Retro 3D look is made from Drop Shadows. It's pretty fun and comes with some expression controls for color and angle of the 3D.

A tool that lets you know which part of your picture is too bright or too dark by pointing the bad pixels directly on your footage. Similar to the way zebra-stripping works on digital cameras.

This script turns 'Accept lights and shadows' for selected layers on or off.

Have you ever looked in the Adobe After Effects Effects menu and wondered what some effects are used for?
This time: Auto Color, Auto Contrast and Auto Levels

Create particles that only appear in the light beams
Bevel the title and create a realistic soft shadow

Learn how to rig a still image using the Puppet Pin tool and animate it using only After Effects...

Eran Stern teaches you how to control the scattering of light in a composition using adjustment light.

This is a fairly simple technique often done poorly. The trick to making the 3D extrusion look as good as possible is in the way you use a custom shape layer and the way you assign textures to the extrusion.

Cast 3D shadows onto live action footage
Use shadow diffusion and special material options
Tutorials for Visual Effects & Motion Graphics
Free After Effects Tutorials & More Hosted By: Andrew Kramer