What better to celebrate New Years than a fireworks show! In today’s tutorial, I’ll show you how to create some abstract fireworks in Adobe After Effects for use in your video projects. You can even refer to my AE Snow tutorial here to save this pre-keyed for use in any of your preferred video editors. Heck, I’ll even include the project files which you can download below! Lets get started!

Preview:

VIDEO TUTORIAL:

WRITTEN TUTORIAL:

Assuming you already have After Effects open, lets create a new Composition. Composition > New Composition or Ctrl-N. In the Composition Settings, lets set the preset to HDTV 1080 29.97. This way our fireworks will be in 1920x1080px aspect ratio with a frame rate of 29.97. I’m going to make the duration 5 seconds (0;00;05;00) but of course you use whatever you need for you particular project. Click OK.

With our new composition, lets create a new Solid. Go to Layer > New > Solid. In the Solid Settings dialogue window, lets click on Make Comp Size just to make sure it’s the same size as our composition. We can name it, “Fireworks” and Click OK.

In this method, we’ll be making the fireworks with one of After Effects’ built in Effects & Presets. So, with your Fireworks solid selected choose Effect > Simulation > CC Particle Systems II.

If you scrub through the timeline, you’ll see the particles showering down kind of like welding sparks. We’re going to need to adjust some settings to turn this into fireworks.

Lets go ahead and dive right into the Physics settings for the CC Particle Systems II effect. Turn off the gravity somewhat, around 0.2 works here.

Now to add some Resistance to our fireworks, turn it up to 10.0.

Now if you scrub through, it’ll look more like fireworks but is non stop. We’re actually going to have to animate the Birth Rate. Make sure you’re positioned at the beginning of the timeline at 0;00;00;00.

Click the stopwatch next to Birth Rate to turn on keyframes and activate the animation.

In this position, set the Birth Rate to 30.0 or 40.0.

Move up about 2 to 3 frames in your timeline and set the birth rate to 0.0.

Scrub through and look at that! A Firework!

Well, if you want the firework to be yellow, you’re done. If you want to change the color. Go to Particle in the settings and change the Birth Color and Death Color to whatever you want.

You can then duplicate the “Fireworks” layer (Ctrl-D), and change the color and position in the Producer as well as move it around in the sequence you want in the timeline.

Render it out and use it in your video! Again, if you want to render this out pre-keyed, I recommend watching near the end of this video here.

Of course, if you have or ever used Trapcode Particular, you can get these to look pretty realistic! But since I love effects that can be done in AE alone, I thought I would share this.

Download Project Files, .ZIP 31.6MB

What’s your new years resolution? Leave a comment below!

The post After Effects: Basic Fireworks appeared first on Robert's Productions | Post Production Tips.

Learn how to make the fireworks here!

I can’t believe 2011 is already at its end and the beginning of 2012 is almost here. As with all new years, we usually celebrate with fireworks! So, in this tutorial, I’ll take a look at creating a bottle rocket for your projects. We’ll use both Illustrator and Photoshop but don’t worry if you don’t have Illustrator as this can be completely done in Photoshop CS5 with its 3D tools.

Written Tutorial:

In Illustrator:

To start off, we’ll create the rocket itself in Adobe Illustrator. If you don’t have any experience with Illustrator, no problem. This first method is extremely easy.

Create a New Document by going to File > New and with all the default settings, click OK.

Now in the tools pallet click the Pen Tool ()

Draw half of the rocket as shown in the image below. Hold down Shift when making the straight lines. Holding shift will make the lines stay perfectly straight and not move around.

Now click Effect > 3D > Revolve.

In the 3D Revolve Options dialogue window, click the check box next to Preview so we can preview the effect.

Looking good, now lets give it a little Perspective, I’ve set mine at 60 degrees. I’d even recommend using something like 80 degrees on your perspective. Especially when you thicken the rocket in the steps below.

That’s it, click OK.

Now if you want the rocket to be a little fatter, you can choose the Direct Selection Tool (). Select the two points for the bottom of the rocket and drag them to the left or right, holding shift to make sure everything stays in place. Click first then press Shift.

Now you may notice, the rocket is now black! Select it and up at the top for the stroke color, Change it to Red or whatever color you’d like your rocket to be. Your rocket should now be the color you’ve chosen.

Make sure your rocket is selected.

Go to Edit > Copy at the top.

Move on to Photoshop >>

The post Create a Bottle Rocket! appeared first on Robert's Productions | Post Production Tips.

Just in time for new years, IceflowStudios shows us how to create Abstract Fireworks!

The post Photoshop: Abstract Fireworks appeared first on Robert's Productions | Post Production Tips.