Adobe After Effects fog tutorial

(Hellooo, I originally made this for the machinimaniac.tk forums but tought I could post it here too :P) Alot few people have been asking recently how I made the fog in the video 'Breaking' so I tought I could make a quick tutorial on how I do it. (Note: I use Adobe After Effects and i've got no idea how to do this in other programs)

First you start by making a new solid for the fog. Then you add the effect 'fractal noise' to it. When you've gotten in to fractal noise you Change.
Transform->Scale: 600
Complexity: 15
Sub Settings-> Sub Influence(%) and Sub Scaling: 50

When you have done that it's time for keying to give the fog some life and movement.

If you key evolution: The shape of the fog changes and makes it come to life.
If you key Sub Settings > Sub Offset: The fog gets movement and it's good using if there is background movement such as spinning or paning or if there is windy or something and the fog goes alot with the wind for an example.

Now you change the layer mode to 'screen'. This will make the fog go a bit transparent to make it blend in and look a bit more realistic.

Now it's time to shape the fog. First of all start making a mask for it. Set the mask for how high you want the fog to go but I usually set it up to thier waist like on this picture below.

Then you should also change 'feather' inside the mask to smooth out the edges to not make them so sharp, it's up to you how sharp you want them. Just mix around with the settings there.

To make the fog blend in more you can add an effect called: CC Toner
This effect I use to make things blend in more. I also use it in the same way for the characters and such.
Now first you have to change the color for 'Midtones'. You choose a color that's seen much in the background footage. For an example, I copied the grass color on the picture adove to make both Tinkle and the fog blend in more. The second thing you do is to change 'blend with original'. I usually set things to about 60% but it also depends but you can mix around with the settings to make it look good.

Now you're basicly done but there is one more thing you can do to make it look better. You can copy the fog layer and put on in the background but you'll have to make the mask a bit different on this one. Set the mask to almost make it go around the character (Do not let it go under his/her feet). I made an example on how I made my second layer mask here on the picture below.

Also you might tinker a bit with the opacity of the fog layers to make the fog more weak if you'd like to.

Now that was all! Ofcourse you can do ALOT of other things with fractal noise. You just got to be creative! :D (By the way. You can also make a even better looking fog with trapcode particular. But that takes time when it comes to both editing and rendering.)

I hope this tutorial helped any of you people and if you got any other requests then go ahead and I might do another quick tutorial. :)