Hi, I'm Topher nice to meet you. » after effects

Giveaways at VisualFXtuts.com

Topher — Mon, 18 May 2009 14:45:49 +0000

Hey everyone, just wanted to show you the new little VLOG I put together to tell you all about some giveaways we are going to be doing here in the next month! Enjoy

Click here to view the embedded video.

Another Article Published!

Topher — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 00:36:52 +0000

Who loves coffee? I love coffee. Who loves tutorials? I love tutorials… and apparently so do all of you.

My newest article at AEtuts+, The Vente AE Tutorial Roundup From Around the Web showcases a ton of tutorial created in After Effects in the last month or so. Please drop by AEtuts+ and give it some love!

As for other things on the horizon, I may be writing for a couple other sites, possibly helping with some training DVD creation, and quite possibly getting around to doing some tutorials of my own. Now if I could only find the time to just breathe.

Also, something really worth mentioning, if you haven’t seen them already go to Nick Campbell’s GreyScaleGorilla.com and submit something to his 5 Second Weekly Projects. Go out and MAKE COOL SHIT!

I am now published at AEtuts+

Topher — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 16:38:51 +0000

There is a new amazing tutorial site on the horizon for After Effects. It is a subsidiary within the Envato Network, and a sister site to popular tutorial websites like PSDtuts+, Nettuts+, Vectortuts+, and Audiotuts+.

AEtuts+ has finally launched and has been running strong for a couple of months now. This is a tutorial site unlike any other out there, because they are user-run, and only accept high quality effects and tutorials. They have featured tutorials on popular effects like Pierre Michel’s Particular Signature effect, and various, very cool kinetic typography tutorials.

Run by Lloyd Alvarez of AEscripts.com, AEtuts+ is quickly growing to be one of the daily stops for a lot of rising AFter Effects artists. I have been fortunate enought to have a weekly article that gets released on Fridays on various subjects such as inspiration, tutorial roundups, and informational articles like my latest article this week: A Concise Guide To After Effects Keyboard Shortcuts. If you click the thumbnail, it will take you to my author page at AEtuts+ so that you can see all the different articles I have published. I am working on a tutorial for the site based on the beginning of the RockNRolla title sequence where Johnny Quid pulls out his guns and it shows the name of the movie. The tutorial will be basically showing how to do the shifting in depth of field, moving in 3D space, and the transition from video to illustration. =

That’s it for now, so check back often to see when I have new stuff published, and feel free to check out my Demo Reel.

New Batch of Projects…

Topher — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 20:05:26 +0000

I have been working on a new batch of projects this week for a place in Capitol Hill in Seattle, Wa. They are for in store promos for a video store called On 15th Video. I have 7 that I am doing, but I have one finished, and another one almost done. For the first one I used Andrew Kramer’s SURE TARGET preset to get the message across. Since there was no audio or dialogue, or even music for that matter, I wanted a way to still give the peice life, with being silent. Check it out!

Click here to view the embedded video.

This is a promo for Mondo247.com, they are having a contest so that you can win a bunch of stuff… this spot also uses Andrew’s 3D text technique.

Click here to view the embedded video.

If AE Crashes…

Topher — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 21:44:19 +0000

This might be one of the problems. I just got over a 3 hour dillema of AE shutting down whenever I scrub in the timeline, or for that matter, even click inside the timeline.

It is wierd, because my computer has been fine for the last… well forever, since I installed my Nvidia QuadroFX540 video card like, 3 years ago. Well, for some reason, it didn’t want to let me work in the timeline. After about 3 hours of system restore, preference file tweakage, re installing and all that good stuff… I installed a trial of AE CS4. (I work in CS3) SAME PROBLEM! But this time instead of just crashing it gave me error messages saying something about OpenGL.

I went back into AE CS3 and went into the preferences, unchecked USE OPENGL… and there ya go. That was my problem…
.
.
.
.
.
.
g LKSgflkdigosadjgoiasjdfhogasner0t9 gj3w409fjbsdfngaof2w394843nt3weng4fokendvscskdvafvoaerngoae rfgoaijrfg!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

SO MAD right now… but at least I got it fixed and now I can get back to work.

Moral of the story: Try the easiest solution first, even if it doesn’t make sense at the time.

New Videocopilot DVD Coming Out!

Topher — Mon, 12 May 2008 17:11:56 +0000

So I checked Videocopilot.net this morning… and I saw the new cover for the training DVD they are releasing May 20th! Here it is:

Here is the information that they released on the product so far:

This new DVD will take you from your favorite 3D program to After Effects and back, including compositing multi-pass renders and importing camera data.

On the AE side we will be covering advanced compositing techniques including color correction, particle effects and 3d displacement mapping. Most of all we will be covering workflow management and exploring the best ways to manage assets and media. No more, saving everything to the desktop.

So yeah, needless to say I am stoked… seeing as I just began an interest in C4D this is gonna be great.

I’ll Be M.I.A. For a While….

Topher — Tue, 06 May 2008 02:29:16 +0000

Sooooo me and the family are looking to get a house soon, but before that happens since I am working a low-paying, low-hours job… we have to cut costs… sooo that means no more internet, no more 400 channels of cable… no more covered parking spot… and many other luxuries sacrificed. I never really realized what its like to not be able to afford the things that you really take for granted… I mean, my whole life I have pretty much had everything I wanted… but times have come that the family comes first and to get to that dream life… the road gets a little rocky. I am still going to be updating my blog and youtube every once in a while… but I won’t be checking in every day.

In other news… I have finished the editing on the Kane Hodder video… and now comes the fun part… visual effects post production! I am really stoked for this, because this is my first REAL music video I have done that has a bunch of VFX put in. Kane Hodder LOVED the raw footage with the plain editing… so I am stoked to see what they say about it after I get the VFX done. I am thinking that this might be my first opportunity to make a video tutorial. Since I am going to have so much to OFFLINE and so little time online… I will have a lot more time to make productions, and I really want to break into the AE tutorial scene and learn some more Cinema4D. Most of my time is going to be spent posting here, youtube, and downloading and watching tutorials.

As for now… keep a lookout… because I will be posting a lot of new stuff… VERY SOON.

-Toph

Freakin’ Helpful In Anything You Do…

Topher — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 02:41:39 +0000

So I thought that I would make a posting telling you all about how I really got going and got all my inspiration and all that crap, but I just figured, I’m lazy and have things to do, but what I will give you is a link to a ton of places that have helped me AMAZINGLY and will give you tons of information to make some freaking sweet stuff in AE, 3D apps, Zaxwerks, or whatever.

If you wanna make some killer stuff like you see in movies… this is the place to do it. Andrew Kramer really shows you how versatile After Effects really is.

John Dickinson pretty much is one of the best I have seen at teaching how Zaxwerks plugins really work and covers the basics in his free tutorial section… also check out his Making It Look Great Series… damn. New ones are coming out in a week!

This has everything on ANYTHING you need to know… just peruse.

Those are my faves, but there is also:

http://www.cineversity.com/Index.asp for C4D Resources
http://aefreemart.com/ for tons of free AE stuff
http://maltaannon.com/ more AE tutorials
http://www.ayatoweb.com/ae_tips_e.html more AE tutorials
http://generalspecialist.com/2007/10/cinema-4d-resources.asp a link to MORE C4D resources (I’m lazy)

So yeah… check those out if you want to get going in either C4D or AE, because seeing what cool stuff you can actually make with just these two apps… makes you feel like you can do ANYTHING.

Oh, and if you live in Tacoma or the surrounding area… remember we are shooting the Kane Hodder video at Supernova Hair and Tattoo at 4pm SHARP on Sunday April 13th 2008!

We are also going to be filming behind the scenes as well for a special I am gonna be editing after the video is done… so if you dont make it into the music video perhaps you will get on the making of!

Toph.

Adobe Maxon Power Integration Tour

Topher — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 02:36:10 +0000

So I just agot back from the Adobe Maxon Power of Integration Tour 2008… and damn, that was a lot to take in. Pretty much what it was about is integrating both Cinema 4D and Adobe After Effects to use in real world situations… it was pretty awesome… I mean the dude from Maxon completely made a freaking 97 story building build itself from the ground up being made up of particles in like 20 minutes.

They also showed us all of the features of the Adobe Production Premium Suite CS3 and showed us how to integrate all of those features as well to better our workflow.

OH…. and the food was ridiculously amazing too. Hahaha pizza and gourmet cheeses and desserts… freaking awesome. Seriously next year when it comes around to your town…. GO! or if it hasn’t hit your town yet… make sure you are there…

It was the perfect boost and just the right amount of information for me to feel comfortable jumping into the Cinema 4D interface, because there is sooooo much to it.

So yeah, bottom line… if you don’t care about After Effects or Cinema 4D, just go for the food… because it is freaking awesome.

100 Grand XLNTads Contest Entry

Topher — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 02:35:01 +0000

So the Toe-Fur Productions production crew is at it again… and in the running for a $5,000 dollar prize, and a possible $20,000 prize if it makes it onto television!

The contest is the XLNTads 100 Grand video contest. We shot for two hours at the Graf Garage in Tacoma, Washington, which by the way is now painted over…

Cast and Crew are as follows:

Director: Topher Welsh
Director of Photography/Camera: Mike Crews
Good Guy: Topher Welsh
Bad Guy: Sean Cunningham
Thug: Fun Bobby
Girl: LaShae Peyton
Dog: Beaux Welsh

Click here to view the embedded video.