In Depth Articles (36 Tutorials)

Best of 2019: The Top 10 Tutorials at Toolfarm.com

January 7, 2020

According to our website stats, these were the Top 10 Tutorials of 2019. It’s interesting that most are technical, not about VFX.

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Deepfakes Examples & Tutorials: AI in Media Production #AI

October 2, 2019

Deepfakes use artificial intelligence to create a convincing face swap in video and imagery. There is a big future for deepfakes in the film industry.

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In Depth: Time Effects – Time Displacement aka Slit Scan, with Examples

December 31, 2018

Learn all about the Time Displacement filter, which creates an effect known as slit scan, a trippy looking time manipulation that can be used to represent a time travel, a warp in the space time continuum, a drug trip and much more.

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In Depth: Troubleshooting After Effects Issues and Plug-ins (Updated 17 Dec 2018)

December 17, 2018

Even though After Effects is a very solid product, everyone will run into issues from time to time, whether it be from corrupt preferences, random errors, codec problems, and more. Here is a general problem-solving guide on how to troubleshoot some common issues with After Effects.

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In Depth: Brilliant (and Possibly Dangerous) Future Video and Audio Technologies

August 7, 2017

When I was a kid, I’d watch Star Trek and The Jetsons and be in awe of the ability to teleport or fly around with a jetpack or flying car. While those technologies have been tough to bring to reality, some of the technologies for film, video, and audio are just on the horizon or already in existence. This technology will help filmmakers fix botched lines, avoid retakes, make actors look younger, and even bring an actor back to life who died during filming. We’re going to cover a lot of cool technology in this article, technology that also has high potential to have ethical issues attached to it if it becomes available to consumers.

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In Depth: Freelancing Essentials, Part 1: Creating Your Brand

July 26, 2017

With any small business owner or freelancer, you’ll wear many hats. You will likely be the artist, the marketer, the accountant, the custodian, and more. You’ll constantly be thinking about your current job, your next job, who you can rely on to help you. It’s a lot of work and it’s sometimes exhausting! Not only this, you’ll end up taking on a higher amount of tax burden than someone who works for a corporation. Still, the appeal of being your own boss and working your own hours is very appealing.

This is the first in a series for those who are freelancing and those who want to be their own bosses. Some of the tips will be specific to video and digital media, and others will be more general. Today’s topic is creating your brand, which has to do with marketing, sales, and protecting your brand.

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In Depth: MAXON Cinema 4D Release 18 New Features Roundup

August 22, 2016

With the upcoming September release of MAXON C4D R18, we wanted to know more about all the new features and figured you did too. From Voronoi fracture & mograph enhancements, to new shaders and tools, C4D R18 had tons of new additions to unlock your 3D creativity.

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In Depth: Skin Retouching Part 5: Some New Tools and Tutorials

March 2, 2016

Since I started this series, there have been a couple of new tools on the market for skin touch-up and smoothing, as well as a couple of useful tutorials on the topic. I’ll talk about Sheffield Makeup Artist III, which came out in February, and Boris Continuum Complete Beauty Studio.

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In Depth: Transitions: Part 1: Basic Editing Terminology and A Brief History of Transitions

February 18, 2015

There are so many types of transitions, and in this series I’ll focus on several of them. From the simple dissolve to the swish pans to shatter effects, we’ll dive into the history of transitions with lots of examples. The goal of this series is to increase your editing vocabulary and entertain you, while showing you what is possible. And of course, I’ll show you some fun plug-ins for your favorite NLE.

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In Depth: Skin Retouching Part 3: More Plug-ins + Tutorials

January 27, 2015

Welcome to the final installment of this series on skin retouching. I’ve already covered loads of plug-ins available for After Effects and a few NLEs, linked to lots of tutorials and given you several tips on how to touch up skin, keeping your actor as natural looking as possible. This article includes even more plug-ins and some recent tutorials for all sorts of compositors and editing tools.

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