Saturday 9 March 2013

Tutorial - 2: Basic Pass Editing & Intro To Mattes

Hey guys! Here's my second tutorial looking at compositing in After Effects, this one is essentially a quick and basic introduction to tweaking individual layers & passes to get a more refined look. I then go on to introduce the concept of masking using mattes.

Mattes are a difficult one to explain, and I'm not sure I done a good job, but it should give you at least a simple example of how they can be used practically. I'll probably dedicate an entire video to alpha/luma mattes at some point in the future, as I used them extensively on our project. They are the ultimiate "we'll fix it in post" tool.

Although these first few videos are quite specific to Ticked Off, hopefully it'll give you an insight into some of the cheap tricks you can do with your own passes to modify and enhance them. It's always worth experimenting with different effects to see what you can get from your own passes. 

In the next video, I'll be looking at how to use a depth pass for camera blur, then moving on to animating the time machine effects. I realise the current 4th years are nearing the compositing stage, so I'll try and up the rate at which I'm making these so they can be of some use.

Sláinte!