will have everything you need to create the lower-thirds that matches your branding perfectly. So whether you’re editing for a sports program, an exciting tech-startup or your own YouTube channel, our script is here to give you a professional look you deserve within minutes!

Download Crate's Lower Thirds After Effects Script

Our main categories each feature their own range of unique designs:

  • Artistic lower thirds
  • Corporate lower thirds
  • Geometric/Modern lower thirds
  • Floral lower thirds
  • Minimalistic lower thirds
  • Sporty lower thirds
  • Tech lower thirds
  • Social Media (NEW)
  • Youtube (NEW)

Let’s take a look at the interface, and see what tools will be at your disposal.

Download Crate's Lower Thirds After Effects Script

Category: Tell us what your video is focusing on! We’ll then display a variety of different themes for you to choose from which have each been individually designed to fit your needs.

Logo: If we’ve featured an option for you to add your branding in a specific template, here is where you select the specific layer for us to use in the lower third.

Title: Type in what you want the viewer to read!

Subtitle: If the template supports a subtitle, this is the smaller text that will usually appear beneath the title, such as a date, or a job title.

Colour pickers: Use the colour picker to help show off your brand!

Smart Colour Change: This special tool will change the colour of similar elements included in the design, so it automatically matches your picked colour style.

In/Out: Decide exactly when you want the lower-third to appear and disappear!

Create New Comp: When deselected, the lower third will be directly imported into the current open composition. When turned on, it is built in a separate composition.

Create: Once you’re happy with all of your settings, hit this to let the magic happen!

Installing the script is a swift process. Just drop both the “Crate’s Lower Thirds.jsx” and “images” folder into your After Effects > Scripts folder Open up After Effects, and run the script by heading through File -> Scripts -> Crate’s Lower Thirds

youtube graphics download for after effects

We are excited to see how you make use of this lower-thirds generator!

If you’re interested in our other scripts, check out our easy looping animation script.

Free Loop Script for After Effects!

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Looping in After Effects has never been easier. There are tons of looping expressions and different ways you can get your footage or keyframes to loop. Remembering all the techniques can be tricky, so we decided to make the Crate’s Looper Script

 

 

Download the 100% Free Crate’s Looper Script Here

 

You must be logged in either as a Pro or a Free user to download the script. Drag and Drop  into your After Effects > Scripts Folder

 

If you want to loop footage or media make sure to select the footage in your Project Window. Set the amount of times you want it to loop and hit Apply. You can also select your footage by pushing the ‘…’ button on Crate’s Looper Script.

 

The Time Remap option is auto-checked. This is the most popular looping option for Footage or Compositions. It creates 2 key-frames, one at the beginning and one at the end of your layer. If you want to loop another parameter, such as rotation or position, un-check this option. (Box 1 on the Right)

 

You can choose to loop-in, loop-out, or both! Looping-in will loop from the last key-frame to the first key-frame. Loop out, the more often used, will loop from the first key-frame to the last. Loop-In/Out will do both of these options.

 

Let’s take a look at some of our different looping options now. See where it says ‘none’ on our right? Select that drop-down. You will see these amazing looping options! Check out what each one of them does below.

 

Ping Pong looping in AE

Ping – Pong allows your animation to go forward until the last key-frame and then repeat the animation backwards. It’s like the popular Boomerang effect you see everywhere!

 

Download this free script now

The Continue Loop is really interesting, instead of stopping on the last key-frame the animation takes into account the motion parameters and makes them continue on indefinitely.

 

Cycle is a useful loop. This will start your animation over to the first key-frame after the last key-frame.

 

Offset is definitely the most interested. We used 3 key-frames to really show this one off. The animation cycles through all 3 key-frames (start, finish, halfway back to start) but continues it’s directional movement. The animation repeats but is ‘offset’ from the difference in the key-framed parameters. This one is especially fun to make complex animations with!

Want to check out more of our scripts? See them all here

Kick down a door with VFX!

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Whether you’re making a dramatic entrance, or you just don’t like doors, kicking down doors with VFX can be an awesome addition to your movie.

We featured a shot in our Captain Marvel VFX tutorial that included just this, and now we’re showing you how we did it!

You can apply these steps to almost any software, so whether you have Blender, 3Ds Max, Maya or Cinema4D, you’ll be able to follow along. Likewise, most compositing software (After Effects, Premiere Pro) will be powerful enough for you to use these techniques.

Watch our quick tutorial on how you can create your own door-kick VFX!

Want to learn even more compositing tricks? Check out our UFO invasion tutorial!

Spaceship UFO VFX – Tutorial

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Download HD UFO VFX Assets Here

Whether they’re friendly or not (usually the latter), no Sci-Fi movie is complete without alien spaceships flying over a city. They’re some of the coolest VFX shots out there.

We’re super happy to be introducing these new HD UFO effects, all available for you to download! We even have a free option, so this tutorial is for all of you.

Inspired by Independence day, District 9 and Arrival, we want to show you how you can create your own blockbuster CGI alien spaceship. So let’s get started with the tutorial!

You can use almost any compositing software for this tutorial, whether that’s Nuke, Hitfilm, or Premiere Pro. I’ll be using After Effects!

We’ll first need the city that our outer-worldly visitors will be hanging out over. I’ve gone for the popular choice, New York City! You can download the same image here from Pexels.

Download UFO Spaceship VFX Tutorial

You can apply the same VFX techniques to a video if you would rather use that! If you haven’t yet downloaded the UFO assets, download the effects here.

We can drop our first spaceship into our shot! You’ll find that it’s already looking incredibly realistic without any work needed to be done. FootageCrate elements are all designed to make your workflow as easy as possible!

The first adjustment we want to make is ensuring that the lighting is in the correct direction. You’ll see that the sunlight is coming from the left side of the screen, so if the UFO asset doesn’t match, simply flip it horizontally. This makes the scene seem consistent.

Download UFO Spaceship VFX Tutorial

The next small adjustment we can perform is adding a tint effect. Make both colors match the sky, so that the UFO appears to be distant in the sky. Typically, you’ll increase the tint if the spaceship is larger or further away to give a sense of scale.

Download UFO Spaceship VFX Tutorial

Feel free to go crazy and add even more of our spaceship assets! Once again you can change the tint levels so that the closer spaceships have less of it applied (which you can see in the top right asset).

Download UFO Spaceship VFX Tutorial

If you have buildings that are supposed to obstruct the view of some of these VFX assets like I have here, you can either rotoscope the foreground, or use a simple color key with the sky as the target! We can then use this duplicated layer above our UFO effects to put the buildings in front.

Download UFO Spaceship VFX Tutorial

And it’s as easy as that! In no time we have our VFX UFO invasion underway. Add any final corrections you would like to your scene. I’ve even used our Auto-Cinemabar plugin to quickly create the cinema aspect ratios in a single click!

Download UFO Spaceship VFX Tutorial

We’ll love to see what you create with these UFO VFX assets! If you’re tempted to create your own UFO animations, Pro Users can download our model here.

If you’re interested in more compositing tutorials, check out our Helicopter tutorial.

Super Slow Motion Tutorial

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We have always loved the super-slow motion scenes of Quicksilver in the X-Men films. A lot of creators have attempted to create their own version of the effect, we thought it was past due for us to try the same. Check out our results and the tutorial below!

We used a variety of practical effects, like moving hand-held lights on the subject (2:58) and an office chair to make it appear as though he was actually running on the walls (5:07) but the VFX are where things really came together!

The debris effects were done in Element3D inside of After Effects. We cloned many of these and randomized the rotation to really add in the destructive feel.

Download the debris effects here 

The explosion effect used some of our awesome fireball effects

If you want to see how we built out the fireball in more detail Pro Users can download that Project File Here

Overall we thought it came out great! What do you think?

Want to learn more? Check out this great tutorial for compositing Helicopters

Animated Hand Gestures – Extension for After Effects

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Pro Users can download this awesome Hand Gestures Extension here for Mac and Windows

(Mac is the .dmg installer, Windows is the .exe)

This extension comes with 50 Animated Hand Gestures, compatible in AE CC

 

If this is the first extension you have downloaded from ProductionCrate, a warning message may pop up. Your OS just wants to confirm it is standard and safe (it is!)

 

 

The installer is built in, so simply double click and follow the installation guide.

 

 

The Crate’s Hand Gestures extension is built in with your needs in mind. Toggle through over 50 different animated hand gestures to find the one that is right for you.

 

 

We have options for phone screens, thumb swipes, finger taps and so much more!

 

 

Customize the skin color and sleeve color of your animated hand, flip the X and/or Y, and choose whether or not to have the motion shapes enabled.

 

Lastly, simply select the dimensions you want from the 3 most popular and hit Create! Just like that you have saved yourself hours of tedious labor.

 

 

 

If you want to use one of the many Phone Screen options simply create new compositions (File > New Composition) and make sure the settings for the dimensions are 615×1040 to fit perfectly into our animated phone screens.

 

Depending on how many swipes in your selected animation you will be able to choose 2-3 screens.

 

Follow the same steps as before and generate! You can toggle the Shy switch for more control, if you want to make any adjustments to the animation. Jump into your phone screen comps and adjust the timing if needed.

 

This is perfect for all your explainer videos, promos and commercial content. Enjoy!

 

Want to see our other Scripts and Extensions? Check these out

How to add Snow to your videos – VFX Tutorial

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Download HD snow effects for your videos here

With only a few days to go until Christmas takes over, it’s time to go over one of the most fundamental uses of VFX compositing – snow!

Whether you’re shooting a Christmas comedy or a reflective and chilling scene for your film, snow can always help add value to your project. But not everyone has access to weather manipulating machines or industrially sized snow cannons, and so in these cases, we must rely on VFX to composite the snow into our footage.

FootageCrate has a huge library of snowfall effects, ranging from realistic to cartoon styled. Similar to all of our content, these snow effects are pre-keyed, meaning that transparency is preserved when you drop the snow footage on top of your shot without any further hassle! You can take a look at our collection of snow effects here.

Let’s get started with the tutorial! You can use almost any software for this, including After Effects, Hitfilm, Nuke and Premiere Pro!

I’ve taken this stock image from Pexels.com, so if you want to follow along, be my guest and download the image.

How to composite snow VFX into your video tutorial

One step I’ve often seen people skipping is that they don’t add depth to their snow effect. What I mean by this is that it’s quite clearly visible that there’s just a snow effect simply being placed on the footage, giving it a “flat” feel. We’re going to give the snow volume by first creating a solid that matches the colour of the lighter clouds, and making it so that the further away the footage is, the higher the opacity. This can be done through masking or opacity painting.

How to composite snow VFX into your video tutorial

Already we’ve given a nice volumetric feel to the scene. This will look like snow that is too distant to be seen by the camera individually, and so appears like a cloud.

We can now mask out or rotoscope the foreground so that it doesn’t sit behind this fog.

It’s now time to drop the snow effect into our video. I’ve taken two different effects from the FootageCrate website, which is the “snow background” and the “slow snow falling”. I’ll have the first placed behind the foreground, and the second in front of it. This makes it appear as if the subject is sandwiched between the two snow assets so that they feel part of the scene!

How to composite snow VFX into your video tutorial

Apply these snow effects with an add/lighten/screen transfer mode so that the dark halos around the snowflakes are invisible, and admire your now far more chilling scene! You can add further colour corrections to then cool the image with bluish tints.

How to composite snow VFX into your video tutorial

Thanks for reading this tutorial! If you’d like to learn more VFX, take a look at our helicopter compositing tutorial!

 

Helicopter VFX Tutorial

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Download HD Helicopter VFX assets here

Our brand new helicopter assets have landed in the FootageCrate library, giving you the power to create your own stunning action movie VFX!

Over 30 exciting elements are available for you, with some of them being free to download. We’ve made sure the selection covers all of the intense helicopter sequences you’ll need to build the perfect narrative for your project.

The collection includes take-offs, flybys, static graphics and even a spectacular helicopter crash.

Helicopter Crash VFX for your Videos

It’s time to get started with the tutorial, so you can learn how to add these helicopter VFX into your own videos! We’ll be going over the general workflow which covers the steps you need to take to composite all of our helicopter assets. I’ll also be using After Effects today, but you can replicate the steps in almost any compositing software such as Hitfilm and Nuke.

We’ll first need a background, which today will be this beautiful aerial mountain scenery from Pexels, but feel free to use your own!

Helicopter VFX Tutorial Background

Once you’ve created a composition featuring your background, find a helicopter asset that best suits your shot. There’s many to choose from, so you’ll have no trouble finding one that you want. I recommend that you also consider the lighting when deciding which effect you want for your VFX. Here I’ll be using a looping shot from the side:

Download Helicopter VFX Assets

Drop the effect into a new layer of your composition, and position it where you need it. Since the background and the helicopter don’t have matching sources of light, I flipped the landscape horizontally in order to have the light coming from the same direction. This goes a long way when it comes to making sure your effect fits naturally into your scene!

Helicopter VFX Tutorial

The shot is already looking pretty good, but we’ll perform some colour correction to make it perfect. I used a curves effect to lightly decrease the red as well as increase the blue, which matched the chilling tone of the environment.

Download Helicopter VFX Tutorial

No action scene is complete without some background motion blur, which also gives the illusion that the helicopter is moving at great speeds. It also helps highlight the main feature of our shot, so that it stands out from the rest.

Download Helicopter VFX Tutorial

This is the third tutorial in a row which has made use of our ProductionCrate Lightwrap generator, so if you haven’t checked it out already download it here! This tool is an absolute game-changer when it comes to compositing inside After Effects. It takes the colour of the environment and blends it into the edges of the asset, making it seem as though light from the scene is bouncing off our helicopter and into the camera. The default settings will do for most scenes, so hitting “Generate” should do the trick, but feel free to adjust the settings if needed.

Download Helicopter VFX Tutorial

You’ve made it to the end! We now have a photorealistic helicopter VFX effect in almost no time at all thanks to ProductionCrate’s helicopter library. It’s time to add our final colour corrections to give it the cinema-quality tone we want to see (here I had increased the contrast and saturation).

Download Helicopter VFX for your Movie

If you want to learn even more compositing tricks, take a look at our Nuclear Bomb VFX tutorial: