Adobe After Effects – Simple Creativity #27: Rotating Earth
This video tutorial shows steps to create a rotating earth movie, whose QuickTime sample was presented yesterday. The project files are also available under the same article. Continue reading
We started off yesterday to create something similar to the introduction scene of Universal Pictures, using Boris RED 4.1. If you use the Mac version of Boris RED, I suppose you already know that Boris RED is quite unpredictable, more unpredictable than Apple’s Final Cut Pro. For us, the toughest part of using Boris RED is to export projects to QuickTime. We were quickly able to finish a project yesterday. Then we tried to export it to QuickTime. But something went wrong, and we could never produce a QuickTime movie. So we instead produced a sample movie with After Effects and posted it here a few hours. Anyway, we managed to export the project with Boris RED.
What we got here is not so good as the introduction scene of Universal Pictures. It would probably take us a few more years of practice with Boris RED before making something similar. But if you have 16 seconds to waste, watch it away… Continue reading
My wife has several friends from out of space. Last Friday, one of them brought a new group of aliens from a planet called %@!∆3≤Øß. (Sorry. I can’t spell it correctly in English.) Anyway, they were quite impressed with how beautiful our planet is. One of them said “How much?” Apparently, he was the chief delegate. He asked my wife some questions like the exact diameter of the earth, atmospheric components, distance from the sun. And he turned to one of his comrades and nodded. Then this guy started piling some sort of stones. My wife immediately responded by saying “Excuse us, but this planet is not for sale.” And this finance officer piled more stones and said “What, you want more?” My wife looked hopeless and out of hand. I had to do something quickly, or we would lose this planet. So I excused myself and went to the bathroom with my MacBook. Then I launched Adobe After Effects CS3. In a matter of 9 minutes or so, I created a QuickTime movie in which the earth rotates in front of the sun. Subsequently, I got out of the bathroom and showed this QuickTime movie to the aliens. And I said “You really want this? If you do, just take it.” Surprisingly, the aliens looked content with the QuickTime movie and gave us all the stones they had. Next day, they went back to their planet. Afterwards, my wife and I had a serious discussion. Should we pay for sales taxes? Continue reading
Last week, my wife and I watched 1995 movie “Nixon.” Anthony Hopkins’ performance as Richard Nixon is incredible. So is Paul Sorvino’s performance as Henry Kissinger. Another interesting aspect of this movie is the look of 70s footage. In some parts, the film is rendered in such a way that it looks as if it had been shot in the 70s.
After watching the film, my wife said “I wonder how George W. Bush would look in the 70s?” And she stared at me. Hmm… I thought I could perhaps do something about it with Boris RED. I called the White House, but Mr. Bush was not available for an on-camera interview. So I had Mrs. Bush, instead. After utilizing several filters, I somehow sent her back to 70s. Well, I probably need more practice, though. Continue reading
My wife and I went to a ball park the other day. It was her first time in seeing a Major League baseball game. So she was very excited. While watching the game, we both noticed a terrible noise. We could tell that something was approaching us. My wife said it must be a UFO. Yeah, right… Somebody around us said that it could be a revival of 1998 movie Deep Impact. Whatever happened, it was pretty quick. I guess most people didn’t noticed that a meteor was falling right in front of us. Continue reading