Tut Tuesday AE Quick Tip: Forcing Motion Blur

This seems to be a big problem with some noobs as well as weathered AE artists alike.  Sometimes you just can’t figure out how to get that motion blur to work.  It might be as easy as a switch you didn’t turn on, and sometimes it get as difficult as applying plugins, precomping, adding adjustment layers and so on.  If you don’t know what I am talking about, motion blur is an effect that you can simulate in After Effects to make your graphics seem like they were filmed by a camera by adding blurred artifacts to your composition depending on the speed and movement of your imagery.

I am here to give you three ways to get that motion blur to work, however render intensive it may be.  Also, thank you to John Dickinson of Motionworks for a helpful tip that I didn’t know about, that saves you time in your 3d application by rendering out non-motion blurred layers, and using the often overlooked built in After Effects effect, Timewarp.

What do you all think?  If you have any other workarounds to get that motion blur look on your footage that I didn’t demonstrate, leave a comment and let me know!  Also check out the tutorials that were mentioned in this tutorial: Aharon Rabinowitz’s Blurring FX With Force Motion Blur and John Dickinson’s Explosive TV Promo Graphics.