Creating Clouds


Your first task is to generate some clouds for the stormy sky that will cover your spinning globe. The Fractal Noise effect in the Professional version of After Effects is great for generating and animating clouds or other fluid things (such as flowing water) from scratch, and it doesn't require any footage.

Note

The Fractal Noise effect is available only with the Professional version of Adobe After Effects or the Adobe Video Collection. If you have the Standard version of either product, you can install a demo version of the Professional version of After Effects from this book's DVD.


Follow these steps:

1.

Go to time 3:00 in the Ch 13 Sci-Fi Club Logo Timeline, and create a comp-sized solid layer named Sphere (320x240) using any color. (The solid's color doesn't matter, because the effect that you'll apply overrides it.)

2.

To create clouds from the solid, apply the Effect > Noise & Grain > Fractal Noise effect to the layer, and set the effect's Contrast to 150.

3.

Still at time 3:00, add an Evolution keyframe to the effect with a valueof 0x0.0.

Settings for the Fractal Noise effect

4.

Press End to go to time 9:29, and change Evolution to 3x0.0.

The Sphere layer using the Fractal Noise effect

5.

To add color to your clouds, apply Effect > Adjust > Hue/Saturation to the Sphere layer. Turn on the Colorize option (below Master Lightness), and then set Colorize Hue to 0x+220, Colorize Saturation to 45, and Colorize Lightness to -30. This creates a moody, dark-blue sky.

Settings for the Hue/Saturation effect In the Effect Controls window

The Sphere layer using the Fractal Noise and Hue/Saturation effects



    Adobe After Effects 6.5 Magic
    Adobe After Effects 6.5 Magic
    ISBN: 0321267230
    EAN: 2147483647
    Year: 2005
    Pages: 236

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