When it comes to creating a fog effect you actually have a lot of options in after effects and are a great place to begin. Let’s get started with six easy steps to create incredibly realistic fog in after effects that will wow your audience.
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Click on below Video: How to Properly Composite Fog in After Effects The Easy Way
6 Steps to Compositing Fog in After Effects
Step 1: Adjust the Position and Scale
Place and Move your fog layer to the correct position in the composition and to scale your layer use the scale feature.
Step 2: Set an Adjustment Layer
Set a new adjustment layer. Then position the adjustment layer under your ‘Fog’ layer and set the track matte to ‘Luma Matte’. Your ‘Fog’ layer will disappear.
Step 3: Apply Effects to Adjustment Layer
To create a realistic fog effect, make sure that the fog is not only colored but also that it affects the layers under it. To do this, we will probably want to desaturate, blur and lightly color the background layers where the fog overlays.
Apply a quick Hue/Saturation effect to the adjustment layer. Set the saturation down to -50 and the lightness up to 20. You should now start to see your fog layer showing up. So add the color in it.
When compositing is the curve effect add the effect in it. Now, it all depends on the color grade, but in most cases, you want to affect the blue channel. Then Switch to the blue channel and grab the bottom left point and bring it up to [9, 1.2]. Your fog should have a little bit of a blue tint in the shadow areas and lighter in the highlights.
The way you do color will depend on the view, but in general, you will always want to bring up the shadows and probably bring down the whites if the view is darker.
Finally, add a Gaussian blur to the adjustment layer. A value around 5 should do.
Step 4: Mask the Adjustment Layer
Mask out areas for the fog to sit behind. In our example, I’ll go ahead and mask out the hill in the foreground.
Step 5: Duplicate
For the excellent results, duplicate your ‘Fog’ and adjustment layer multiple times to create more realistic effects. An excellent way to sell your composite is to create a parallax effect where the foreground fog moves faster than the background fog, but it just depends on the individual scene and time limitations.
Step 6: Track It
If there is any movement in the footage, track it and apply the information to the ‘Fog’ Layers. Don’t need to apply the data to the adjustment layers, just the ‘Fog’ layers.
Click on below Video: How to Add Realistic Fog To Any Photo
How to Create an Animated Circle Burst in After Effects
You can start these elements behind an animated logo to illustrate movement or add them to text graphics for amazing dynamic and interesting results. The circle burst is easy to create and it’s incredibly versatile. Let’s take a look step-by-step to create an animated circle burst in after effects.
Click on below Video: 4 Great Circle Burst Motion Graphics in After Effects
3 Steps to Create an Animated Circle Burst in After Effects
Step 1: Create an Ellipse
The first step is that we use the ellipse tool to create a simple circle. To get the look – turn off the fill and set the stroke to white with a width of 35 pixels. It’s important to centre the anchor point to the ellipse shape so that it will animate adequately.
If not centred then select the layer and go to Layer > Transform > Centre anchor point in layer content. Then use the Align panel to centre the circle within the composition. Now go to shape is prepped for animation.
Step 2: Animate the Shape
To create an animated circle burst, you need to animate two properties -“Stroke Width” and “Scale.” if you want the animation to be roughly one second in length, so add a sequence marker to visualize where to place the end keyframes quickly. First, animate the width of the stroke. If you want it to disappear, so animate the width from 30 down to 0. Next, you open up the “Transform” properties of the ellipse and animate the “Scale” from 0 to 100. It’s important not to animate the scale of the shape layer, as you want control over the attribute later.
To smooth out the animation and give it a natural look, change the first keyframes to “Easy Ease Out” and the last keyframes to “Easy Ease In.” Then next open up the graph editor and ramp up the speed at the start, slowing it down toward the end. Now it looks more like it’s following the laws of physics.
You can quickly make variations of animated circle burst by duplicating and slightly adjusting the keyframes or other settings. For example, you can change the scale of one or add a slight rotation. You can even add dashes to the stroke to give the burst a completely different look. Now it’s ready to bring these in and use them with other elements.
Click on below Video: After Effects Tutorial: Animated Circle Burst
Step 3: Incorporate in a Project
Add an animated title that you want to spruce up a bit. The text has a simple rotation and scale animation flying it onto the screen. Bring circle bursts in to add some extra movement and other details. For this particular graphic, place two large circle bursts behind the text. Parent the circle to the text, so it will follow the text as it moves, also add smaller circles on the edges of the text, parenting them to the text layer as well.
The key to making the animation work is tweaking each circle burst, making sure that they don’t match. It’s a simple rule of repositioning, duplicating and retiming. Repeat these steps until you get the desired look.
For students who are interested to learn more on Animated Circle Burst in Vadodara and would like to experience and practice on a more professional level, please sign up today for our Animation Course.
