Adobe After Effects - PTC Productions Motion Graphic

      This was my final project for my first course in Adobe After Effects.  I began by first setting up a solid background. I then placed the text in the font I thought looked professional, and set the effect known as "Vegas" to the text. In rendering, I used the blend to transparent, and went to segments and set it to one. In image contour, I changed it from the render from all contours to selected contours. I continued by Alt clicking on rotation & selected contour, then in the box for rotation I typed "times*500" and for selected contour I put "wiggle(10,20)", finally I set up the timing and color. This is all a single layer. I duplicated it five times and changed the timing and color to give it the effect of the light chasing itself.

     Once the lighting was completed, I put in a "CC Mr. Mercury" effect over the text and began animating sparks for the corners, where the lights would collide.

     My first step was to draw a simple line, so I could make a Shape Layer Comp, I then smoothed the corners, duplicated the line and rotated them, until it looked like a spark, set the timing to look like it all came from a uniform point, and changed the timing so it looked more realistic.  Finally, I ended the first half with the PTC fading in and fading the whole project out.

Lightning

      With this half I began in Illustrator, to create the Information Technology symbol and carried it over to After Effects. I then began with the "Advanced Lightning" effect turning down the core radius & glow radius down and duplicated this layer nine times. With every layer I made, I placed each strand at a corner I thought would be a suitable place.  Then I animated each bolt to move ever so slightly to appear as though it is coming from the IT logo.

Goo That IT oozes 

     Using a secondary IT logo, under the first, I used the "glow" effect and turned the glow radius to "20.1" at the twelve second mark, and "1000.0" at the twenty second mark, then turned color phase to "15x+302.0", and finally set the Color A to white & Color B to a bright green. The last thing I did, was to set up all the extra text and fades.

My Summary 

     I had fun and learned along the way. I didn't know much about this program when I started, and as I continued new problems would confront me. This project took what seemed to be forever, I even had to restart several times. The process was tedious, but I wouldn't have done it any other way, and I can't wait to learn any and all programs that come my way.