It’s been forever since the last post and for a dang good reason! On top of all the other projects (both, secret and public), customer work and other awesome stuff I’ve been involved/working on, this has been a torn on my side for years and I’ve been wanting to make the 4 elements After Effects templates since forever but there’s always something that gets in the way. So I decided to make them this time, once and for all!
Now, there are two interesting stories behind the Power Cubes and how they came to be. One, of course is how they got designed, but the other one is one that I developed and came up with while I was modeling on each one of the cubes; A mythology, if you will. So stick around and hit the jump to read them both and watch the templates in action!
After Effects Templates
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!
After Effects Template: Danger! – 3D Procedural Metallic Text Logo Stinger
Alright, this one took me admittedly longer to post than it normally does because customers (God bless ’em), but here it is! And what is IT? You might be asking yourselves? Well, let me tell you! So turns out, after I released the Pressured Intro After Effects template, I noticed how long it was, and maybe someone just wanted the logo at the end and that’s it, no boiler explosion or anything. Just the logo, which is fine and somewhat dandy but guess what? You’d have to buy the whole intro for that. So I decided to make a logo stinger template without all the bells and whistles of a full-on intro. Just the Logo and that’s it. That’s where “Danger!” comes in.
This is a very simple logo stinger After Effects template, yet it has the impact you need to convey excitement and action. The 3D text is fully editable and procedural, the lens flares change color every time you change and the entirety of this logo, except for the pre-rendered particles and lens flares are 3D, so you can change, for example, the text on the door (“Vault 906”), the speed on the vault doors, you can put stuff in front or behind those vault doors, etc.
Hit the break to watch the logo stinger After Effects template in action.
Halloween After Effects Templates: Shallow Grave and Underground Logo Stingers
It’s Halloween season, guys and you know what that means! Yes! Evil Planet Studios/Nevermore Graphics gets to do what it excels at, HORROR Halloween After Effects templates! And what a better setting for a horror template than a cemetery with a creepy dead tree on a hill? I made this Halloween After Effects template thinking I could cram into it as much goodness as it was physically possible, but alas I was sorely mistaken. As much as I tried I just couldn’t. I had to divide the goodness into two templates; Shallow Grave and Underground. And at first sight they seem very similar. They both feature the aforementioned cemetery with a creepy dead tree on a hill and they both pan underground into a subterranean scene. But that’s where the similarities end. Although they both have a theme infused with mystery and suspense, these two Halloween After Effects templates have two different moods; One is calm and chilly and the other one is stormy and exciting.
In both templates you can change the color of the entire composition by changing the color of the sky or simply replace the sky altogether! Most of the elements come on separate layers, giving these templates a lot of flexibility and wiggle room to play around with and the elements in both are completely inter-changeable, meaning that you can purchase both and cherry-pick elements from each of the Halloween After Effects templates to create your own combination! And as a big plus, if that was not enough for you, you can ALSO add your own custom 3D elements with Element 3D or other plugins because there is a camera and a few null objects that will indicate where things are in 3D Space!
Hit the break to watch both templates in action!
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
Nevermore Graphics: New Royalty Free Scores!
Music has been a very important part of my life for a very long time. I started making music when I was just in school and kept on composing throughout my entire life every since. In 2008 I released my first royalty free scores album and I released a second one in 2012. I made dozens of musical scores for every single one of my websites when I worked at ReDCroW Design and musicalized every single one of my short films but I never really thought about selling my royalty free scores on their own until I realized that some of the people who have watched my After Effects templates actually wanted just the music. So, after having a dive into my inventory I found so many never-seen-before royalty free scores.
Hit the break to 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
Why Are Motion Graphics So Expensive?
As a motion designer, I often hear many of my customers and potential customers ask me why is this stuff so expensive? And I used to get really annoyed at that question, because for me it is obvious why, but after speaking to a few of my customers, who over the years I became friends with, I realized why there was this perceived notion that motion graphics, like graphic design, are easy to do, that the computer does it all for you and that all it takes is just technical know-how. Either that or “Hey, you are an artist, buddy, come on, it’s like fun anyways, right?”.
But why are motion graphics so expensive? Well, you are in luck, ’cause today I’m going to talk just about that! Hit the break to read more.
Nevermore Graphics After Effects Template Giveaway!
When it comes to After Effects templates, it’s been a long and amazing ride for me since I’ve started with Nevermore Graphics. With each template, it’s been an incredible journey of discovery, where I learned new and exciting techniques to make motion graphics more affordable and flexible for everyone. Not only have I gained tons of experience in After Effects, but also had an awesome outlet for my endless creativity! And none of it would’ve been possible without YOU, the customer and to show my appreciation, I am going to be giving away 1 After Effects template, for every 100 new subscribers on YouTube. The goal is 500 new subscribers so I am going to be giving away 5 AE templates in total, customized for you FOR FREE, every time I get 100 new subscribers on YouTube!
Hit the jump to find out more!
Nevermore Graphics: Pixelized – 8-Bit Pixel Art Logo Stinger
Do you like pixel art? 8-Bit graphics?? Old school videogames??? If so, then this After Effects template is for you! I just finished this little pixellated jewel, even the soundtrack and sound effects have 8-Bit elements in them.
At first I was unsure of how far should I go with the whole old school videogame theme. Should I do just pixellated text? 8-Bit videogame graphics? I spent hours trying to come up with an ideal format, to materialize text out of pixels in a visually appealing way. Then it hit me: Why not 3D Pixel art? And I know, I know, 3D pixels are called “Voxels”, which actually stands for “volumetric pixels” but almost no one knows what a “Voxel” is, so for now we’ll just call them 3D pixels. Anyway, massive digression aside, I ended up doing some nice pixel materialization in this After Effects template. When time came to add the sound effects, I tried everything. But the only thing that could go well with pixel art is 8-Bit sound effects and music. Hit the break to watch a video preview of this After Effects Template and some links!