Faux Cloth Simulation in After Effects (Overview)

This is not a tutorial, it is a quick overview for advanced users.
The step by step tutorial can be forund here: http://youtu.be/yAlJaDg5x3o.

Making faux fabric for a flag or cape using only After Effects default plugins. For this example I used a Superman logo to look like a cape from the credits of Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman. I have also used this technique to create curtains, flags, titles, and lower thirds.

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Closed Caption:

all right here's how to simulate cloth
and after effects sort of simulate this
isn't true 3d fabric simulation but this
is how to do a foam fabric and after
effects so check this out
and again made in a hundred percent
after effects
here's what i got the idea from the old
Louis and Clark TV series and are
watching this as a kid and thinking the
shot was really cool too much as the
credits kind of neat idea
so here's a nice i did this start out
with some kind of a logo
it's on a transparent background this is
just a solid with a mask on it
nothing too fancy you can either use
your logo or words or just straight
fabric or color or whatever you want to
do after that
this i added for the one that rendered
out i have a solid background if that
helps you can do that if you wish
alright so first thing after you have
your logo is to actually make the Cape
whatever dimension you want your fabric
or flag or whatever it is that you're
making and then secondly I guess
thirdly or whatever that is going to
make a displacement map
basically what this is is using black
and white values to distort an image or
video or something
I start out with just fifty percent gray
solid open up a solid settings here you
can see the brightness is fifty percent
that's what fifty percent grade means
it's exactly between black and white
so in this anything that is gray is not
going to be distorted at all
and what's white started forward black
backwards and everywhere in between
here's what this looks like so you can
see what we're kind of going for
i'll show you how i did this i started
with just some fractal noise with lots
of
Iran if ever a yeah animated the
evolution of expression and learn at a
time
nothing too crazy there next to made
some ripples this
I did using what's called wave world
show you how that works really quick to
make a new solid
there's a preset called serial
yeah LOL what this does is uses a world
it just creates a bunch of ripples that
look cool
for this I don't really care about the
median or the color we can read those
and i also got rid of all the keyframes
i remember correctly you just move the
origin around to get some kind of
ripples that is why i did mine in the
center so kind of somewhat symmetrical
and then again blurred that a ton i made
a black instance so is rippling the
black and then also made a white one and
the rest of these are just various blurs
and other things
whoops just to get a nice blurred look
and then I put in another competition
made a loop and they have it for that
so the actual compositing everything
together
I just made a cheesy background just
some blurry dots to make some kind of
stars
I brought in my Cape composition that
made back here now spread in the
composition for the loop and then for
the K player i set the displacement map
to be the Cape set the horizontal and
vertical to luminance
and I just kind of mess around the
values to whatever you think works for
whatever you're doing is essentially is
just going to distort the cape with
let's turn this to Alison the rest of
these are just color correction
turbulent this place is also another
distortion thing just kind of ripples
everything can animate that and play
with the values as needed
it's a 3d layer so we can rotate this if
you need
so if you'd apply camera around that you
can
the last thing I do I'm here was a mesh
warp to kind of give it a little bit
more shape and so you don't see just
these super straight lines from a
mathematical layer and then just a drop
shadow to separate a little bit more
people would see that video or not
nothing too fancy and then here's more
my I guess favorite part comes in is go
back to the K player and I bring in for
displacement map and bring it in and put
it on top of the show
these look like without it so there's
our map made one for the highlights
crush them down some curves just to get
these really bright spots my blend mode
is linear Dodge for the shadows it same
thing just crushed it all the way down
blend mode is set to multiply so what
this is doing is allowing us to shade
the surface of the map without actual 3d
lights but using the same map that we
used to distort our surface originally
is now being used to shade it
so we're kind of giving a dual-purpose
out of our displacement map and I that
way it actually matches so pretty cool
and then let's see what the rest of
these are general go back on
shadow i just had a little shadow to
give it a little bit of dimension and
here's the fun part
I just made a loopable fabric texture
stuck it on top player out the blend
mode to tell found something I liked you
get this kind of interesting little look
here we go back over to my composite see
what it actually looks like this is not
rendered out so it's looking kind of
nasty but there you go there's a basic
way to simulate some cloth and after
effects without having to do it in
cinema 4d or my or whatever if you're
not a three person so that way you can
stay completely after effects
it's not incredibly photo realistic but
with a little bit more conquering you
can make it be quite smooth i think so
there you go
thanks