Developing Star Trek Effects in After Effects

Course details

Introduction:

Welcome to Developing Star Trek Effects in After Effects. We will becreating several awesome effects in a style similar to the JJ Abrams Star Trek movies.The Effects we will create are: A Starship in space, A Ship y by, A Starship shooting a Missile, Phasers and Pulse Guns, Transporters, and Forceelds. We will use After Effects and 2 Video Copilot Plugins (Optical Flares and Element 3D) to create these effects. We will also talk about perfect compositing: perspective, aesthetics, randomize, feathering, environment, color & timing.

Lesson 1: Ships in Space

We will be using After Effects tools as well as plug-ins to create a scene of a Starship

ying in space that is located near a planet.

Class 1: Explain the effect and about 3D Models and how to nd them on the net. Also,we will talk about what 3D models work with the Element 3DPlugin. Show nal result.

Class 2: Creating a stray background using Fractal noise, images and solids

Class 3: Compositing a 3D Planet using Element 3D

Class 4: Adding atmosphere using glow layers and a sun using Optical Flares

Class 5: Compositing & animating a 3D Starship using Element 3D

Class 6: Finishing touches: lighting, color correction, lens airs & Render Settings

Lesson 2: Ship in Sky ring Missiles

We will create a scene with a Starship ying by very fast in footage, and compositing a Starship into footage and having it shoot a missile. We will learn a matting technique to work with trees in footage and other helpful compositing tricks like adding wiggle and motion blur to a whole scene to increase the action.

Class 1: Explain what the overall effect is, the tools/ assets needed and where

someone could nd them. Show nal result.

Class 2: Creating a Starship Fly by.

Class 3: Starship Firing a missile.

Class 4: Final looks and adding a global wiggle Expression that you can Key

frame.

Lesson 3: Phaser & Pulse Weapons

Creating the fantastical weapons of Star Trek, learning how to shoot phasers and pulse rifes. We will use Optical Flares to create pulse blast and the beam effect to create phasers. We will also learn how to use AE lights to create casted light from our blast on the ground, and some tracking tips.

Class 1: Explain what the overall effect is, the tools/ assets needed and where

someone could nd them. Show nal result.

Class 2: Tracking our footage and creating a Forceeld Target

Class 3: Creating the Pulse weapon & Impact and overall inter active lighting

Class 4: Creating the laser beam and impact, adding sound.

Lesson 4: Transporter

In this lesson we will learn how to escape with our lives using our transporter. We use Keylight to get alpha channels from our green screen footage using a special nested comp technique. Then we will use our alpha channels and particles to create this effect. We will also learn some color correcting techniques.

Class 1: Explain what the overall effect is, the tools/ assets needed. We also

learn some tips fro creating teleportations effects, and some pitfalls. Show

nal result.

Class 2: Keying Green Screen footage using a nested comp technique also

creating depth and atmosphere using fractal noise to create clouds and

dust.

Class 3: Creating an organic and interesting transition for our transporter

Class 4: Particles, Lens Flares and color correction to nish the transporter effect

Lesson 5: Force Field

In this lesson we will learn how to use a force eld to block a phaser and narrowly

escape with our lives. We will use the CC Sphere effect and Fractal Noise to create a

cool forceeld effect. We will also learn some other techniques to create a cool techie texture and some more lighting tips.

Class 1: Explain what the overall effect is, the tools/ assets needed and where

someone could nd them. Show nal result.

Class 2: Setting up the shot & Creating the force led

Class 3: Creating some additional lighting and alternate textures