After Effects Template: The Conspiracy Theorist – Infographic/Intro

The Conspiracy Theorist: Conspiracy Cork Board After Effects Template

So… since last time’s conspiracy-themed After Effects template, I realized how much of its potential was wasted on a campy intro. Sure, it looks cool and all, but if you want something serious-er, it doesn’t quite work. So I decided to make a “serious” version, inspired by those those opening sequences at the beginning of conspiracy-themed films and tv series like the X-Files, Phenomenon: The Lost Archives, Fringe and others. It wasn’t just the fact that I love conspiracies and paranormal stuff, it was the fact that I really liked how that 3D effect could be accomplished inside After Effects without any 3rd party plugins and it’d still look good. So I devised a plan to create the entire template INSIDE AE. At first I wasn’t even sure it’d even work. Heck, I wasn’t even sure if it was possible to make it work AND be editable, so this was a “background process” in my head for days until I finally cracked it; From the right angle and the right speed, this thing could totally work! I’ve been using this technique for every single template I’ve done so far, although not for anything like this, but still, could it work?
So basically what I’m rambling about is the thumbtacks. Clearly it’s the most obvious protruding object in this picture. If the thumbtacks don’t work, the whole After Effects template falls apart. So I made a few tests and it worked. This was the green light. The thumbtacks were the linchpin around which everything else was revolving around, so naturally, when THAT worked, everything else fell into place.

After over 70 AE templates done, this one is, judging by the entire length and complexity of the composition, one of the most compact I’ve ever done. With only 40Mb of asset files and no third-party plugins needed.

Hit the break to watch it in action!

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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: Procedural Shattered Glass Template

After Effects Template: Procedural Shattered Glass template

Now, I know what you’re thinking: “Don’t we have enough crappy procedural shattered glass templates? Like… After Effects Does this automatically, right?!”
Well, yes. But look again. Notice anything strange? Yup. Exactly. This is not your typical Shatter Plugin template. In fact, I want you to pay attention to the borders of those glass shards. As you can see, they are molded to the shattered glass texture. In other words, there’s a custom-made shatter map. Meaning that someone (Namely your’s truly) sat there for hours making the shatter map by hand. So what is the whole point of this? Well, for starters, flexibility. What this means to you as the user of this After Effects template, is that you have 100% control over how that glass breaks. Maybe not in the immediate control panel, as this template was designed for that that specific logo stinger. But if you are savvy enough with After Effects you can turn this shattered glass template into basically ANYTHING involving breaking glass, since this is a 3D effect.

Hit the break to watch it in action!

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