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- Nov 14, 2011
After Effects Tutorial: Liquid Backgrounds With Shape Layers
- by Toby Pitman in After Effects
- Genre: Video
- Level: Intermediate
- Time to Complete: 5-15 minutes
- 2 comments — Join Discussion
Preview these After Effects Tutorial-Videos
Here’s a nice little technique for creating moving liquid type effects in After Effects. It’s another good example of the power and versatility of Shape Layers in After Effects. In fact this whole thing is done with just one Shape Layer. Using some of the Shape Layers built in vector effects and some stock After Effects plugins you can get some rather interesting results!! Here’s how you do it!
Step 1
This first effect is cool for abstract type backgrounds. I’ll start out by drawing a Shape Layer in a new Composition using the Polystar tool.
Step 2
Here you can see the settings for the above shape. I’ve set a medium amount of points (13) and it also has a bright green Stroke too.
Step 3
To get this effect started I’m going to add a Repeater effect from the Add menu. This is a very versatile little effector. It allows you to repeat and offset the original shape layer without the need for copying the Layer.
Step 4
You can see the effect here. All I’m doing is trying to create a random abstract mess really.
Step 5
I’m now going to smooth out the shape using the Rounded Corners effect from the Add menu.
Step 6
I’m now going to totally mangle this by adding one last effect. The Wiggle Paths effect is kind of like Roughen Edges in Illustrator. It adds a lot of randomness to the vector shape layer and produces what looks like a load of squiggles. This is good!!
It also has the ability to self animate. This is done using the Wiggles/Second parameter. I’ve set this very low (0.1) so the lines move very slowly in a random fashion. This is the basis for our liquid movement.
Step 7
Now I’m going to add Effects > Stylize > Glow effect to the Layer to brighten it up.
Step 8
Next I’ll add Effects > Blur & Sharpen > Fast Blur to the Layer set to about 8px.
Step 9
To create the liquid effect I’ll add Effects > Blur & Sharpen > CC Vector Blur. I think you can see where this is going now.
Step 10
For the final step I’ll crush the Alpha channel a bit using Effects > Color Correction > Curves to slightly darken the effect.
Here you can see final result in action.
Step 11
This technique can be easily modified to create some very water like effects. The Classic swimming pool for example. All I’ve done is modify the Repeater settings a bit and changed the Stroke color to a light blue. I’ve then placed this over another blue Solid layer and set the transfer mode to Add.
Here it’s is in action.
Not bad for just one Shape Layer!
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Toby Pitman
Toby composes, records, performs and produces music in every possible style all over the world for TV shows, advertising and for recordings. Over his 18 year professional career Toby has worked with many major recording artists including George Michael, David Arnold, Yussif Islam (Cat Stevens), Giles Martin and Shirley Bassey. Toby is also a Logic Pro master, expert synthesist and sound designer. Toby's passion for music education has led him to teach for The International Guitar Foundation and the Brighton Institute of Modern Music.
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