After Effects and Element 3D help?

[tammies30676145]

Hello.

My son bought a third party plug-in called Element 3D a couple weeks ago, and has been having trouble figuring it out. I can't help him, and he says YouTube hasn't been too much help either. He claims the explanations on there aren't in enough detail or too broad. he had ADHD and ADD so it's hard for him to sit still for long courses like Lynda.com. He has completed all the courses in intermediate and beginner level for after effects on lynda.com. Still though, there are some specific projects he wants to do but can't understand them.  There is a Videohive cinematic he want's to replicate in the future, however he doesn't know how to use after effects and the plug-in well enough. Here is the video: https://videohive.net/item/the-heroes-awaken-epic-trailer/22460102?s_rank=5

Watch just the first 20 seconds!

keep in mind please if you can answer this he's been doing after effects for about  4 - 5 months now.  He has been trying all day every day, fiddling with  After Effects and watching tutorials.

The 4  things he wants to do here is similar to this.

1. In the first 3 - 4 seconds the letters fly from behind the screen in a random order and rotation. and line back up then disintegrate

2. The zoom effects where it looks like you're shooting past something, also the timing of the rocks around the words.

3. The light flashed (assuming you need optical flares)

4. toward the end of the 20 seconds there is an explosion for the logo. and the parts come flying at the screen.

Sorry for asking so much, but if you can't answer these because I assume it'll take a lot of work to explain it. If not, could you point me to a few websites or tutorials that can give the basic ideas behind it? Hopefully that can help him.

Thank you for reading.

[Mylenium]

Re 1: the fracturing is not part of E3D. The objects would need to be shattered using respective functions in 3D programs like Blender's Fracture function or similar tools in C4D. You then import them as a whole entity and set their mode to sub-objects in E3D, so they can be affected by the Fractal Noise and Transform functions.

Re 2: Basic animation. That's unfortunately nothing anyone can answer academically and provide "dial in this value" answers to. It simply takes practice and experience.

Re 3: Basically the same as 2, but I'm pretty sure you can find some glowing explosion tutorials on the Video CoPilot site, including downloadable sample files. Andrew used to have a liking for these cheesy flashy things and there should be several  explaining how to use glows and blurs and indeed his Optical Flares plug-in to best effect.

Re 4: Similar to 1. You'd use one of the transform groups and simply set e.g. the linear motion direction so it moves towards the camera. Partial destructions can be achieved by setting the falloff radius accordingly and/ or only fracturing the bits you need in your 3D program.

Mylenium

[P.M.B · Accepted solution]

Hi,

It's very difficult to answer your questions in this format as  it would take pages and pages of instructions and explanations &

it's likely even the explanations will require explanations.

Learning After Effects, like many other CG softwares, is a cumulative process, like math. 

You can't start with trigonometry; you have to first study and understand basic arithmetic, algebra & geometry.

Fortunately, Element 3D is one plug-in for which there are lots of high quality tutorials from Video Copilot and Andrew Kramer

both on VC's Youtube channel and on their website as well.  Unfortunately, VC's tutorials are generally much longer than Lynda's, which generally last about 6 minutes.   VC's tutorials usually run about 30 minutes to an hour and have the prerequisite of possessing an intermediate understanding of After Effects.  Also, they will not necessarily teach exactly what you want to know.  Rather they will give examples that cover how to use the software.  What you see in that video requires understanding of basic (not simple) principles of animation, lighting, cameras.  Following Video Copilots tutorials on using Element 3D fully cover how to create and animate 3D objects using their softwares UI so you can use them to create what you want. 

In addition to learning which buttons to hit in the plug-in's controls (User Interface (UI)), you may need to create lights and 3d cameras & various production "post effects".  All of this requires much, much more than just knowing which buttons to press.  Creating a light is easy, but knowing how to effectively light a scene is much more difficult.  Setting key frames is easy, but understanding basic animation principles so your animations will look great can take years of study & practice.

OK...so if you've made it this far and are not yet discouraged, here's a few tips:

1)  The letter flying in past the camera & into place.-  Animations like this are much easier to do in reverse.   You create the 3D text in it's final position and set key frame for all the properties (in all 3 dimension) at the place in the timeline where you want them to be fully in place.  Then you move the current time indicator (CTI) back in time and move each letter out & past (behind ) the 3d camera, adding rotation.  Now when you play the animation forward the letters will fly in from behind the camera, rotating & land in place.

2) The timing & placement of the words and rocks - Study the 12 principles of animation: 12 basic principles of animation - Wikipedia

     and practice...alot

3) The lights can be several effects...3d light rays, multiple layers of various types of animated noise with glows blended, optical flares, light leaks, etc.

So,  if you've made it this far and are still not yet discouraged here's the last thing:  That template is high end work.  There's ALOT going on and each element could have been achieved multiple ways with multiple tools.  The letters were likely done with Element 3D (since they're the part of the template that are dynamic (editable)) but other elements could have been done with other tools.

For a beginner to ask how to make something like what they see in this template is simply unreasonable.

It's like someone asking how to build a spaceship because they saw Star Wars. 

To be able to make something like what's in this video requires literally years of study and practice.

I would suggest a different approach to learning.  Looking for a lesson that tells him what he needs to know to create what he wants is a bad approach because he doesn't yet know enough to know what he needs to know.

Instead find a reputable learning path...whether it be Lynda.com, Pluralshight or a full 4 year university and follow the curriculum dictated by the instructors, not by the student. 

Just like with math: Arithmetic. Then Algebra. Then Geometry. Then Trig.  If you try to skip the prerequisites you will not be able understand. There are exceptions, of course, for the exceptional.

But if your son is hell bent on trying,  I suggest purchasing the template and reverse engineering it.  Just look at it sand see how it was done.  If he can;t, then I suggest he go back and spend a few years doing what's in the tutorials that ARE available.  Understanding that the "broadness" is to his ultimate advantage & that once he possesses those "broad skills" he can then choose to focus them on whatever he wants.