The Nugget

Joe Clay | Mar 6, 2018

If you've watched a few of my tutorials, you've probably heard me talk about "the nugget." I'm not talking about what you make while browsing Reddit on your phone. I'm talking about a nugget of information! I'm talking about why I still watch After Effects tutorials even if I think I'm going to already understand most of what I'm about to watch.

And Monday's Video Copilot Glitch Tutorial—Andrew just made it in time!—was chock full of useful nuggets. For example, in the past I've made 3D water reflections by masking out a floor layer to see a flipped copy of my animation. But adding in one of my favorite effects that I really should use more frequently, Compound Blur, allows you to easily make those water puddles variable with a floor texture. What a great use for that effect!

Or you have the section where Andrew used Set Matte to matte out saturation to do a targeted glow—and actually make AE's default Glow effect look good. That was an excellent use for such an already useful effect.

But my favorite nuggets are the ones where I see something and it gives me an idea that might not even really have anything to do with the tutorial. And this texture Andrew used did that for me.

What this reminded me of has no real relation to the tutorial. And yet it gave me an excellent idea for this week's tutorial. There's still going to be glitching involved, displacement, and maps. But there's a fun way we're going to build our maps that I hadn't thought of before. I'm really excited about this one because it's a great example of the nugget in action. So don't forget to check back Friday! Better yet, follow us @workbench_tv so you don't miss it!

EDIT: It's up!