Cell Pattern is a filter that can be used to create all sorts of background animations, displacement maps, track mattes, and many other things. It uses algorithms to generate the shapes and shading you see rendered. This allows you to create thousands of different patterns and textures. In this tutorial, Jim Tierney demonstrates a few of these as well as discusses how to create and save your own After Effects favorites.
One of the problems that may plague animators is that their animation is too perfect - too clean. In this article, Jim Tierney demonstrates how to add in a little randomness to your animation with the Wiggler tool in After Effects 5.5.
In this tutorial, Jim Tierney demonstrates using the GridLines filter in Geomancy to create some beautiful sweeping lines. This is something that would work really well as a background element or more as a foreground element if you're trying to communicate something like the flow of information.
This is part of a presentation Jim Tierney will be giving at After Effects West. The presentation will be on using AE and Flash together, with some intro tips for Flash, info on what is supported as vector (the info presented here), the best way to get it out of AE, the best way to get it into Flash, and when and why you should use AE to create Flash content.
Gridsquares is probably the best of the Geomancy filters to start off with. It's the most like a traditional particle system, and in fact, the only real difference is the use of the grid to control how the particles behave. In this tutorial, Jim Tierney explains the different parameters and helps take the 'fear' out of working with particle systems. You'll need Digital Anarchy's Geomancy filter for this.
In this tutorial, Jim Tierney demonstrates a 'non-water' use for Digital Anarchy's newly acquired Psunami plug-in. Follow along and learn how to create your own 'Dune' world.
The HairLines filter in Geomancy was originally designed to simulate streams of liquid. It does this very well, but that organic type of motion lends itself to other effects, such as smoke. In this tutorial, Jim Tierney demonstrates how to get some slightly stylized, but realistically moving, smoke. This useful for cigarettes, smoldering fires, or the occasionaly disintergrating gerbil. However, this tutorial will focus on the streams of smoke, and won't be getting into the finer points of spontaneously combusting rodents. This tutorial will work with either the release or demo version of Hairlines.
