Visual Effects

Learn to create new worlds, both fanciful and totally realistic, for films with digital matte paintings in Photoshop.

Add realism and character to your 3D models with materials in CINEMA 4D.

Learn to rig a car model in Autodesk Maya for use in animation, games, design visualization, and visual effects.

Delve into the world of motion graphics, keying, and compositing in After Effects CC.

Learn to master Trapcode Form and create stunning visual effects and motion graphics.

Create significantly more professional footage with tools that do everything from removing noise to performing high-end color grading.

Learn about all the exciting motion graphics and visual effects features coming up in Adobe After Effects CC.

Bring scenes to life by building realistic fluid simulations in Maya, including foam and bubbles, liquid being poured, and volumetric liquid in a container.

Learn to render realistic bodies of water such as ponds and oceans and underwater shots with Maya—essential skills in a visual effects artist's toolkit.

Explore the new 2D and 3D features and improved performance in Nuke 7, the premiere compositing package for visual effects in film and television.

Remove an unwanted building from a live-action plate and replace it with a new matte painting that is motion-tracked.

Motion graphics artist Eran Stern shares techniques for using After Effects to create an eye-grabbing sci-fi visual effect.

Dive deep into the Hypershade window and shader creation with Maya and the mental ray rendering engine.

Introduces the viewer to the complete range of options available in the 3ds Max MassFX (also known as PhysX) toolset.

Introduces advanced features of the CINEMA 4D rendering and lighting toolsets.

Shows how to build complex composites with After Effects and mocha, where motion graphics are mapped to live-action footage of an actor's face.

Learn about shading and lighting realistic 3D renders with Cycles.

Leads you through the creative and technical process of building an opening title sequence from scratch in After Effects, from working in 3D space to creating type and shape layers to writing expressions.

Simulate a large crowd using live-action footage of a small group of people, 3D renders, and Photoshop artwork.

Demonstrates how to light an object onto a live-action still plate, using Maya, Nuke, and Photoshop.

Pulls together skills taught in the previous After Effects Apprentice installments to create a real-world video promo, from building artwork to assembling 3D precomps and setting the project to music.

Shows how to create and animate vector-based artwork directly inside After Effects.

Takes a creative tour of the Paint, Puppet, and Roto Brush tools in After Effects.

Learn two key visual effects skills: motion tracking and keying.

Addresses the newest version of Photoshop from a photographer's perspective—helping users of previous versions of Photoshop make upgrade decisions and get up to speed with CS6.

An introduction to 3D space in After Effects, plus advanced 3D workflows involving Photoshop.

Demonstrates several ways to manipulate time in After Effects.

Covers the basics of the classic dynamics engine, showing how to build a simulation with passive and active rigid bodies, add attributes like bounce and friction, integrate keyframes, and apply constraints.

Take an in-depth look at nCloth, Maya's toolkit for simulating high-resolution mesh cloth for 3D characters and animations.

Shows how to create simple but very useful expressions in After Effects that can be put to work on a wide variety of jobs.

Learn how to use multiple compositions to group layers, accommodate client changes, and rewire the internal render order in After Effects.

Capture footage of everyday objects and combine it with effects in popular postproduction tools like After Effects and Premiere Pro, resulting in rich, abstract backdrops for your project.

Shows how to set up a parenting chain, discusses what makes a good parent, and demonstrates several techniques using parenting.

Learn how to create professional-looking type plus sophisticated type animations, including timing to music.

Demonstrates the most common techniques for adding selective transparency to layers in After Effects.

A tour of editing and enhancement techniques for After Effects layers.

Learn how to create sophisticated animations in After Effects with the minimum amount of effort.

An introduction to creating a first animation in Adobe After Effects.

A whirlwind tour of Adobe After Effects for new users and those who may need a refresher.

Discover an alternative to the traditional character rigging workflow with the Character Animation Toolkit (CAT) toolset for 3ds Max, which offers quick preset character rigs as well as custom tools for creating a rig from scratch.

Introduces MoGraph, a toolset that allows you to model and animate objects without keyframes, and shows how to use MoGraph to quickly get your characters up and running.

Introduces particles (used to simulate effects like snow, sparks, fog, or fire) and dynamics (which allow you to define how objects interact with their environment).

Explores Trapcode Particular, an industry standard third-party After Effects plugin for generating particle effects.

Shows how to lend 3D objects color, transparency, and life with materials, textures, and lights.

Covers the basics of rendering images and animation and compositing those elements with effects in a single movie with CINEMA 4D.

Introduces two CINEMA 4D modeling techniques: HyperNURBS, or subdivision modeling, for creating smooth rounded objects, and sculpting.

Covers the basics of the 3D modeling toolkit in CINEMA 4D: splines and polygons.

Focuses on the basics of animating in CINEMA 4D, including setting keyframes, moving the camera, and adding movement and interest with deformers.

Introduces the CINEMA environment and illustrates the importance of the object hierarchy.

Discover how to create render passes in Maya, recombine the passes in After Effects, and motion track the passes to live-action video footage that contains a moving camera or a moving character.