After Effects Templates: Mystery Files, Abduction, I see you and More!

After Effects Templates: Mystery Files, Abduction, I see you and More!

So it’s been awhile! What have I been up to, you might ask? Well… You might say it’s a Mystery! See what I did there? Get it? ‘Cause it’s the name of the After Effects template? Nothing? Ok… (._.)’

So anyway, I’ve been working on a series of really cool AE templates that, like Voltron, they all assemble together to form this one even bigger and more awesome template called “Mystery Files”. And what it is, is this 50’s/60’s style Sci-Fi kind of TV show intro that not only is mostly accomplished inside After Effects but it’s also modular! Meaning that you can move around the individual parts of this After Effects template and re-arrange them to create your own combination. And like I said, all of the elements inside this template are either rendered INSIDE After Effects or pre-rendered, which means that you don’t need any third party plugins to render this project! And yes, even though the file-size was a huge limiter for what we could get away with in this template in terms of editability, the parts that you can’t edit right away in this After Effects template are available with their own individual control panels in other templates. This is due to the fact that I couldn’t get away with cramming all of it into a single template because the combined file-size would’ve exceeded the maximum allowed in the template sites.

Hit the break and watch this and a few other NEW templates in action!

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After Effects Template: Anatomically Correct Eye Looking Around!

After Effects Template: Anatomically Correct Eye Looking Around!

YES! In case you didn’t hear enough bad puns in the last After Effects template post, here’s another one! AWWW YISSS!!! And I know what you’re saying, “this one is ALREADY contained in Mystery Files, why the heck did you bother with another post!?” Well, let me tell you, dear reader! The amount of work that went into this AE template is just too much to go unnoticed, so I thought it deserves its own post, ’cause reasons!
And for starters, this After Effects template is fully rendered within After Effects. No. I am not kidding. This is 100% rendered inside AE. No plugins needed, no fancy schwancy programs, just good ‘ol After Effects native plugins and expressions.

And it was no easy endeavor either. A whole lot more than you think went into making this thing. In fact, I had to undergo days of carefully studying eye anatomy to make this After Effects template work. Simple things that we take for granted had to be engineered from scratch inside After Effects to be procedural, for example: Have you noticed how the eye is not perfectly spherical and the cornea is actually bumpy? Well, when you move your eyeball to look around, that bumpy thing displaces your eyelids. And… that red thing where your tears come out of? It’s called a “Lacrimal Caruncle” , I didn’t even know that before I started working on this After Effects template! And have you noticed that your eyeball pulls and stretches the membrana conjuntiva around your lacrimal caruncle when you look to the side!? If you’re wondering, yeah, that has also been procedurally animated in this template, so all you have to do is move around a null and your eye will realistically (or as realistically as possible in After Effects) look around!

Now with all the boasting out of the way, allow me to tell you all you can do with this After Effects template: For starters you can control the eye; Where it looks, what it looks at, how fast it moves, etc Not to mention the creepy factor! But say it looks too irritated or not enough, no problem! You can control the amount of veins and irritation. Not your eye color? NO PROBLEM! You can give it ANY eye color you want, it’s all procedural! Not enough neurosis? Pfffftttt! Make that eye twitch like it’s sending Morse code messages! And that’s not even half of it. This template has enough options to turn this eye into a character of its own!

Hit the break to watch the eye in action!

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After Effects Template: Doomsday Device – Futuristic Action Intro

After Effects Template: Doomsday Device - Futuristic Action Intro

This is a project I’ve been working on for literally months now and I finally got to finish and upload this After Effects template. There’s so much I wanted to add and so little I was able to get away with, since I needed to make the file size manageable and the editability simple enough to follow and play around with. One of my biggest regrets with this project was the fact that I wasn’t able to add more realistic effects such as sparks, explosions and smoke and I had to go with what Particular had to offer. And Don’t get me wrong, Particular is a such great plugin and the results are fantastic, but if you want realistic sparks, there’s nothing like the real thing and for that I did not have neither the rights nor permission to distribute Video Copilot’s assets so I had to generate my own. As a short digression, YES I do plan to make my own set of stock footage special effects elements but that’s still way in the future.
Now, where were we? Ahh yes, the After Effects template. Well, the visuals were heavily inspired by films and games like The Matrix, Wolfenstein and Fallout, with an interesting combination between Dieselpunk and Cyberpunk with a slightly apocalyptic Sci-Fi flare. The intention was to make it look like part of an Action/Science Fiction adventure film, showcasing the awesome MacGuffin at the end.

The editability on this one isn’t bad at all either! You can change the color of the fill light, the content on the screens, the color of the screens, the logo and the fact that a camera was included allows you to overlap your own stock special effects assets, text or even 3D or other additional elements, making this After Effects template flexible enough to delve in any other genre by changing the color scheme or lighting sceme.

The soundtrack is very much in the vein of Hans Zimmer and was specifically made for this project, I wanted something adventurous and exciting so I spent literally HOURS perfecting it it.

Hit the break to watch the template in action and let me know what you think in the comments down below!

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After Effects Template: INKfoGraphic – Infographic Ink Blots Style Intro

After Effects Template: INKfoGraphic - Ink Blots Intro

INKfographic is my very first infographic-style intro After Effects template, made as a followup to another very popular best-seller I have called Dark Ink. The effects are slightly less distracting and more subtle than in Dark Ink and that’s on purpose, so people can pay the deserved attention to the information shared.

This After Effects template is quite versatile and can be used for almost anything, because it gives you the flexibility to move all the assets around and position them just the way you need them, so you can have an Infographic, or a cool cinematic intro for your film, podcast or even a trailer. Most of the assets are rendered withing After Effects, so you can easily change many of the parameters to suit your cinematic needs. The only element that is pre-rendered is the particle field, which is barely noticeable, so if you have the need to change the camera movement or depth of field settings, you can do so.

Hit the break to see the template in action.

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Logo Reveal After Effects Template: Optical Scanner – Logo Stinger

Optical Scanner - Logo Reveal After Effects Template

For those Folks following my logo reveal After Effects template, this time I decided to do something radically different and it’s actually hidden in plain sight. This may seem to you like any other AE template but in fact it’s really not, you see, this whole template, except for the pre-rendered particles and  lens flare, is 100% rendered inside After Effects! Which may not sound like a big deal to you but in reality, this gives you the flexibility to extend it for as long as you want or change most animations to suit your needs, provided that you have the music to go with the new length, as every single element in this logo reveal After Effects template (except for the lens flare) reacts to After Effects’ native depth of field and lighting system.

The caveat, of course is that the specular effects on the textures are accomplished through the CC Glass plugin which, yes, is native to After Effects, but unfortunately it’s pre-composed in every “Texture” and has to be dealt with manually for each element if you want to change the animation.

One of the biggest challenges with this template was that lens on the optical scanner, which doesn’t look out of the ordinary, but it will actually render simulated reflections! And the way this is accomplished in this logo reveal After Effects template is by duplicating the assets in a pre-composition and positioning them in such a way that it looks like they are reflected.

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New After Effects Template: Anchored – Undwerwater Logo Stinger

Anchored - Undwerwater Logo Stinger After Effects Template

Some time ago I created a very cool and popular After Effects template called “Ocean Blue”, people seem to love it and I always had that one regret; I wanted an anchor in there somewhere. At the time I made it, I wanted the shot to be seen from near the water surface so the ocean floor wasn’t visible from that particular camera angle and having the anchor just slowly pass by for a few frames was kind of a waste of resources. This is why I decided to make a whole new After Effects template dedicated specifically to the anchor itself, so here we are.
Anchored was made with the same text effect as Ocean Blue, however I wanted it to have a slightly different feel of depth, to convey the calm and peacefulness of the bottom of the sea, which is why I specifically avoided marine life in this After Effects template.

For this version, I decided to go the extra mile and make the text even better than the last one, featuring full texture, which was achieved by layers, to give the illusion of 3D text that can usually only be achieved via plugins such as Element 3D without the need for one.

Hit the break to watch the template in action.

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New After Effects Templates and Motion Graphics Portfolio!

A quick update for those of you following my After Effects Templates and Motion Graphics work and my micro-stock work, I just recently created a brand new micro-stock portfolio at the site MotionElements.com. For those of you who don’t use Pond5 nor VideoBlocks to aquire stock footage/sound, Motion Graphics and After Effects templates, there is now … Read more

After Effects Templates: Pre-Made Motion Graphics Are Not a Crime!

I often found myself wondering… Should I or shouldn’t I make After Effects templates? Why on Earth would anyone buy pre-made motion graphics? You know? I actually thought templates were sort of a waste of money to buy and a waste of time to make. But after making a few myself in my spare time, … Read more