Just a very simple way to create an easy but realistic looking fire effect using adobe after effects.

Step 1: In the menu bar select Composition and then New Composition. Call your composition Fire then in the preset column select NTSC DV. The duration can be whatever you like.

Step 2: In the menu bar select Layer, then New, and finally Solid. Call this solid Fire Effect. The colour doesn't matter but make sure you click on Make Comp Size. Then click OK

Step 3: Go over to the Effects and Presets palette on the left hand side and in the search bar type in Fractal Noise, then drag the fractal noise effect over to your solid. You should notice that the solid now has a smoky look.

Step 3: To the left in the Effects Controls, next to fractal type, click on the drop down arrow and select Dynamic Twist. The drag the contrast up to around 200-250 whatever suits you and change the brightness to around -25. Then change the complexity to 7. After that click on the transform drop down arrow and uncheck Uniform Scaling and adjust the scale width to about 50 and the scale height to around 200.

Step 4: In the Effects and Presets palette on the right type in colorama. Drag the colorama effect over to your solid. You should notice that the solid is now a lot of different colours.

Step 5: In the Effect Controls bar on the left, under colorama, click the arrow next to Output Cycle. Then in the preset palette click the arrow and scroll down and click fire. The composition should now look like realistic fire

Step 6: Now we are going to animate the fire. In you Effect Controls, in Fractal Noise, click on the little stopwatch next to evolution (making sure your at the beginning of your clip) this will set a keyframe. The move the bar in the timeline to the end of your clip and change the number of evolutions to 4. Now if you click play or render you have your finished animated fire

If you are unsure of anything make sure you have also watched the video and if you are still unsure feel free to message me

Welcome to this tutorial on how to mask using adobe after effects. Masking can be used to remove or cover certain parts of a photo or picutre or completely remove the picture and place it on a new background By the end (unless i'm a hopeless teacher) you should be able to mask out objects e.g. yourself, a family pet etc and put them on the front of a background of your choice. Masking can be a good solution to greenscreening and, if done right, is worth the time and effort.

Step 1: Click the Composition icon in the menu bar. Then Select New Composition. In the Composition Settings box, leave the composition name as Comp 1, then next to preset click the drop down arrow and select NTSC DV, after that click OK.

Step 2: Click File in the menu bar. Then select Import and then File. Browse through your pictures until you find the picture you would like to mask.

Step 3: Once you have selected your picture it will appear in the project pallette. Then drag your picture into the timeline or onto the composition. After you have donw this you can resize the picture a little bit if needs be. When you have resized the picture, near the bottom left of your composition, click on the drop down arrow next to the 50% or 100% (either way it will have a % next to it). and zoom in to around 400%, or close enough until you can clearly see the outline of your picture.

Step 4: You should now be ready to begin your mask. Select the Pen tool and start by clicking where you would like to start your mask. Continue clicking in points around the outline of the object until your object has been fully masked out. Lets say your were masking out a person and the person had there hands on there hips, well you're going to have a in between the persons arm and the body right. well to get rid of this all you have to don is mask out the space and then in the timeline if you click the drop down arrow to the left of your picture, then the drop down arrow next to masks, then click the arrow next to add and select subtract. You should see that the gap has now disappeared

Step 5: Now that your object has been masked you may want to put a background behind it. To do this we first of all need to go to File, then Import and then File. then select your background. Once you have selected your background drag it into the timeline making sure you put it underneath your picture. There you have it a perfectly masked picture in front of a background.

*TIPS*

"Watch the video" - if there was anything i missed or anything you don't really understand then its most likely in the video. If you;re still having trouble just message me.

When masking try to stay inside the outline, it may sound like you're back in school but if you are masking outside the outline you will get a horrible looking outline around your picture (unless thats what you'rre going for)

Take your time and be patient, it will really show in your final product

Note: Automatically this becomes another layer, Layer 1. The words which you type will become the name of the layer, if not named. In this case it would be Example-1

1. Now Duplicate the layer and name it as Layer 1
2. Drag Layer 1 with Move tool so that the image now appears like this



3. Under Blending options of Layer 1, adjust the opacity to 20%



4. Under Gradient Overlay of Layer-1, adjust the angle to -90 degrees



5. Now, the image would appear like this:



6. With Layer 1 still selected, under Edit menu, choose Transform-> Flip Horizontal to get the following image:



7. Again, under Edit menu, choose Transform-> Rotate 180 degrees to get the following image:

First off, I'm going to create some 3d boxes and arrange them like so:

Next, I've given the walls a “Plaster.Stucco.Trowled.White” material under the “finishes” tab on the materials panel.

Now I have my 3 walls, I'm going to give the walls a floor by using a planar surface. This basically gives me a flat surface to work with. The tool is located here as shown:

Now I'm going to give a flat surface to the area enclosed by the 3 walls to act as a floor. Just use the planar surface tool as you would with the 3D box tool except you don't need to input the height. (Don't forget to use snaps):

Now lets give that flat surface a good wooden material as shown below:

Great we now have this:

For one last finishing touch before I show you lighting, let's add a box in the corner:

Now give it a “Concrete.Cast-In-Place.Panels.Square” material under the Concrete tab.

My room currently looks like this:

Next, draw two 2D lines on opposite corners of the walls, using them for snaps to create a point where the 2 lines intersect:

Now that you have your 2 lines, make sure they actually intersect. You can check this buy using a tool like the 3D box tool and move the cursor over the 2 lines. If a cross appears, then the lines intersect, otherwise you've done something wrong.

Usually when the lines don't intersect, one side is higher than the other like in my drawing right now. (I've done it on purpose, honest ;P):

To correct this, I would have to find out what side is taller:

And I would correct it (Just re-draw it):

Now that's settled, I can draw the two 2D lines:

You will notice that the intersection point is not completely in the middle of the room, that doesn't matter because I just want a point to work from.

Open up the lighting panel by right clicking at the top of the tools panel and selecting “Lights”:

Now for the lighting effects! First off, select the first light which should be “Default Point Light”:

This is standard light that emits light from all directions. We will place it at the point where the 2 lines we drew earlier intersect:

You will notice that parts of your model have lightened up. This is what your model would look like in render mode without the point light:

And now, with the light:

Great isn't it? You can adjust the lighting by clicking on the “Light list” as shown:

Here it will display your lights that you have in your model, right click on your desired light and click on properties:

Here you can adjust specific properties of your light, but to change the strength of your light, you would change the intensity factor. If you wanted a nice and darkish lighting, I would recommend you set it to 0.2 or 0.3. Otherwise, experiment around with it:

Ok next light I'm going to show you is the spot light:

This spotlight enables me to focus a light onto a specific object(s). To apply this, I would first click onto the place where the light is going to be shown FROM, in this case, it's the intersection that we created:

Then I click on the object I want the light to focus on:

Now I have my spotlight, in lights menu as I showed before you can change the properties of the spotlight as well (like colour of light, how big the light it etc.):

Note: You can more than light

The last light I'm going to show you is the distant light:

This light works differently. This light shines evenly throughout the model and it goes in ONE direction. Think of it as a powerful spotlight shining in only one direction. To apply the light, click any spot and move your mouse and click at your specified direction. You may not see it but here I've clicked on the intersection and moved my cursor up to specify that the direction that I want my light to be going is up:

And now, here it is with the light applied in render mode:

Let's do it again, this time with the light going the opposite direction:

It's very dark, why? Let's look at the other side of the wall:

The wall is blocking the light! Well, light doesn't pass through non-transparent walls so it is quite expected that this will happen since the light is coming from this direction. Like the other 2 lights, this light can also be edited in the lighting panel I showed you earlier.

Congratulations, you have gained knowledge on lights in AutoCad 2007.