Kingsley's Blog

Reflections are very popular right now in both web and motion graphics. Just look at Apple’s  iTunes web graphic or the PSA for fuel economy to see how popular this trend is currently.

In static graphics (2D text), this is a fairly easy graphic to create in Photoshop:

• create a gradient background
• create your graphic
• copy your graphic
• flip your graphic by choosing free transform and dialing in negative 100 for the height value
• position your copy directly below to create your reflection
• turn down the opacity to 50% (lower if your text is dark)
• blur it slightly
• ad a gradient mask so that the reflect get more opaque the further it gets to the bottom
• that’s it!

For motion graphics it’s a different story and a bit more complicated. Fortunately Videocopilot.net has recognized this and recorded an excellent tutorial for how to create this effect with a few tips on how to make the text easily changeable:

3D Reflections

What if we want to create static graphic with 3D text and and graphics?

I created the above graphic in After Effects and Photoshop. The 3D screenshots could probably have been done in Photoshop as well but they were more quickly, easily and accurately created in After Effects using 3D layers and camera. I then positioned the text and logo in Photoshop.

One issue in After Effects for print is that of resolution. There seems to be no way to render at anything higher than 72 pixels per inch (ppi). The trick is to create a canvas at the size and resolution you need in Photoshop first, say at 300 ppi, and then bring that into After Effects as your base layer in your composition. Once you have finished your design, render it at 72 ppi and bring it back into Photoshop to convert it to 300 ppi using the image size command. All the pixels you need should be there as After Effects makes an 9.5 x 8.5 inch canvas at 300 ppi into a 39.5 x 35.5 inch canvas at 72 ppi.

Have you ever started an After Effects project in a rush? Maybe you forgot to see the true origin of your files (a slow USB 1.0 drive) and started dragging and dropping away because a client was breathing down your neck or you were extremely rushed. Then you try to play back your timeline only to realize that your machine is responding like a very old pc from 1997, and you waste even more time.

Don’t fret! Thankfully you are not using After Effects 4.1, you are using AE 6.5 or maybe even AE CS4, and there is a simple fix:

Select file > collect files, then choose a destination that IS on your internal hard drive (or other fast drive such as a Firewire 800 drive)

That’s it! Simple and fast, depending on the time it takes to copy files over from your slow USB 1.0 drive. This is also a useful archiving tool if you want to share your project with another artist or just archive it to DVD-ROM. I should point out also that the reduce project and consolidate footage are helpful actions before this step, but do them at your own risk on a fresh copy of your project as they may remove a file that you planned to use later.

I should point out that it is a best practice, BEFORE you start a project, to copy your files over into one directory (call it by “project_name”) on your fastest hard drive with sub-directories similar to this:

• ae (for all your After Effects Projects)
• fcp (for all your Final Cut Pro Projects)
• footage (for all video footage)
• images (for any .jpgs, .psds, .tiffs, etc…)
• audio (for any audio you might clean up)
• deliverables (for anything you want to show to you client/ audience)

You could also have similar bins / folders in your After Effects project to help you stay organized:

• comps/pre-comps (for your working comps and sub/pre-comps)
• renders (for comps that you want to render)
• audio (if necessary)
• footage (for all video footage)
• images (for any .jpgs, .psds, .tiffs, etc…)
• solids (I am always tempted to move this into the images bin but I find when a new one is created, the default is to create a new solids folder)

Another tip is to have a copy of empty folder structure with above names in your templates folder and make a fresh copy when starting a new project. It will save you the time of creating the same directory structure each time, and you will be consistently organized.

One last tip for the road: If you want to swap out just one file in your composition, select it in the comp timeline, then select the new file from your project window and option/alt drag it onto the file you want to replace. If it’s the same size then your work is done!

A special thanks to Ian C. for inspiring this post!