Now we're going to use a very interesting technique to make this look really

shiny 3D metal chrome looking letters. Drag this point up here. Create a point
right here and drag it down like so. Click here to create another point and drag
it up like so. Again, create a another point, drag it down maybe here and again
create another point here and drag this point to the bottom.
You can see how easily we get this nice metallic shiny-looking letters. Close
this down. You can colorize the letters if you want by adding a colorizing filter,
but in this case I'll leave it just like that.
It's time to create our main composition. Come to "Composition, New
Composition", and chose the "HDTV" preset right here at the bottom and make
it 20 seconds long and let's name it "Characters Animation" and hit "Okay".
Come to the project panel and drag our "Custom Particle" composition here
and turn it off. Now create a new solid layer, black, and call it "Fractal Noise"
and hit "Okay". Come to "Effect, Noise & Grain, Fractal Noise".
Let's change some of the parameters here. Fractal Noise Type, we're going to
change the Noise Type from Soft Linear to Spline and increase the Contrast and
decrease the Brightness maybe, or more. I made it [inaudible 07:30] okay. Let's
drop the resolution down to half to work faster and increase the Complexity of
the Noise to the maximum which is 20. Come to
"Transform". Uncheck the checkbox for "Uniform Scaling" and scale it like
that. Yeah, I think this looks good.
The only thing we're going to do for the Fractal Noise is to make it evolve. So
[inaudible 08:18] and click the "Evolution Stopwatch" and type a very simple
expression. I think everybody knows this expression.
Let's type it just real quick. "Time * 150" and click away. This makes our
Fractal Noise evolving. The only thing we're going to do for the Fractal Noise
layer is to animate its opacity. Come to the 2 seconds mark right here. Hit "T"
to review the opacity properties. Click the stopwatch and set the opacity to 0.
Come to the 4 second mark and make the opacity 100%.
That's it. We're ready with our Fractal Noise layer.
Now let's collapse this and create another Solid. Layer, New, Solid, and call it
"Lens Flare". Now let's add the Lens Flare effect. Come to "Effect, Generate,
Lens Flare". You can use the [no wide factory] Lens Flares, but for this tutorial
I'm going to use [building] Lens Flares in After Effects and change the Flare
brightness just a bit like that.
Tint the Lens Flare. Come to "Effect, Color Correction, Tint", and add another
adjustment. Come to "Effect, Color Correction, Curves" just to increase the
contrast of this Lens Flare like so. [inaudible 10:24] the white areas and finally
add "Effect, Blur & Sharpen, Fast Blur" and set the Blurriness to 100.

Click the Repeat Edge Pixels checkbox and collapse all these parameters. Set
the Lens Flare just a bit below the center of the composition like that. Close
this and use this layer with the Lens Flare as a Luma Matte for the Fractal
Noise layer. So basically where you see the Lens Flare it reveals the Fractal
Noise. We do this just to make the light in the beginning more random.
Again, create a New, Solid, black color and call it Lens Flare 1, and hit Okay.
Add our effects. Come to "Effect, Generate, Lens Flare". But before we
continue with this layer here, come back to the previous Lens Flare layer, hit
"T" to review the Opacity.
Come to the 4 second mark, set a keyframe for Opacity. Come to the 6 second
mark, and set another keyframe for Opacity this time at 45%. Come to 8 second
mark and set another keyframe for 45% Opacity. Then come to the 10 second
mark. Set the Opacity to 65%. Then come to 11 second mark and set the
Opacity to 0.
Basically this will make the Fractal Noise layer more visible at the beginning
where we have this strong light here and later it will fade out very smoothly.
Again, we want the Fractal Noise to be more visible at this point at the 10
second mark.
Let's back to our Characters Animation composition. Turn on the Lens Flare 1
layer and let's start to make some changes here. First of all, let's place it right
below the center of the comp which is right here and then add the Tint effect,
make it black and white. Then add another adjustment, the Curves adjustment
and increase the contrast just a bit. We're going to colorize this Lens Flare in
blue color like that. Finally add the Fast Blur effect and set the Blur to 200.
That looks okay.
Now let's change the Blend mode to Add and collapse this part with the
[inaudible 14:40] Mode and hit F4 to toggle between Switches and Modes. Set
the Lens Flare 1 layer to Add and let's animate the Flare Brightness and Flare
Opacity.
Come to the 1 second mark. It's on the timeline. Come to the 1 second mark
and set a keyframe for Flare Brightness and set the Flare Brightness to 0. Come
to 1 second and 7 frames and set the Flare Brightness to 90. Then come to 1
second and 17 frames, 10 frames forward, and set the Flare Brightness to 0.
Then come to 2 second and 10 frames and set the Flare Brightness to 100.
Basically we want a strong white at the beginning like a blinking white and
then it disappears for a second and again you can see the white from the center.
So I'll leave the Flare Brightness like that.

Let's animate the Opacity of the layer. Come to the 8 second mark, hit "T"
to review the opacity of the Lens Flare, set a keyframe and set it to 30%.
Come to the 10s mark and set the Opacity to 55%. Come to the 11 second mark
and set it to 0. That's the basic animation of the Lens Flare.
Let's create another layer a Lens Flare. Just duplicate this layer. Come to Edit,
Duplicate, and put it below our Lens Flare layer. Call it Lens Flare 2. Set the
Transfer Mode to Screen.
Let's animate some of the parameters here. Just leave the Flare Brightness
animation like so, but increase the Flare Brightness at the 2 second and 10
frame mark to 125 and animate the Fast Blur effect. Set a keyframe for the Fast
Blur at the 1 second and 7 frame mark. Set a keyframe say to 100.
Come to the 2 second and 10 frame mark and set the Fast Blur to [inaudible
17:55]. Come to the 4 second mark and set a keyframe for Opacity. Click on
the stopwatch to delete all the keyframes. Set a keyframe for Opacity and set it
to 50%. Come to the 6 second mark, set the Opacity to 45%. Come to the 8
second and just set a keyframe again for 45% Opacity.
Come to the 10 second mark and set the Opacity to 70%. Come to the 11
second mark and set the Opacity to 0%. That was a bit tedious about creating
all these Lens Flares, Fractal Noise, Custom Particles, etc.
We're done with this animation. So we can now start with the final part of the
tutorial, making some particles fly around.
Let's create another solid, and call it "Big Particles" and hit "Okay".
Let's add Effect [Drop Coat] Particular and [slow] this layer. You can see just
the basic sphere particles emitting from the center.
Open the Emitter section and let's change some values here. First of all, change
the direction from Uniform to Directional. Change the Y Rotation to 180
degrees, so the particles come towards the camera. Then change the Z position
to 5000 to make the particles really far away from the camera.
Let's animate some of the parameters here. Let's come to the 3 second mark and
set a keyframe about the velocity of the particles. Set the Velocity to 3500
which is a very strong velocity as you can see. Hit U to reveal the keyframes.
Come to the 4 second mark and change the Velocity to 0. Come to the 6 second
mark, set a keyframe of all the particles/second and 10 frames forward set the
Particles to 0. So we stop emitting particles at the 6 second.
Let's change the other parameters like coming to the particles [part] and here
we will change the Particle Type from Sphere to Textured Polygon. We used
Textured Polygon because if we used a Sprite particle and choose the Texture

for the Sprite particle and pick a Random-Still Frame and increase the size of
the particles you can see the particles how they look and behave. When we
change this Textured Polygon, we can adjust the rotation of the particles. So
they look different as you can see here. That's what we're going for.
Let's reset all the settings here. Set the Life of the particles to 15 seconds and
Time Sampling, Random Still-Frame that basically picks a random still frame
from this composition and that makes all the particles to be different.
Now let's change some of the rotation values here. Rotation X set it to 30
maybe, Rotation Y say to 60, Rotation Z say to 25 maybe and Random
Rotation 100. I think this looks fine. Just set Random Speed, set it to 0.5 just to
give it a little bit random speed. Set the Size to 100 to see the letters a bit better.
Size Random 20. Size over [Life], we're going to use the preset here and just
relax. Opacity over Life, again, the same. Just copy this and paste it.
I think that's it for the Particles section.
Now let's come to the Physics section. Set the air resistance to 1 and check the
Air Resistance Rotation check box. Air Resistance affects the rotation of the
letters. Let's change the Spin Frequency to 0 and Fade-In Spin 0. Increase the
Wind Z to -3500. So it pushes the particles from the center towards the camera.
Come to the 4 second mark and set a keyframe about Wind Z. Come to the 6
second mark and set a keyframe for Wind Z to 0, so it stops pushing the letters.
Hit U to reveal all the keyframes and make the second keyframe of the Wind
[inaudible 25:34] right click keyframe assistant [easy] or hit F9. Basically that
will do the trick because all the Velocity and Wind Z stop at the 6 second point
and the particles are just flowing and smoothly stopping and freezing in the air.
Then we come to 7 second and 10 frame and set a keyframe for Wind Z and set
it to 0. Come to the 8 second and 10 frame and send the Wind Z to 10,000.
Basically that will push the particles back and they will collapse into the light
and form the [wall]. Basically that's the key to get this animation done.
Another thing we're going to change here is the Turbulence Field. Come to the
Turbulence Field. Set a keyframe at 6 seconds for the Turbulence Field Affect
Position. Come to the 8 second mark and set the Affect Position to 800. So we
get a little bit of random movement when the particles start to collapse. Just
change a few of the settings here. Scale to 0.5 to get a very subtle and small
movement of the letters. Change the Complex to 1, increase the Octave
Multiplier to 10, set the Octave Scale to 0, and Evolution Speed set to 0.1
because we're going for a very slow and smooth movement of the letters.
I think that's it for the Turbulence Field tab.

So let's close the Physics tablet and let's animate the Opacity of this layer.
Come to the 1 second and 14 frames exactly and [inaudible 28:30] the layer so
the particles start to emit at this point. Set a keyframe for Opacity... Hold down
Shift and hit "T" to reveal the Opacity Properties. Set it to 0. Come to 1 second
and 24 frames, 10 frames forward and set the Opacity to 100%. Then come to 9
seconds and 20 frames and set the keyframe for Opacity. Come to 10 seconds
and 10 frames and set the Opacity to 0.
I think just I messed up the Opacity here. Just make it to the 11 second
[may disappear] like so. Yeah, I think, that they should disappear when they
almost collapse. You can't see the fade because we have a very strong white
here at the end as you can see.
Let's get back to our Characters Animation composition, and collapse this layer.
We're going to duplicate it to create other particles. But before we do that, let's
create a new White. Come to "Layer, New, White", and hit
"Okay". We created this White because we're going to use the shading options
of the Particular [version 2]. So select the White, hit AA or down Shift and hit
B to reveal the position and White Options.
Shadow Diffusion, 25 pixels is okay. Casts Shadows On, Intensity 100, maybe
just brighten up the color a tiny bit. Light Options Point White is okay. Change
the Position of this White to 1500, 500, and -500 to push it back. Just duplicate
this White. Hit "B" to reveal the position and move it over
[to this side] and maybe like that. Leave that at 500 and this at -500.
Duplicate this White, hit "P" to reveal the position and set this to be at the
center of the comp like that and move it to the bottom part of the composition.
Leave it like that. Duplicate it again. Hit "P" to reveal the position and this time
move it up like that. Duplicate it again for the last time and hit "P" to reveal the
position. Just make it right in the center of the composition and far away from
us.
Basically we have one White. Let's come to the Custom View. We have one
White here which is in front of the particles, not behind them and far away
from the camera and four Whites which surround all the particles and light
them up. So let's collapse all the Whites. Come to the Particles layer. For this
White, just hit "T" to reveal the Intensity and increase it just a bit. Come to this
Particle layer. Come to Shading and turn it on. Change the White Falloff from
Natural [Lux] to AE White. Set the Ambient White to 100, set the Diffuse to
50. [Specular] Amount to 25 maybe and Specular Sharpness to 50. I think that's
what we're going for.
As you can see, some of the letters are white up more. Some of them are faded
in the dark. Basically that's the effect we're going for. Let's make this White
Shy and hide them. Select this layer and come to Edit, Duplicate to duplicate it,

and rename it "Medium Particles". We're going to change some of the settings
here.
The first thing we're going to change is the number of particles. Hit U to reveal
keyframes and increase the number of Particles from 100 to 300, Direction
Spread say to 25, and the leave the rest as it is.
Come to the Particles section. Change the Rotation of the particles to make
them look different and random. Rotate X 50, Rotate Y 20, Rotate Z, let's say
80, Random Rotation 100. Let's change the size of the particles. Let's make it
35. Size Random make it 40.
Come down to the bottom, World Transform. Rotate the Z Rotation to -45
degrees. Basically this rotates the whole [world of Particular] and we rotate the
particles so they look like they are at a different position, not in the same
position as the main particles as you can see here. So make it -45. That's it for
this layer.
Just come to 1 second and 7 frames and shift this layer here. The small particles
they come first, just seven frames early and then we have the big particles. Turn
off this layer and duplicate the Medium Particles layer. Come to Edit,
Duplicate. Turn off this layer and rename this Small Particles.
What we're going to change here is again the number of particles. Hit "U"
to reveal all the keyframes. Increase the number of particles to 1500 which is a
lot of particles. Come to Particle and again change rotation of the particles.
Rotate X let's say 120, Rotate Y let's say 45 and Rotate Z 50. Come to the Size
and set the size of the particles to 10 and Size Random to 20. Come to the
World Transform and Z Rotation change it to 90 degrees.
So we have a different position for each of the particle layers. As you can see, it
takes a bit to render because we have a lot of particles in this composition.
Change the Transform Mode of the three layers for the particles to Add. Turn
on the Motion Blur for the composition and turn on the Motion Blur for the
particles. I am going to pre-render these particles because it will take forever to
render all these particles with Motion Blur.
I'm going to pre-render the particles and hopefully see you in the next part, the
second part of this tutorial because this part came out longer than I expected.
So see you in part 2.