After Effects_Effects Tutorials

So, we have had a great time playing with some of the effects in after effects.  After just a couple minutes of playing around and then watching the tutorials, i realize this is an immense program and will take eons to learn how to work it.  That is kind of exciting though.  That is what makes it fun.    I looked for somthing that I might do with my experimental film projections that I will be making for my MFA and I stumbled across this.  It looked challenging (and it was) and it also was slightly intimidating.  But I felt like I was ready for a challenge.  So, off I went to create a tornado right down main street in Memphis.

First: I took a picture of South Main.

Second: Created New Solid Layers and then employed the use of effect CC-particle world

3,) a grid was lined up with the plane of the street and then the particle intersect was moved until it seemed to be the right heighth.  The particles were tranformed into small triangles.   The particles were transformed to "ice" and then they would slide into the apex or the energy field or tornado in our case.   I never was able to make this happen.

4.) another layer was created based from the very same particle layer, and several adjustments were made to create the vortex using the X Y and Z radius and X Y and Z positions.   this layer we chose the spiral rendering to make it look like it was spiraling or "Twisting" around a vertical axis. then we created an orange solid layer and masked it to give the twister an orange glow. And finally, we "shift" selected the three layers and then selected them in a "pre compose" to flatten them into one layer.

We added an effect called turbulent display to make the object rotate in a lopsided fashion.

5) another layer was created based on the first particle layer and this time the gravity was made into 0 and the shapes were made into squares (resembling paper).  the color was adjusted

6.) I then brought in a couple layers and made particle world create a lens convex particle world.  This was then masked and created as an overlay mask for some white smoke.  Then another layer of smoke was filled with a white color and then the color was adjusted using color curves.

After the tornado was moving round and round and paper was flying from it's center.  I use the "transform" to create a path for it to move along toward the viewer.  I added scale to the image as it came closer. 

This would have been relatively easy had the guy narrating not been so quick to tell you what he was doing without telling you HOW.   Another reason that it was difficult is apparently he is using a PC and I am not sure all the translations from PC to Mac and vice versa.   The third and last thing that made it impossible for me to get the same exact effect was the fact that he was using a different version of after effects and the "add" "subtract" "render" and other effects were not in the same positions and even same controls as the CS5 which we are using.