Adobe After EffectsWhat is After Effects?| 00:00 |
Adobe After Effects is an application used
by video professionals to create engaging
| | 00:05 |
motion graphics and cinematic visual effects.
| | 00:08 |
Video pros use After Effects for 2D and 3D
animation purposes.
| | 00:12 |
Creating dynamic text animation using
robust typography tools.
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effects to video using various tinting and
adjustment methods.
| | 00:22 |
Isolating objects from their background
using rotoscoping technology, and
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correcting for camera shake by utilizing
cutting-edge stabilization features.
| | 00:31 |
After Effects is an industry standard for
motion graphics and effects, and it allows
| | 00:36 |
you to create visual compositions like these.
| | 00:39 |
animating 3D layers, Premiere Pro with
shared effects and copy and paste support,
| | 00:52 |
and Flash Professional for creating
engaging web animation sequences.
| | 00:56 |
Adobe After Effects provides video
professionals with a sophisticated
| | 00:59 |
animation and compositing environment with
several different effects and tools to
| | 01:04 |
help take your video project to the next
level.
| | 01:07 |
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IntroductionWelcome| 00:04 |
(MUSIC). Hi.
| | 00:04 |
I'm Ian Robinson and welcome to After
Effects essential training.
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In this course, we'll work on building a
strong base of knowledge by covering the
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Six Foundations of After Effects.
Then we'll start a project based chapter
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focused on getting you up and running
quickly by creating an animated graphic
| | 00:21 |
bumper.
To gain deeper understanding of
| | 00:23 |
compositions, we'll focus on how they work
hand in hand with layers to create
| | 00:28 |
animation.
Then it's on to animating with keyframes,
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how to get started with parenting layers,
and we'll even cover a few expressions.
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From there, we move to learn how to add
style to your projects with coloring
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effects and animated graphic elements.
We'll move to the next dimension and
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create true 3D elements with Cinema 4D Lite.
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And finally, we'll round out our coverage
by learning how to stabilize footage,
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track footage, solve for 3D cameras.
And how to properly use reverse
| | 01:01 |
stabilization when you need to paint
animated graphics into your projects with
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Warp Stabilizer VFX.
Let's get started with After Effects
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Essential Training.
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| Using the exercise files| 00:00 |
If you are a Premium Member of the
lynda.com library, you have access to the
| | 00:04 |
exercise files used throughout this course.
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You can find the files under the Exercise
Files tab on the course page.
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Each number of the folders corresponds to
the chapter in a course.
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Within each chapter folder, you may or may
not have an After Effects project that
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corresponds to the video.
Some of the videos start with a blank
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project, so we don't necessarily need to
include those as a part of that chapter.
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Now the footage folder is very important.
If you need to copy your exercise files
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anywhere else, I want you to copy the
entire exercise files folder, bBecause
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each of these different After Effects
videos reference footage found in the
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Footage folder.
If you move the footage out of this
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folder, there's a chance that your files
could become unlinked.
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Now, if we look in the footage folder,
you'll find the footage that we used to
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create a lot of these different elements
in the course.
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So, we have five different subfolders in Footage.
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There you'll find Photoshop documents,
Illustrator files, video, (SOUND) audio,
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(SOUND) and we'll actually even learn how
to do some pre-rendering.
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Now, if you don't have access to the
exercise files, you can follow along from
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scratch or use your own assets.
So, lets get started.
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| Relinking missing footage| 00:00 |
On occasion, when you open your After
Effects projects you may be greeted with a
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scene that looks like this.
Anytime you see color bars in place of
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graphic elements, After Effects has lost
the link connecting the original footage
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to the After Effects project.
This is easy enough to fix.
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If you look in your Project panel.
You can click in the search field and
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start typing the word missing.
Notice once we start typing missing, you
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can search for missing fonts, effects, or
even footage.
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Now After Effects is pretty smart.
Anything that's already missing, it'll go
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ahead and isolate so you can replace those elements.
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I'm going to start with a video.
If you click once on the file, just to
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make sure it's selected.
You can then Control Click or right-click
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on the file, and choose Replace footage
and choose File, now we can navigate to
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the Exercise Files folder.
In your Exercise files, go down to where
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it says Footage, in your Footage folder,
everything is broken down according to
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type.
Since we're replacing video, lets go to
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the 03_Video folder.
In there, I'll scroll down and look for my
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Stair_RunDown movie and sure enough there
it is.
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Once I've found it, I'll click Open and
then it replaces that file.
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Now, a lot of times After Effects will
then turn around and find the other files.
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But if it doesn't, you can go ahead and
just do the same process.
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I'll right-click here on this Illustrator
file, and choose Replace Footage > File,
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and this time I'll go over to the 02
Illustrator Folder or Ai folder and then
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here I can choose my H+_Sport file and
click Open.
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Then all you have to do is save your project.
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Once you save your project After Effects
will remember where those files were
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saved.
So, if you need to move your projects
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around, just remember, move your Exercise
files and your Footage folders all
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together.
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| Working with keyboard shortcuts| 00:00 |
In this course, we'll definitely be
covering a lot of keyboard shortcuts.
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Now, everybody's keyboards are slightly different.
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If you have, say a laptop or a fullsize
keyboard, or if you're on Windows or on a
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Mac.
Or if your F keys are mapped to other
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functions in your operating system.
So these are all things you need to
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consider, when I'm calling out these
keyboard shortcuts.
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If you ever find yourself stumped, and you
want to find yourself a new keyboard
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shortcut, you should go up to the Help menu.
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Under Help, there's a great reference for
keyboard shortcuts.
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If you go ahead and choose that, notice it
will take you to a website.
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This is always continuously updated.
But let's jump to a specific section like
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Time Navigation.
If I click on there, notice a lot of the
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key commands are listed, but I want you to
pay attention to the alternate key
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commands.
For example, some keyboards don't have the
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Home key, so you could also press Cmd +
Option + Left Arrow.
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There are a number of different key
commands that function this way,
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especially if you have a full size
keyboard or a laptop keyboard.
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For example, 0 on the numeric keypad, will
load up a Ram Preview.
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Or you can press Ctrl + 0 on your main keyboard.
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After you've jumped to a section and found
your shortcut, if you ever want to go back
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to your reference just click to the top.
Everything's organized according to
| | 01:18 |
groups, and that way you'll never be lost
when looking for your keyboard shortcuts.
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1. Core EssentialsDifferent ways to use After Effects| 00:00 |
After Effects is a tool typically used in
a video pipeline that covers a wide range
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of possible workflows.
A work horse in the video industry, it's
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used by everyone from visual effects
artists to motion graphic designers to
| | 00:13 |
video editors.
For a visual effects workflow, you can
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stabilize shaky camera footage and 3D
camera solve to match graphics back into a
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scene.
For designers, there are tools for
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precise-type animation, shape tools to
create moving graphics, and of course,
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powerful paint brush effects and other
effect filters you can use to stylize your
| | 00:35 |
footage.
And finally, editors often use After
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Effects to quickly create animated graphic
elements, do pan and scan moves on their
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still images, fix problematic footage, and
harness the powerful color correction
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tools to really add a polished look to
finish their films.
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So, no matter your work flow, if you work
with video, you should probably check out
| | 00:56 |
Adobe After Effects.
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| Exploring the interface and elements of After Effects| 00:00 |
In this video we are going to cover a
basic overview of the interface inside of
| | 00:04 |
After Effects.
Now since this is a general overview, I'm
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not going to jump into the details about
every single aspect.
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This is designed to be a basic work flow
overview so you can have a general idea as
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to how to move around in After Effects composition.
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So let's go ahead and get started by
looking at our After Effects project that
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we currently have open.
Whenever you're working in After Effects
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you should always look in the upper right
corner at the work space.
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Notice there's a pull down and I'm going
to click on the pull down that says
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standard.
The work spaces are designed around
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individual job tasks, so whether you're
using After Effects for special effects
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work, or whether you're using it for
design work, you'll have a slightly
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different interface, and you can usually
click back and forth between multiple
| | 00:50 |
interfaces.
So, for example, if I were trying to add
| | 00:53 |
some type into this scene, I would go
ahead and change to the text work space.
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Notice now on the right hand side I have a
character panel and this panel gives me
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the ability to choose a type face as well
as the size of the type and all the other
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typical adjustments you would expect with
a type tool.
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Now that we're in this text work space I
can add text by grabbing the tool.
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So, if you look in the upper left hand
corner of the After Effects interface, we
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have a toolbar.
Now, it's divided up into individual
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sections and text is in the Create tool section.
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So here, I could create different shapes,
or I could create text.
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Now, let's add some text so we can see how
the rest of the interface works together.
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I'm going to grab the text tool just by
clicking on it.
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You could press Cmd + T.
Now in the Composition panel here, this
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gives me a visual reference for the
composition that we're working on.
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I'm going to go ahead and just click
anywhere where I'd like to insert my text,
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so I'll click in the clouds and I'll type
the word snowboard.
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Now, when I'm finished typing, I'll go
back to my toolbar and grab my Selection
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tool.
Notice, when I added that word, now a new
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layer appeared in the timeline down here.
Now, most of the time when I'm working in
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After Effects, I'm working in the Standard workspace.
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So now that we've added some text, let's
go back up to the workspace and change
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that back to Standard.
Now in the standard workflow or any
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workflow in after effects we have a
Project panel.
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The Project panel is the overall container
that contains any elements that you might
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be working with within any of your projects.
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So the project we've been working on right
now is our snowboarding composition.
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So, just like Premier Pro can have
multiple sequences, After Effects can have
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multiple compositions.
If we double click on a composition, it
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loads that composition into my composition
viewer, here, and into the timeline.
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Now the relationship between these two is
very much like Photoshop.
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In Photoshop, you have your canvas, where
you can view the results of any of your
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layers that you've organized in your project.
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Well in After Effects, we have our layers
in our timeline panel, and then our viewer
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is the composition window.
Players are organized according to two
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different features.
One is the visual hierarchy within the
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scene.
So for example, if I selected layer one I
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could move it down to the bottom of my
timeline and when I let go, notice I'm no
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longer going to see that word.
That's because it's underneath this other
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layer for my snowboard.
So, if you want to make adjustments to
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different layer parameters, you have to
open these triangles.
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So when I open the triangles, notice I
have three different groups.
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Every single layer has a transformed group
so I am going to open that.
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Under Transform, if I wanted to bring the
opacity of the layer down, I could just
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click on the value for opacity and click
and drag to the left.
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Now notice, my snowboard word is popping
back through visually.
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So layer hierarchy is one way to control
visibility between layers inside your
| | 04:05 |
composition panel.
Another way is through time.
| | 04:09 |
So I'm going to go ahead and collapse
layer three here, and reselect our layer
| | 04:13 |
four.
If we move to the right side of the Layer
| | 04:16 |
panel, you'll see this thing that looks
like a guitar pick.
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This is our current time indicator.
If I click and drag on that current time
| | 04:23 |
indicator, now I'm actually starting to
see the video footage that we're working
| | 04:26 |
with Now let's say I didn't want my text
to appear until about one second into my
| | 04:31 |
project.
Well in the timeline, I can actually click
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on the left edge of the text and drag it
over towards the right now as your
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manipulating elements within the interface
of After Effects, you want to look into
| | 04:44 |
the upper right-hand corner.
Notice as I'm dragging the left edge, in
| | 04:48 |
info panel, I can see exactly where I am
as I drag.
| | 04:53 |
And I know, okay, if I want it to start at
1 second.
| | 04:56 |
I'll just go ahead and drag 'til I get to
the 1 second in point.
| | 05:01 |
Now, when I let go, I know my word
snowboard is not going to appear until 1
| | 05:07 |
second.
So, visually, within your Comp panel, you
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can control layer's appearance by layer
hierarchy, vertically.
| | 05:15 |
And then in time, horizontally.
And as you can see, there's a direct
| | 05:20 |
relationship between the Layers panel and
the Composition window.
| | 05:24 |
Now, there are some settings within each
individual panel that you should be
| | 05:27 |
relatively comfortable with, and this'll
round out our tour.
| | 05:31 |
If we look in the timeline down at the
button, there's this button that toggles
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switches and modes.
If we click that we'll get different parts
| | 05:39 |
of our layers visible, so if you're
familiar with Photoshop, we have access to
| | 05:44 |
blend modes, that's under this pull-down here.
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If I click on that, I could blend my video
layer over top of my text layer.
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Now I want to leave my mode set alone,
we'll definitely explore those more a
| | 05:57 |
little later.
If I go back to my switches here, now I
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have access to change things.
For example, my snow board layer, lets say
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I want that to exist in 3D space.
Well, there's a column here under this box
| | 06:10 |
for 3D.
So I'm going to go ahead and enable that.
| | 06:14 |
Now I can't see this layer so I'm going to
move my current time indicator down in the
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timeline until my word snowboard exists.
So notice now I have these crazy control
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handles.
If I turn my 3D off and on for that layer
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notice now I'm getting a different set of controls.
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So with 3D I can go ahead and click and
control the position of the word in my
| | 06:37 |
composition panel by licking on these
control handles.
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Now tools have a direct impact as well.
I can go ahead and press W to grab my
| | 06:46 |
Rotation tool.
And with my rotation tool selected, if I
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hover over any of the control handles,
let's say my Y control handle, I can click
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and drag.
And now I can spin that word around on the
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Y axis.
Now, as I make these adjustments, I also
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have access to those adjustments in my timeline.
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So if we go down here, I can open up my
options for layer four and we'll look at
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Transform again and notice now, I can
click and drag on the y parameter for the
| | 07:16 |
rotation of my word.
Now that's pretty much it for the
| | 07:21 |
interface inside of After Effects.
I'm going to scroll up and down to control
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what I'm looking at within my timeline.
And I can collapse layer 4.
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We'll definitely continue going through
different aspects of the interface as we
| | 07:35 |
move throughout the rest of the course.
But I hope you have a good general idea as
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to how the different panels work together
to create an overall experience for the
| | 07:45 |
interface of After Effects.
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| Exploring important preferences and setting up the cache| 00:00 |
In order to work more efficiently inside
of After Effects you'll want to customize
| | 00:04 |
your preferences.
In this video, we're going to go over some
| | 00:07 |
of the key preferences where you should
focus your attention.
| | 00:10 |
Now to preferences on the Mac you click on
After Effects.
| | 00:14 |
In Windows it's under the Edit menu.
I'm going to go to After Effects,
| | 00:19 |
preferences and choose general.
In the General Settings of Preferences,
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you can specify the levels of undo.
I recommend leaving yours at 32, but you
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can increase the number.
Just understand if you make it too large,
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you could possibly slow down your system.
Now the next preference you should check
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out is down here, Default spacial
interpolation to linear.
| | 00:41 |
Now if you're unfamiliar with the terms,
don't worry we're going to get into these
| | 00:45 |
terms in the animation chapter.
For now, you want to go ahead an select
| | 00:50 |
that selection box.
The next section you should check out is
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the previews area.
In previews, we can go to the GPU
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information.
That's your graphics processor, or your
| | 01:02 |
graphics card.
When you click on this GPU Information,
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this is where you can specify your ray tracing.
| | 01:08 |
If your system has a supported graphics
card, you can change your processing to
| | 01:12 |
GPU, and that'll definitely speed up your workflow.
| | 01:16 |
On occasion, if you have it set to GPU,
and you notice After Effects behaving
| | 01:20 |
strangely, You might want to just change
back to CPU and see if that fixes your
| | 01:24 |
issue.
I'm going to go ahead and click OK.
| | 01:28 |
Down here at the bottom, you can change
the duration of your audio preview.
| | 01:32 |
Typically, I find 30 seconds works
perfectly well for me, but if you work
| | 01:36 |
with longer footage, you may want to
increase this preview.
| | 01:40 |
In the display section I want to go ahead
and enable hardware acceleration for the
| | 01:45 |
composition layer, and footage panels.
If your system is particularly old, you
| | 01:50 |
may not want to select this option.
But for most modern systems, this will
| | 01:53 |
definitely help speed up your workflow.
In the import section, if you work a lot
| | 01:58 |
with stills you can specify the length of
that still.
| | 02:03 |
I leave mine set to the length of the
composition, but let's say you're
| | 02:06 |
importing 50 stills to do moves on.
And you only want them to be on page for
| | 02:11 |
about four seconds apiece, you can just go
ahead and change the duration to four
| | 02:16 |
seconds, and then when you import,
everything will already be trimmed in
| | 02:20 |
terms of its length.
Now, we don't need to worry about output
| | 02:24 |
or grids and guides.
Labels just allow you to choose specific
| | 02:29 |
color codes for the kind of footage that
you're working with.
| | 02:33 |
For example, any video file, I have color
coded to aqua.
| | 02:37 |
So if you look at layer three here, that's
a video file and it's color coded to Aqua.
| | 02:42 |
If you like using color coding in your
day-to-day life, you may very well may
| | 02:46 |
want to change some of these preferences.
Should you decide you want to change a
| | 02:50 |
color, you could just go ahead and click
on the pull down, and pick one of the
| | 02:53 |
preset colors.
If you don't want to use one of the
| | 02:57 |
presets, for example if I choose Aqua
here, I can change what that Aqua color
| | 03:03 |
would be.
And that way, video would be updated to my
| | 03:07 |
new color.
Media and disk cache is something that we
| | 03:10 |
definitely want to pay attention to.
The top button here will allow you to
| | 03:14 |
specify a folder where you save that cache.
| | 03:16 |
All you have to do is click on the button
and navigate through your file browser to
| | 03:20 |
go ahead and choose the specific folder
where you'd like the cache to be.
| | 03:25 |
Disc cache is something that after effects
uses as you're working so it doesn't have
| | 03:29 |
to process everything in ram or on the
video card.
| | 03:33 |
Most of the time, I try and use an sd
drive since those drives are
| | 03:37 |
extraordinairly fast.
If you don't have access to an sd drive,
| | 03:40 |
you may want to go ahead and use a fast
raid and if you don't have access to that.
| | 03:45 |
You want to just do the fastest drive that
you can and that'll make your life a
| | 03:50 |
little bit easier.
As long as your cache is on a separate
| | 03:53 |
drive from your footage, you'll get an
optimum experience when you're working in
| | 03:57 |
After Effects.
Down here the media cache is a very
| | 04:01 |
similar situation, I typically choose an
external folder and a lot of times I'll
| | 04:06 |
choose the same folder where my disc cache
is but you can choose a separate folder
| | 04:10 |
just for organizations sake.
On occassion as you're working in After
| | 04:14 |
Effects you'll notice things function
kind of strangely.
| | 04:18 |
And a lot of times you can fix that just
by emptying the disk cache.
| | 04:22 |
So we can do that by clicking this button
and then cleaning the database and cache.
| | 04:26 |
That's just a little time saving, trouble
shooting technique.
| | 04:30 |
Now, let's jump to memory and multiprocessing.
| | 04:33 |
As you're working in After Effects, it
works with RAM and shares that RAM between
| | 04:38 |
these five applications.
Now, most of the time when we're working,
| | 04:42 |
I'll just be working in one of these
applications, but it's important to
| | 04:46 |
understand.
You can allocate the amount of ram shared
| | 04:50 |
between all these applications, and once
you allocate that, in either of these
| | 04:54 |
applications, it'll propagate that setting
across all of them.
| | 04:59 |
Now, I recommend going ahead and enabling
render multiframes simultaneously.
| | 05:03 |
This won't necessarily happen when you're
using RAM preview.
| | 05:07 |
But when you go to render your projects,
it'll make things move more smoothly.
| | 05:11 |
If you find you're working on more than
one thing at a given time.
| | 05:15 |
Let's say you have a word processing
document open, and your After Effects file
| | 05:20 |
open.
You want to go ahead and make sure to
| | 05:22 |
reserve a CPU for another application.
So many computers have multiple cores in
| | 05:28 |
their processors.
So for our settings, I'm going to go ahead
| | 05:32 |
and click on this, and change this to at
least one CPU for another application.
| | 05:38 |
Now the ram allocation per CPU, you should
set based on the size of the resolution
| | 05:43 |
you're working with.
I usually have mine set to at least 1 gig
| | 05:47 |
for higher resolution HD you want to make
sure to choose 1.5 gigs or 2 gigs.
| | 05:53 |
Just understand, if you increase this
number, it may decrease the actual number
| | 05:58 |
of CPUs that it can use at any given time.
So I'll go ahead and just leave that at
| | 06:02 |
one, so I can use three CPUs.
Now that's going to round out our tour of
| | 06:08 |
preferences.
I'm just going to show you one last thing
| | 06:11 |
before we go.
If we go to the general section, down here
| | 06:14 |
at the bottom, we can click this button to
show our preferences in our file browser.
| | 06:20 |
Since I'm on a Mac, it'll show me in the finder.
| | 06:23 |
In Windows, it'll show you in Explorer.
When you click on this, after effects will
| | 06:28 |
show you where the preferences live on
your system.
| | 06:30 |
Should you decide you ever need to throw
away your preferences, you can go ahead
| | 06:34 |
and do that from your file browser.
Now we can go ahead and click OK, since we
| | 06:39 |
have out preferences set up, and we're
ready to continue working inside of After
| | 06:43 |
Effects.
| | 06:44 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Video terminology| 00:00 |
In this video we're going to cover some
terminology most commonly used in video
| | 00:04 |
and motion graphics and the first term
I'll start with is codec.
| | 00:09 |
It stands for compress decompress.
When you're dealing with video files
| | 00:13 |
you'll deal with many different codecs.
Now if we open our footage folder I have a
| | 00:19 |
couple different quick time files we can
click on.
| | 00:21 |
I'll select the first one here, this
sphere spin pre-comp.
| | 00:25 |
This kodak is the Animation kodak.
You can see kodaks listed in your project
| | 00:30 |
panel whenever you select the different
pieces of footage.
| | 00:34 |
Animation is an uncompressed kodak.
After Effects will default to rendering an
| | 00:38 |
uncompressed kodak whenever you choose to
use the Lossless kodak.
| | 00:43 |
Here for my green screen footage I'm
dealing with MPEG4.
| | 00:46 |
MPEG4 is a highly compressed codec, and
usually it would be less than optimum to
| | 00:52 |
try and use that for keyable footage, but
in order to have small file sizes for you
| | 00:58 |
to download and work with, we chose MPEG4
as a good mix between a small file size
| | 01:03 |
and still decent quality.
Same thing with the board right here.
| | 01:07 |
This is H264, which is another flavor of MPEG4.
| | 01:12 |
It's just important to understand, when
you're dealing with footage, you can look
| | 01:15 |
at the codecs here in your Project panel.
And uncompressed codecs are typically
| | 01:19 |
always more favorable than compressed codecs.
| | 01:23 |
The next term we'll deal with is channel.
Every image inside of Photoshop, as well
| | 01:29 |
as After Effects, is made up of channels.
If we go to the bottom of our composition
| | 01:33 |
panel you'll see this little red, green,
and blue dot icon here.
| | 01:36 |
If I click on that, it'll allow me to view
each of the different channels that were
| | 01:41 |
used to create that image.
So I'm clicking through the red channel,
| | 01:45 |
the green channel and the blue channel.
And when all those mixed together for RGB
| | 01:49 |
we get our finished image.
The next term we'll use is alpha channel.
| | 01:55 |
Alpha channel is, the fourth channel that
determines transparency for an object.
| | 02:01 |
I'm going to switch comps to show you the
alpha channel of this logo.
| | 02:05 |
I'll click back on the button and choose
Alpha, and here I can see, I can drop that
| | 02:09 |
logo anywhere.
While we're here, there's titles saved in
| | 02:13 |
Action Safe.
These are two areas that determine whether
| | 02:17 |
or not your graphics will be seen when you
play them back on other televisions.
| | 02:21 |
Most of the time, you want text inside of
Title Safe, And your video inside of
| | 02:26 |
Action Safe.
Lets go back to our RGB settings here.
| | 02:30 |
The next thing is masks, now masks are
created with the Pen tool inside After
| | 02:37 |
Effects, and if we select layer 4 here
you'll see I created a mask inside this
| | 02:42 |
individual layer.
Now I'm going to solo this layer, and if I
| | 02:47 |
open up my masks here, I can go ahead and
change my mask mode so you can see, this
| | 02:52 |
mask is cutting out that part of my image.
Masking is a process you'll use a lot to
| | 02:59 |
build composites.
Compositing is a term that's described for
| | 03:03 |
layering multiple elements in a scene to
create a finished graphic.
| | 03:09 |
As we're looking at masks, there's another
term called rotoscoping.
| | 03:13 |
And a lot of times with video footage, as
the video moves frame by frame, you'll
| | 03:18 |
want to cut out that video using Masks.
And as you adjust the masks, that process
| | 03:24 |
is called Rotoscoping.
You can Rotoscope with masks, but you can
| | 03:28 |
also Rotoscope with other tools, like Brushes.
| | 03:32 |
There's one more term called matte.
A matte is different from a mask in that
| | 03:37 |
masks are created with the Pen tool, and
they're drawn on the page.
| | 03:41 |
A matte is something that happens
naturally with any element that has
| | 03:45 |
transparency, for example, our SNOWBOARD
text up here.
| | 03:50 |
I can use that to be a mat to cut out the
background video layer.
| | 03:54 |
I'm just going to select my video layer
and switch to my toggles and modes here.
| | 04:00 |
I'll use the alpha channel of this word to
create a mat to cut out our video layer.
| | 04:07 |
Now I understand going through these terms
quickly was a bit of a whirlwind, but
| | 04:11 |
these are terms you need to be familiar
with as we move throughout the course.
| | 04:15 |
Because we'll explore exactly what each of
these terms means in depth, but if you
| | 04:20 |
hadn't heard of the term before you
wouldn't of had a base to start with.
| | 04:23 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| The six foundations of After Effects| 00:00 |
The wonderful thing about After Effects is
its modular design.
| | 00:03 |
Now, I've broken down the application into
six core foundations.
| | 00:07 |
Once you understand these foundations,
you'll be able to work in After Effects
| | 00:11 |
regardless of your job function, whether
you're a motion graphics person or if you
| | 00:16 |
specialize in visual effects.
As long as you understand these six
| | 00:19 |
foundations, you'll be in a good spot.
Now, we'll review these foundations in no
| | 00:24 |
particular order, because they don't have
a particular hierarchy.
| | 00:27 |
They all sort of rate the same.
Let's get started by looking at our
| | 00:32 |
compositions.
When we go to the project panel in the
| | 00:36 |
AAA_Output_Comps folder, I have two
different compositions.
| | 00:39 |
Compositions are containers.
Any of your graphics that you create
| | 00:44 |
inside of After Effects will be created
inside of a composition.
| | 00:47 |
And as you can see in this project, you
can have more than one composition inside
| | 00:52 |
of an After Effects project, similar to
sequences in a Premiere Pro project.
| | 00:56 |
When you double-click a composition, it
opens the comp in the Composition panel,
| | 01:01 |
and in the timeline.
And in the timeline, we have layers.
| | 01:04 |
Layers are our next foundation.
They control the scene two ways.
| | 01:09 |
First way, they control it vertically, and
this works like layer hierarchy inside of
| | 01:15 |
Photoshop.
Whatever layer's on top will be seen in
| | 01:18 |
your Composition panel and whatever
layer's on the bottom will be obstructed
| | 01:21 |
by the layer's on top.
Sometimes it works slightly differently in
| | 01:25 |
3D but we'll get to that in a moment.
Now the second way that layers work is
| | 01:30 |
horizontally.
Horizontally they control time.
| | 01:34 |
So, for example, if I scrub through this
project, you can see when Layer 3 ends,
| | 01:39 |
these lines are going to disappear.
So you can control whether an object
| | 01:43 |
appears or disappears in the scene by
making adjustments in the timeline.
| | 01:48 |
Since we're talking about the timeline,
let's talk about animation.
| | 01:52 |
Animation is our next foundation.
I'm going to go back to my Training_Swoosh
| | 01:56 |
comp.
And here, I'll just select a couple layers
| | 01:59 |
and click on one and shift click on the other.
| | 02:01 |
If you press the U key, that'll open up
any animated parameters for those layers.
| | 02:07 |
Now animations are primarily driven by
keyframes inside of After Effects.
| | 02:12 |
And there are different kinds of keyframes
that will control how an object moves
| | 02:16 |
through an animation, or through the scene.
| | 02:19 |
Now let's jump back to our 3D logo composition.
| | 02:22 |
In here, we have effects on layers.
So let's select Layer 2, our Multipass
| | 02:28 |
layer.
If I turn the effect off by clicking the
| | 02:31 |
Effects option here, notice the shadow
disappears from the background.
| | 02:37 |
I'll go ahead and turn it off, and turn it
back on again.
| | 02:40 |
The shadow is generated by an effect.
You can use effects to control all kinds
| | 02:45 |
of things in After Effects.
You can generate shadows, you can stylize
| | 02:49 |
footage, you can do any number of things.
Now another foundation is 3D.
| | 02:55 |
In After Effects, you can have true 3D
layers made possible by cinema 4D.
| | 03:00 |
You can have 2.5D layers, which are flat
layers that move in 3D space.
| | 03:04 |
Or, you can just have flat 2D layers.
But 3D in and of itself is definitely one
| | 03:10 |
of the foundations of After Effects.
Then, of course, when you're finished,
| | 03:14 |
another very important foundation, Rendering.
| | 03:17 |
Rendering is controlled by the Render
Queue in After Effects.
| | 03:21 |
So, I'm going to go up under my
composition here, and add my project to
| | 03:24 |
the Render Queue.
In the Render Queue, you can determine
| | 03:28 |
exactly what kind of file is output.
I can output a TIFF Sequence or a
| | 03:33 |
QuickTime file.
There are many different render settings
| | 03:36 |
dependent upon what your use for your
video is going to be.
| | 03:39 |
Those are all controlled through the
Render Queue.
| | 03:43 |
So that pretty much winds up our Six
foundations of After Effects.
| | 03:48 |
Now, I realize that was a fast tour, but
this is another situation where we have to
| | 03:52 |
lay the foundations of understanding, as
we continue through the process of getting
| | 03:56 |
started with After Effects.
| | 03:58 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
2. The Essential OverviewCreating your first project| 00:00 |
Before we jump into getting started with
our first project, I want to explain this
| | 00:05 |
chapter really quickly.
We're going to be creating an animated
| | 00:08 |
bumper graphic.
This is a graphic element that's often
| | 00:11 |
used to transition one scene of video to
another scene.
| | 00:15 |
Basically, the graphic pops up and then it
tells you a little bit about what's coming
| | 00:19 |
up next and then it transitions out.
So now, let's jump back to getting started
| | 00:23 |
with our first project.
The first time you launch After Effects,
| | 00:27 |
you should see a screen like this.
It's the welcome screen and it's divided
| | 00:32 |
up into two halves.
On the left half, we have our Recent
| | 00:35 |
Projects.
These are links to your projects on your
| | 00:37 |
hard drive.
Should you want to open any of those
| | 00:40 |
projects, all you have to do is click
directly on the link.
| | 00:43 |
Now, over here on the right hand side, the
top two elements are designed to get you
| | 00:48 |
into After Effects very quickly.
New Composition will create a new comp and
| | 00:52 |
then Open Projects will allow you to
actually navigate through your file
| | 00:56 |
browser to find any other project that you
may have already created.
| | 01:01 |
Now, Help and Support will take you to the
Help and Support section on the Adobe
| | 01:04 |
website.
And, of course, Getting Started does just
| | 01:07 |
that.
It takes you to some videos for getting
| | 01:09 |
started.
Now, just so we don't see this screen
| | 01:11 |
every single time we open up After Effects
in the future, we can go ahead and just
| | 01:16 |
deselect Show Welcome Screen at startup.
Now, let's click Close.
| | 01:21 |
Right now, we're in kind of a unique
situation because for most of you, this is
| | 01:25 |
the very first time you've ever opened the application.
| | 01:28 |
So, what I'm going to show you next is
just some basic maintenance things that
| | 01:33 |
you need to set up once.
And then once it's set up you don't really
| | 01:36 |
have to deal with it much in the future,
as long as you aren't switching computer
| | 01:40 |
systems.
So let's get started by looking at our
| | 01:43 |
preferences, so as we work in our
compositions, everything functions
| | 01:47 |
properly.
If you click on After Effects on the Mac,
| | 01:51 |
you can get to your Preferences.
In Windows, it's under the Edit command.
| | 01:55 |
Now let's go to After Effects >
Preferences > General.
| | 01:59 |
I want you to open that by clicking on the
word General.
| | 02:01 |
Here, you can set the levels of undo.
As you're working, every time you hit
| | 02:06 |
Undo, After Effects will just keep going
back in time, undoing accordingly.
| | 02:11 |
Now, I generally recommend that you leave
this alone but just so you know, you can
| | 02:16 |
change that if you'd like.
Now, this isn't where we're going to go
| | 02:19 |
through absolutely everything in our preferences.
| | 02:21 |
The big thing I want you to make sure you
have set up is your Media & Disk Cache.
| | 02:25 |
So let's jump down to that section by by
clicking on Media & Disk Cache here on the
| | 02:30 |
left-hand side.
Now, this cache allows After Effects to
| | 02:34 |
write important information off to your
hard drive, so it's not necessarily always
| | 02:38 |
trying to play everything back out of RAM
or off of your video card.
| | 02:42 |
As a general rule, what you want to do is
choose a disk cache location by clicking
| | 02:47 |
Choose Folder.
And now with this Choose Folder option
| | 02:51 |
open, you should navigate to a hard drive
and a folder that you'll specify to only
| | 02:56 |
contain cache.
Now I'm going to click Cancel for now.
| | 03:00 |
There's one more setting in Preferences I
want you to pay attention to.
| | 03:03 |
Its over here, Memory & Multiprocessing.
So go back to the left side, it's about
| | 03:08 |
the third one up from the bottom.
In here, this allows you to specify, how
| | 03:13 |
much RAM you'd like to use, and it tells
you how much RAM you have on your
| | 03:16 |
computer.
As a general rule, I recommend selecting
| | 03:20 |
Render Multiple Frames Simultaneously.
And then make sure you have Only for
| | 03:24 |
Render Queue selected.
Now, rather than trying to explain in
| | 03:27 |
depth why each of these are important,
just understand checking both of these
| | 03:31 |
will allow you to have the best of both
worlds, have a decent RAM preview and
| | 03:36 |
still have your system run really quickly
when you go to render your projects.
| | 03:41 |
As a general rule, I like to have a little
bit of CPU reserved for other
| | 03:46 |
applications.
So here, I'm going to go ahead and choose
| | 03:49 |
2 CPUs to use for any other applications.
This'll allow you to jump out of After
| | 03:55 |
Effects and back into After Effects, and
not necessarily have your entire computer
| | 03:59 |
slow down.
Now, let's go ahead and click OK.
| | 04:03 |
And we have our preferences set up.
Now, I know that seemed like a lot, but if
| | 04:06 |
you go through those basic steps, it's
definitely going to make your After
| | 04:10 |
Effects projects work a little bit more quickly.
| | 04:12 |
Now, go up under Composition > New Composition.
| | 04:17 |
This is where we can create a brand new
composition to create our graphics in.
| | 04:21 |
Now, if you click on the Preset pull down,
notice it's divided up into different
| | 04:25 |
sections.
The top here is for web settings, and
| | 04:28 |
then, NTSC and PAL.
These are for standard definition
| | 04:32 |
broadcast settings.
Most people now are working in high
| | 04:36 |
definition.
And so the next section here focuses on
| | 04:39 |
high definition.
The bottom section here allows you to set
| | 04:43 |
settings for film.
Now, for the projects that we're going to
| | 04:46 |
be working on, let's choose this top HD
setting 720, 29, 97.
| | 04:51 |
I'm going to go ahead and choose that and
notice it sets the width and the height of
| | 04:56 |
my project.
These pixel measurements you'll find also
| | 04:59 |
in Photoshop and Illustrator projects.
Now, the only other thing I want to make
| | 05:03 |
an adjustment to is the Frame Rate.
The standard frame rate for this
| | 05:07 |
resolution 29.97.
But since we're doing online training and
| | 05:11 |
we want to have as efficient files as
possible, we worked at a frame rate of
| | 05:16 |
23.976.
So click on this little pull down, and
| | 05:20 |
let's just change our setting to 23.976.
Now the last thing to look at is the Start
| | 05:26 |
Timecode and Duration.
We can leave the Start Timecode at zero,
| | 05:30 |
and the Duration, let's go ahead and set
this at 10 seconds.
| | 05:33 |
So I'm going to type 1000.
(SOUND) Your duration setting may have
| | 05:38 |
been different.
The duration setting will default to the
| | 05:42 |
last setting you used when you created a project.
| | 05:45 |
So the last project I created was 5
seconds long.
| | 05:48 |
Now, the background color just specifies
what color the background of the comp is
| | 05:52 |
going to be, so we can go ahead and click
(SOUND) OK.
| | 05:55 |
Now, with our composition created in the
project panel, you can see we have an
| | 05:59 |
empty timeline and nothing in our canvas.
Now, that we have our blank project set up
| | 06:04 |
and our scratch discs assigned, we're
ready to go ahead and save the project.
| | 06:09 |
So, go up to File > Save.
Now, if you have access to the exercise
| | 06:14 |
files, navigate to your Exercise Files folder.
| | 06:16 |
If you don't, you can go ahead and save
your project wherever you like I just
| | 06:20 |
recommend saving it relatively close to
where your footage is.
| | 06:24 |
Now, in the Exercise Files, let's navigate
to the folder 02.
| | 06:29 |
In there, I already have a project by the
name I'd like to use.
| | 06:32 |
So I'm just going to go ahead and click on
that file name.
| | 06:35 |
and that'll load the name up into the Save
As box.
| | 06:38 |
If you need to type it, go ahead and type 02_02_importing.
| | 06:43 |
Now, when we go ahead and click Save,
(SOUND) I'll just choose Replace but, you
| | 06:47 |
can save your project and it'll be saved
into that folder.
| | 06:50 |
Again, just remember, when you're saving
After Effects projects that have
| | 06:54 |
references to external files, you want to
try and save your projects near those
| | 06:59 |
external files.
And we'll continue to reinforce that logic
| | 07:02 |
as we get into importing, and we'll
definitely do that in the next video.
| | 07:06 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Importing elements| 00:00 |
Before we begin the process of importing
you need to ask yourself am I typically a
| | 00:05 |
neat, organized person or am I really
messy and be honest.
| | 00:10 |
Keeping your files and projects organized
is the easiest way to have a wonderful
| | 00:14 |
experience in both learning and using
after effects.
| | 00:18 |
Let's get started with our project by
familiarizing ourselves with some of the
| | 00:21 |
assets we'll be working with.
Now a lot of new After Effects users are
| | 00:25 |
very comfortable inside of Photoshop or
Illustrator, and so I encourage you to
| | 00:30 |
take advantage of those tools because
After Effects integrates seamlessly with
| | 00:34 |
those.
Now we'll explore a lot of the intricacies
| | 00:37 |
between those applications a little later,
right now I want to import a Photoshop
| | 00:42 |
document, and an Illustrator file, and a
video file.
| | 00:45 |
So you can see all the different formats
of different things that After Effects can
| | 00:49 |
import.
So to start the import process, let's go
| | 00:53 |
up under the File menu, and choose Import,
and choose File.
| | 00:58 |
Navigating your exercise files folder, to
your footage folder, and in your footage
| | 01:02 |
folder you'll find a Photoshop document.
Now if you don't have access to the
| | 01:06 |
exercise files, you can use any layered
Photoshop document.
| | 01:10 |
That's perfectly fine.
Now, the Photoshop document I want you to
| | 01:12 |
import is this Training Swoosh document.
If you click on it once, we can highlight
| | 01:18 |
it.
And then down here, we have options for
| | 01:20 |
how to import that file.
As a general rule, when I import layered
| | 01:24 |
Photoshop documents, I like to keep all
the layers.
| | 01:27 |
So when I bring them into After Effects I
can animate all the different layers.
| | 01:31 |
So, in order to do that, we need to change
the import as option from footage to
| | 01:36 |
composition retain layer sizes.
That extra retain layer sizes makes things
| | 01:41 |
easier for animation.
Now, I'm going to make sure that we don't
| | 01:45 |
have Photoshop sequence selected, if its
selected in yours for any reason just make
| | 01:50 |
sure its deselected.
And then we'll click Open.
| | 01:53 |
Now we have the option here for layer styles.
| | 01:55 |
If you're familiar with layer styles,
great, if not, just understand in
| | 01:59 |
Photoshop you can have layer styles and
you can import them into After Effects.
| | 02:05 |
Now, let's click OK.
Now, notice when we imported our layered
| | 02:08 |
Photoshop document, we now have a second
composition in our project.
| | 02:12 |
After Effects supports more than one composition.
| | 02:15 |
Now, it also created a folder.
If I open that folder, I can see each of
| | 02:20 |
the layers that were used to actually
create that Photoshop document.
| | 02:24 |
Now, let's go ahead and collapse that folder.
| | 02:26 |
Just so we can understand how tightly
things are integrated, I'm going to jump
| | 02:30 |
into Photoshop just for one quick second.
Inside of Photoshop, I'm going to go to
| | 02:34 |
File > Open and navigate to my footage folder.
| | 02:37 |
And in the PSD folder, let's open the Training_Swoosh.psd.
| | 02:42 |
Notice here on the right hand side of the
interface, I have my layers.
| | 02:45 |
If your Photoshop doesn't look like this,
come to this pull down on the upper right
| | 02:49 |
hand corner names essentials.
If you click on that, you can reset your
| | 02:54 |
workspace to essentials or if you have any
of the other layouts chosen, just make
| | 02:58 |
sure to choose essentials.
Now you should see all these layers here
| | 03:02 |
on the right hand side.
Now, notice when I select the extra large
| | 03:07 |
pluses layer, its opacity is at 29%.
Now also notice this FX on the right side
| | 03:13 |
of the layer.
If I click this little gray arrow, it will
| | 03:16 |
open up My Layer Styles.
So here I have an outer glow layer.
| | 03:20 |
Now that's all were going to do inside of Photoshop.
| | 03:23 |
Now let's double click our Training Swoosh composition.
| | 03:26 |
And if we go down to layer three, it's our
extra large pluses layer.
| | 03:31 |
And if I open this triangle here on that
layer, it'll actually show me I have layer
| | 03:37 |
styles.
And I can open the layer styles, and sure
| | 03:40 |
enough, there's my outer glow.
So you can see the way layers work in
| | 03:44 |
after effects, they have these triangles.
And you can just keep opening the
| | 03:48 |
triangles to see all the different options
that you can adjust.
| | 03:51 |
Now with layer three selected, let's open
the transform options here.
| | 03:55 |
Now, I'm just using my scroll wheel to
scroll up and down within the timeline.
| | 04:01 |
In here, notice I have Opacity and check
it out, it's 29%.
| | 04:05 |
So when you import layered Photoshop
documents a lot of the information does
| | 04:10 |
translate.
Now, let's import an Illustrator file.
| | 04:14 |
Instead of going up under the File menu
and choosing Import, this time let's just
| | 04:18 |
double-click anywhere in this large gray
area in the Project panel.
| | 04:23 |
That'll automatically open your import
file dialogue box, and I have to be
| | 04:27 |
honest, this is what I do about 90% of the time.
| | 04:30 |
If we select the Illustrator file folder,
and our footage folder, 02_Ai, in there,
| | 04:37 |
we can choose the H+_Sport Illustrator document.
| | 04:41 |
Now we can go ahead and just import that
as footage, since I want this to just come
| | 04:45 |
in as one element.
Again, we'll make sure the Sequence option
| | 04:49 |
here is deselected.
Now, if you click Open, we'll get one more
| | 04:54 |
dialog box.
Under Import Kind, we could change our
| | 04:57 |
mind again, but I want to leave this set
to Footage and just choose OK.
| | 05:03 |
In order to preview this file that we just
imported, we can double click and it will
| | 05:07 |
get loaded in our Footage panel.
So here notice we've imported a logo from
| | 05:12 |
Illustrator.
Now we're going to round out and finish
| | 05:15 |
this lesson by importing a video file.
So if you double click on the project
| | 05:19 |
panel.
Again navigate to the footage folder.
| | 05:22 |
And we'll go to the video folder.
And let's choose stair rundown.
| | 05:27 |
Notice the default is set as footage and
we can just click open.
| | 05:31 |
It may take a second to import, but notice
once it's imported, here in the top of my
| | 05:35 |
project panel we get a breakdown summary
of the actual size of the video, the codec
| | 05:40 |
that was used, whether it has audio, its
frame rate, you get the idea.
| | 05:44 |
The Project panel is the place where you
can import all of the elements for your
| | 05:48 |
After Effects projects.
Then it's up to you whether or not you
| | 05:52 |
want to use those elements in your
different compositions.
| | 05:54 |
And of course, you can create many, many
compositions in your projects and even
| | 05:59 |
layer compositions inside of other compositions.
| | 06:02 |
Now I know it seems rather endless, but
that's the beauty of After Effects.
| | 06:06 |
You can be as detailed or as general as
you like.
| | 06:09 |
The biggest thing you need to know is that
you can import a lot of different
| | 06:13 |
elements.
It's up to you what you do with them.
| | 06:15 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Organizing projects| 00:00 |
When you're working of After Effects,
you'll definitely end up with projects
| | 00:04 |
that have a lot of different source files,
and a lot of different layers.
| | 00:09 |
If your project doesn't look like my
screen, just double click on the h+ sport
| | 00:13 |
ai file in your Project panel.
Now, the only way to maintain sanity is to
| | 00:18 |
keep some level of organization.
So, that's what we're going to focus on in
| | 00:22 |
this project, maintaining organization.
There are two levels of organization
| | 00:27 |
inside of After Effects.
There's a level of organization within
| | 00:30 |
your project panel itself, and then
there's there's the level of organization
| | 00:34 |
with your source files in and of themselves.
| | 00:36 |
Since After Effects references external
source files from Photoshop, or
| | 00:41 |
Illustrator video files, it's really
important that those files maintain
| | 00:46 |
organized structure.
On your hard drive itself.
| | 00:49 |
Now, I'm going to switch to the finder on
the MAC operating system.
| | 00:53 |
In Windows obviously, you just want to use
your Explorer.
| | 00:55 |
Now, the way I've organized the projects
for all of this training series,
| | 00:59 |
everything lives inside this exercise
files folder.
| | 01:03 |
And then for each individual project,
we've saved the projects into individual
| | 01:07 |
folders.
Now, all of these different projects are
| | 01:10 |
referencing a footage folder.
Now, any time I would move these files
| | 01:14 |
around, I would move the exercise files
folder Along with everything else inside
| | 01:18 |
of it.
Usually when I'm working with at after
| | 01:20 |
effects project, I'll create a folder that
looks like this, and I'll have an
| | 01:25 |
additional folder for my after effects project.
| | 01:28 |
That way any time I'll create a new
project I'll just name the project
| | 01:32 |
whatever it is, and then in there I'll
have my Photoshop documents, my
| | 01:36 |
illustrator files, my video files.
Basically, anything that After Effects is
| | 01:40 |
going to reference is going to be
contained inside of this main folder.
| | 01:44 |
Okay, so now let's jump back into After
Effects and look at ow we can organize our
| | 01:50 |
files within our projects.
As you can see in my project panel here,
| | 01:54 |
I've got a folder, two compositions, an
Illustrator file and a video file.
| | 02:00 |
Now I have a general structure that I like
to use for all of my projects.
| | 02:04 |
So I'll share that with you.
I'm going to go down to the bottom of this
| | 02:07 |
project panel and just create a folder.
If you create on the folder icon and
| | 02:12 |
automatic create an empty folder untitled
and everything will be highlighted, so all
| | 02:17 |
we have to do is just start typing to name.
| | 02:19 |
So let's call this folder graphics to set
the name, you can just press Return on
| | 02:23 |
your keyboard.
Then notice, the project panel will
| | 02:26 |
automatically reorganize itself based on
the name.
| | 02:29 |
That's because of this menu right here.
If I click and drag on the right side of
| | 02:34 |
my project panel, notice I have a couple
different options in terms of what I can
| | 02:39 |
look at in a project, so I can organize by
name just by clicking on the name.
| | 02:44 |
And each time I click, the arrow here will
change, and show me whether or not I'm
| | 02:47 |
organizing it alphabetically from the top
down or from the bottom up.
| | 02:51 |
I can also organize by type, or file size,
or frame rate.
| | 02:55 |
You get the idea.
Any of these you could choose.
| | 02:58 |
Now I'm going to click back on name.
Another way to look for files is to click
| | 03:03 |
up here in this search option.
Let's say I wanted to look for a specific
| | 03:07 |
graphic.
I could type the word stair and sure
| | 03:09 |
enough there's my graphic.
It happens to be a video file but you can
| | 03:14 |
see that's how you can search for elements.
| | 03:17 |
Just remember when you're searching that
you have something in here in the search
| | 03:20 |
field.
So our project isn't empty, just go all
| | 03:23 |
the way to the right here and click on the
X to clear out that name, and then you can
| | 03:27 |
see everything in your project.
So with our graphics folder created, I
| | 03:32 |
want to add my Illustrator file into that folder.
| | 03:34 |
So I'm just going to click, and drag, and
drag up to drag that into the Graphics
| | 03:39 |
folder.
Now I can click the Triangle, and see that
| | 03:41 |
my illustrator file is in there.
Now we have this composition down here,
| | 03:45 |
called Training_Swoosh.
If I double-click on that comp, I can see
| | 03:49 |
these layers.
Now the layers appear in the timeline, and
| | 03:53 |
I can go ahead, and collapse layer three,
so you can see more of the layers.
| | 03:57 |
I'm going to collapse my project panel
back towards the left just by clicking and
| | 04:02 |
dragging.
Now layers in the layer hierarchy of your
| | 04:06 |
timeline can also be found in your project
panel just by right clicking on the layer.
| | 04:11 |
And then choose reveal layer source and project.
| | 04:15 |
This works with referenced external files.
There are certain things that you can
| | 04:19 |
create inside of After Effects when you
click on the layer.
| | 04:22 |
You may not be able to find it in your
project panel, but we imported this as a
| | 04:26 |
Photoshop document, it's in here.
So I know this training solutionair folder
| | 04:30 |
contains Photoshop files.
So I'm going to go ahead and close this
| | 04:34 |
folder and I'm going to drag this folder
up into the graphics folder.
| | 04:38 |
My training slush composition does have
those layers loaded into it, but if I
| | 04:43 |
wanted to add another copy of any one of
those layers, I could go ahead and open
| | 04:47 |
that folder and drag it down into the
layer hierarchy.
| | 04:50 |
So these are separate from the
composition, so I'm just going to press
| | 04:54 |
Cmd+Z to undo.
So we can go ahead and collapse that.
| | 04:57 |
Now we've organized our graphics.
I want to automatically add this video
| | 05:01 |
file into a folder called Video.
So I'm going to click on the file and drag
| | 05:05 |
it down to the folder icon.
Now when I let go of my mouse, it's
| | 05:09 |
automatically drop that file into the
untitled folder.
| | 05:13 |
Let's rename this Video.
The last thing we need to do is create a
| | 05:17 |
folder for our compositions.
So if you go down to the bottom of the
| | 05:20 |
project panel, we'll click the create
folder icon again.
| | 05:23 |
And since we just created the video
folder, notice it put it underneath.
| | 05:27 |
That's fine.
Lets go ahead it and name it
| | 05:30 |
AAA_output_comps.
Now the reason I called it that is because
| | 05:35 |
I know I like to keep things organized by
name so that's why I had a, a, a at the
| | 05:41 |
start.
And then output comps lets me know that
| | 05:44 |
these are the projects I'm going to
actually create my files or output files
| | 05:49 |
from.
So let's press Return to set that.
| | 05:52 |
And then I'll click and drag down the
project panel, drag it out from underneath
| | 05:56 |
my video folder.
Now we can collapse our video folder and
| | 05:59 |
drag our training swoosh into our output columns.
| | 06:02 |
And then do the same for empty comp one composition.
| | 06:05 |
If we open our output comps again, we can
rename our comp 1 file just by clicking on
| | 06:10 |
it and then pressing Return.
So let's call this Training_Title, and
| | 06:17 |
press Return.
So when it comes to getting organized in
| | 06:21 |
Aftereffects, the thing you need to
remember, organization starts in the File
| | 06:25 |
browser.
You want to always keep your referenced
| | 06:28 |
files organized in a folder relatively
close to your After Effects project.
| | 06:32 |
Then, maintaining order inside your
project just becomes a matter of mastering
| | 06:37 |
the project panel and creating folders.
| | 06:39 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Building compositions with layers| 00:00 |
Building compositions with layers is a
long, drawn-out way of saying building a
| | 00:04 |
composite.
See, in After Effects, whenever you create
| | 00:08 |
a composition, you're creating a composite
graphic, which is just a blend of all of
| | 00:13 |
those layers together.
Now composites are created using layers.
| | 00:17 |
So in this video, of course we're going to
function on how layers work.
| | 00:21 |
To create composites.
To get started, double click the training
| | 00:26 |
swoosh composition in your project panel.
That way we can see the project here, in
| | 00:31 |
the Composition panel and down here in the
time line.
| | 00:35 |
Now I'm going to click and drag on the top
part of my timeline, just to give me a
| | 00:38 |
little bit more space so we can look at
all the layers that are contained within
| | 00:42 |
our project.
Now if your layers don't quite look like
| | 00:46 |
this, with these switches, click this
button down here at the bottom, that will
| | 00:49 |
toggle the switches and mode.
These are different features that we can
| | 00:53 |
go back and forth between to make
adjustments to our layers.
| | 00:57 |
Now layers have two primary functions
inside of After Effects.
| | 01:00 |
One Is their organization vertically.
This determines the visibility in the
| | 01:06 |
layer hierarchy, so if we select layer to
come see how I have word training here?
| | 01:11 |
If I click on that layer and drag it all
the way down below layer 10 and let go,
| | 01:16 |
notice it's going to disappear.
that's because it's below all the layers
| | 01:20 |
in that layer hierarchy.
Now I know this background layer is what's
| | 01:23 |
obstructing that view.
So I can change that layer hierarchy, or I
| | 01:30 |
could change the view of this layer, by
either moving it in the hierarchy, like
| | 01:34 |
moving it back down to the bottom of my
project panel.
| | 01:36 |
Here, let's move it back up just above our
training layer or, I can open my triangle
| | 01:41 |
here for the layer and I have Transform options.
| | 01:45 |
So if I open my transform options, these
are all the typical options that you'll
| | 01:49 |
get with most layers inside of a
composition inside of After Effects.
| | 01:53 |
So, for example, I could control the
anchor point, posistion, scale, rotation
| | 01:58 |
or opacity.
Well, if I'm trying to see the layer
| | 02:01 |
below, I want to change opacity from a
value of 100% down to a lower value, say
| | 02:08 |
50%.
Now, I can click and drag on these
| | 02:11 |
parameters so I could get an update here
in my Comp window, or I could just click
| | 02:16 |
directly on the Parameter and type a value.
| | 02:18 |
Say 50 percent and press Enter.
Now if you have more than one of these
| | 02:23 |
options open at any given time, you can
move between the different sections by
| | 02:27 |
pressing the tab key.
So for example, let's click on the Scale.
| | 02:31 |
I'm going to click on this value of scale
and change it to fifty.
| | 02:34 |
And when I press tab.
It's automatically going to move to the
| | 02:38 |
next field.
Now notice it made my background 50
| | 02:41 |
percent the size of my composition.
If I continue to press Tab I can go down
| | 02:45 |
to Rotation.
So, continue to press Tab and get to this
| | 02:49 |
second rotation option here.
Let's change this to an angle of 45 and
| | 02:54 |
press Tab to move to the next one.
Now notice the layer's moved to at a 45
| | 02:59 |
degree angle.
I think you understand how Transform
| | 03:02 |
options can change the visible appearance
of a layer inside of a composition window.
| | 03:07 |
Now let's click anywhere else in the
timeline to deselect our opacity value.
| | 03:10 |
Now I'm just going to select command z on
the Mac, you can press control z on
| | 03:14 |
Windows, just undo and get back to this
current state where opacity is around 58.
| | 03:20 |
Now let's collapse layer nine.
Now that we have a firm grasp on how to
| | 03:24 |
visually control the appearance of our
layers using the layer hierarchy, or using
| | 03:28 |
layer properties, we can now also address
the timer.
| | 03:33 |
So if you go to the middle of your
timeline, you'll see a red line, and at
| | 03:37 |
the top of it there's a yellow thing that
looks sort of like a guitar pick.
| | 03:41 |
If you click on that and Greg, this is
your current time indicator.
| | 03:44 |
Now as I'm dragging come there are no
changes happening inside of my
| | 03:48 |
composition.
This is because nothing is animated yet.
| | 03:52 |
All of the layers are on and all are
visible over the entire length of the
| | 03:56 |
project.
So what I want to do is have my background
| | 04:01 |
start, and then have my graphic elements
appear, and then I'll have the word
| | 04:06 |
Training appear.
So to control that, I'm going to adjust
| | 04:09 |
the horizontal adjustment of layers in the timeline.
| | 04:13 |
So let's move our current time indicator
to around 1 second.
| | 04:17 |
Notice as I'm clicking and dragging I'm
getting an update here and an update here,
| | 04:23 |
on the left side of our timeline panel.
You can click either on the current time
| | 04:28 |
button here in the bottom of your
composition window or in the upper left
| | 04:32 |
corner of your timeline.
And once you click, you can specify an
| | 04:36 |
exact time to go to.
So, if you're not already at one second,
| | 04:39 |
go ahead and type one zero zero, and then
press okay, to make sure you're there.
| | 04:44 |
Now want to trim all of these graphic
elements to appear at this one point.
| | 04:48 |
So I'm going to click on layer eight and
hold down Shift and click on layer one, to
| | 04:53 |
select all of those layers.
You can trim more than one layer at a time
| | 04:58 |
just by selecting multiple layers.
If I hover my mouse over the left side of
| | 05:02 |
all those layers, I get this double arrow icon.
| | 05:05 |
Now, as I click and drag, I can trim the
start point of those layers.
| | 05:10 |
Notice as I move past my current time
indicator, the graphics disappear.
| | 05:14 |
If you want to snap the start point of
your layer, as you're dragging, hold down
| | 05:18 |
shift, and then it'll snap directly to you
current time indicator.
| | 05:22 |
Now I know I want the word training to
appear At the top of my layer hierarchy.
| | 05:27 |
So let's click on layer ten and drag it
back up to the top of my layer hierarchy
| | 05:31 |
and let's move all the way down the time
line to around eight seconds.
| | 05:36 |
Here, I'm going to trim the start point of
my training layer but rather than clicking
| | 05:41 |
directly on the left side of that layer,
I'm going to use a key command.
| | 05:45 |
If you hold down Option or Alt on the PC,
and press the Left Bracket key, which is
| | 05:50 |
the key just to the right of the letter P.
You'll automatically trim the start point
| | 05:54 |
of whatever layer you have selected.
Now I'm going to use a very similar
| | 05:58 |
command to change the outpoint of our
other graphic elements.
| | 06:02 |
So select layer two.
Hold down shift and click through layer
| | 06:05 |
nine.
These are all of our graphic elements.
| | 06:08 |
And I'm going to press option, or alt on
the PC and then I'll press right Bracket,
| | 06:13 |
which is two keys to the right of the
letter P.
| | 06:16 |
Now I've trimmed my out point of my
graphic layer.
| | 06:18 |
Now, if I just want to move one frame down
the timeline or one frame up the timeline,
| | 06:24 |
I can press page up or page down.
Now, I want to press Page Down and select
| | 06:29 |
layer 1, and just trim 1 more frame off
that layer.
| | 06:32 |
So I'll hold down Alt or Option again, and
press left bracket.
| | 06:36 |
So now if you press Page Up, we can go
from graphics to Page Down.
| | 06:40 |
Where we just have the text over top of
our background layer.
| | 06:43 |
So to summarize, when we're talking about
layers inside of compositions you do have
| | 06:48 |
the utmost control.
You just need to remember.
| | 06:50 |
If your making adjustments vertically,
your controlling the appearance of that
| | 06:54 |
layer amongs the other layers.
If you're making adjustments horizontally,
| | 06:58 |
you're probably making adjustments to the
timing of that layer, or when it appears
| | 07:03 |
in the composition.
| | 07:04 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Transforming layers| 00:00 |
The process for transforming layers begins
to happen when you position different
| | 00:05 |
elements around your composition.
Now, if we look at our Training_Swoosh
| | 00:09 |
composition, go down to the timeline and
click on the Current Time Indicator.
| | 00:14 |
As I scrub through, I can see that I just
have multiple layers that are set up that
| | 00:19 |
control the visibility of the different
elements and, basically, we start with a
| | 00:23 |
clean background.
Now we have this graphic build that
| | 00:26 |
happens and then we have our last word
wich is training.
| | 00:30 |
Now I want to add a couple more elements
to this project and as I do that I'm going
| | 00:35 |
to go ahead and position those elements in
the scene of my comp panel.
| | 00:39 |
Now positioning those elements is also
known as transforming.
| | 00:43 |
So, let's start by adding some background video.
| | 00:46 |
Since our background layer here is just a
still element, we can open the video
| | 00:51 |
folder.
And, for video, I could either drag it
| | 00:54 |
directly down into my composition timeline
Or I could drag it right out into my top
| | 00:59 |
panel.
Now the way I typically like to work with
| | 01:02 |
video is just by double clicking the video.
| | 01:04 |
That way it opens up in a Footage panel
and I can go ahead and just scrub through
| | 01:10 |
with my current time indicator down till I
get to a point where I want to start using
| | 01:15 |
the video.
Now just so I can see the whole frame, I'm
| | 01:17 |
going to change my magnification to fit up
to 100%.
| | 01:20 |
Now I'm going to scrub through and choose
a start frame.
| | 01:23 |
All choose 5622 for my start.
Now if you click this left button in the
| | 01:29 |
bottom of your footage panel, that'll trim
the endpoint of that layer.
| | 01:34 |
Now I want 10 seconds of this footage,
because that's the length of my
| | 01:37 |
composition here.
So if you go down to the time indicator in
| | 01:40 |
the lower left of the footage panel, go
ahead and click on that and then press
| | 01:44 |
plus ten zero zero.
So it's ten seconds, zero frames.
| | 01:50 |
So when I click okay, it's automatically
going to move down ten seconds.
| | 01:53 |
Now if I were to trim the out point, I
could trim it by clicking the second
| | 01:57 |
button here on the bottom of my footage panel.
| | 01:59 |
Now to add to our composition, you only
click the overlay edit button.
| | 02:03 |
Which is this button all the way on the
right side of the footage panel on the
| | 02:06 |
lower area.
So let's go ahead and click on that and
| | 02:09 |
notice the footage was dropped right at
the start of our current time indicator.
| | 02:13 |
So I'm going to slide this piece of
footage to start at the beginning of our
| | 02:16 |
composition.
And I'll do so by clicking on the the
| | 02:19 |
green area and I'll start to drag.
If I clicked on this lighter gray area,
| | 02:25 |
I'd get this that pops up.
And what this is, is the Slide tool.
| | 02:29 |
If I click here and start to drag it'll
allow me to choose the same length of the
| | 02:34 |
frames that I'm going to display.
But I can Slide exactly which frames
| | 02:38 |
appear in this area by clicking and
dragging here.
| | 02:42 |
Now I'll just Undo that last little change
there, and then just reposition the layer
| | 02:45 |
by clicking and dragging on the solid
colored green area.
| | 02:50 |
Now if we press home on our keyboard we
can move our current time indicator to the
| | 02:53 |
beginning.
And so we can see all the other graphic
| | 02:56 |
elements, let's click on layer one and
drag it down just above our background
| | 03:00 |
layer.
Since we don't need the background layer
| | 03:03 |
on anymore, I'll just turn its visibility off.
| | 03:06 |
Now that we have our layer added to our
project I'm going to go over my
| | 03:09 |
composition panel with my mouse and then
scroll out with the scroll wheel.
| | 03:12 |
Notice I have these handles.
These handles let me know that I can
| | 03:16 |
actually transform the position of this
layer so I can transform this in relation
| | 03:21 |
to the graphic elements that will be
appearing, I'm going to move my current
| | 03:24 |
time indicator down the time line to
around one oh six.
| | 03:27 |
Basically, you just want to position it
anywhere down the time line so you can see
| | 03:30 |
these graphic elements.
First thing, let's work on scale.
| | 03:33 |
Click on one of the corners and start to drag.
| | 03:37 |
Notice if I drag too much in one direction
or the other I'll distort my image.
| | 03:41 |
So, I can hold down Shift as I drag to
make a drag in proportion.
| | 03:45 |
Now, I want this to still be slightly
larger than the area that's going to
| | 03:48 |
render.
So, I'll make sure the handles are out
| | 03:51 |
here in this light grey area.
This grey area will not render when you
| | 03:55 |
actually go to output this video.
Now let's click and drag and slide this
| | 04:00 |
off to the left a little bit, and notice
if I slide it off too far, then I'll lose
| | 04:05 |
the edge of my video, but I do want him
kind of positioned off to the side here,
| | 04:08 |
so what I'll do is kind of split the different.
| | 04:11 |
I'll position him like so, and then I'll
grab another one of the corner handles and
| | 04:14 |
just hold down shift as I drag.
Now as I'm dragging, if you look in the
| | 04:18 |
upper right corner of the interface,
there's the info panel.
| | 04:21 |
Notice it has the name of the file that I
have selected and then it tells me the
| | 04:25 |
scale and value that the layer was going
to be.
| | 04:28 |
So it's 86% of its original size.
And then at the bottom it's showing me how
| | 04:33 |
much I changed it.
So I increased the size by 17%.
| | 04:37 |
Now that that's been positioned, I can
scrub through and you can see I actually
| | 04:41 |
have video underneath of my project.
Now placing elements in 2D space is
| | 04:47 |
relatively straightforward.
If you click on the handles, you can
| | 04:50 |
adjust the scale.
If I click inside this bounding box, I can
| | 04:54 |
just reposition accordingly.
And again in the info panel, the info will
| | 04:58 |
update.
Now, if I press W on my keyboard, that'll
| | 05:02 |
open my rotation tool.
You should see it up here in the
| | 05:05 |
upper-left corner of your Tool panel.
Now with that tool active, I can click on
| | 05:10 |
my layer and start to drag up or down and
it will rotate.
| | 05:14 |
So let me undo that, and let's add one
more graphic element and we'll position it
| | 05:18 |
over here in the corner.
I'm going to press V on my keyboard to
| | 05:22 |
re-grab my Selection tool so I don't
accidentally rotate my layer.
| | 05:27 |
Open the Graphics folder.
In there, we'll see our H+_Sport
| | 05:31 |
Illustrator layer.
So let's drag that in the Timeline to the
| | 05:34 |
top of the layer hierarchy.
Now, this is way too large.
| | 05:37 |
I can quickly jump to the scale parameter
and change the scale here in the timeline
| | 05:42 |
by pressing S.
Now, if I just click and drag on the value
| | 05:45 |
of the scale, it'll go ahead and scale and
stay in proportion as long as I leave this
| | 05:50 |
little chain checked.
If that chain is unchecked, then I can
| | 05:54 |
distort my image which I definitely don't
want to do so I'll just press Cmd + Z
| | 05:58 |
twice to get back.
Now, I want to position this layer over
| | 06:01 |
here in the corner, so I'll do so.
And as you're positioning text and
| | 06:05 |
graphics, you want to be familiar with
this button in the lower left corner of
| | 06:08 |
the comp. window.
| | 06:09 |
When you click on that, that's tile and
action save.
| | 06:12 |
I want to make sure that my text stays
inside of this second rectangle from the
| | 06:18 |
outside edge.
So here's the first rectangle, there's the
| | 06:21 |
second.
This is known as title safe.
| | 06:23 |
Any text you want to make sure stays
inside that area.
| | 06:27 |
So I want to make this layer a little smaller.
| | 06:28 |
I'm going to click on one of the handles
and hold down Shift, and Here we go.
| | 06:34 |
In After Effects, you can have layers in
2D space or 3D space.
| | 06:38 |
Now, just so we can see this more clearly,
I'm going to change my magnification back
| | 06:42 |
up to a 100%.
And I'll press the Spacebar so I can
| | 06:45 |
quickly grab my hand tool.
Now when I click and drag, I can move my
| | 06:49 |
canvas over so I could see my logo more clearly.
| | 06:52 |
Now, in order to see this better, I'll
turn my Title and Action Safe off by
| | 06:56 |
clicking on the button and then.
Deselecting Title and Action save.
| | 06:59 |
And if you notice, on this layer I have
this crosshair here.
| | 07:03 |
That's known as the Anchor Point.
Any time I make transformations like
| | 07:07 |
Rotation, it will transform around that point.
| | 07:10 |
Now when I change this layer into 3D,
you'll see this point change.
| | 07:14 |
So to make our layer 3D, let's go down and
look at the top layer in our timeline.
| | 07:18 |
If you don't see these switches set up
here, you want to toggle your switches and
| | 07:22 |
modes until you can see this.
This box right here let's me know that
| | 07:27 |
this column controls whether or not the
layer is 3D.
| | 07:29 |
So when I click on it, I've now made it a
3D layer and I have these handles.
| | 07:34 |
Y, X and Z.
So if I click on X, it will only move on
| | 07:38 |
the X axis.
Let me undo that.
| | 07:40 |
Now if I press W to grab my rotation tool.
Check this out.
| | 07:44 |
If I hover over top of the Y axis, and
then just click and drag left or right,
| | 07:49 |
now it's going to rotate around in 3D space.
| | 07:52 |
Now let's say for whatever reason I wanted
to move my anchor point, so that I could
| | 07:56 |
rotate around a bottom word, as opposed to
the way it's set up right now in the
| | 08:01 |
middle just to undo that.
You can grab this tool up here called the
| | 08:04 |
pan behind tool.
With that tool you can click on any anchor
| | 08:08 |
point and then reposition it in your timeline.
| | 08:11 |
Now usually when I'm working in 3D, I
would encourage you to click directly on
| | 08:15 |
the access handle for whatever it is
you're attempting to move.
| | 08:18 |
That way you won't accidentally move it in
Z space.
| | 08:21 |
If you look in the Info panel on the
right, you can see my Z value is set to
| | 08:24 |
zero.
Next to position it gives me my X value,
| | 08:28 |
then my Y, and then my zero.
So let's position this down towards the
| | 08:32 |
bottom of the layer.
And now if I press w to grab my rotation
| | 08:35 |
tool, I can click on the x axis and now as
I start to rotate, it'll only rotate
| | 08:40 |
around that x point.
Now just so we can see the rest of the
| | 08:44 |
graphic, let's go ahead and change our
magnification setting in the lower left
| | 08:47 |
corner of the composition panel.
Click on it and choose get 100%.
| | 08:53 |
Now we can collapse layer one since we
don't need to see any of the parameters in
| | 08:56 |
the timeline and we can go ahead and close
the video folder, graphics folder and her
| | 09:01 |
output comps folder in our project panel.
I'm just going to click in this gray area
| | 09:05 |
to clear out anything at the top of the
panel then I'm just going to click down in
| | 09:09 |
the timeline panel to make sure the
timeline's active and deselect layer one.
| | 09:13 |
I'm just clicking in this general area
here because I know it won't allow me to
| | 09:18 |
select anything when I click there.
So, when it comes to transforming layers
| | 09:22 |
inside of after effects, you can transform
them in 2D space, or you can transform
| | 09:27 |
them in 3D space.
The biggest thing that I recommend is just
| | 09:30 |
to make sure that you pay attention to
what's happening, by looking over an Info
| | 09:34 |
panel.
| | 09:35 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Animating with keyframes| 00:00 |
Now of course since we're talking about
After Effects, we're definitely going to
| | 00:04 |
learn about Key frames.
Key frames are the primary way to actually
| | 00:08 |
create animation inside of an After
Effects project.
| | 00:11 |
Just about every property of anything that
you can apply inside of a composition
| | 00:16 |
inside of After Effects, you can Key frame.
| | 00:18 |
There are very few things that you can't.
Now, to show you how and where to
| | 00:22 |
keyframe, let's start working with our
training smoosh project.
| | 00:25 |
If it's not already open, open your
triple-A output comps and just
| | 00:29 |
double-click on the training smoosh project.
| | 00:31 |
Now, in the middle of our timeline, you'll
see our current time indicator.
| | 00:35 |
Usually when I'm getting started with
creating a project, I'll use the current
| | 00:39 |
time indicator as kind of a Scrubbing tool.
| | 00:42 |
So I'll click on it and drag it through
the timeline.
| | 00:45 |
This allows me to create a rough edit for
when I want these elements to appear in
| | 00:50 |
the scene.
Now, scrub with your current time
| | 00:53 |
indicator to around 8 seconds.
That's when this word Training appears in
| | 00:57 |
our project.
Now we want to add a keyframe for the
| | 01:00 |
opacity of this layer.
You can add keyframes in the timeline next
| | 01:03 |
to each parameter.
So to show you what I mean let's open the
| | 01:06 |
triangle for layer two.
And here we have transform and layer
| | 01:10 |
styles.
Since this was an element crated in
| | 01:13 |
Photoshop.
There's a layer style that had been
| | 01:15 |
applied, and that's translated into After Effects.
| | 01:18 |
Let's concern ourselves with transform
right now, so open those options.
| | 01:23 |
In here, this is where I can add my key frames.
| | 01:26 |
See these things that look like a stopwatches?
| | 01:28 |
That's what those are.
They're for adding Keyframes.
| | 01:31 |
So anything you see with a Stopwatch next
to it, gives you the ability to record
| | 01:36 |
that parameter and that value for that
parameter at that specific point in time.
| | 01:42 |
And the way that those work have to do
with the current time indicator.
| | 01:45 |
So I want to make sure I'm right at the
start of Layer 2.
| | 01:48 |
So just to be sure I'm going to select it
in the timeline.
| | 01:52 |
And then I'll press i on my keyboard.
When you press i and you have a layer
| | 01:56 |
selected.
The current time indicator will always
| | 01:58 |
move to the endpoint of that layer.
Now let's change the opacity of this layer
| | 02:03 |
to 0.
So, we can do this a number of ways.
| | 02:06 |
We can click directly on the value and
type it, or we can click and drag.
| | 02:11 |
I generally like to click and drag, so I'm
just going to click, and drag.
| | 02:15 |
Now notice, I can't see the word anymore.
I still see the handles, but those aren't
| | 02:19 |
going to render.
So let's add a key frame for opacity.
| | 02:23 |
Now, since I want to move my current time
indicator, I can click here in my time, in
| | 02:27 |
the upper left corner of the Timeline
panel, or I can click here, in the lower
| | 02:32 |
left corner of the Composition panel.
I'll just click the Current Time button on
| | 02:36 |
the bottom of the Composition panel.
Now I want to move ahead about 12 frames.
| | 02:42 |
See this project is 23.976 frames a second
or 24 frames a second.
| | 02:45 |
So 12 is a half a second.
So I'm going to type plus 1, 2.
| | 02:52 |
See you can type equations in here and
it'll know that hey, you're just trying to
| | 02:55 |
move 12 frames further down the timeline.
So when I click OK, now my time indicator
| | 03:01 |
is moved.
Now if you look to the left of my current
| | 03:04 |
time indicator, see this diamond shape
that's kind of yellow?
| | 03:07 |
That's letting me know that I have a
Keyframe for that parameter.
| | 03:10 |
Once you've added a Keyframe for a
parameter you'll notice that it looks like
| | 03:14 |
there's a box around the stopwatch.
And you'll see a hand or like a line
| | 03:18 |
through the middle of the stopwatch.
That's letting me know that that value's
| | 03:22 |
been recorded at some point in time.
Now if I change this value, since I have
| | 03:26 |
my current time indicator at a separate
place in the time line, I'm actually
| | 03:31 |
going to add a second key frame.
So let's click on the value for opacity
| | 03:35 |
and then just type in 100 and press Enter
or Return.
| | 03:39 |
Now notice I have two Key frames in the timeline.
| | 03:42 |
As you continue to add Key frames to
different elements, you'll navigate the
| | 03:47 |
timeline by using these Navigation tools
here on the left side.
| | 03:50 |
So I could click this left one to go to my
previous keyframe, or the right one to go
| | 03:54 |
to my next one.
Anytime you see the Keyframe sitting over
| | 03:59 |
here in the timeline, that's letting you
know that your current time indicator is
| | 04:03 |
sitting directly on that Keyframe.
So if I scroll up through, now you notice
| | 04:07 |
I'm not on that Keyframe.
So if I want to go back to the other one,
| | 04:10 |
I can just click that left arrow, and it
takes me back to my previous keyframe.
| | 04:13 |
Now, if we scrub through, we can see the
appearance of that word.
| | 04:19 |
Now, a lot of times, for simple things
like this, I like to just scrub.
| | 04:23 |
I'm going to copy these key frames and
paste them to all those other layers with
| | 04:27 |
the graphics.
So to do that, we're going to select both
| | 04:30 |
Keyframes.
One of the easiest ways to select multiple
| | 04:34 |
key frames is to draw a Lasso in the timeline.
| | 04:36 |
So if you click off of one of the key
frames and just drag out and around,
| | 04:41 |
you'll automatically select both.
Now, I know they're selected, because
| | 04:45 |
they're yellow.
So I can press command C to copy.
| | 04:48 |
Control C on Windows.
Now, I want to paste this fade to all
| | 04:52 |
those other layers.
So I'm going to collapse layer 2 by
| | 04:55 |
closing its triangle.
And I'll click on layer 3.
| | 04:58 |
And scroll down and shift click on my blue
layer, which is layer 10.
| | 05:03 |
Now, with all these layers selected, I can
still use that i command to move my
| | 05:07 |
current time indicator to the start point
of those layers.
| | 05:10 |
So I'll do that.
Press I on your keyboard.
| | 05:13 |
Now, since I already copied all the
Keyframes, I can just press Cmd + V or
| | 05:16 |
Ctrl + V to paste those key frames to any
of the layers I have selected.
| | 05:21 |
Notice how all those graphics have disappeared.
| | 05:24 |
So what I want to do at this point in time
is actually preview what we've created.
| | 05:29 |
Since I don't have this from current time
selected, when I load up a RAM preview,
| | 05:33 |
it's automatically going to start playing
from the beginning of the composition.
| | 05:37 |
So, let's see what that looks like.
It may take a second to load all these
| | 05:42 |
different frames.
Aftereffects is going through and loading
| | 05:48 |
the frames into the RAM preview, and this
green bar is giving me a status of those
| | 05:54 |
frames that actually get loaded.
Now, at any given time I can press the
| | 05:58 |
Space bar and begin playback of any of the
frames that have been loaded in the
| | 06:01 |
composition.
Since I want to see everything, I'm just
| | 06:04 |
going to go ahead and let it load all the
way across the length of my comp.
| | 06:08 |
And then up here in the Info panel, once
the frames are loaded we can see the
| | 06:11 |
video's actually playing back in real time.
| | 06:14 |
And we have a fade for these layers.
Now if I wanted to create a fade out, I
| | 06:19 |
would just do something slightly different.
| | 06:23 |
So what I'm going to do is press the Space
bar to stop playback for a second.
| | 06:27 |
And since I still have all those layers
selected, I'm going to press O on my
| | 06:31 |
keyboard to move to the out point.
Now I want to move back a couple of
| | 06:34 |
frames.
So I'm just going to click and drag on my
| | 06:37 |
current time indicator.
As I'm dragging I can see the value change
| | 06:41 |
and I'll drag to around seven seconds 12 frames.
| | 06:45 |
Press T on your keyboard to open the
opacity T settings.
| | 06:49 |
See, each one of these layer properties
you can quickly get to the different
| | 06:53 |
parameters by using quick key commands.
And we'll explore all those commands
| | 06:58 |
throughout the rest of the course.
For now, just know T stands for opacity.
| | 07:03 |
Now since I already have a key frame here
that's valued at 100% and I want to add
| | 07:08 |
another key frame down here at my current
time indicator with the same value.
| | 07:13 |
I'm not going to press the Stopwatch
button now, because if I do that, it'll
| | 07:16 |
just delete.
Any key frames that I have set for that
| | 07:19 |
specific parameter.
What I need to do is click this button
| | 07:22 |
right here between my two navigational arrows.
| | 07:25 |
So let's click on that.
That's going to add a Keyframe at the
| | 07:30 |
current value for that specific parameter.
So it's 100% for the opacity.
| | 07:35 |
Now, I want to move my current time
indicator to the end of the layer.
| | 07:38 |
I'm going to press O to move to that out point.
| | 07:42 |
Now let's change the opacity down from 100
to 0.
| | 07:46 |
Now notice we've automatically added more Keyframes.
| | 07:49 |
I'm going to scroll up and down, and you
can see it's been added to all the layers
| | 07:53 |
that I have selected.
So this time I just want to preview the
| | 07:57 |
fade out.
So I'm going to move my current time
| | 07:59 |
indicator to around seven seconds.
And in the ram preview panel I'm going to
| | 08:03 |
check this box that says from current time.
| | 08:05 |
Now when I load up my Ram Preview, it's
going to go ahead and load just those
| | 08:09 |
frames that I was missing and show me the
fade out and my fade in of my other layer.
| | 08:14 |
So again, you can press the Space bar to
stop playback at any given time.
| | 08:18 |
I definitely encourage you to continue
going through the rest of this project,
| | 08:21 |
and seeing what else you can do to add
more Key frames, and create animation
| | 08:25 |
instead of After Effects.
| | 08:27 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating text elements| 00:00 |
Before you add other graphic elements and
shapes to your projects, it's important to
| | 00:03 |
consider exactly when, and where you'd
like those objects to appear.
| | 00:08 |
So for this project, I want to go to the
timeline and actually clean things up a
| | 00:11 |
little bit before we add our text.
So, select layer one and press Cmd + A to
| | 00:16 |
select all the layers.
If you press the u key on any layer, it'll
| | 00:20 |
automatically show you any parameters that
have keyframes or animation.
| | 00:26 |
Now if you press the u key again, it'll go
ahead and collapse those layers.
| | 00:29 |
If you notice in the middle of my project
I have a bunch of layers.
| | 00:34 |
And I'm just going to click and drag with
my current time indicator to see what
| | 00:37 |
those are.
And that's all these different graphics
| | 00:39 |
elements.
Now I know I already like how these fade
| | 00:42 |
into the scene.
What I'm going to do is control the number
| | 00:45 |
of layers I'm seeing in my panel.
So I'm just going to deselect one of the
| | 00:49 |
layers just by clicking over here near the
eyeballs making sure not to click on one
| | 00:53 |
of the visibility eyeballs.
And I'll click on layer four and scroll
| | 00:58 |
down and hold down Shift and click on
layer ten.
| | 01:02 |
Now I have all the graphic layer elements
selected I just want to hide them from the
| | 01:06 |
view.
But I don't necessarily want to to delete
| | 01:09 |
them out of my composition.
That's where you want to use the Shy
| | 01:12 |
button.
It's right here, to the right of the
| | 01:14 |
names.
Looks like a little guy popping out of our
| | 01:16 |
fence, If you click on the Shy button for
all the layers that are selected, notice
| | 01:20 |
these little eyes disappear.
Now, in order to actually hide him in the
| | 01:25 |
Layers panel, you need to click on this
larger button here in the top of the
| | 01:28 |
Layers panel.
So let's click on that, and now we've
| | 01:32 |
hidden all those layers.if we scrub drop
project, now you can see everything is
| | 01:36 |
still there, it's just disappeared out of
my timeline.
| | 01:41 |
So I do want to add text, but I do want to
consider where I'm placing that text, so
| | 01:45 |
let's scrub down the timeline here.
Okay, I do want to add text next to this
| | 01:50 |
word training.
Now also as I'm scrubbing I'm realizing I
| | 01:54 |
have one bright plus button right here.
And when that was originally designed it
| | 01:59 |
was designed to appear right next to the
word training.
| | 02:02 |
It's kind of meant to mimic the H plus
design over here with the plus in the
| | 02:05 |
upper right.
So any time you have a layer with
| | 02:08 |
animation already applied, like keyframes
or anything else, you can still slide that
| | 02:13 |
layer down the timeline and those
keyframes will stay in place.
| | 02:18 |
So select layer three and press T to open
its opacity.
| | 02:22 |
Now, I know that's where the keyframes
were residing so that's why I just pressed
| | 02:27 |
T.
You could also press the U key, and it
| | 02:29 |
would show you the opacity because that's
where the key frames live.
| | 02:34 |
Now, click on the layer, and drag to the right.
| | 02:36 |
If you hold down Shift as you drag, it'll
snap to the endpoint of the training
| | 02:40 |
layer.
Holding down shift as you drag is a great
| | 02:43 |
way to snap many things to different things.
| | 02:45 |
For example, if I click on the current
time indicator and hold down Shift as I
| | 02:49 |
drag, it too will snap to the beginning of
that layer.
| | 02:52 |
Or snap to the next key frame.
Now, if you haven't done so, click and
| | 02:56 |
drag down to around frame 813.
Notice now I have the word training there,
| | 03:01 |
and the plus element.
Now, since I can't see that, I'm going to
| | 03:05 |
use a key command Shift+Cmd+H.
That'll hide any control handles of layers
| | 03:11 |
that I currently have selected.
Now, we're finally in a place to where we
| | 03:15 |
can add text.
So, I want text to appear here that says
| | 03:19 |
Day 1.
But it's kind of interesting how we
| | 03:21 |
already have text in the scene, but we
haven't even learned how to add text.
| | 03:25 |
That's because we imported this element as
a layered Photoshop document.
| | 03:28 |
Now, I know in Photoshop that text was editable.
| | 03:31 |
But in After Effects, it came across as a
normal layer.
| | 03:34 |
So if I select Layer2 and I open its
different trans forma options under
| | 03:39 |
transform, you can see I have my normal xy
position options and my anchor point and
| | 03:45 |
scale.
But I don't have any other ability to edit
| | 03:48 |
this.
Well if I go up under the Layer menu and
| | 03:50 |
Choose.
Convert to Editable Text.
| | 03:53 |
I could convert that Photoshop layer to
fully editable text.
| | 03:57 |
Now, its appearance changed, and if I open
Layer two, you can see that I had Layer
| | 04:02 |
Styles applied.
Sometimes when you have Layer Styles
| | 04:04 |
applied to text and it's imported into
After Effects, when you make that text
| | 04:09 |
editable again Sometimes it'll disappear.
Not all the time, but sometimes.
| | 04:13 |
Well anyway, let's go ahead and collapse
layer two.
| | 04:16 |
Now remember when I hid those control handles?
| | 04:18 |
If you press shift Ctrl H, you can reveal
them again.
| | 04:22 |
Now since I've convert this text to
editable text, the anchor point is here on
| | 04:27 |
the left hand side.
Here I'm going to scroll up so you can see
| | 04:30 |
it better.
See, it's on the left hand side.
| | 04:33 |
Now, that's because the text is left justified.
| | 04:35 |
To learn about the justification settings,
let's go ahead and add another layer of
| | 04:39 |
type.
I'm going to go up and click on the text
| | 04:41 |
tool on the tool panel.
You can also press command T or control T
| | 04:45 |
on Windows, to open that up.
Now if you look over to the right you
| | 04:48 |
should see auto open panels.
That's selected.
| | 04:51 |
As long as that's selected, if you look in
the lower right corner of the interface
| | 04:55 |
you'll see your character panel and your
paragraph panel.
| | 04:58 |
The character panel determines the type
face that you'll use and the paragraph
| | 05:02 |
panel determines the justification.
So lets just click in our (UNKNOWN) panel.
| | 05:06 |
Lets click over here and type the words
Day One press Enter on your keypad to set
| | 05:13 |
the text or just grab your selection tool
by clicking the Tool panel.
| | 05:18 |
Now, this text is way too small, so if we
go to our character panel we can click and
| | 05:22 |
drag on that parameter to crank up the
sizes of that text.
| | 05:25 |
Now, I don't want it to be the same size
as the training text so I'll just make it
| | 05:29 |
a little bit smaller may be around 30 points.
| | 05:32 |
Now I could also just click in the value
just like anywhere else in the interface
| | 05:37 |
and type the value and press enter on my
keypad to set that.
| | 05:42 |
Now notice this text is left justified as well.
| | 05:45 |
If I clicked the center text, now the
anchor point is set up around the center.
| | 05:49 |
If we press w to grab our rotation tool, I
can click and drag on that layer and it
| | 05:54 |
will rotate around its anchor point.
I'll just press command z to undo.
| | 05:58 |
So, we've added the text where we would
like it to appear in the timeline, but if
| | 06:02 |
we look in the timeline notice my
magnification has changed.
| | 06:05 |
I'm not seeing the full ten seconds, thats
because this paragraph panel appeared.
| | 06:10 |
If I were to zoom back out in my timeline,
I can click on this little time navigator
| | 06:14 |
end button, and drag to the right.
Now I can see where my text layer is and
| | 06:20 |
my current time indicator.
Notice when I added the text it created
| | 06:24 |
text and it added it to be the entire
length of the project.
| | 06:28 |
Well I'm going to quickly and easily trim
this to start with the other text.
| | 06:32 |
The way I can do that is just by hovering
my mouse over the left edge and then
| | 06:35 |
licking and dragging.
And you guessed it, hold down shift after
| | 06:39 |
you start dragging, and it will snap to
the start point of the other layers.
| | 06:43 |
Now if I want to add the same fade in to
that text that's on the plus layer, I can
| | 06:48 |
click and drag a lasso around those two
opacity keyframes.
| | 06:52 |
If you press Command c or Control c on
Windows to copy, then you can select
| | 06:56 |
Layer1.
Press i to move the time indicator to the
| | 06:59 |
start of that layer and then press Cmd + V
or Ctrl + V to paste.
| | 07:04 |
So if we scrub through our animation
moving the current time indicator, we've
| | 07:09 |
now added our second row of text.
And it fades in.
| | 07:13 |
With the other text.
So remember, when you add text, pay
| | 07:17 |
attention to where its visibility is
within the layer hierarchy, but also,
| | 07:21 |
where it lives within the timeline itself.
So you know exactly when it's going to
| | 07:25 |
appear in your animation.
| | 07:27 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Applying effects and shapes| 00:00 |
It's usually somewhere after the rough
animation phase when I realize that I need
| | 00:05 |
to start drawing the viewer's eye towards
specific areas of the scene and create a
| | 00:10 |
sense of visual hierarchy.
In order to do that, a lot of times I'll
| | 00:13 |
turn to Effects and sometimes I'll even
add a extra graphic elements into the
| | 00:18 |
scene like Shapes.
Now, before we start doing that in this
| | 00:21 |
project, I want you to notice that there
are a number of panels that are open that
| | 00:25 |
don't necessarily need to be there.
This is quite common when you're working
| | 00:29 |
and building different elements.
So, there are a couple, quick things you
| | 00:32 |
can do to reset the interface before you
get started.
| | 00:35 |
Let's go up to the upper right corner, and
under the Workspace pull-down, let's click
| | 00:38 |
on Standard and choose Reset Standard.
Yes, we want to reset it to its original
| | 00:43 |
layout and this looks significantly better
but I'm noticing that I'm still cutting
| | 00:48 |
off parts of my composition.
So, if you just click once in your
| | 00:52 |
Composition panel to make sure that it's
active with this orange yellow line around
| | 00:56 |
outside, you can press Shift+Question Mark
key or the Forward Slash key.
| | 01:01 |
When you press those two keys, you'll
automatically resize that image to fit in
| | 01:05 |
the window.
Now if I go ahead and click and drag to
| | 01:08 |
change the size of my timeline, notice
it's going to go ahead and scale up or
| | 01:12 |
down accordingly.
Now another little tip while you're
| | 01:15 |
working.
If you're at 50% magnification, you
| | 01:18 |
probably want to look over here at your
resolution pull-down.
| | 01:22 |
Let's click on this one because it's set
to full.
| | 01:24 |
I want to set mine to Auto.
What Auto does is it helps After Effects
| | 01:29 |
optimize the viewing of this specific composition.
| | 01:32 |
So for example, if I'm at 50%
magnification, it really only needs to
| | 01:36 |
render half the pixels.
So, it goes ahead and cuts down on the
| | 01:40 |
resolution to half.
So now, since I set it to auto, if I
| | 01:43 |
change my resolution, this will change
accordingly and that helps speed things
| | 01:47 |
up.
But I know, we haven't added effects or
| | 01:49 |
text yet.
So let's see why we want to add effects or
| | 01:52 |
text and then we'll get started.
So, if you go down to the timeline, click
| | 01:57 |
on the current time indicator and scrub
through the animation.
| | 02:00 |
At around 5 seconds I can see that I've
this kind of cool graphic look that's
| | 02:05 |
built through the scene but now when we
move down to our little end here, we have
| | 02:10 |
training that's popped up and Day One
that's sort of after the side.
| | 02:14 |
And then our sort of bug logo in the corner.
| | 02:16 |
Well, I want these words to pop off the
background a little bit more clearly
| | 02:20 |
because I have all of this visual noise
that's created from all these different
| | 02:25 |
bleachers.
So, we'll start by actually blurring the
| | 02:28 |
background a little bit and then, we'll
see what we can do to add some shapes and
| | 02:32 |
adjust some transparency, so we can lead
people around the scene visually.
| | 02:37 |
So, let's move our current time indicator
to around frame 08:12.
| | 02:41 |
Now, make sure you have Layer 12 selected,
the stair run down layer.
| | 02:45 |
If you're wondering why it's numbered
Layer 12, it's because we have a bunch of
| | 02:49 |
layers hidden using the shy key.
Alright, so with 12 selected let's go up
| | 02:54 |
under the Effect pull down.
And the effects controls the last filter
| | 02:58 |
that you ever applied will automatically
be loaded up here so you can quickly use
| | 03:02 |
the key command to get it back.
Effects are all grouped into different
| | 03:06 |
groups based on what you're trying to do.
So if I were trying to stylize this, I had
| | 03:10 |
a bunch of Stylize options like Glow or Posterize.
| | 03:14 |
But I want to add a Blur.
So I'm going to go to the Blur section,
| | 03:17 |
and sure enough I'll add Fast Blur.
I like Fast Blur because it renders
| | 03:21 |
relatively quickly and it still gives a
decent blur.
| | 03:25 |
Now let's increase the amount of blur.
I like to click and drag on a parameters
| | 03:29 |
so I can see a preview of whats happening
as I make the adjustment.
| | 03:33 |
So I still want to see our runner running
down the steps, but he doesn't need to be
| | 03:37 |
a sharp, so let's set the blurriness to
around 12.
| | 03:41 |
You might notice here on the left side of
my Effect control right next to the word
| | 03:45 |
Blurriness and Blur Dimension, I can add
key frames.
| | 03:47 |
So let's go ahead and do that.
When we add the key frame, it's
| | 03:51 |
automatically going to be added to frame
08:12 because that's where my current time
| | 03:55 |
indicator is.
Now, I don't want this layer to start this
| | 03:59 |
blurry.
I want to see the layer clearly, and then
| | 04:01 |
have it blur in.
So if we scrub through Animation, you can
| | 04:05 |
see I'm going from this blue into this
open scene.
| | 04:08 |
So right here at the transition at eight
seconds, is where I want the blur to
| | 04:12 |
start.
Now I know these layers begin at 8
| | 04:15 |
seconds, so I'm going to go ahead and
click on Layer 3, the training layer, and
| | 04:18 |
I'll press I on my keyboard to make sure
that I'm at the aim point of that layer.
| | 04:23 |
Now let's reselect our stair rundown
layer, and we can change our blurriness
| | 04:28 |
parameter from 12 to zero.
Now we've actually added two keyframes.
| | 04:32 |
If you want to see those keyframes, press
the U key or the Uber key on your
| | 04:37 |
keyboard, to show any animated properties
for that layer.
| | 04:40 |
Now, if we scrub through the animation
again, you can see Okay, the colors fade
| | 04:45 |
and then we got our blur, and our text
comes in.
| | 04:48 |
Training is the most dominant thing.
Day One is kind of secondary, and then
| | 04:51 |
this bug logo is way too bright for my
personal taste.
| | 04:55 |
So let's go ahead and scrub to the
colorful area here, and adjust the
| | 05:01 |
brightness of our h+ logo.
So I'm going to click right on that logo
| | 05:04 |
in the Comp panel.
And notice I'm having a hard time
| | 05:07 |
selecting that layer.
So if we go to the Timeline panel and
| | 05:11 |
click on layer 2, now it's selected.
I want you to press T to open its Opacity.
| | 05:17 |
And, then we can just click and drag to
adjust its Opacity down a little bit.
| | 05:22 |
Let's bring it down, actually, quite a bit
to like 35%.
| | 05:26 |
Now as we scrub through, you can see, I
still have that logo in the corner, but
| | 05:30 |
it's not nearly as distracting.
Now to add a little bit more attention
| | 05:34 |
behind the word Training, I'm going to add
a shape layer to that word.
| | 05:37 |
So to do that, we want to make sure that
we don't have any layers selected in our
| | 05:41 |
timeline.
And we currently don't.
| | 05:43 |
So now we can go up, and click on a shape.
Mine's already set to the Ellipse tool.
| | 05:48 |
Yours may look like this, with the
rectangle tool.
| | 05:50 |
You can also press Q on your keyboard, and
each time you press Q, it will cycle
| | 05:55 |
through the different shapes.
Now, to add the shape, all we have to do
| | 05:58 |
is just click and drag.
So, as I'm dragging, I'm determining the
| | 06:03 |
size of the shape.
I want it to fill right over top of that
| | 06:06 |
training word.
Now since I can't see what's going on, I'm
| | 06:09 |
just going to go ahead and let go with my mouse.
| | 06:11 |
The color of my shape is this color
because of the fill setting up here at the
| | 06:15 |
top.
The last time I created any graphic
| | 06:17 |
element in After Effects.
It was that color.
| | 06:20 |
Yours may be white or another color.
So if you want to change the color just
| | 06:24 |
click on the colors square and choose a
different color.
| | 06:27 |
Now I am going to go ahead and kind of
choose that kind of dark blue color here
| | 06:31 |
and I'll click OK.
Now so I can see the text on top of the
| | 06:34 |
shape, let's move it in the layer hierarchy.
| | 06:37 |
So click on Layer 1 and move it down below
Layer 2.
| | 06:40 |
So now when we let go we have our text
layer and our shape later, but you notice,
| | 06:45 |
well, Day One is not our text layer.
Our text layer is all the way down here
| | 06:49 |
for training.
So let's go ahead and bring that up in the
| | 06:52 |
hierarchy.
I'm going to click on layer four and drag
| | 06:54 |
it up above layer two.
Now, I can see that word.
| | 06:58 |
But I'm noticing I'm missing my plus symbol.
| | 07:01 |
So, if we scroll down, there's layer 5.
I can bring that up as well.
| | 07:05 |
Okay.
Now we have the word, training, over top
| | 07:09 |
of our shapes.
I'm having a hard time seeing what's going
| | 07:12 |
on.
So I'm going to press Shift+Cmd+H to hide
| | 07:15 |
any handles of any layers that we
currently have selected.
| | 07:19 |
Now, we can select Layer 4, and adjust its
Opacity down because I find it's a little
| | 07:23 |
flat in it's appearance.
So, with Layer 4 selected, you guessed it,
| | 07:27 |
press T to open the Opacity.
And let's bring the opacity down a little
| | 07:33 |
bit.
Let's bring it down to around 35%.
| | 07:36 |
Now, I want this to fade in with the word itself.
| | 07:39 |
So, if we select the word training and
press the U key, we can open it's
| | 07:43 |
keyframes.
Now, to quickly navigate in the timeline,
| | 07:46 |
I'm going to press J to move back to the
previous key frame.
| | 07:50 |
And then, I'll set a key frame for the
opacity of our shape layer.
| | 07:55 |
(SOUND) Now I can press J one more time to
move to the previous key frame and I'll
| | 07:59 |
set the Opacity to zero.
You can quickly navigate between key
| | 08:04 |
frames using J and K.
J moves you earlier in your timeline.
| | 08:10 |
So, an earlier point in time.
And then K moves you later in your
| | 08:14 |
timeline or downstream from where you are.
So, we're almost finished.
| | 08:18 |
Now, all we need to do is preview our animation.
| | 08:21 |
A lot of times, I like to go ahead and
just scrub with my current time indicator.
| | 08:25 |
That way, I get a good general idea as to
what's going on.
| | 08:29 |
As I'm looking at this, the fact that Day
One is way over here on the side is
| | 08:33 |
bothering me.
So I'm going to grab my Selection tool and
| | 08:37 |
just click right on Day One and start to
move it.
| | 08:39 |
Now notice I'm not seeing any of those handles.
| | 08:42 |
Remember, when you use Shift+Cmd+H to hide
handles,you want to generally press
| | 08:46 |
Shift+Cmd+H, so you can see them again and
continue working.
| | 08:50 |
And when you think about shape layers or
effects,they work very much like any other
| | 08:54 |
layer in After Effects.
You just need to be very aware of what
| | 08:58 |
layer is selected before you add them into
the scene.
| | 09:01 |
Or once you add them into the scene, you
need to really think about why you're
| | 09:05 |
adding it into the scene.
And is it actually solving a problem or
| | 09:08 |
creating another one?
| | 09:09 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Finishing your project| 00:00 |
Now, there comes a time in every graphic
animation where you have to look at what
| | 00:04 |
you've created and decide, am I finished
and does this solve the problem?
| | 00:09 |
And if we look at the graphic we've
created here, let's consider that we're
| | 00:13 |
creating a graphic bumper.
And its design is to go from full screen
| | 00:17 |
video to graphic element to tease what's
coming up in the next video and then our
| | 00:22 |
job is done.
Because this is going to be edited with a
| | 00:25 |
show and then there'll be other video on
the other side of this.
| | 00:28 |
So, in looking at this, I'm realizing
there are several things that I personally
| | 00:33 |
would like to do to make adjustments to
this graphic.
| | 00:37 |
But based on what I've already shown you
and taught you earlier in this chapter,
| | 00:41 |
there aren't any new techniques in terms
of sliding things around and making
| | 00:46 |
elements appear or disappear any more quickly.
| | 00:50 |
It's all just a matter of personal taste.
So what I'm going to do is take you
| | 00:55 |
through one or two at the adjustments at
all make.
| | 00:58 |
And then I encourage you to practice the
skills that we've learned in this chapter.
| | 01:02 |
And try to make some of your own adjustment.
| | 01:05 |
Now, just so you have it for reference for
those of you who have access to the
| | 01:08 |
exercise files, I'll save a finished
version of this project off, so you can
| | 01:12 |
look at it and see some of the changes
that I've made.
| | 01:15 |
This is also going to be an important step
in your learning process because just
| | 01:18 |
following me is one thing, but
understanding what you're doing as you're
| | 01:22 |
doing it is a completely different thing.
So I'm sure we all know that, so let's go
| | 01:26 |
ahead and get started here.
I'm going to click and drag with my
| | 01:28 |
current time indicator through the
project, and I'm looking at this large
| | 01:33 |
section of graphic and realizing there
really isn't much going on in this scene.
| | 01:38 |
So what I would do is build the animation
of these different layers into the
| | 01:43 |
project.
Now, as I'm looking at the layers in the
| | 01:46 |
timeline, I'm just scrolling up and down
with my mouse wheel, I can see my layer
| | 01:50 |
numbers go from 5 to 13.
That's a giveaway that I have some layers
| | 01:54 |
hidden with the Shy button.
And sure enough, if we go look at the Shy
| | 01:58 |
button at the top of my timeline, it's enabled.
| | 02:00 |
Let's disable that.
If we scroll down, we can see that I have
| | 02:05 |
layer 12 through 6 and these are the
elements that make up the scene.
| | 02:09 |
Now what I'll do is just animate one of
these plus layers.
| | 02:14 |
Since I want these elements to build into
the thing, one after another, what I'm
| | 02:18 |
going to do is press the U key so I can
see any animated parameters for that
| | 02:22 |
individual layer.
For this layer, the opacity faded in at
| | 02:26 |
the start.
I would like this to be one of the last
| | 02:28 |
elements to fade into the scene.
So I'm going to click and drop a lasso
| | 02:32 |
around these two key frames.
So, I can start the fade later on in that
| | 02:37 |
layer.
I'm going to click on the first key frame
| | 02:39 |
and drag it to the right.
Let's say we don't want it to fade in
| | 02:42 |
until about three seconds because we have
several layers here.
| | 02:44 |
So, we could stagger this for each layer.
Alright now since I've moved the start of
| | 02:50 |
the opacity, let's go ahead and trim the
end point of that layer just by just by
| | 02:53 |
clicking and dragging on the left side.
Just make sure you don't drag it past this
| | 02:58 |
first key frame.
So lets go ahead and leave it roughly
| | 03:00 |
around here.
To navigate between key frames I can just
| | 03:03 |
click on this arrow here.
And just to trim this layer precisely I'm
| | 03:07 |
going to hold down the option key and
press the left bracket.
| | 03:10 |
The bracket keys are next to the letter P,
so Option on the Mac, Alt on the PC.
| | 03:16 |
So, with the current time indicator of the
start of the layer, let's collapse he
| | 03:19 |
Layer properties by clicking the arrow and
then clicking one more time to open all
| | 03:23 |
the different transform options.
Now, I want to add a slight scale to this
| | 03:27 |
one layer.
So, I'm going to click the stop watch next
| | 03:30 |
to scale to add the key frame.
Now, to move to the end of the timeline we
| | 03:33 |
can use our key Cmd+O.
O will jump you to the outpoint of
| | 03:37 |
whatever layer that you're currently
working on.
| | 03:39 |
So now, let's change the scale parameter up.
| | 03:41 |
I'm going to click on X value for the
scale parameter and change it to 125.
| | 03:48 |
Now, when I press Enter on the keyboard
I've added a second key frame.
| | 03:52 |
To see how this looks, I'll go ahead and
move my current time indicator to the
| | 03:56 |
start of that layer.
In the Preview panel, I'll make sure From
| | 04:01 |
Current Time is selected, and then click
the Preview button.
| | 04:05 |
This will give me a preview as to how that
layer is moving.
| | 04:08 |
And notice just by adding that slight
scale move, I've already started adding a
| | 04:14 |
different sense of depth to the scene.
So, I going to press the Spacebar and just
| | 04:19 |
stop playback here, because this is the
point where I encourage you to go back
| | 04:24 |
through the project and analyze what we're
dealing with.
| | 04:27 |
Definitely, get comfortable creating some
more key frames, and sliding your layers
| | 04:31 |
all around the timeline.
Have fun with it.
| | 04:34 |
Adjust the timing and remember, you're not
finished until you say so.
| | 04:38 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Adding to the Render Queue| 00:00 |
So you've gone through the process.
You've edited your file, you've scrubbed
| | 00:04 |
through your project, and decided: this is
something I want to share with the world.
| | 00:08 |
Then you're ready to use the Render Queue.
The Render Queue in After Effects gives
| | 00:12 |
you the ability to create self-contained
files outside of After Effects, and so,
| | 00:17 |
that obviously makes it pretty easy to share.
| | 00:21 |
Now, in order to add something to the
Render Queue, you need to make sure you're
| | 00:24 |
in the right composition.
So, in the bottom of my Timeline panel
| | 00:28 |
here, I'm just going to make sure that my
Training_Swoosh timeline is active, and
| | 00:32 |
then I'm going to go up under Composition,
and choose Add to Render Queue.
| | 00:36 |
Once you add the file to the Render Queue,
you should see this pop up in the bottom
| | 00:41 |
of your interface.
Now, just so we can see things more
| | 00:44 |
clearly.
I'm going to reposition this panel right
| | 00:47 |
over top of my Composition panel.
So if you click these little grippy things
| | 00:51 |
to the left of the word Render, you can
click and drag.
| | 00:54 |
And I'm just holding my mouse button down.
And you want to make sure you get a purple
| | 00:58 |
bar up here at the top that just goes
across the Composition panel.
| | 01:03 |
Once you have that, our Render Queue is
top dead center in the middle of our
| | 01:07 |
interface.
Now, as I'm looking at this there are
| | 01:10 |
three main options for creating the file.
The first one you should look at is over
| | 01:15 |
here under Output To.
Now, mine says Training_Swoosh.
| | 01:19 |
Yours may say no destination yet or not
assigned yet or not yet assigned or
| | 01:23 |
something like that.
If you click on those words, you can
| | 01:27 |
specify where you'd like to render that file.
| | 01:30 |
Now, I'm just going to render mine right
to my Exercise Files folder.
| | 01:34 |
Now notice, it named the file or it
assumed that you want to name the file,
| | 01:38 |
the same name as your composition.
Now, I know this bumper was called
| | 01:42 |
training day one, so I'm just going to
rename swoosh, DayOne, making sure to
| | 01:48 |
leave the training underscore on there.
Now I've named my file, I've chosen where
| | 01:53 |
I want to save it, I can click save.
The two other main setting areas are the
| | 01:58 |
Render Settings and the Output Module .
So the Render Settings, if we click on the
| | 02:03 |
word Best Settings, this is where we can
specify how large the file's going to be,
| | 02:08 |
in terms of its pixel dimensions.
By default, it'll render Full size based
| | 02:13 |
on whatever your composition was set at.
Mine was set at 1280 by 720, so that's
| | 02:17 |
what it's going to render at.
Now, down here, in the Time Sampling
| | 02:21 |
section, if you go to the right side,
there's a Custom button.
| | 02:25 |
This would allow you to change a different duration.
| | 02:27 |
If you only wanted to render, say the
first Five seconds of your project.
| | 02:31 |
You could click Custom here and then
choose a different ending, say 500.
| | 02:37 |
I don't want to do that so I'm just going
to click Cancel.
| | 02:40 |
You can always just give a quick glance to
make sure it's going to start at 0 and end
| | 02:45 |
at your last frame giving you a total
duration that matches your comp.
| | 02:50 |
Now, if you click OK, it'll set that as
your Best Settings.
| | 02:54 |
Now, the Output Module here is set to losses.
| | 02:57 |
Now, on the Mac, that means a Quick Time file.
| | 02:59 |
in Windows, most likely it's a Windows
media file.
| | 03:02 |
You can click on the arrow to the left of
this setting And choose other preset
| | 03:07 |
settings.
I could render to a Flash Video file or a
| | 03:11 |
Flash Four video file, but I'm going to
leave mine set to Lossless.
| | 03:16 |
If you click on the word lossless, we get
a couple different options.
| | 03:20 |
Under format for me, again, I'm on a Mac,
it's going to say Quicktime.
| | 03:23 |
I could choose an image sequence or some
other setting if I wanted, but I'll just
| | 03:29 |
leave it set to QuickTime.
Now, Output Video is where I can specify
| | 03:34 |
whether I want to render just the RGB, or
whether I want to render it with an Alpha
| | 03:39 |
channel.
And Alpha channel we don't have, because
| | 03:42 |
that was a full screen graphic, so we can
leave the default setting of RGB.
| | 03:47 |
Over here under Format Options, I can
choose a different Codec.
| | 03:51 |
Animation is a very good Codec to render
if you're rendering for Quick Time files.
| | 03:55 |
Because animation is automatically
included on any system that has Quick Time
| | 04:00 |
Player.
>> Mac or PC.
| | 04:03 |
Down here at the bottom we can specify if
we want to render with audio or not.
| | 04:07 |
By default, it will render with audio if
your comp has it, but if it doesn't have
| | 04:12 |
it, it won't render the audio.
So, I usually just leave this at its
| | 04:16 |
default settings and then click OK.
Now to render your file, all you have to
| | 04:20 |
do is click the button over here in the
upper right corner.
| | 04:23 |
Click Render.
Once you do that, you should see a
| | 04:26 |
progress bar changing along here.
Now, it may take a few seconds to
| | 04:30 |
initialize if you've queued up
multiprocessor rendering.
| | 04:34 |
As it's rendering here, you'll see what
frame it's on, how much time it's taking
| | 04:38 |
and an estimate of how much longer it's
going to take.
| | 04:41 |
If you need to have more space so you can
read all these words, you could resize the
| | 04:46 |
Render Queue before you hit the Render.
But this one's going rather quickly, so
| | 04:51 |
I'm going to leave it the way it was set.
When it's finished, it'll give you a
| | 04:55 |
Render Time, that only took 36 seconds for
my system to render.
| | 04:59 |
So I'm going to jump into my finder here
and navigate to my Exercise Files folder
| | 05:04 |
on my desktop.
In here, there we have our Training Day
| | 05:08 |
One video file.
If we double-click, you'll see we have our
| | 05:11 |
full resolution file and I can go ahead
and play that and watch what are file
| | 05:17 |
actually looks like.
So there you have it, when you're finished
| | 05:20 |
with your project and you want to share
with the world, just make sure you have
| | 05:24 |
the right composition selected in your
After Effects project, then go up under
| | 05:28 |
Composition, and add it to the Render queue.
| | 05:31 |
Whenever you're ready, go ahead and click
Render, and your file will be created.
| | 05:35 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
3. Understanding CompositionsExploring composition and project settings| 00:00 |
Now it seems like there's always more than
one way to complete a task inside of After
| | 00:04 |
Effects.
And creating compositions is no different.
| | 00:07 |
So when you're first getting started,
sometimes all the options for creating
| | 00:12 |
compositions can be a little overwhelming.
Well, I have a tip for you.
| | 00:15 |
When you first start using After Effects,
you might want to try and create your
| | 00:19 |
compositions using external footage.
For example, a video clip.
| | 00:24 |
Video clips are great because they
actually give you a resolution to work at.
| | 00:28 |
And this way you can make sure any
graphics that you create will
| | 00:31 |
automatically match the settings of that video.
| | 00:33 |
So to show you what I mean, let's import
some video into our project.
| | 00:38 |
Just double click down here in the open
area of the project panel to open your
| | 00:42 |
import file dialogue box.
And make sure you navigate in your footage
| | 00:46 |
folder for your exercise files To the
video folder, and let's import the Stair
| | 00:52 |
Rundown movie.
You can just double click to import and
| | 00:57 |
you should see the Quiktime file sitting
in your project panel.
| | 01:00 |
Now with the file selected, look up to the
top of the project panel and you can see
| | 01:03 |
it has a framerate, has a duration, a
pixel size, audio settings.
| | 01:08 |
It has all the things necessary required
to create a comp.
| | 01:12 |
So to create a comp from this, all you
have to do is click on the file and drag
| | 01:15 |
it down to this little icon that looks
sort of like a filmstrip next to the
| | 01:19 |
letters 8 bpc.
When I let go, boom.
| | 01:22 |
I've created my first composition, and it
already has the comp.
| | 01:26 |
settings and the overall duration, and the
frame rate.
| | 01:29 |
Now, just because I've imported this and
created the composition, doesn't mean I
| | 01:33 |
can't go back and change my comp settings.
Say for example, I have this large video
| | 01:38 |
clip that I want to work at 1280 by 720.
Well, you can adjust your comp settings
| | 01:44 |
really quickly by pressing Cmd + K or Ctrl
+ K on the PC to open up your composition
| | 01:50 |
settings.
Lets look at the preset options.
| | 01:52 |
If you click on the custom pulldown, you
can see we have Web options, Standard
| | 01:56 |
Definition options for the Americas or for Europe.
| | 02:01 |
Then we have HD options and of course film options.
| | 02:05 |
Now, I'm going to change this to a 720
setting HDV HDTV 720 29 97.
| | 02:14 |
When I click OK the composition size is
changed but the video size is not.
| | 02:20 |
Compositions are independent of any of
their layers in the fact that the layers.
| | 02:25 |
Are just contained inside of the comp.
Now, when I chose this preset, it also
| | 02:30 |
changed the frame rate.
And since my video was 23, 9, whatever,
| | 02:35 |
I'm going to go ahead and click on the
pull down and choose 23, 9, 7, 6.
| | 02:40 |
Now, there are a couple other options I
want you to look at here, resolution,
| | 02:44 |
start timecode, duration, and background color.
| | 02:46 |
The start timecode is 0 based on our video clip.
| | 02:51 |
But if you have a video camera that shoots
video footage directly digitally, you can
| | 02:56 |
add timecode for that file.
And then if you create a comp from that
| | 03:00 |
file, you'll get a different starting timecode.
| | 03:03 |
Sometimes that throws people off when
they're first getting to know After
| | 03:06 |
Effects.
So if you ever see this time setting and
| | 03:09 |
it's got a crazy number.
You might want to open your comp settings
| | 03:12 |
and change your start time code to zero.
Now the duration is automatically the
| | 03:17 |
default of the video file.
Now since I want to create a 10 second
| | 03:21 |
title loop, I'm going to change the
duration to 10.00 and you notice here in
| | 03:26 |
my time code settings, I've changed the duration.
| | 03:29 |
Now, I can adjust the background color for
the composition, but since the video is
| | 03:34 |
taking up the full screen, not going to
worry about that for right now.
| | 03:37 |
Go ahead and click OK.
Now if you notice, if I scroll out by
| | 03:42 |
leaving my mouse over the Comp window and
just scrolling with my scroll wheel, you
| | 03:45 |
can see I have my control handles and my
video footage is much larger than my
| | 03:51 |
Composition window.
Now when you go to render a project or
| | 03:54 |
create a video file.
Any thing that's inside of this area
| | 03:59 |
you're going to actually see but this area
on the outside is sort of backstage if
| | 04:03 |
this was an actual stage none of this
extra area is going to get cut off.
| | 04:08 |
But since this footage is larger than my
comp settings if I scrub my play head down
| | 04:13 |
here.
We can see, okay there I've got a runner.
| | 04:16 |
I can go ahead and move my clip around and
I could animate this if I want to add a
| | 04:22 |
little bit more drama to the scene.
Well, we've imported footage and created a
| | 04:27 |
composition from it.
How do you create a composition just
| | 04:31 |
straight from scratch?
You can press Cmd + N or Ctrl + N on the
| | 04:35 |
PC, to open up the dialogue box.
Or you could just go to Composition > New
| | 04:40 |
Composition.
This way, we could create a completely
| | 04:43 |
new, blank composition.
Now, one thing I want you to notice.
| | 04:46 |
When we create a new composition, it's
automatically going to use the settings
| | 04:51 |
that we had set up, the last time we
created a composition.
| | 04:54 |
So my custom preset was 1280 by 720 and
23976 frame rate.
| | 05:00 |
That's exactly what my comp settings are
set to right now.
| | 05:03 |
So if you ever change your comp settings,
the next time you go to create a new comp
| | 05:08 |
setting Just remember that the new options
will be propagating this box.
| | 05:13 |
So I click OK, we have a blank container.
Now there's one last way to create
| | 05:20 |
compositions, and that's from duplicating
an already existing composition.
| | 05:24 |
So if we open our AAA_Compositions folder,
double-click on the dedication folder and
| | 05:30 |
as you can see I already have a graphic
built here.
| | 05:33 |
Now let's say I have a client that says, okay?
| | 05:35 |
I want one that says Dedication and one
that says Determination.
| | 05:40 |
You can keep the same background.
Like, oh okay.
| | 05:42 |
Great, I'll select the Dedication column
and go up to Edit and choose Duplicate or
| | 05:47 |
just press Cmd + D or Ctrl + D on the PC.
Now with Dedication 2 in the comp panel,
| | 05:54 |
since it's highlighted, I can press Return
on my keyboard to rename it.
| | 05:57 |
And let's call it Determination, there we
go press Enter.
| | 06:02 |
And if we double-click our new
Determination comp, now we can come into
| | 06:06 |
our text layer here, for Layer 4, and just
double-click and say determination.
| | 06:13 |
If I could spell that would be wonderful,
there we go.
| | 06:16 |
All right, so quickly and easily, we've
created compositions using three different
| | 06:21 |
methods.
The first one will assure that you can
| | 06:25 |
actually match your graphics to any video
footage that you're working with.
| | 06:28 |
The second one is just starting from scratch.
| | 06:31 |
Just remember, it's always going to
remember the last time you've created a
| | 06:34 |
comp and use those settings for the
default settings the next time you create
| | 06:37 |
a comp.
And then the last way is great if you're
| | 06:40 |
creating different versions of a graphic.
You can just duplicate a version of
| | 06:44 |
composition and then make your changes
accordingly.
| | 06:47 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Importing Photoshop files as compositions| 00:00 |
If you're coming to After Effects from a
traditional design or photography
| | 00:04 |
background, you're probably already pretty
familiar with Photoshop.
| | 00:08 |
And that's one of the tools I recommend
most when people are getting started with
| | 00:12 |
After Effects.
I do this because you can import Photoshop
| | 00:16 |
documents into After Effects, and After
Effects will automatically create
| | 00:20 |
compositions for you.
So it saves you a step in trying to create
| | 00:24 |
the compositions again in After Effects.
But there are some things that you need to
| | 00:28 |
be aware of when you're preparing your
files to move from Photoshop to After
| | 00:32 |
Effects.
And to explore that, let's actually open a
| | 00:35 |
Photoshop document.
Navigate to your Exercise Files, in the
| | 00:39 |
footage folder, in the 01_Psd folder,
let's double-click on the
| | 00:44 |
Training_Swoosh.psd file.
That will open the file in Photoshop.
| | 00:48 |
I'm currently recording this in Photoshop CS6.
| | 00:51 |
So if you're using a different version,
things might look a little different.
| | 00:54 |
But the overall function should remain the same.
| | 00:56 |
Now if your interface doesn't look like
this, you'll want to reset the Workspace.
| | 01:01 |
Go up to Window > Workspace and make sure
Essentials is chosen.
| | 01:05 |
Or if it still looks different, go ahead
and reset your Essentials Workspace.
| | 01:10 |
Now, I want to analyze some of the layers
that we have in the lower right side of
| | 01:15 |
the interface.
The top two layers are text layers.
| | 01:18 |
I know they are fully editable because I
have that T icon to the left of the word.
| | 01:23 |
Just to double check which layer we're on,
turn the visibility off and on, and you
| | 01:26 |
can see we have a Text layer.
I'm going to press Cmd +, Ctrl + on
| | 01:31 |
Windows, to zoom in a little bit here, and
you can see that there's a subtle texture
| | 01:35 |
on this Text layer.
Now, if we look to right side of the
| | 01:38 |
Training layer in our Layers panel, we can
expand those options, and as you can see
| | 01:43 |
we have effects.
We have a color overlay, a pattern
| | 01:46 |
overlay, and a soft drop shadow.
To see what any of those are doing to the
| | 01:51 |
scene, just go ahead and turn off
visibility or turn it back on.
| | 01:54 |
Now, Layer Effects are a supported option
for importing into After Effects, but not
| | 02:00 |
all of them function quite the way you
would expect.
| | 02:04 |
To show you what I mean about that, we're
going to jump back into After Effects.
| | 02:07 |
There's one other thing I just wanted to
show you.
| | 02:10 |
We can collapse our Training layer.
Down towards the bottom, there's a
| | 02:14 |
Swoop_Lines layer.
Go ahead and select that, and I want you
| | 02:17 |
to pay attention, this is a Smart Object.
And the way this is created is by going up
| | 02:22 |
under File and choosing Place, and we've
placed an Illustrator file into this
| | 02:26 |
document.
I'm going to zoom out, Cmd + minus, just
| | 02:29 |
so you can see.
Now, the Swoop_Lines file also has a
| | 02:33 |
gradient overlay, and an outer glow, that
created this style.
| | 02:37 |
All right, now that we've dissected what's
going on with the layers in the Photoshop
| | 02:41 |
document, let's actually look at our
Photoshop setup.
| | 02:45 |
If you go up under Image, and choose Image
size, the document that we had created was
| | 02:51 |
1280 by 720.
Now, notice there's no mention of frame
| | 02:55 |
rate or anything like that.
These options were created by using one of
| | 02:59 |
the Photoshop presets.
If you're unfamiliar with the presets, let
| | 03:03 |
me show you how to set one up.
I'm going to click Cancel, and go up under
| | 03:06 |
File and choose New.
When you create a document in Photoshop,
| | 03:10 |
you get these options for presets.
Let's click on the first pull-down where
| | 03:14 |
it says Clipboard and choose Film & Video.
Under Film & Video, you can see we have a
| | 03:20 |
lot of different presets.
If I click on this HD/HDTV preset, you can
| | 03:24 |
see we have standard definition presets
for standard NTSC and PAL.
| | 03:29 |
Down towards the bottom, we have full
resolution film settings.
| | 03:32 |
Now the setting that we are going to use
is the HDV/HDTV 720P setting.
| | 03:38 |
This gives me a document that is 1280
pixels across by 720 pixels high.
| | 03:43 |
If you look closely at this, you can see
it has a frame rate specified of 29.97.
| | 03:48 |
That's because photo shop does support the
ability to open video files.
| | 03:53 |
Now, since we don't have any video in this
comp, this number really doesn't matter,
| | 03:58 |
and to show you that, let's actually go
ahead and import our composition into
| | 04:02 |
After Effects.
So I'm going to cancel this, because I
| | 04:04 |
don't want to create a new composition, we
already have one that's set up.
| | 04:09 |
Back to After Effects, double click in the
Project panel to import.
| | 04:13 |
Now, you want to go to your image folder,
Inside your exercise files, and in the
| | 04:19 |
Photoshop document folder.
Select Training_Swoosh by clicking once,
| | 04:23 |
and then under Import As, change the
Footage option from Footage to Composition
| | 04:29 |
Retain Layer Sizes.
Now, make sure Photoshop Sequence is
| | 04:32 |
deselected, it if it's not already on your system.
| | 04:35 |
And then click Open.
Look at this other popup where we could
| | 04:39 |
change our mind if we wanted to change it
back to, say Footage, which would import
| | 04:43 |
the layered document as flat, so it would
only have one layer.
| | 04:48 |
I want to choose Retain Layer Sizes
because that's the easiest for animation.
| | 04:52 |
And also down here, I have some options
for Merge Layer Styles.
| | 04:57 |
You want to make sure to choose Editable
Layer Styles, that way we could make
| | 05:00 |
changes inside of After Effects.
If I click OK, the comp is automatically
| | 05:05 |
imported.
Now, since the comp is already selected in
| | 05:08 |
the project panel, I want you to press Cmd
+ K or Ctrl + K on Windows, and we'll look
| | 05:14 |
at the Composition settings.
As you can see, the 1280 by 720 is
| | 05:18 |
completely translated.
But the frame rate is this 23.976.
| | 05:23 |
The reason this number is in my comp
settings has nothing to do with the
| | 05:27 |
Photoshop document and it has everything
to do with the last time I created a comp
| | 05:31 |
inside of After Effects.
The last time, I used this setting with
| | 05:35 |
23.976 under the frame rate and I also had
a duration of 10 seconds, so your settings
| | 05:43 |
might be slightly different.
Now, I want to change the duration of this
| | 05:47 |
comp from 10 seconds to 5 seconds.
So let's go ahead and highlight that
| | 05:50 |
number and just press 500.
Notice I don't need to put the colons, it
| | 05:54 |
automatically translates to 5 seconds.
Now, we'll click OK.
| | 05:58 |
If you double-click the comp in the
Projects panel, it'll automatically load
| | 06:02 |
up in your Comp window as well as the timeline.
| | 06:05 |
And as you can see, the text translated
and the texture is there.
| | 06:09 |
If we select Layer 2, I want you to open
up the options just by clicking on the
| | 06:13 |
triangle and open up the Layer Style options.
| | 06:17 |
Under here, notice we have our drop
shadow, our color overlay, and our pattern
| | 06:22 |
overlay.
And you can turn the Visibility off or on
| | 06:26 |
for all those different options.
Now, the interesting thing about Pattern
| | 06:29 |
Overlay is that it doesn't quite translate
in terms of editable.
| | 06:34 |
Notice, when I open up the options for
Pattern Overlay, I don't have the option
| | 06:38 |
to actually change the pattern.
If I wanted to change this, I would
| | 06:42 |
right-click on the Layer, and choose
Reveal Layer Source in Project, and then I
| | 06:47 |
would right-click on this Layer and choose
Reveal in the finder or I can just go up
| | 06:53 |
under Edit and choose Edit Original and
open it back up in Photoshop to make
| | 06:57 |
changes.
There is an important thing that happens
| | 07:00 |
when you import a layered Photoshop document.
| | 07:03 |
You can actually import the text this
editable text.
| | 07:07 |
So with Layer 2 selected, if you go up
under Layer and choose Convert to Editable
| | 07:13 |
Text, notice the text is now editable, I
have that same T option here, but I lost
| | 07:18 |
some options.
If we expand Layer 2 and look under our
| | 07:22 |
Layer Styles, notice we have our pattern
overlay, but it's no longer there.
| | 07:26 |
Also, the color overlay, if we expand its
options, well, the blend mode was set to
| | 07:31 |
Screen.
So if I just change that back to normal,
| | 07:35 |
you can see it's going to apply that dark color.
| | 07:37 |
So the color overlay worked.
It's really just the pattern overlay
| | 07:41 |
that's problematic when you want to import
it and then edit it or make your text
| | 07:46 |
editable.
So just be aware of that when you're
| | 07:48 |
working with layered Photoshop documents.
I'll go ahead and collapse Layer 2.
| | 07:53 |
If we scroll down on our timeline, we can
scroll down to any layers that are hidden.
| | 07:57 |
I want to select this Swoop_Lines layer.
I'm going to press 8 on my keypad to
| | 08:01 |
automatically select the layer and open up
its options.
| | 08:05 |
And if we open the Layer Style options.
Sure enough, we have our Gradient overlay,
| | 08:09 |
and that's all set up as well as our glow.
That's all set up.
| | 08:14 |
So if I change the magnification of our
comp to fit up to 100%, you can see
| | 08:19 |
everything that I've imported from my
Photoshop document has been brought into
| | 08:25 |
After Effects.
You just need to be careful in terms of
| | 08:28 |
exactly which layer styles you want to use.
| | 08:31 |
And manage whether or not they are
editable in After Effects or use the edit
| | 08:36 |
original command to make changes in
Photoshop.
| | 08:38 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Importing Illustrator files as compositions| 00:00 |
It's quite common to want to import
illustrator files into your After Effects
| | 00:04 |
projects because illustrator creates and
works with vector graphics.
| | 00:09 |
Vector graphics allow you to scale
elements and keep the resolution nice and
| | 00:13 |
sharp, but there are a couple different
things you need to be aware of when you
| | 00:17 |
actually go to import your illustrator project.
| | 00:20 |
So to get started I'm actually going to
jump to illustrator.
| | 00:23 |
Let's browse in our file browser to our
exercise files in the footage folder and
| | 00:28 |
make sure we go to the O2AI folder which
is our Illustrator folder.
| | 00:33 |
In here, I'm going to choose the
Determined.ai project.
| | 00:36 |
So double click to open inside of Illustrator.
| | 00:39 |
If your Illustrator layout doesn't look
like this, go up into window, workspace,
| | 00:45 |
and choose essentials.
Again, if it doesn't quite look like this
| | 00:48 |
choose reset essentials and the default
setting will set up.
| | 00:52 |
Now, if you look to the right side of the
interface, the second button from the
| | 00:56 |
bottom that looks like two triangles, if
you click on that, that's the Layers
| | 00:59 |
panel.
Now you could also open that under the
| | 01:02 |
Window menu and choose Layers.
With that open, you'll notice I have one
| | 01:07 |
layer.
If we turn the visibility off and on, you
| | 01:11 |
can see that one layer makes up this funky
kind of graphic.
| | 01:14 |
If you click on the little triangle.
It'll expand the sublayers within this
| | 01:21 |
Illustrator document.
Illustrator can support multiple objects
| | 01:25 |
on one individual layer.
Now the issue with this, if I tried to
| | 01:29 |
import this into After Effects, and I
wanted to control the text separate from
| | 01:34 |
this background graphic element, I
couldn't do that.
| | 01:36 |
This would actually import as a flattened element.
| | 01:40 |
So what I need to do is break this apart,
so these two layers are up on the top of
| | 01:44 |
this layer hierarchy by themselves.
Logic would tell you if you just clicked
| | 01:49 |
on one of these and try to drag it up.
You could do just that, but notice I get
| | 01:53 |
this big no symbol and so of course we
need to defy logic.
| | 01:58 |
So in order to do that, let's go ahead and
select Layer 1.
| | 02:02 |
Just click on the layer.
As long as it's highlighted in this blue
| | 02:06 |
color, you know you're in the right place.
Now, if you go to the upper right corner
| | 02:09 |
of the layers panel and click, you could
choose Release To Layers Sequence.
| | 02:15 |
And that's exactly what I want you to do.
So, click Release To Layers Sequence and
| | 02:19 |
notice now.
We have three seperate layers and they're
| | 02:22 |
named layer one layer two layer three.
If I click on layer three and then hold
| | 02:27 |
down Shift and click on layer two I can
then let go of the Shift button and just
| | 02:32 |
click and drag.
And both layers will move up and I want to
| | 02:36 |
move until the layer one actually gets
dark grey again, and when I let go those
| | 02:42 |
two layers will now be on the top of the
layer hierarchy.
| | 02:45 |
Now there's nothing left on layer one, so
I can go ahead and delete that by clicking
| | 02:49 |
and dragging the layer down to the trash.
Now let's rename layer 2 our text layer
| | 02:55 |
and just to make sure that it's text turn
the visibility off and on.
| | 02:58 |
There we go, okay?
So we will call this text.
| | 03:01 |
You could also call it determined,
whatever you like.
| | 03:03 |
And layer 3 let's double click and let's
call this graphic.
| | 03:09 |
Now we're ready to import this into our
After Effects project.
| | 03:13 |
Now as a general rule of thumb, when I get
logos that are sent to me and I need to
| | 03:17 |
animate them, I like to actually keep
copies of the originals.
| | 03:20 |
So, what I'm going to do is make sure not
to save over that, with this.
| | 03:24 |
So I'll go under File and choose Save As,
and we're going to choose a different
| | 03:28 |
name.
I'll choose determined and then underscore
| | 03:33 |
AE.
Now I do that just to label it so I know,
| | 03:36 |
hey, it's ready for After Effects import.
But notice I'm not changing the file
| | 03:40 |
extension, I'm just adding that as a part
of the name.
| | 03:42 |
Let's go ahead and click save and then
make sure in your illustrator options that
| | 03:48 |
you have pre PDF compatible file selected.
That just makes the interoperability
| | 03:52 |
between the applications work a little
more smoothly.
| | 03:56 |
Now if we hit OK, we're ready to actually
import this into After Effects.
| | 04:01 |
Go back into After Effects.
To import my illustrator file, I'm just
| | 04:05 |
going to double click in my project panel
down in this open grey area.
| | 04:09 |
With the import file box open.
Again, we'll navigate in our exercise
| | 04:15 |
files to the footage folder.
And this time, we'll go to the AI folder.
| | 04:19 |
There's our determined AE file.
And under import as, instead of footage.
| | 04:24 |
We'll choose composition, retain layer sizes.
| | 04:28 |
Now make sure this option for sequence is
deselected and then click open.
| | 04:33 |
Now we have the determined AE comp
imported and notice its duration is five
| | 04:38 |
seconds.
the reason the duration is set to five
| | 04:41 |
seconds, the last time I created a
composition in After Effects.
| | 04:45 |
I set it to 5 seconds.
And that's set to that frame rate for the
| | 04:49 |
exact same reason: The last time they
created a composition, it was at 23976.
| | 04:55 |
Don't worry if your comp is a little longer.
| | 04:57 |
As long as it's at least 5 seconds, you
should be good to go.
| | 05:00 |
If your comp settings are way different,
you can always press Cmd + K or Ctrl + K
| | 05:04 |
on Windows to open and adjust your comp
setting accordingly.
| | 05:07 |
If we double click our comp, it'll load it
in the comp window and the timeline.
| | 05:13 |
Now there's one more interesting thing you
should do with illustrator files when you
| | 05:17 |
want to retain their vector capabilities.
And that's Enable Continuously Rasterize.
| | 05:23 |
So to do that, I'm going to select Layer
1, our text layer.
| | 05:26 |
And if you move to the right of that
layer, you'll see this little (UNKNOWN)
| | 05:29 |
icon, and then right next to it is this
open box.
| | 05:34 |
If you click on it and hold, you can see
this switch Is continuously rasterized.
| | 05:39 |
Now, if you don't see these switches, you
want to go ahead and click this toggle
| | 05:42 |
switches and modes button, and make sure
that this is the proper mode.
| | 05:47 |
Okay, now with continuously rasterize
selected, I'm going to press S on my
| | 05:51 |
keyboard to open up the scale.
If I click and drag, I can go ahead and
| | 05:55 |
scale this up, and it stays nice and sharp.
| | 05:57 |
Just to give you a contrast, I could
disable that option, and as you could see,
| | 06:02 |
It's nice and rasterized which isn't at
all what we want.
| | 06:05 |
So, let's go ahead and enable continuously rasterize.
| | 06:10 |
Now I'm going to pause for a quick second,
because I want to explain a potential
| | 06:14 |
workflow thing that you should be aware of.
| | 06:15 |
So, inside of Photoshop, you can place
Illustrator documents as smart objects,
| | 06:22 |
and they'll maintain their vector
capabilities inside of Photoshop.
| | 06:26 |
And yes, After Effects can import layered
Photoshop documents.
| | 06:30 |
And we did that in a previous video.
And the Photoshop document we imported is
| | 06:35 |
here in our project panel.
Now, I want you to go ahead and double
| | 06:39 |
click on the training swoosh Photoshop
composition so we can open up the layers
| | 06:43 |
panel.
Now this swoop lines layer was actually a
| | 06:48 |
placed.
Illustrator file inside of Photoshop.
| | 06:52 |
I want you to notice there is no option
for continuously rasterize.
| | 06:56 |
When you have a smart object inside of
Photoshop its just that, smart and inside
| | 07:01 |
of Photoshop.
So when you go to import this into After
| | 07:04 |
Effects don't expect that vector nature to
actually translate.
| | 07:08 |
If you want to bring this in as a vector
graphic in and of itself, what you need to
| | 07:14 |
do is just import the file as an
Illustrator file, and then you'll actually
| | 07:19 |
have access to the continuously Rasterized option.
| | 07:23 |
So, as you can see, when it comes to
importing illustrator files.
| | 07:27 |
It's extraordinarily helpful because they
retain their vector layers.
| | 07:31 |
You just need to make sure to bop back
over into illustrator and make sure that
| | 07:35 |
each of the elements are on their own
layer if you want to animate each element
| | 07:39 |
separately.
| | 07:40 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Viewing files in the comp panel| 00:00 |
When you're working in After Effects, it's
extraordinarily important to understand
| | 00:04 |
how magnification and quality settings
affect how you're viewing your image.
| | 00:10 |
I was in a situation where I had a client
come into my room and look at a graphic
| | 00:14 |
and say, omigosh, is that really that jagged?
| | 00:18 |
And I said no, and a few keyboard
shortcuts later, they were totally
| | 00:22 |
relaxed.
But, when you're working in After Effects,
| | 00:25 |
sometimes you don't have the optimum
situation of a huge screen.
| | 00:29 |
For example, if we look in the center of
our comp panel, I have these jagged edges
| | 00:34 |
on my text.
Now when I render this out, the edges of
| | 00:37 |
the text are going to look beautiful.
But, if as you're working, you want to
| | 00:41 |
check how that looks, you want to change
the magnification.
| | 00:44 |
Now there are a couple ways you can do
this in the composition panel.
| | 00:46 |
One is by using, I call them the alligator
keys, but really, it's the Comma key and
| | 00:51 |
the Period key, just right next to the
letter M.
| | 00:54 |
So if I hit period, it'll zoom in to 100%,
and notice my resolution also changed up
| | 01:01 |
to 100%.
This automatically updates and changes
| | 01:04 |
with the magnification setting, as long as
you have it set to Auto.
| | 01:07 |
So I'm going to click on Full and make
sure I'm on Auto.
| | 01:11 |
Now, even though the edges of this layer
look extraordinarily sharp, sometimes you
| | 01:15 |
want to preview the actual alpha channel
of the one individual layer.
| | 01:19 |
Now, instead of doing that in a comp
window, which I could do by using the solo
| | 01:23 |
button and changing some of the switches,
I'm just going to double-click on layer
| | 01:27 |
two, and load it into my Layer panel.
And if you look into the lower left
| | 01:31 |
corner, you'll see this little running man
icon and if we click on the leftmost icon,
| | 01:37 |
it'll toggle the Alpha channel on or off.
Now, you can also use a keyboard command
| | 01:44 |
to switch between the different views.
It's Option on the Mac or Alt on the PC
| | 01:49 |
and 4, will show your Alpha channel.
You could use 3, 2, or 1 to switch between
| | 01:55 |
the red, the green, and the blue.
And notice as I'm switching, I get this
| | 01:59 |
really nice blue outline, letting me know
exactly what channel I'm looking at.
| | 02:04 |
So using the layer panel comes in
extraordinarily handy when you're trying
| | 02:08 |
to view things.
But if you notice, I can't see the full
| | 02:11 |
size of my word.
So what I'm going to do is press the Tilde
| | 02:14 |
key in the upper left corner of the keyboard.
| | 02:16 |
It's just under the Escape key.
When you press that, it'll go ahead and
| | 02:20 |
maximize whatever panel you currently have
active, so you can take up as much real
| | 02:26 |
estate as you like on your computer.
Now, I'm going to press the Tilde key one
| | 02:30 |
more time, and just jump back into my
composition panel.
| | 02:35 |
In my comp panel here, I could also press
the Tilde key to preview this.
| | 02:40 |
Now, what if I wanted to preview this
entire animation like as it's playing?
| | 02:44 |
Well, I could use my Ram preview.
In order to do that, while we're at full
| | 02:48 |
screen, we need to use a keyboard shortcut.
| | 02:50 |
So I'm going to press 0 on my keypad.
If you're on a laptop, you could press
| | 02:56 |
Control+0.
Now, once it's loaded and Ram, it'll go
| | 03:00 |
ahead and playback in real time.
(INAUDIBLE) press the Spacebar to stop
| | 03:06 |
playback.
If you want to step through frame by
| | 03:08 |
frame, you can use the Page Up and Page
Down keys.
| | 03:12 |
Notice as I'm moving Page Up and Page
Down, I can clearly see the highlight
| | 03:16 |
that's moving through my Text layers.
Now, let's press the Tilde key again just
| | 03:21 |
to jump back into the composition panel.
Now, what if I want to change the
| | 03:25 |
magnification of this view so I can see
the entire comp again?
| | 03:29 |
Sure, I could go ahead and click on the
Magnification button and switch it back to
| | 03:33 |
fit up to 100.
But there's a keyboard shortcut for that.
| | 03:37 |
It's Option on the Mac, Alt on Windows,
and then the Forward Slash key, which is,
| | 03:42 |
kind of, the Question Mark key.
That'll automatically switch your view to
| | 03:46 |
fit in whatever size of the interface.
Notice as I resize my comp panel, it's
| | 03:52 |
automatically resizing the view of my graphic.
| | 03:56 |
Now, in the Comp panel, you'd think we
were finished with the magnification and
| | 03:59 |
resolution settings, but there's one other
setting you need to be aware of, and it's
| | 04:04 |
this button over here in the lower right
corner of the comp settings.
| | 04:07 |
If I go ahead and click and hold, you can
see it's set to Adaptive Resolution.
| | 04:12 |
And what that means, as I work inside of
After Effects, it will lower the
| | 04:16 |
resolution as I'm working to keep playback
going as fast as possible.
| | 04:21 |
But, again, it lowers the resolution.
So, if you're really trying to pay
| | 04:25 |
attention to what's going on you want to
turn off Adaptive Resolution and change it
| | 04:29 |
to final quality.
When you do final quality and then switch
| | 04:33 |
your magnification back up to 100%, you
can preview your comp and make sure that
| | 04:38 |
everything looks all sharp and clean, till
the cows come home.
| | 04:41 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Positioning layers with snapping| 00:00 |
Snapping is designed to help you position
Layers within the Composition Window, so
| | 00:04 |
you don't have to keep going back and
forth to the Layers panel, to the Comp
| | 00:08 |
Window, especially when you're trying to
create very precise positions.
| | 00:13 |
Now, we're starting with this blank
Composition, so we can really accentuate
| | 00:17 |
exactly what's Snapping to what.
But don't worry, we are going to create a
| | 00:21 |
real world example here, in the Dedication
Comp, once we understand the basics.
| | 00:26 |
So let's make sure we're in the position
and Comp, just by Double-clicking it in
| | 00:30 |
your Project Panel.
And let's start with some text.
| | 00:33 |
So I'm going to grab my Text tool, and
click in the Canvas.
| | 00:37 |
And let's just call this Snapping.
Now, obviously, you can choose any
| | 00:41 |
typeface you like.
You can press Enter on your keyboard to
| | 00:45 |
set the text, or just grab the Selection tool.
| | 00:48 |
Now, just so we can see things a little
more clearly, I'm going to Zoom in my
| | 00:51 |
magnification up at 100 %, just scrolling
with my mouse wheel.
| | 00:55 |
You could also press period on your keyboard.
| | 00:57 |
Now, I want to create a circle that this
text can Snap to.
| | 01:02 |
So let's start by creating a circle with a
Shape Layer.
| | 01:05 |
Let's make sure Layer one is deselected by
clicking in my Timeline, and then go up
| | 01:10 |
and grab the Ellipse tool.
If you don't see that, you can just click
| | 01:14 |
and hold up here, next to the Pan Behind
tool, and you'll see all your shapes.
| | 01:20 |
Now let's Click and Drag to create a circle.
| | 01:22 |
After you start dragging, if you hold down
Shift, it will keep the circle in
| | 01:28 |
proportion.
Now I'm going to change the fill of the
| | 01:30 |
circle, because that's a little bright.
Do ta do ta do, I'll change it to kind of
| | 01:35 |
a dark gray.
Now we can grab our Selection tool one
| | 01:38 |
more time.
Now if you look to the right of the
| | 01:41 |
toolbox, you can see that there's a
selection for Snapping.
| | 01:45 |
You can see Snapping either by using the
Selection tool, or by using the Pan Behind
| | 01:50 |
tool.
Now let's start with the Selection tool.
| | 01:52 |
And I want to Snap the word to the edge of
the circle.
| | 01:57 |
So I'm going to Click on the word and
start to Drag, and notice nothing's
| | 02:00 |
happening.
And that's because I haven't enabled
| | 02:02 |
Snapping.
(LAUGH) So go up to the top and make sure
| | 02:05 |
we enable Snapping.
Now when I grab the Layer, I want to make
| | 02:09 |
sure to pay attention to where I'm
grabbing it.
| | 02:11 |
So if I click in the upper left corner and
start to move, see that square that's
| | 02:16 |
popped around the upper left anchor point,
that's letting me know that that's going
| | 02:21 |
to be my Snap source.
See if I click down towards the lower
| | 02:24 |
left, it's going to Snap towards my anchor point.
| | 02:27 |
If I click towards the lower middle, you
get the general idea.
| | 02:32 |
It really depends on where you're clicking.
| | 02:34 |
So I'm going to Click towards the middle,
and then Drag towards my circle.
| | 02:38 |
And notice, as I got close, it
automatically Snapped right to the edge of
| | 02:43 |
my circle.
And that's exactly what I wanted.
| | 02:45 |
But let's say I want to Snap it to the
edge of the circle here.
| | 02:49 |
Well if you notice, nothing's happening.
Now, it'll Snap to the edges of the
| | 02:53 |
bounding box around the shape Layer.
But if you want it to Snap to a curve, you
| | 02:57 |
need to create a Layer solid with a Mask.
So let's do that.
| | 03:01 |
I'll go up under Layer and choose New Solid.
| | 03:04 |
And we can make sure it’s the Comp size by
clicking Make Comp Size.
| | 03:08 |
And I’ll go ahead and leave it black just
so it’s not completely distracting, and
| | 03:11 |
let’s click OK.
Now go back up to your Shape tools.
| | 03:17 |
I’m going to grab my Ellipse tool, and
Click and Drag.
| | 03:20 |
Now this is going to create a Mask on my
Layer solid, because after you create the
| | 03:25 |
Layer solid, it’s automatically selected
in the Timeline.
| | 03:28 |
So now if I Click + Hold + Drag holding
Shift, my Mask has been applied to my
| | 03:34 |
Shape Layer.
Now let's grab the Selection tool one more
| | 03:36 |
time, and grab the Snapping text.
I'm going to grab it towards the left
| | 03:41 |
here.
And now notice it's Snapping to the edge
| | 03:43 |
of the bounding box, but if I move over
towards the edge of the circle, it's
| | 03:47 |
Snapping there as well.
It's actually kind of a really neat handy
| | 03:51 |
thing to know.
Now that we've covered some of the basics
| | 03:54 |
of Snapping, lets go into our Dedication Comp.
| | 03:57 |
I'm going to Double-click the Dedication
Comp and grab the Text tool, and I'll just
| | 04:03 |
go ahead and Click in the Canvas.
Now, I accidentally clicked too close to
| | 04:08 |
the other text, so I'm going to press
Escape and just click way down towards the
| | 04:11 |
bottom.
I'm going to type the word Run and press
| | 04:15 |
Enter on my keypad to set the type.
Grab my Selection tool.
| | 04:20 |
Now, with Snapping enabled, notice I
switched Comps.
| | 04:24 |
It's still enabled.
Snapping pertains to the project overall.
| | 04:28 |
Not just an individual Composition.
Now, since I have so many Layers that make
| | 04:33 |
up this Comp, notice Snap is going to kind
of run wild as I move around.
| | 04:38 |
So that's why I started in the other Composition.
| | 04:40 |
I'd like to position this word RUN right
up against the edge of the word
| | 04:45 |
DEDICATION.
So I'm going to click towards the top, and
| | 04:48 |
then drag till it snaps.
Now something interesting happened here.
| | 04:53 |
It Snapped to the bottom of the Text Layer.
| | 04:56 |
If I move a little closer, it's going to
Snap all the way up to the edge of my
| | 05:00 |
Comp.
Now, the only other thing you need to pay
| | 05:03 |
attention to when you're positioning
Layers, has to do with the anchor point.
| | 05:07 |
The anchor point determines how the object
rotates around the scene.
| | 05:11 |
So let's say for example I want this word
RUN to rotate after it slides into the
| | 05:17 |
scene.
Well, I've got the position set up
| | 05:20 |
perfectly here.
What I need to do, is move the anchor
| | 05:22 |
point.
And the way I can do that, is by grabbing
| | 05:24 |
the Pan Behind tool.
You can press Y on your keyboard to
| | 05:28 |
quickly select that.
Now, with that Pan Behind tool selected, I
| | 05:31 |
can Click on the anchor point and Drag and
since Snapping is enabled, it'll
| | 05:35 |
automatically Snap to the edges of my
bounding box.
| | 05:39 |
One interesting note, if I wanted to move
let's say the Layer instead of the anchor
| | 05:44 |
point, I could hold down Option as I'm
Dragging, and now the Layer will move
| | 05:48 |
around the anchor point, instead of the
other way around.
| | 05:50 |
Now, I don't want to do that, so I'm just
going to press Undo.
| | 05:54 |
And with my Pan Behind tool selected, I'm
going to move it up to the upper left
| | 05:58 |
corner of the word RUN.
Now that, that's actually set up properly,
| | 06:02 |
I can grab my Selection tool and
reposition anything else in the scene.
| | 06:06 |
I want to show you how this can actually
rotate around the anchor point.
| | 06:10 |
So if you grab the Rotation tool, you can
press W on your keyboard, I can Click and
| | 06:15 |
Drag on this Layer, and now it's going to
rotate perfectly well,around the anchor
| | 06:21 |
point.
And if hold down Shift as I'm rotating,
| | 06:25 |
it'll Snap at a 45 degree increments.
So if I wanted to create an animation, by
| | 06:30 |
all means, I could create some key frames
and slide this in.
| | 06:33 |
And then I could grab my Rotation tool and
with Snapping, or using the Shift tool, I
| | 06:39 |
could make it, you know, slide in, and
then rotate around the scene.
| | 06:42 |
So to summarize, when you're using the
Snap tool, you want to make sure to either
| | 06:47 |
have the Selection tool selected or the
Pan Behind tool.
| | 06:50 |
That way, you can enable Snapping.
But also, you want to pay attention to
| | 06:55 |
where you're clicking on your Source
Layer, and exactly what it's Snapping to,
| | 07:00 |
with your Snap destinations.
| | 07:01 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Understanding Pre-compose| 00:00 |
If you've spent any amount of time in
motion graphics, you've ended up in a
| | 00:04 |
situation where you have a lot of layers
in your composition and you just needed to
| | 00:09 |
have a little more control.
That's where pre-composing comes in.
| | 00:12 |
You can select multiple layers in your
timeline, then in essence collapse those
| | 00:17 |
layers into one composition, still in your timeline.
| | 00:21 |
That composition then gets known as a pre-composition.
| | 00:24 |
To show you what I'm talking about, let's
look at our composition.
| | 00:28 |
As you can see, we have two clearly
defined areas of our comp, and I want to
| | 00:33 |
be able to animate the top part separate
from the bottom part.
| | 00:37 |
But if we look in our timeline, we have
eight different layers that make this up.
| | 00:42 |
Now, since we know the order of layers
determines the visual hierarchy, I'm
| | 00:46 |
going to pay attention to which layers are
on top, and even though these are the
| | 00:50 |
bottom layers, they're on the top of the
layer hierarchy.
| | 00:53 |
So I want to actually select, you know,
this is in the top of the comp.
| | 00:57 |
I'm going to select the bottom layers here
in the timeline.
| | 01:00 |
So I'm going to select Layer 4 and hold
down Shift and click on Layer 8 to select
| | 01:05 |
all of the layers underneath.
Now, without pre-composing, if I wanted to
| | 01:09 |
move all of these layers as one unit, I
would have to add keyframes to all the
| | 01:13 |
layers.
I could do that but that adds a little bit
| | 01:17 |
more processing and honestly there's some
other limitations that come in.
| | 01:22 |
So let me show you.
If I click and drag on the top part of the
| | 01:25 |
image, check this out.
I'm seeing the other parts of these layers
| | 01:30 |
appearing.
Now, if I want a clean edge to this, I can
| | 01:33 |
go ahead and pre-compose.
So lemme just undo this and go up to Layer
| | 01:39 |
> Pre-compose.
When you're naming pre-comps, I recommend
| | 01:44 |
always ending that name with precomp.
So here, I'm just going to call this
| | 01:48 |
Top_Pre.
And we can just go ahead and click OK, and
| | 01:53 |
you notice I have a new composition here
in my Project panel.
| | 01:57 |
Now, just because I like to keep things
extraordinarily well-organized, I'm
| | 02:01 |
going to go ahead and drag this comp down
to the New Folder icon in the bottom of
| | 02:06 |
the Project panel, and rename this Pre Comps.
| | 02:10 |
(SOUND) Now, if we go to Layer 4 in our
timeline, let's go ahead and click on
| | 02:15 |
that, make sure our timeline is active.
I can now press P to open up the position
| | 02:19 |
data and click and drag on the x axis to
scrub and move the layer.
| | 02:25 |
Now look if I drag to the left, notice
that edges of my graphic are now
| | 02:29 |
completely cut off.
This is exactly what I'm looking for.
| | 02:33 |
Now, for any reason, if you decide that
you want to be able to see those extra
| | 02:39 |
edges, you can toggle your switches.
So I'm going to toggle my switches so I
| | 02:45 |
can see exactly where my switches are and
I'm going to click this little collapse
| | 02:51 |
transformation button right here.
It's just to the right of my little shy
| | 02:56 |
guy.
If I click on that, look.
| | 02:58 |
Now, I can still see the edges of that
graphic, even though it's pre-composed and
| | 03:04 |
only in one layer.
Now, I'm just going to turn that off,
| | 03:07 |
because I do like having the edges of that
cut off.
| | 03:10 |
And we can go ahead and create our animation.
| | 03:13 |
So I'll just undo until I get back to the
beginning here.
| | 03:19 |
Now, I want this to slide in over one second.
| | 03:22 |
So let's move our current time indicator
down to one second and add a keyframe for
| | 03:27 |
position.
If you press Home, that'll move your
| | 03:30 |
current time indicator back to the beginning.
| | 03:32 |
And I'm going to click in the upper part
of my comp here and start dragging, and as
| | 03:38 |
I drag, I'm going to hold down Shift.
It's really important not to hit Shift
| | 03:43 |
before you click.
You want to grab it after.
| | 03:46 |
That way it'll stay snapped on the x axis.
Now, I have my animation.
| | 03:52 |
If I scrub through you can see that
sliding in.
| | 03:54 |
Now, another advantage of pre-comps, is
the fact that I actually still can edit
| | 04:00 |
all those layers that are contained in the compostion.
| | 04:03 |
So I want this top layer to slide in and
then I want the word dedication to slide
| | 04:08 |
into the scene.
So, I'm going to move my current time
| | 04:11 |
indicator to my second keyframe just by
clicking this left arrow here.
| | 04:15 |
And now I'm at one second.
So when we double-click the top pre-comp
| | 04:21 |
layer, (SOUND) we're automatically opening
that comp or pre comp.
| | 04:26 |
And, in the pre-comp, notice the current
time indicator is at one second.
| | 04:31 |
So, this is when I want this word to
already be completely off the screen.
| | 04:35 |
So, I'll just click the word DEDICATION
and start dragging to the right.
| | 04:40 |
And I'll hold Shift after I start dragging.
| | 04:42 |
And then I'll press option P to
automatically add a keyframe to the
| | 04:48 |
position parameter.
Now in Windows it's Control+P.
| | 04:52 |
Now, if I move down the timeline to let's
say two seconds.
| | 04:57 |
I can click and drag on the x parameter in
the timeline or I could just click right
| | 05:02 |
on the layer and hold down Shift as I drag
and have the word slide into the scene.
| | 05:07 |
Now if we go back to our dedication comp,
you can see my current time indicator is
| | 05:11 |
at two seconds and the word dedication is
all the way in the scene.
| | 05:16 |
So, let's load up a RAM preview, and check
out our work.
| | 05:22 |
Now that those frames have loaded, I'm
going to press the Spacebar to play.
| | 05:25 |
(SOUND).
(BLANK_AUDIO) (SOUND) So when it comes to
| | 05:27 |
organizing your compositions and still
maintaining flexibility with your layers,
| | 05:35 |
Pre-compose is the feature to go to.
| | 05:38 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Interpreting footage| 00:00 |
There's nothing more frustrating than
working with footage that's been
| | 00:03 |
interpreted improperly.
To show you what I mean, I'm going to load
| | 00:07 |
up a RAM preview by pressing 0 on my
number pad.
| | 00:11 |
So as you can see, it's a three-second
animation, and we just have a mask that's
| | 00:15 |
revealing these swooshy lines.
Now, I'm going to stop playback, here, for
| | 00:20 |
a second by pressing the space bar.
While that looks pretty cool, I think we
| | 00:23 |
could definitely step it up a little bit
by importing some graphics.
| | 00:27 |
Now, I've already rendered a graphic out
of Cinema 4D, as an image sequence.
| | 00:33 |
I did this because it's common for 3D
designers to deliver rendered image
| | 00:38 |
sequences, that way you don't have to
worry about codecs, or whether or not a
| | 00:42 |
system is Windows or Mac.
Obviously if I created it myself, I could
| | 00:46 |
have used a Cinema 4D layer, but we're
going to have a whole chapter with that
| | 00:50 |
later.
So for now let's go ahead and import our
| | 00:52 |
graphic footage.
If you open the Graphics folder just by
| | 00:56 |
double-clicking, we can go up to
File>Import>Just File.
| | 01:02 |
So navigate in your Exercise files to your
Footage folder to the Prerendered folder.
| | 01:09 |
And in there you should see a folder for
the Energized Render.
| | 01:13 |
Now I'm just going to click on the first
image, which is this TIFF image.
| | 01:18 |
And we'll make sure that it's set up as a
TIFF sequence.
| | 01:20 |
So it will import all of these, and create
one self-contained file.
| | 01:25 |
When I click Open, it's automatically
going to open this Interpret Footage box.
| | 01:29 |
Now, it's unable to figure out what kind
of alpha channel we're using.
| | 01:34 |
Now I know I rendered this with a straight
alpha channel.
| | 01:37 |
But I'm going to going to go ahead and
import it with Premultiplied and click OK
| | 01:43 |
just so you can see exactly what happens.
Now let's drag our sequence down into the
| | 01:48 |
Timeline.
You want to place it just below the
| | 01:51 |
Adjustment layer, and I'm already noticing
one thing.
| | 01:54 |
First thing, the sequence is too short.
So let's do some investigating and see if
| | 02:00 |
we can figure out what's going on.
If you right-click in the project panel on
| | 02:04 |
the energized sequence, go ahead and
right-click or Ctrl+click and go to
| | 02:09 |
Interpret footage, you want to choose Main.
| | 02:12 |
Under Main, notice assume this framerate
30 was set up.
| | 02:17 |
Well, my comp and my render was actually
at 23.976.
| | 02:22 |
So, let's change that to 23.976.
And I'll press Enter on my keyboard to
| | 02:29 |
select.
Now you notice it's three seconds in one
| | 02:32 |
frame.
And I can change the out point just by
| | 02:34 |
hovering over the right side of the layer,
and dragging it out to the end of the
| | 02:37 |
comp.
Now we can see our text.
| | 02:40 |
And if I scroll in so my magnification's
at 100%, you can see I've got some issues.
| | 02:47 |
Can you guys see the strange colors that
are appearing in the jaggedness on the
| | 02:52 |
edges?
Let me zoom in a little bit more.
| | 02:54 |
Just to see if we can accentuate it.
See those highlights right there?
| | 02:58 |
That's an improper interpretation of an
alpha channel.
| | 03:02 |
I can see the white jagged edges around
this r as well.
| | 03:05 |
So, I'm going to go back by right-clicking
on the Footage>Interpret Footage>Main.
| | 03:12 |
You could also press Shift+Cmd+G or Shift+Ctrl+G.
| | 03:17 |
Now we've already changed the frame rate.
So lets go up to the top options for Alpha
| | 03:21 |
Channel.
Lets choose Straight, and then go ahead
| | 03:24 |
and click Enter on our keyboard to accept it.
| | 03:28 |
Now, even though I'm in at 200%, look at
the difference.
| | 03:32 |
I'm just going to undo that.
See, and then redo.
| | 03:37 |
Now, if you really want to see how it's
going to look, go back to 100%
| | 03:41 |
magnification and we can undo and then redo.
| | 03:46 |
So when it comes to interpreting footage,
especially when you're dealing with image
| | 03:50 |
sequences, it's very important to pay
attention as to whether or not an alpha
| | 03:53 |
channel is straight or premultiplied, and
of course, you want to make sure to match
| | 03:58 |
your frame rates.
| | 03:59 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Keyboard shortcuts for compositions| 00:00 |
In this video, I'm going to share some
keyboard shortcuts that you can use to
| | 00:04 |
quickly shift between views in the comp panel.
| | 00:07 |
The first setting is the Magnification
setting in the lower left corner.
| | 00:11 |
Obviously, you can click on the pull-downs
and make adjustments accordingly, but
| | 00:15 |
sometimes it's quicker just use key commands.
| | 00:18 |
The first command that I use quite often
is Shift+Forward Slash key.
| | 00:23 |
It looks like the Question Mark key.
That'll automatically resize the window.
| | 00:27 |
So no matter what size I move my panels
around, it'll go ahead and increase or
| | 00:32 |
decrease the magnification to give me the
maximum view possible.
| | 00:38 |
Now, the next variation on that, I just
use the Forward Slash key to quickly
| | 00:41 |
toggle to 100% magnification.
This way, I can quickly double-check the
| | 00:46 |
sharpness or clarity of whatever it is I'm
working on.
| | 00:51 |
Now, in conjunction with changing the
magnification, sometimes I like to be able
| | 00:54 |
to change the resolution.
That's this pull-down right here.
| | 00:58 |
Now, most of the time I have it set to Auto.
| | 01:01 |
That way, when we zoom in and out, it'll
change its resolution.
| | 01:06 |
So instead of snapping to 100%
Magnification or Fit to Window, you can
| | 01:10 |
just step through Magnifications using the
Comma key and the Period key.
| | 01:17 |
Now notice when I set my resolution to
Automatic, it's automatically updating as
| | 01:22 |
I change my Magnification settings.
Now, what if I just want to change my
| | 01:26 |
resolution settings independent of my
magnification settings, and I want to do
| | 01:30 |
that using keyboard shortcuts.
Well, that's when the Command+J or
| | 01:35 |
Control+J commands come in.
So if you're on Windows, you can use the
| | 01:40 |
Control versions instead of when I say Command.
| | 01:44 |
The way we layer these is like this.
Command+J will automatically set at full
| | 01:49 |
resolution.
So Control+J on Windows.
| | 01:52 |
If you add a Shift to that equation, so
Command+Shift+J or Control+Shift+J, that
| | 01:57 |
will set it half resolution.
And then if you add the Option key or the
| | 02:02 |
Alt key on Windows, then press J, that
will set it at one quarter resolution.
| | 02:09 |
Let's just press Command+J or Control+J to
get back up to 100% resolution.
| | 02:15 |
Now, the last thing I like to be able to
adjust in the Comp view very quickly is
| | 02:18 |
the ability to view the different channels.
| | 02:22 |
To give you a better example of that,
let's go to the energize type composition.
| | 02:26 |
In here I have a graphic with an Alpha channel.
| | 02:28 |
Now quickly, I'll press my Forward Slash
button to make sure that I'm viewing at
| | 02:32 |
100% magnification.
Now to quickly go between channels, I'm
| | 02:36 |
going to hold the Option key on the Mac.
It's Alt on Windows and then you can press
| | 02:41 |
1, 2, 3, and 4 to step through each of the
different channels, red, green, blue, and
| | 02:46 |
the Alpha channel.
Now, if you prefer to actually look at the
| | 02:52 |
color channels with the color overlay, you
can press Shift+Option or Shift+Alt, and
| | 02:58 |
then it's 1, 2, 3, and 4.
Now, if you press 4 again, while holding
| | 03:04 |
Shift+Alt or Shift+Option, it'll toggle
between the straight overlay and just the
| | 03:10 |
normal RGB view.
With the straight overlay, you can see any
| | 03:15 |
of the straight channels, all applied one
on top of each other.
| | 03:19 |
And since this graphic was rendered with a
straight Alpha channel, I have that little
| | 03:23 |
bit of overprint that's going on on the
edges of the word.
| | 03:27 |
So I'm going to hold Shift+Option,
Shift+Alt on Windows, and press 4 to
| | 03:31 |
toggle between those views.
Now that's just a quick tour of some of
| | 03:36 |
the comp view shortcut keys that I like to
use as I'm working in After Effects.
| | 03:42 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
4. Building Compositions with LayersDefining layers| 00:00 |
After Effects makes it simple to create
multiple layers in a composition to create
| | 00:04 |
your graphics.
But what most people don't understand is
| | 00:08 |
there are different kinds of layers within
the After Effects Composition.
| | 00:11 |
To show you what I mean, let's look down
the Timeline panel.
| | 00:14 |
Select layer 7, this is a video layer, and
I know this because the icon to the left
| | 00:20 |
of the name.
Notice there are different icons for the
| | 00:23 |
different layers, like this icon is an
Illustrator icon.
| | 00:26 |
This was created from importing an
external Illustrator file.
| | 00:30 |
The T layer, this is a text layer and this
is also known as a synthetic layer,
| | 00:34 |
because this is created solely from within
After Effects.
| | 00:39 |
Now, synthetic layers have an interesting
property and that's the fact that they
| | 00:42 |
only exist within a composition.
Let's see what that actually means.
| | 00:47 |
With layer 7 selected, our Top_Video_Fill
layer, go ahead and control+click or
| | 00:52 |
right-click on the layer to pop-up this
contextual menu.
| | 00:56 |
Navigate up to Reveal Layer Source in Project.
| | 01:00 |
When we select that, notice our video
folder automatically popped open, and
| | 01:04 |
there's our video file.
This is a great little shortcut you can
| | 01:07 |
use when your projects get extraordinarily
large and you're having a hard time
| | 01:10 |
finding things.
Now, Video and Audio layers are created
| | 01:14 |
when you import those assets into your
After Effects project.
| | 01:19 |
Same with the Illustrator file right here,
layer 5.
| | 01:22 |
Let's go ahead and select layer 4, our
Text layer.
| | 01:24 |
And if you right-click or control-click on
the layer, notice we don't have an option
| | 01:29 |
to reveal the layer source in the project.
If I wanted to add this text into another
| | 01:34 |
composition, I would have to copy the
entire layer and then paste it into that
| | 01:39 |
new comp.
Now, let's look at layer Solids.
| | 01:42 |
Layer 3 is a layer solid, so let's go
ahead and select it and you guessed it,
| | 01:46 |
right click and reveal layer source and project.
| | 01:50 |
Notice when we did that, it automatically
selected this cyan number 4.
| | 01:55 |
What's interesting is the fact that I
could go ahead and add this Solid into my
| | 01:59 |
composition if I wanted to.
So, drag that down between layer 6 and 7
| | 02:05 |
and notice now we have this kind of cool
color background behind our text.
| | 02:10 |
I'm just going to move that down in the
comp window by clicking on it and dragging
| | 02:13 |
it down a little bit.
There we go, that the little bit better.
| | 02:17 |
Let's look at some of the other cool
things we can do with layer Solids.
| | 02:21 |
See, since this layer Solid is being
referenced a solid that's in a Project
| | 02:26 |
panel, I can't actually trace how many
times this individual file has been used.
| | 02:33 |
If I open up the Project panel here just
by dragging on the right side, notice it
| | 02:36 |
says cyan sound four used two times.
Now, another interesting thing, if you
| | 02:41 |
have this cyan solid selected in the
Project panel and go up under Layer, and
| | 02:46 |
choose Solid Settings.
We can change the color of this and it'll
| | 02:51 |
actually propagate that change back down
into the project.
| | 02:56 |
So, let's change this to red.
And I want to choose a red that's similar
| | 02:59 |
to this background.
So I'm going to click on the eye dropper
| | 03:01 |
next to the color and then click on this red.
| | 03:04 |
When I click OK, check it out.
Now, that solid has changed both my layer
| | 03:10 |
7 and in my bottom color.
Now, things look a little bit than what we
| | 03:16 |
had done before and that has to do with
the different blend modes that we're
| | 03:19 |
dealing with.
So I want to undo that last change by just
| | 03:23 |
going up under Edit and choosing Undo
Solid Settings.
| | 03:27 |
But as you can see, for a layer that's
created within After Effects itself, like
| | 03:33 |
a Layer Solid, you can literally use that
like any other piece of source footage,
| | 03:37 |
like a Video Layer or a Photoshop or
Illustrator Layer.
| | 03:41 |
Now, the last kind of layer I want to
cover is called an Adjustment Layer.
| | 03:45 |
We haven't really used one yet, but it's
one of my favorite layers in After
| | 03:48 |
Effects.
To create an Adjustment Layer, all we have
| | 03:51 |
to do is go up under the Layer panel,
choose New and choose Adjustment Layer.
| | 03:56 |
Now, Adjustment Layer allow you to apply
an effect to that layer.
| | 04:01 |
And then, any layers that exist below that
layer will have the effect applied.
| | 04:07 |
So it's kind of a neat way to save
yourself time.
| | 04:09 |
Rather than applying the same effect to
multiple layers, you can just use an
| | 04:13 |
Adjustment Layer.
So let's go up and choose Effect > Blur
| | 04:17 |
and choose Fast Blur.
Now, just click and drag on the blurriness
| | 04:23 |
parameter in the Effects control panel.
To accentuate the effect, let's choose a
| | 04:27 |
value of 21.
Now, go ahead and click on the Adjustment
| | 04:31 |
Layer in your Timeline panel and move it
down below the Swoop_Lines, Illustrator
| | 04:36 |
Files.
So between layers 6 and 7.
| | 04:38 |
Now, when I let go, check it out.
I've got sharp layers and then blurry
| | 04:42 |
layers.
Now obviously I don't want to keep these
| | 04:45 |
in my comp.
So let's select layer 6 and just press
| | 04:48 |
Delete All keyboard to get rid of it.
As you can see, when you're working with
| | 04:52 |
different layers inside of After Effects,
it does make a difference if you do pay
| | 04:56 |
attention to the specific kind of layer
that you're working with.
| | 04:59 |
Because it can open up new options in
different workflows.
| | 05:04 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating type layers| 00:00 |
If you've ever created text layers in a
Photoshop document or an Illustrator file,
| | 00:05 |
you're probably already familiar with how
to create text inside of an After Effects
| | 00:10 |
composition.
The process is pretty much exactly the
| | 00:14 |
same.
So let's add some text into our project
| | 00:17 |
here, so we can explore some of the
different options.
| | 00:21 |
So let's get started by adding some text
to our composition.
| | 00:24 |
Press Cmd + T, or Ctrl + T on the PC, to
automatically grab the text tool.
| | 00:29 |
Now with the Text tool selected in the
Toolb panel, here in the upper left hand
| | 00:32 |
corner of your interface.
Look a couple inches over to the right and
| | 00:36 |
you'll see that we have Auto Open panel selected.
| | 00:40 |
And if we look to the lower right corner
of the interface, you'll see we have a
| | 00:43 |
Characters panel.
and a paragraph panel.
| | 00:46 |
Now obviously if we deselect this panels
will no longer appear any time we grab the
| | 00:52 |
text tool.
I sort of like this feature so I'm going
| | 00:54 |
to leave this selected.
This button to the left of the selection
| | 00:58 |
box will toggle those panels on and off.
So this is also another good way of
| | 01:04 |
quickly getting our text options.
Now, when I'm setting a lot of text, what
| | 01:09 |
I prefer to do is change my workspace.
So let's go over to the workspace
| | 01:12 |
pulldown, click on the word Standard, and
change it to Text.
| | 01:16 |
Now, in the text workspace, notice the
character panel and the paragraph panel
| | 01:20 |
are much more easy to access, right here
on the right side of our comp.
| | 01:24 |
So to add text to our comp, Move your
mouse just a little bit under the letter T
| | 01:30 |
in dedication, and click.
And you'll notice I'll get this line.
| | 01:34 |
The line is letting me know that I can
edit the word dedication.
| | 01:38 |
This happens quite a lot when you're
trying to lay text right next to each
| | 01:41 |
other.
So an easy way to fix this is to select
| | 01:45 |
layer four, and then just enable the lock option.
| | 01:48 |
So that way I can't select the layer in my
time line Nor can I accidentally edit it
| | 01:53 |
here in the comp window.
Now let's try this again.
| | 01:55 |
Go ahead and click.
And I've automatically created a text
| | 01:59 |
layer.
And all I need to do is just start typing
| | 02:02 |
to add a word.
So let's add the word to find.
| | 02:05 |
To set type in your project, you can press
enter on the keypard or.
| | 02:10 |
Grab the Selection tool out of your toolbar.
| | 02:12 |
Now, your text may look different that my
text, and that's because After Effects
| | 02:16 |
will always remember the last settings you
used whenever you add new type into your
| | 02:21 |
projects.
With our text layer selected here I'm
| | 02:25 |
going to decrease the size down to around
something like 60 and I'll press Enter to
| | 02:31 |
go ahead and set that information.Now we
can click on the text layer and move it
| | 02:35 |
anywhere in the scene.
Now the type of text that we've created is
| | 02:39 |
called point text and I know this because
the anchor point down here is in the lower
| | 02:44 |
left corner.
I'm having a hard time seeing exactly
| | 02:47 |
what's going on with my text so I'm
going to increase my magnification by
| | 02:51 |
scrolling with my mouse.
Now you can also middle-mouse click and
| | 02:55 |
holding down the middle-mouse button click
and drag.
| | 02:58 |
You can see I automatically grab my hand
tool and that just repositioned my
| | 03:02 |
composition.
Now these handles sometimes annoy people
| | 03:05 |
when they’re trying to preview type and
you can turn those off pretty quickly by
| | 03:10 |
going up to the view options in the comp window.
| | 03:12 |
So if you go to the upper right corner of
the comp window, click on this little
| | 03:16 |
dashed icon with a triangle to the left.
And go to view options.
| | 03:22 |
Under the view options, let's disable handles.
| | 03:26 |
Now when we click OK.
I won't see the handles even though layer
| | 03:29 |
one is selected.
This is great but it's really important
| | 03:33 |
that you don't forget that you turned that
off because it will stay off any time you
| | 03:37 |
continue working on the project and
sometimes if you forget It can be kind of
| | 03:42 |
scary.
So with the text layer selected, let's
| | 03:45 |
preview some different typefaces.
In the upper-right side of the character
| | 03:49 |
panel I'm just going to make sure
Helvetica is entirely selected.
| | 03:53 |
As long as the text layer is completely
selected in our character panel you can
| | 03:57 |
then use the up and down arrows to scroll
through the different typefaces that you
| | 04:02 |
have installed on your system.
Now obviously my system may have more
| | 04:07 |
fonts then yours.
So dont panic if you have different type
| | 04:10 |
faces popping up.
You can also click on the pull down arrow
| | 04:14 |
and jump dirrectly to a specific type face
if you want to choose something specific.
| | 04:18 |
So I'll choose Helvetica New.
The first option up here allows us to make
| | 04:24 |
adjustments to the font family and the
option down below allows us to make
| | 04:29 |
adjustments to the font style.
If you press tab on your keyboard you can
| | 04:33 |
automatically jump down to the font style
and again use the up and down arrows to
| | 04:38 |
choose different type faces.
One thing that I do recommend if you are
| | 04:43 |
setting type for use in video you don't
want to use a really thin type face
| | 04:48 |
because sometimes that'll break up when
the video is compressed.
| | 04:52 |
Especially if its going to the web or
standard definition.
| | 04:56 |
So I'm not going to choose to ultra light
italic, I'm going to leave mine set to
| | 05:01 |
just italic.
Even that is a little questionable as to
| | 05:05 |
how clean it's going to reproduce.
But for now I think this kind of works.
| | 05:11 |
So that's creating point type.
Now before I move on to showing you
| | 05:15 |
paragraph type, I want to draw your
attention to the upper right corner of the
| | 05:19 |
character panel.
See how I have a fill option for this big
| | 05:24 |
white square?
Well, this black Outline square below it
| | 05:27 |
will actually allow me to create a stroke
and there is a stroke currently on this
| | 05:32 |
text, but the stroke width is kind of
small and the fill is set to be over the
| | 05:38 |
stroke.
So let's increase this number to 10
| | 05:43 |
pixels.
Now I can clearly see the outline this way
| | 05:46 |
when I click on fill overstroke You'll see
more clearly how adjusting the stroke over
| | 05:53 |
the fill for the fill over the stroke will
change how that text appears.
| | 05:57 |
I'll leave this text like this because I
actually think it looks kind of cool.
| | 06:02 |
But before we jump into paragraph type, I
want to go back to the upper right corner
| | 06:06 |
of the comp window and make sure we go to
our View Options and reenable our handles.
| | 06:12 |
Now let's click OK.
Let's zoom back out in the comp window so
| | 06:15 |
I have a little bit more space to work with.
| | 06:17 |
I'm going to scroll with my mouse.
And again, middle mouse click and drag
| | 06:22 |
just to kind of reframe the scene.
Okay, to create paragraph text, you can
| | 06:26 |
grab the text tool and then click and drag
in the canvas.
| | 06:31 |
And anywhere that I drag, the text will
create a box.
| | 06:35 |
I can quickly and easily add some text
just by typing.
| | 06:38 |
And that's obliviously a bunch of
gibberish, but you'll notice the text only
| | 06:43 |
stays inside of that bounding box.
I can re-size that box, and notice it's
| | 06:48 |
not distorrting the text it's just filling
in more letters since I continued to type.
| | 06:54 |
So, this is a great way of creating things
like credit scrolls, or creating large
| | 06:59 |
blocks of type.
Now, another thing you can adjust with
| | 07:02 |
Paragraph Type that you can't adjust with
Point Type Is justification.
| | 07:07 |
On our system here, we have Justify All
set up and that's why the text is going
| | 07:11 |
all the way from one side to another.
I'm going to grab my selection tool here
| | 07:16 |
just to kind of set my text, but let's
change the justification to left aligned.
| | 07:23 |
And here, you'll notice now, it's only
aligned the left side of my text.
| | 07:28 |
Now, if you found some of these text
options interesting, I want to let you
| | 07:31 |
know that we definitely have dedicated an
entire chapter to animating and
| | 07:36 |
manipulating text.
| | 07:37 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Precise typesetting techniques| 00:00 |
Adding text to your composition is one
thing, but adding text with interest is
| | 00:04 |
another.
And to add interest to this scene, we're
| | 00:07 |
going to use some precise typesetting techniques.
| | 00:10 |
If we look at our composition, you can see
we have three lines of text and four
| | 00:14 |
words.
And it's kind of boring the way it's laid
| | 00:17 |
out right now.
So what I want to do is actually tighten
| | 00:20 |
up the amount of space in between the
lines, that's known as leading.
| | 00:24 |
And I want to change the size of some of
the words to draw attention to those
| | 00:29 |
words, so obviously, success and now,
we're going to make significantly larger.
| | 00:33 |
Now, to do this, I'm going to just use one
text layer.
| | 00:38 |
Now, I realize most of the time when you
want to animate multiple lines of text,
| | 00:41 |
you'll have multiple layers of text.
But we can add interest just by using one
| | 00:47 |
layer.
So to get started, let's change our
| | 00:50 |
workspace from the standard workspace to
the text workspace.
| | 00:55 |
Now, if your text workspace looks a little
funny, go ahead and click on it again and
| | 01:00 |
make sure to reset the workspace to its
original layout.
| | 01:04 |
Now you should see the Character panel on
the right side of your interface and we
| | 01:08 |
have our text in our Comp window.
Now when you're trying to be very specific
| | 01:12 |
about the amount of space in between the
letters or the lines, you want to actually
| | 01:17 |
make sure to work at 100% magnification.
So, go to the lower left corner of the
| | 01:22 |
Comp window and change the magnification
to 100%.
| | 01:26 |
To give us more space, lets customize the
interface by closing the Project panel.
| | 01:31 |
Now, to add more space vertically, lets
hover our mouse between the Comp window
| | 01:35 |
and the timeline, and click and drag down.
Leave just enough space so we can still
| | 01:39 |
select layer one.
Now I like to select all of the lines of
| | 01:44 |
the text by just double clicking in the
Timeline panel.
| | 01:47 |
So let's go ahead and double click on
layer one.
| | 01:49 |
And that'll select all the lines of text.
Now, here comes our first keyboard
| | 01:53 |
command.
Just so you know, I can make these
| | 01:56 |
adjustments in the Character panel or I
could use keyboard commands.
| | 02:01 |
So I'll start with a keyboard command.
Let's go ahead and hold down the Option
| | 02:05 |
key and press the up arrow and, if we look
in our Character panel right here, that's
| | 02:11 |
adjusting the leading.
Every time I click the up arrow it's
| | 02:15 |
moving up and tightening up the leading.
Now I literally want these words to touch
| | 02:20 |
each other so I'll make sure the first two
lines are butted up right next to each
| | 02:25 |
other.
Now the last line I want to go ahead and
| | 02:28 |
change because the spacing here is a
little different.
| | 02:31 |
I'll use a key command for this as well.
If you press the right arrow, not holding
| | 02:36 |
any other keys down on your keyboard, just
press the right arrow, your cursor will
| | 02:39 |
automatically move to the end of whatever
you had selected.
| | 02:43 |
Now if you hold down the Cmd+Shift or the
Ctrl+Shift on the PC then tap the left
| | 02:49 |
arrow, you can select individual words to
the left of wherever your cursor was.
| | 02:55 |
Both words selected, I'm going to let go
of my Shift+Cmd and just press the left
| | 03:00 |
arrow.
Notice it jumped to the left side of what
| | 03:03 |
I had select.
So I'm going to press Cmd+Shift again, and
| | 03:07 |
click the right arrow to select words to
the right.
| | 03:10 |
So you can see how reciprocity works.
It just kind of works back and forth
| | 03:14 |
across whatever you had selected.
Now I want to increase the amount of space
| | 03:18 |
between these lines.
And rather than using the key commands
| | 03:21 |
again, I'm just going to come over to my
character panel, and click and drag to the
| | 03:25 |
right.
I'm clicking and dragging on the Leading
| | 03:29 |
parameter.
Now with that decent amount of space set
| | 03:33 |
in here, I do want to increase the size of
the text.
| | 03:36 |
Now to quickly increase the size of the
text, if you just tap once on the font
| | 03:40 |
size number, it'll automatically be selected.
| | 03:43 |
And then you can hold down Shift and use
the up arrow to increase the size or the
| | 03:47 |
down arrow to decrease the size.
Now let's go ahead and increase this.
| | 03:51 |
Let's make this size of success match the
length of determination.
| | 03:56 |
I'll need to close up the space in between
these lines again.
| | 03:59 |
So to do that I'm going to press Tab on my
keyboard and move to the next parameter in
| | 04:05 |
the character panel.
Now if I hold down Shift and use my up
| | 04:09 |
arrow or down arrow, I can tighten or
loosen the amount of space in between the
| | 04:15 |
lines.
The up arrow is increasing the amount of
| | 04:18 |
space and the down arrow is decreasing the
amount of space.
| | 04:22 |
And that was a little bit backwards from
the way it worked when we actually had the
| | 04:26 |
line of text selected.
So anyway, let's go ahead and click to the
| | 04:31 |
right of the word success with our mouse.
And now just press Return on your
| | 04:35 |
keyboard.
And we want to go ahead and delete the
| | 04:38 |
space to the right of our cursor.
So I'm going to press the right Delete
| | 04:42 |
button on my keyboard.
Now let's go and increase the size of the
| | 04:46 |
word now.
I'm just going to click and drag with my
| | 04:49 |
mouse to select now.
And again, I'll just click and drag on the
| | 04:54 |
parameters in the Character panel.
This time, I'm clicking and dragging on
| | 04:58 |
the Size parameter.
Now to go ahead and change the amount of
| | 05:02 |
space in the leading, I'll click and drag
on that as well.
| | 05:08 |
Okay.
Let's go ahead and tighten up success and
| | 05:11 |
determination.
Just go ahead and click and drag to select
| | 05:14 |
success, and click and drag in the
Character Panel.
| | 05:17 |
To check out our scene, I'm going to go
ahead and grab my Selection tool, make
| | 05:22 |
sure my Composition panel is selected by
clicking in it, and then press the tilde
| | 05:25 |
key to kind of maximize that panel.
So as you can see, when it comes to
| | 05:30 |
setting type with precision, you can use
keyboard commands or you can use your
| | 05:34 |
mouse.
The biggest thing you want to do, is use
| | 05:37 |
your noggin and make sure you pay
attention to creating some interest with
| | 05:41 |
your type.
| | 05:41 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating layer solids and shapes with masks| 00:00 |
Layer solids are so simple.
It's staggering how helpful and flexible
| | 00:04 |
they can be in your daily workflow.
Now, to best show you what a layer solid
| | 00:07 |
is, we should just go ahead and create one.
| | 00:09 |
I want to make sure you have the Project
panel selected, so if it's not already
| | 00:13 |
selected, just click in the Project panel.
Now, there are two ways to create layer
| | 00:17 |
solids.
The first way is to go up under the Layer
| | 00:20 |
menu and choose New.
But you notice it's greyed out And that's
| | 00:24 |
because I have the Project panel selected.
Whenever you create layer solids using
| | 00:27 |
this method, you need to specify exactly
which composition you'd like the solid to
| | 00:32 |
reside in.
So I'm going to deselect my Layer
| | 00:34 |
pull-down here and just click in the
Composition window for my Hand comp.
| | 00:39 |
If yours isn't already open, just
double-click on the Hand comp.
| | 00:43 |
I have the timeline selected, that's
perfectly fine as well because it's for
| | 00:47 |
the hand counts.
So let's go up under Layer and choose New
| | 00:50 |
> Solid.
When I've done that our solid settings
| | 00:54 |
open and if yours don't look like this,
that's perfectly fine because the solid
| | 00:59 |
settings will always remember the last
layer solid that you created.
| | 01:03 |
So I'm just going to reset my color to
black by clicking in the little color well
| | 01:06 |
here and I'll make it black.
All right, now if we look at the width and
| | 01:09 |
height for the size, the default should be
your Comp settings.
| | 01:16 |
If you don't have yours set up like this,
just go ahead and click, make comp size,
| | 01:20 |
and it'll make sure that the solid is that size.
| | 01:23 |
All solids created are some form of square
or rectangle.
| | 01:27 |
There are no round edge solids.
Now if I wanted this to be half the size
| | 01:31 |
of my comp, I'll go ahead and lock my
aspect ratio.
| | 01:34 |
And then just do a little quick math.
And choose half the width, so 640.
| | 01:39 |
And since I have this locked, it'll
automatically change the height.
| | 01:43 |
Now, for units, I like leaving it in
pixels, 'cuz we're in video.
| | 01:47 |
But as you can see, you could change the units.
| | 01:50 |
And our specific format is already square pixels.
| | 01:53 |
But if you click on the Pulldown you can
choose whatever size you need based on
| | 01:57 |
your project settings.
Now when I click OK, we'll create a black
| | 02:02 |
layer solid.
Now like I said before there are not round
| | 02:05 |
edged solids, so if you want a round the
edges, what you need to do is create a
| | 02:10 |
mask for that layer solid.
Before I create the mask I just want to
| | 02:13 |
explain what we're doing.
We're going to create a layer solid as a
| | 02:18 |
background for your logo and then we'll
use that logo in two different
| | 02:22 |
compositions.
So let's start by actually making a circle
| | 02:26 |
for our layer solid.
Now since I still have the layer solid
| | 02:30 |
selected, let's go up to our Tool panel
and grab the Ellipse tool.
| | 02:35 |
If you don't have the Ellipse tool
currently active, press Q on your
| | 02:38 |
keyboard.
Every time you press Q, it'll cycle
| | 02:41 |
through the different shapes that you can create.
| | 02:43 |
Now since I have a layer selected, when I
click and drag with this tool, its going
| | 02:48 |
to go ahead and create a mask for the
layer that I have selected.
| | 02:51 |
Now I'm going to hover my mouse right over
the center of the anchorpoint of this
| | 02:56 |
layer.
The reason I'm doing this, I want the
| | 02:58 |
center of my circle to be in the center of
my layer solid.
| | 03:02 |
So once thats lined up, I'm going to click
and drag.
| | 03:05 |
And notice as I start to drag its already
cropping the edges of my solid off.
| | 03:09 |
If I hold down Shift it will transform in proportion.
| | 03:12 |
If I hold down Shift and Command it'll
scale up around the center point.
| | 03:16 |
Now as I drag this out notice the mask
will go beyond the edges of the solid.
| | 03:21 |
Since the mask is tied to the layer solid,
any adjustments that I make, I just need
| | 03:26 |
to be aware of the size of the actual
layer solid if I really want the mask to
| | 03:31 |
just maintain its particular shape.
Go ahead and make the mask just a little
| | 03:35 |
bit smaller than the size of the layer solid.
| | 03:37 |
I want to adjust the color of this solid,
and to do that, you can press Cmd + Shift
| | 03:42 |
+ Y or Ctrl + Shift + Y on a PC, and
that'll open your solid settings.
| | 03:47 |
And here I can change the colour.
And once I change it, let's say I want to
| | 03:51 |
change it to kind of a teal blue colour.
I'm just going to click over here and
| | 03:56 |
there we go.
A little cyan, and I click OK.
| | 03:59 |
Notice it's automatically changed the name
to that cyan colour, and I'll click OK.
| | 04:04 |
Now we need to add our logo into the circle.
| | 04:08 |
So let's go to the graphics folder in the
project panel and click and drag our logo
| | 04:12 |
down into the timeline.
Now with the logo over the circle I'm
| | 04:17 |
going to press S and click and drag on the
scale parameter to scale this down around
| | 04:22 |
the center point.
Now notice as the illustrator file was
| | 04:25 |
scaled the control handles for the file
are way out here on the sides.
| | 04:30 |
That's just an interesting point if you're
trying to re-position something or scale
| | 04:34 |
something directly in the Comp window.
You want to know where the edges of the
| | 04:38 |
handles for that layer are.
For example, if I select layer 2 here, you
| | 04:43 |
can see the handles have already resized
based on the size of my mask.
| | 04:48 |
Now, that brings up a good point, notice
the edges of the mask are perfectly
| | 04:53 |
centered on the center of the layer.
I did that on purpose, because if we open
| | 04:57 |
our transform options for layer two if we
needed to rotate this layer for any
| | 05:02 |
particular reason I wanted to make sure
that the mask didn't wobble around.
| | 05:06 |
If you need to move the mask on the layer,
you can select the mask by clicking on the
| | 05:11 |
mask in the timeline and then if you have
your selection tool selected, by pressing
| | 05:17 |
the V key, you can click on anyone of the
control handles and since all four are
| | 05:22 |
selected, they'll all move around the layer.
| | 05:25 |
Now notice as I'm moving around, the
rotation of the layer actually was
| | 05:30 |
applied, even though we couldn't see it.
If I click and drag on the rotation again
| | 05:33 |
here, you can see what's happening with
that solid.
| | 05:37 |
I'm going to press Cmd + Z a couple times
to undo and get back to where we were.
| | 05:41 |
Now since this shape was created with a
mask on my layer solid, I'm always seeing
| | 05:46 |
the edges of the mask in addition to the solid.
| | 05:49 |
If you ever just want to turn off the mask
so you can better see what's going on in
| | 05:53 |
the scene visually, you can click on this
button here, in the bottom left corner of
| | 05:59 |
the Comp window.
It's just two to the right of the
| | 06:02 |
magnification settings.
Go ahead and click on that, and that'll
| | 06:05 |
toggle the mask on and off.
With this off, I'm looking at the edge of
| | 06:09 |
the circle.
When I go to render this project, this is
| | 06:11 |
exactly what it's going to look like.
Even if I had the visibility of the mask
| | 06:15 |
on, you wouldn't see the mask, they don't render.
| | 06:17 |
Now, I'll turn that off and go up under
Effect > Generate.
| | 06:21 |
Stroke, and the reason I did that is I
want to add a slick stroke around the
| | 06:26 |
outside of my circle just to sort of
weight the logo a little bit better inside
| | 06:32 |
of that circle.Now if you notice the next
control panel is already popped upon the
| | 06:36 |
left side of the interface.
So if you click and drag on the brush
| | 06:40 |
size, we can go ahead and increase the
edge size of the circle.
| | 06:44 |
Now we've got everything set up kind of
the way that I'd like.
| | 06:47 |
Lets go ahead and collapse layer 2 and
collapse layer 1.
| | 06:50 |
Now I'd like to copy this logo and the
background circle into another
| | 06:54 |
composition.
So I'm going to click on the layer solid
| | 06:57 |
and hold down shift and click on layer one.
| | 07:00 |
With both layers selected I'm going to
press Cmd + C or Ctrl + C to copy, and
| | 07:05 |
lets jump over to our sprint comp If you
don't have it in your timeline down here
| | 07:10 |
you can go back to your project panel and
double click on the sprint comp.
| | 07:15 |
Now let's go ahead and press Cmd + V or
Ctrl + V to paste, and you notice the logo
| | 07:19 |
pasted underneath of the solid.
Well let me undo to show you what happened
| | 07:25 |
there.
We jump back to our hand comp.
| | 07:27 |
The reason it did that, we selected from
the bottom up.
| | 07:30 |
Now the order in which you select your
layers will determine how they actually
| | 07:35 |
get pasted into the next composition.
So I’m going to click on the top layer and
| | 07:39 |
hold down shift and click on the layer below.
| | 07:41 |
Now if I Cmd + C to copy, I can go to the
other comp and Cmd + V to paste and they
| | 07:47 |
will paste in the proper order.
The last cool thing about their solids is
| | 07:51 |
the fact that they actually are imported
into the project panel.
| | 07:56 |
If we open the folder solids, that After
Effects automatically created, you can see
| | 08:00 |
my solids in here.
Should you ever want to create a layer
| | 08:03 |
solid without already having an account,
you can come up under file and choose
| | 08:08 |
import, which is solid.
And you can get to the same layer solid
| | 08:14 |
menus and import a solid directly into
your comp pane.
| | 08:17 |
Now with your solid selected, let's go
ahead and make a change.
| | 08:20 |
And I'm going to show you how to update
under both comps.
| | 08:22 |
So with the layer side still selected,
let's go up under layer and choose solid
| | 08:27 |
settings or shift Cmd + Y or Shift + Ctrl
+ Y and let's change the color a little
| | 08:32 |
bit.
I'll click on that teal color in the color
| | 08:35 |
dropper and go ahead and change that to blue.
| | 08:37 |
When I click OK and click OK one more
time, it'll affect both comps because of
| | 08:43 |
this check box right here, effect all
layers that use the solid It's going to
| | 08:47 |
affect two layers.
When I click OK, now notice I have a blue
| | 08:51 |
solid in my sprint comp and I have a blue
solid in my hand comp.
| | 08:55 |
So as you can see layer solids are
relatively simple in their creation but
| | 09:00 |
once you actually get working with them,
they're extraordinarily flexible for your
| | 09:05 |
different workflows.
| | 09:06 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating design elements with shape layers| 00:00 |
Shape layers are a little bit different
than layer solids with masks.
| | 00:04 |
They give you a little bit more
flexibility so to show you what I mean,
| | 00:08 |
let's go ahead and create a shape layer.
Make sure you have the hand comp active
| | 00:12 |
I'm just going to double click on the hand
comp here in my project panel and I don't
| | 00:18 |
have any layers selected down here in the
layer panel.
| | 00:20 |
That's important because when I grab my
shape tool I want to make sure I have the
| | 00:25 |
ellipse tool here.
When I grab this, as long as I don't have
| | 00:29 |
any layer selected, this will
automatically create a shape.
| | 00:33 |
Now if you click and drag, I want to
create a circle just like this one but
| | 00:37 |
with a shape layer so you can see some of
the added benefits.
| | 00:40 |
So let's go ahead and click and drag and
then I'll hold down Shift as I start to
| | 00:44 |
drag.
Now, let's make it roughly the same size,
| | 00:48 |
and I'm going to grab my selection tool
here so I can go ahead and move this to be
| | 00:52 |
roughly in the same spot.
If you look to the right side of your
| | 00:55 |
toolbar, notice we have some options for
our shape layer.
| | 00:58 |
By default, I have a fill, and I have a stroke.
| | 01:01 |
Now, the fill is black, so what I want to
do is click on the black fill, and I'm
| | 01:05 |
going to grab this eye dropper here under
the shape fill color.
| | 01:08 |
going to click on that and I'll click on
my blue for my other logo and then click
| | 01:13 |
OK.
So now they match that way.
| | 01:16 |
There is a Stoke option as well and I
want to increase the size of the stroke.
| | 01:19 |
I'm just going to click on the number here
and drag it towards the right.
| | 01:24 |
Okay, so that looks pretty close, a 9
point stroke.
| | 01:27 |
Now there's 1 other thing making
adjustments in these 2 panels.
| | 01:31 |
Yes, I can adjust the colors but if I hold
down the alt or the option key and click,
| | 01:35 |
I can cycle through different fill types.
Like here, I could fill with a gradient or
| | 01:40 |
I could fill with a radial gradient.
And I get control handles here.
| | 01:44 |
So let me go ahead and make this radial
gradient come on out to the edges.
| | 01:49 |
And if I want to make a change to the
color to the gradient, I'm going to go
| | 01:52 |
down to my timeline panel and, here from
my colors, I'm going to click on edit
| | 01:57 |
gradient.
Now I'm going to move this out of the way
| | 02:01 |
just so we can see our original blue layer.
| | 02:04 |
I'm going to select this color down here
in the lower right corner.
| | 02:07 |
The top will allow me adjust the opacity
and the lower part will allow me to adjust
| | 02:13 |
the color.
So I'm going to click on the black color
| | 02:16 |
option here.
Now I'll grab my eye dropper again and
| | 02:19 |
click here on the blue section of our circle.
| | 02:22 |
Now when I click ok you can see I have a
gradiant applied.
| | 02:27 |
I think thats slightly more interesting
then the blue option that we have.
| | 02:30 |
So as you can see, when I created the
shape layer I had a couple of different
| | 02:34 |
options.
Notice I automatically added the circle.
| | 02:38 |
And so if I press w to grab my rotation
tool, it'll automatically rotate around
| | 02:44 |
the the circle of the layer solid.
So you don't have to worry about it's
| | 02:47 |
position amongst a layer.
It just automatically has its own
| | 02:52 |
parameters that you can easily control in
the layer panel.
| | 02:56 |
So let's look a little more closely at the timeline.
| | 02:59 |
I'm going to go ahead and click and drag up.
| | 03:03 |
Just to give us a little more space.
Notice We have a shape layer.
| | 03:06 |
It's shape layer one.
We have an ellipse.
| | 03:10 |
We have an ellipse path.
And we have stroke options.
| | 03:12 |
And then we have our gradient fill options.
| | 03:15 |
So if I go and close the gradient fill
options, notice we have transform options.
| | 03:19 |
If I click on this, this is where I can
adjust the position or the scale or the
| | 03:25 |
rotation.
Those are still completely separate from
| | 03:30 |
the layer, overall.
If I go and select the transform options
| | 03:33 |
for the shape layer, now you can see I
have my anchor point and the size of the
| | 03:37 |
overall layer.
So, if I try and adjust the rotation here,
| | 03:41 |
notice it's rotating around that anchor point.
| | 03:44 |
So lets undo.
Most of the time when I'm working with
| | 03:46 |
shape layers I animate this specific
parameter that I'm dealing with.
| | 03:50 |
So if I'm dealing with this one ellipse I
can go ahead and make the adjustments to
| | 03:55 |
its transform options.
You can have more than one shape on a
| | 03:59 |
shape layer and as a matter of fact you
can add more parameters to the shape layer
| | 04:04 |
as well.
So let me go ahead and make this a little
| | 04:07 |
bit smaller So you can see exactly what
I'm talking about.
| | 04:11 |
Let's scroll with out scroll wheel down a
little bit to the ellipse section.
| | 04:15 |
See where it says Contents and Ellipse?
If you see the contents area, there's a
| | 04:20 |
flyout that says add.
This is the same fly out that we have up
| | 04:23 |
here in our Shape Layer options.
So let's go ahead and click on either one
| | 04:28 |
and instead of adding another shape, what
I want to do is add Pucker and bloat.
| | 04:34 |
What this'll give me is a set of options.
If I open my timeline down here, I can
| | 04:39 |
open up those options.
And if I drag to the right, it makes it
| | 04:44 |
bloat; if I drag to the left, it makes it pucker.
| | 04:47 |
So I could animate these.
Notice I have the keyframe parameter.
| | 04:51 |
If you ever add anything that you don't
want to a shape layer go ahead and select
| | 04:55 |
the parameter and then press delete.
Now, there is one last thing that I think
| | 04:59 |
is really cool about shape layers and
that's adding repetition.
| | 05:03 |
So, go back up to the add parameter and
will add a repeater.
| | 05:07 |
Now, I'm not going to animate any of this
right now but if we scroll down in the
| | 05:10 |
timeline.
Notice the repeater options just above the
| | 05:14 |
transform options.
If we open that, I have parameters for
| | 05:18 |
copies.
So let's click and drag and increase the
| | 05:21 |
number of copies.
Notice now I have many many copies.
| | 05:25 |
If I click and drag on the offset option,
it allows me to control how those copies
| | 05:30 |
move through the scene and offsets it.
So, if you want to have a circle look like
| | 05:35 |
its popping up into the scene like this,
all you have to do is animate the offset
| | 05:39 |
property.
Now, there are transform options for my
| | 05:43 |
repeater as well, and we can open those
options in here.
| | 05:47 |
So, as you can see, it can get rather
complicated, rather quickly in terms of
| | 05:53 |
dealing with shape layers, because you can create.
| | 05:56 |
So many different things within an
individual shape.
| | 06:00 |
But once you understand the base function
of creating a shape layer, with a fill and
| | 06:05 |
a stroke, you can go ahead and build on
that, and pretty much the world is your
| | 06:09 |
oyster.
| | 06:09 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Layer compositing: Masks, switches, and blend modes| 00:00 |
Masks, mats, and blend modes are a great
way to take a busy graphic and blend all
| | 00:05 |
the different elements together.
Now this graphic was created in a later
| | 00:09 |
chapter in our audio chapter, but I
thought it was a perfect example of
| | 00:13 |
something we could use to blend different
blend modes together.
| | 00:16 |
Let's load up a ram preview and check it out.
| | 00:19 |
I just have to warn you there's audio on
the track so watch your speaker levels.
| | 00:23 |
Alright.
Here we go.
| | 00:24 |
(MUSIC) Okay.
Well as I looked at the scene, I could see
| | 00:30 |
that the front word and our pulsing audio
line here are completely fighting with
| | 00:40 |
each other.
I think it's sort of a fun look but we
| | 00:46 |
could definitely draw a little more
contrast between the two.
| | 00:49 |
So let's make sure we have our Blend modes active.
| | 00:51 |
I'm going to go to the lower left corner
of my interface and click the second
| | 00:55 |
button in.
This'll make sure that my Blend modes are
| | 00:58 |
up in the screen.
Now, it's funny that I said screen,
| | 01:00 |
because if you look at the Blend modes,
that's what our top 4 layers are set to.
| | 01:05 |
A screen blend mode.
That's probably why they're all so bright.
| | 01:09 |
Now, if we turn the visibility off on
layer one and layer two, you can see it
| | 01:13 |
actually took two layers to create the
brightness of that word.
| | 01:17 |
Now, the audio pulse is what I want to
blend into the scene.
| | 01:20 |
So let's go to layer three and turn that
visibility off.
| | 01:24 |
Okay, now we know exactly what we're
dealing with.
| | 01:26 |
I want to create a mask to create darkness
kind of in the center here.
| | 01:30 |
So, I'll go up to my Elipse tool in my toolbar.
| | 01:34 |
You can click Q and press it numerous
times on the keyboard until you've
| | 01:38 |
selected the Ellipse tool to get it.
Just make sure when you start dragging
| | 01:42 |
that you have layer 3 selected.
So I'm going to click and drag to draw a
| | 01:46 |
mask around our waveform.
With the mask applied, I want to invert
| | 01:51 |
the mask because I want the center to
actually be the more dark place.
| | 01:54 |
So let's change the pull down on the mask
from add to subtract.
| | 01:59 |
Now, notice when I did subtract, the mask
in essence kind of went away.
| | 02:04 |
If I click Inverted, nope.
This is one of those instances where it
| | 02:09 |
might be better to actually apply the mask
after the waveform.
| | 02:13 |
Let's see if I can click and drag down
here, and it's not like I can change the
| | 02:17 |
hierarchy in terms of how this renders.
What I need to do is actually pre-compose.
| | 02:23 |
I'm going to click on the mask and just
press Cmd + X to cut the mask off the
| | 02:28 |
layer.
Now we can go up under layer and go down
| | 02:32 |
to choose precompose.
And we can move all the attributes into a
| | 02:37 |
new comp and click OK.
And as long as we don't click our
| | 02:40 |
continuously rasterize button or collapse
transform button right here, we should be
| | 02:45 |
able to easily mask this off now.
Since I already have the mask selected on
| | 02:50 |
my tool bar, I'm going to go and click and
drag on the canvas again.
| | 02:53 |
And this time, if we go to the pull down
next to our mask, we can change it to
| | 02:58 |
subtract and it'll actually work the way
that I was expecting.
| | 03:01 |
If you press M, M on your keyboard
rapidly, you'll open up a mask options.
| | 03:07 |
Now, I can click and drag on the Feather
options, here, to soften the transition
| | 03:11 |
across my map.
Now, this is looking relatively close to
| | 03:14 |
what I was hoping, but I need to blend
this background glowing a little bit more.
| | 03:19 |
So let's select our audio pulse glow.
If you don't have the blend modes open,
| | 03:24 |
make sure you do and then let's click
here, under screen.
| | 03:29 |
Notice blend modes are divided up into groups.
| | 03:31 |
Rather than focusing on what each
individual blend mode does, I try and just
| | 03:35 |
keep track of the individual groups.
So the first group will create dissolves,
| | 03:41 |
and I definitely want to explore that here
in a second.
| | 03:44 |
The next group creates darkness.
Now the group after that creates lightness
| | 03:50 |
so I like to think these darken and then
these add.
| | 03:54 |
Now the other group compares contrast
between the layers and then we have
| | 03:59 |
difference and hue, color, luminosity and
then the stencil layers.
| | 04:04 |
I just encourage you now to click through
each of the layers to see if there's some
| | 04:08 |
kind of blend that you like.
For example, if I chose subtract for this,
| | 04:13 |
now I'm subtracting that blur out of the background.
| | 04:16 |
And it just doesn't look quite right.
Whereas if I chose add, it's really going
| | 04:20 |
to kind of try and blend to give this nice
pop in the background.
| | 04:24 |
I want to change things up drastically.
So I'm going to click on the pul ldown and
| | 04:27 |
choose Dancing Dissolve.
When we do that, it's going to scatter all
| | 04:32 |
of the different elements into a dissolve.
Now, I'd like to add a glow to this, so
| | 04:36 |
I'm going to go up under Effect and choose
Stylize and choose Glow.
| | 04:42 |
But, notice, when I press the Glow, it's
just scattering the Glow effect.
| | 04:47 |
So, it's like the effect is processed
first and then the Blend mode is processed
| | 04:51 |
next.
I'm just going to press Cmd + Z to undo.
| | 04:54 |
So in order to change the order of
processes, we need to select Layer 4 and
| | 04:58 |
go up under Layer, and choose pre-compose.
And this time, we definitely want to make
| | 05:01 |
sure to move all the attributes into the
new comp, and when we click OK, now we can
| | 05:04 |
go back under our Effect options and
choose Glow.
| | 05:13 |
This'll add a nice glow back into our
scattered graphic.
| | 05:16 |
If I wanted to make that pop a little
more, I could adjust some of the glow
| | 05:19 |
settings, but I sort of like where it's at.
| | 05:21 |
Now, we could add a blend mode to this to
blend it back into the background.
| | 05:25 |
So let's click on our blend mode and see
if we can color burn it back into the
| | 05:29 |
background.
And that's definitely added a little bit
| | 05:32 |
more burn into the image.
So I'm liking what I have as we scrub down
| | 05:38 |
the timeline.
Now there's one last thing we need to look
| | 05:41 |
at maybe adjusting.
And that's a track mat.
| | 05:44 |
So if we have our background video
composition here, let's turn the
| | 05:47 |
visibility off and on.
I'd like to actually have this background
| | 05:51 |
blend with our blurry scatteredness.
Right above it.
| | 05:56 |
So let's keep our background layer exactly
where it is, but let's go over to its
| | 06:00 |
track mat.
Let's change that mode to alpha mat.
| | 06:05 |
This is going to look at the alpha channel
of the layer above it, and use that to cut
| | 06:09 |
the mat.
So if we turn on our alpha channel for our
| | 06:14 |
composition, you can see all that we have
actually in the scene is our scattered
| | 06:19 |
graphic and our text.
The background is being completely cut out
| | 06:23 |
by this alpha operation.
I'm going to go back here and go to RGB.
| | 06:27 |
Just so I can blend the background in a
little bit, I'm going to duplicate the
| | 06:31 |
background layer by pressing Cmd + D.
And I'll drag that to the bottom of the
| | 06:35 |
layer hierarchy.
And change its track mat to no track mat.
| | 06:39 |
And then we can just press T to open the
opacity, and, bring its luminance down.
| | 06:44 |
So now we've got this kind of haunting
look where we have our glow kind of going
| | 06:48 |
across the screen and we have this sort of
scattered look that blending into the
| | 06:53 |
background along with our alpha track mat.
So when it comes to being able to draw a
| | 06:59 |
separation between your different graphic
elements, definitely look at maybe using
| | 07:04 |
masks, and then you could explore some
blend modes, and of course, pre-composing.
| | 07:10 |
You get the idea.
Feel free to adjust to your own personal
| | 07:13 |
taste.
Just remember, there is an order of
| | 07:15 |
operation to how you apply things.
As we leave I'm going to load up a RAM
| | 07:19 |
preview of our project.
(MUSIC) Alright, I think that looks pretty
| | 07:31 |
good.
Kind of exciting.
| | 07:32 |
I hope you've enjoyed.
Thanks.
| | 07:35 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using track mattes| 00:00 |
The easiest way to think of track mattes
is to think of them as stencils, or cookie
| | 00:05 |
cutters.
You can use the transparency of one layer
| | 00:08 |
to determine the transparency of another.
So to show you what I mean, let's go down
| | 00:13 |
to the bottom of the Timeline panel and
the second button from the left in the
| | 00:17 |
lower left corner, make sure that's Enabled.
| | 00:20 |
That'll enable our modes and our track mattes.
| | 00:23 |
Notice layer one doesn't have an option
for track mats.
| | 00:26 |
That's because track mats need to
reference the layer above in order to
| | 00:30 |
enable a track mat.
So for example, let's select layer three.
| | 00:34 |
I want to use the transparency of layer
two, which is this circle to determine
| | 00:39 |
exactly how much of layer three I would
like to see.
| | 00:43 |
So, if you go to the track mat pull down
for layer three.
| | 00:46 |
Click on the word None and choose Alpha Matte.
| | 00:49 |
With alpha mat looking at the alpha
transparency of layer 2.
| | 00:54 |
Now there are a couple of other track
matte options.
| | 00:57 |
Let's look at alpha inverted.
Of course, that just does the exact
| | 01:02 |
inverse.
Now luma matte is interesting because it
| | 01:05 |
looks at the brightness values of the
image above.
| | 01:09 |
Let's enable luma matte.
As you can see, anything that was white is
| | 01:13 |
now completely bright and allowing me to
show the background layer.
| | 01:19 |
Anything that wasn't white is now just
varying shade of gray underneath, in terms
| | 01:23 |
of its transparency.
I turn luma back up to alpha, you can see
| | 01:28 |
the entire thing.
When you do luma, it's just using the
| | 01:32 |
brightness values.
Now let's switch our track matte back to
| | 01:36 |
alpha and I want to stress something, when
you're using track mattes, while the two
| | 01:40 |
layers are working together to determine
the image of the composition.
| | 01:45 |
They are not tied together when you want
to go animate.
| | 01:48 |
So for example, if we select layer 2, I
can click in the composition, and drag and
| | 01:53 |
move layer 2 around, and no matter where I
move it, it's going to go ahead.
| | 01:57 |
And cut out the background and reveal
anything underneath of this alpha channel.
| | 02:04 |
The same goes for the background layer.
I'm just going to press Cmd + Z to make
| | 02:08 |
sure my circle's back at the beginning,
then I'll select my background layer.
| | 02:11 |
Now, if I click and drag around, notice I
can move the background behind the map.
| | 02:16 |
If I move it too high, the egg shows through.
| | 02:19 |
Because, again, the mat is not moving with
the fill.
| | 02:22 |
So Layer3 is the fill and Layer 2 is the mat.
| | 02:26 |
Now, you may have missed this but when the
track mattes was enabled from Layer3, the
| | 02:30 |
visibility for Layer2 was turned off.
And a lot of times, when I apply layer
| | 02:36 |
masks, I still end up retaining some of
the colour information from the layer that
| | 02:41 |
I'm using as the mask.
So in order to introduce colour back into
| | 02:46 |
a grassy background, I'm going to go ahead
and select layer two.
| | 02:50 |
And press Cmd + D on the Mac or Ctrl + D
on Windows to duplicate the layer.
| | 02:54 |
Now let's turn the visibility of layer 2
back on.
| | 02:57 |
And to blend it into the background, we'll
go into our modes pull down and change the
| | 03:02 |
layer from normal To hard light.
Now this is mixing into the background.
| | 03:07 |
I can still see a little bit of it, but
the colors are blending in, and this looks
| | 03:10 |
a little bit more interesting.
I'd like to pop the h off the background,
| | 03:14 |
so I'm going to go ahead and select layer
1, and just right click and choose layer
| | 03:19 |
styles, drop shadow.
There, that gives it a little bit more
| | 03:24 |
dimension.
Now if you want to add the grass back into
| | 03:27 |
the scene, we can do that.
But before I do it, I just want to show
| | 03:30 |
you the alpha transparency for this composition.
| | 03:33 |
If you go to the channel button in the
middle of the comp, that looks red green
| | 03:36 |
and blue.
Go ahead and click on that.
| | 03:38 |
Then choose alpha.
And here you can see I have a perfect map
| | 03:42 |
for this.
I could render this out with alpha
| | 03:45 |
transparency and drop it over any video
footage I wanted.
| | 03:49 |
But like I said I want to add the grass
back and so I'm going to change my channel
| | 03:53 |
viewing back to RGB and select layer four.
Now before we duplicate this layer I want
| | 03:59 |
to draw your attention to the fact that
Alpha has been applied to its track matte.
| | 04:03 |
So press Cmd + D or Ctrl + D on Windows,
and you'll notice that the layer
| | 04:07 |
automatically jumped above it's alpha layer.
| | 04:10 |
So I want to disable the alpha channel for Layer3.
| | 04:15 |
So I'm going to change it from Alpha to No Matte.
| | 04:19 |
Now just for the sake of my own
organization, I like to actually drag that
| | 04:24 |
type of background all the way to the
bottom layer hierarchy.
| | 04:28 |
And to continue to give it a little bit
more separation I'm going to go up under
| | 04:32 |
effect and choose blur, fast blur and
we'll just click and drag on the bluriness
| | 04:37 |
setting there.
So, now you can see exactly what you can
| | 04:41 |
do when it comes to adding track mattes
and working with blend modes.
| | 04:44 |
You can take your graphics from blah to
hey that's kind of interesting.
| | 04:48 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Precise compositing with variable-width feathered masks| 00:00 |
The Feather Mask Tool will give you the
ability to adjust the softness of the edge
| | 00:04 |
of a mat at a very specific point in time.
Actually, any specific point in time.
| | 00:10 |
You can create feathers all over mask past.
| | 00:13 |
Now in this project, we're going to create
a mask around our soccer ball.
| | 00:17 |
And if you grab the current time indicator
and scrub through the project you can see
| | 00:21 |
there's a fair amount of motion blur on
that ball.
| | 00:24 |
So we'll start just by creating a mask
around the ball.
| | 00:27 |
Press the Q key on your keyboard to grab
the shape tool.
| | 00:31 |
Keep pressing that Q key until you get to
the ellipse tool.
| | 00:35 |
Now make sure you have layer one selected
in the timeline and then click and drag,
| | 00:40 |
holding down shift as you drag.
You can make the mask a little bit larger
| | 00:45 |
than the soccer ball, that way we can
easily re-position it later.
| | 00:48 |
After you've drawn out your mask, go ahead
and press v to grab your selection tool.
| | 00:52 |
Since all the mask vertices are already
selected, I can go ahead and click on one
| | 00:57 |
of the vertices and just re-position the mask.
| | 01:01 |
To tighten up the mask around the ball,
I'm going to press Cmd + T on the Mac.
| | 01:04 |
You could press Ctrl + T on Windows.
Now, if I hold down Shift and the Cmd key
| | 01:09 |
or Shift and the Ctrl key on Windows, I
can snap that path in proportion.
| | 01:16 |
And now it's much more tight on the soccer ball.
| | 01:19 |
When you're done with that you can go
ahead and press Return to set that
| | 01:23 |
transform.
Now when you press M on your keyboard,
| | 01:26 |
that will automatically open up the mask
to the Mask Class settings.
| | 01:30 |
There we can add a key frame.
Before we start key framing this, it's
| | 01:33 |
important to actually move the mask to the
point where there's the most Motion blur.
| | 01:38 |
Because I want to make sure I have enough
detail on the mask at that point before I
| | 01:43 |
start adding key frames.
Now, to make life easier, we should
| | 01:46 |
actually be making adjustments to our mask
in the layer panel.
| | 01:50 |
So let's go to layer 1 and just
double-click on the name to open the layer
| | 01:54 |
panel.
If your panel doesn't currently look like
| | 01:56 |
this, go down to the lower-left corner and
make sure you have the mask overlay
| | 02:01 |
toggled on so you can actually see the
edge of the mask that we'll be creating.
| | 02:07 |
My layer panel is set to a magnification
of 100%.
| | 02:10 |
The reason I did this is so I could see
the most fine detail as we continue to
| | 02:15 |
step through the project.
Now in order to find the first place to
| | 02:18 |
add a key frame, I'm going to change my
magnification to fit up to 100%.
| | 02:23 |
Now let's move our current time indicator
down a couple frames.
| | 02:27 |
And frame three is where we have the most blur.
| | 02:30 |
I know I can barely see that but, if we
click on one of the control handles for
| | 02:34 |
our mask we can re-position, and sure
enough you can see there's a lot of blur
| | 02:38 |
there So, roughly place your mask over the
center of the ball, and, before we add our
| | 02:44 |
first key frame, let's actually feather
the mask.
| | 02:47 |
If you press g on your keyboard you can
toggle between the pen tool, and mask
| | 02:52 |
feather tool.
Now if yours is toggling through a bunch
| | 02:55 |
of other tools, you need to check your preferences.
| | 02:58 |
There are two preferences that we should
definitely double-check before we start,
| | 03:02 |
key framing this.
Let's go to After Effects, and
| | 03:05 |
Preferences, and go to the General Section.
| | 03:09 |
In here, we want to make sure the Pen tool
toggles between the Pen and Mask Feather
| | 03:13 |
tools and then we need to look at the
option just above.
| | 03:17 |
Make sure Preserve Constant Vertex and
Feather Point Count is selected.
| | 03:21 |
Now we can click OK.
Now the constant vertex count basically
| | 03:25 |
means anytime you go to keyframe a mask,
it's only going to keep the same amount of
| | 03:30 |
vertices that you had the first time you
created that first keyframe.
| | 03:34 |
It's going to do the same thing with the
feather mask points.
| | 03:36 |
That's why I want to make sure, we go
ahead and draw enough points to create the
| | 03:40 |
blur for a ball.
Now to quickly create the blur, that I
| | 03:44 |
think I'm looking for, I'm going to press
Cmd + T, to transform my mask and I'll
| | 03:48 |
rotate it, so I can kind of line up each
one of these vertices, on the corner, if
| | 03:54 |
you will, of the motion blur.
Now I'll press return and we can go and
| | 03:58 |
grab our feather tool by pressing g.
Now there are couple of different ways
| | 04:02 |
that Feather tool works.
If I click and drag straight out from the
| | 04:07 |
edge of the mask here you can see I'm
creating a feather all the way round the
| | 04:12 |
outside edge.
And the feather will end on the inside of
| | 04:16 |
the mask.
You can get very precise and click and
| | 04:18 |
drag inside the mask as well to control
the fall off from the inside to your mask
| | 04:24 |
point.
But we don't necessarily need to do that
| | 04:26 |
right now.
Once you drag the handle out, you can
| | 04:29 |
rotate that handle anywhere you want
around the mask.
| | 04:32 |
It will go ahead and slide accordingly.
Now we can add more detail by adding more
| | 04:37 |
than one of these control points.
Let's hover over the edge of our mask down
| | 04:41 |
here and we can click and adjust the
transition from the really blurry part to
| | 04:47 |
this part that's not going to be so blurry.
| | 04:49 |
So we can repeat this function over here.
I'll go ahead and click drag out.
| | 04:54 |
And then drag another one to be a little
more tight in the scene.
| | 04:57 |
I'm just trying to soften that transition
in the edge where it gets really kind of
| | 05:02 |
sharp over here.
If you click off the mask and you see the
| | 05:08 |
points disappear, don't panic.
You can just click and drag again.
| | 05:12 |
So you just want to kind of have 2 points
at each edge, then that way you can have a
| | 05:18 |
bit more control over the transition like
this area.
| | 05:22 |
Now if you want to rotate points around
the mask, you can select multiple points
| | 05:27 |
by clicking on one and holding Shift and
clicking on another.
| | 05:30 |
But if you use your arrow tools, you can
use your up down arrows to move closer to
| | 05:35 |
the mask path or further away.
If you use your left and right arrows you
| | 05:39 |
can actually rotate around the edge of the mask.
| | 05:42 |
So here I can use this to rotate to the
proper area and then I'll just deselect
| | 05:48 |
those two, click back on, and just move
this one here so I have that nice
| | 05:52 |
transition.
If for any reason you decide that you want
| | 05:55 |
to go ahead and create one big sweeping
feather over a specific joint of your
| | 06:01 |
mask, you can hold down the Shift key and
notice I get these two plus symbols.
| | 06:06 |
That's going to go ahead and let me know
that it's going to drag the edge of the
| | 06:10 |
mask out between the two masked vertices.
So that's what I was thinking when I first
| | 06:15 |
rotated the mask, we could go ahead and
click and drag out just with that one
| | 06:20 |
option.
But I like the results that we got by
| | 06:22 |
clicking around and just controlling that
manually, so I left it that way.
| | 06:27 |
Let's go ahead and Undo.
There's one other kind of control you have
| | 06:31 |
over the mask feather, and that's a Hold adjustment.
| | 06:35 |
So if I click on the end of a handle, I
can go ahead and right-click and choose
| | 06:40 |
Hold.
When I choose Hold, it's automatically
| | 06:42 |
going to point around the edge of my mask
to the next control handle, and then here
| | 06:47 |
I can drag out And adjust how much this
frame positions from one to the next.
| | 06:53 |
Now it does give me a nice hard edge there
so if I were trying to (UNKNOWN) scale
| | 06:57 |
something like the edge of a wall that
would work extraordinary well.
| | 07:00 |
I'm just going to undo to change those
last changes.
| | 07:04 |
Now we've covered how to change a hole,
we've covered how to move multiple handles
| | 07:09 |
for our Feather.
We've covered how to feather one whole
| | 07:12 |
segment.
There's one more adjustment that we can
| | 07:15 |
do.
If I hover over a handle, I can hold down
| | 07:18 |
the Option key on the Mac or Alt on Windows.
| | 07:21 |
This will adjust the tension around this
point so if you click and drag Towards the
| | 07:27 |
Mask, it'll tighten up the tension.
And away from the Mask, it'll loosen up
| | 07:31 |
the tension.
To accentuate this I'm going to add a
| | 07:35 |
Feather point straight here in the middle
and I'll just drag it out, way way out.
| | 07:39 |
So we get this really soft transition.
Now we can hold Alt on Windows or Opt on
| | 07:45 |
Mac, and click and drag to the right to
soften the tension.
| | 07:48 |
And back to the left to tighten up the
tension around that point.
| | 07:52 |
Now obviously you can do this across
multiple points, to have a really fine
| | 07:56 |
adjustment to the tension of that point.
Now you can always right-click back on the
| | 08:02 |
point an choose to edit the tension that way.
| | 08:04 |
An so we could change the tension back to
zero, an it'll just billow right back out
| | 08:09 |
again.
If you decide you want to delete one of
| | 08:11 |
the feather handles, as long as it's
selected with that little black dot, you
| | 08:15 |
can go ahead and just press Delete, and it
will disappear.
| | 08:17 |
Now that we have our basic control handles
for how we want this mask to look for this
| | 08:22 |
individual frame, we can go ahead and add
a key frame for that one frame.
| | 08:27 |
Now to finish this job, we would just
want to move one frame at a time, and each
| | 08:32 |
time we moved a frame we could go ahead
and, with our selection tool, move the
| | 08:36 |
masque and all of its feathered goodness,
and now we can move along with the edge of
| | 08:43 |
the ball.
Now remember, even though we have this
| | 08:46 |
mask drawn out, if you decide that you
still have too much room around the
| | 08:50 |
outside edge, you can press Cmd + T or
Ctrl + T on Windows, to open your
| | 08:54 |
transformer handles for the mask points.
Now I could press Shift and the Cmd key to
| | 08:59 |
go ahead and scale that down It will be
Shift and Ctrl on Windows, that would
| | 09:04 |
scale it around the center point.
Now when I press return I've got a much
| | 09:08 |
tighter mask for our blurred ball.
So the Feather Mask tool gives you all
| | 09:13 |
kinds of new control whenever you're
trying to create very precise masks.
| | 09:18 |
Just remember to check your preferences if
you're going to be doing a rotoscoping job
| | 09:22 |
over any amount of time.
| | 09:23 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Working smarter by swapping layers| 00:00 |
In this video, we're going to use a
technique to help you work smarter instead
| | 00:04 |
of harder.
We're going to learn about a neat trick in
| | 00:07 |
After Effects called Layer Swapping.
And basically, it allows you to apply
| | 00:12 |
animation to a layer.
And then let's say, somebody changes their
| | 00:16 |
mind and wants you to animate a different layer.
| | 00:19 |
You could just swap out the old layer with
the new layer and all the animation will
| | 00:24 |
stay the same.
To show you what I mean, lets load up a
| | 00:26 |
ram preview.
You can see in the lower right corner, I
| | 00:30 |
have a logo already animating in the
scene, and then in the bottom of the
| | 00:35 |
composition, I have some video.
Now, if we press the Spacebar to stop for
| | 00:40 |
a second.
Let's select layer 7 and press the U key
| | 00:44 |
to open up any animated parameters, so you
can see I've got some scale key frames
| | 00:49 |
already applied to this layer.
If I scroll down to layer 10 and press E
| | 00:54 |
to open any effects that I have applied,
you can see I have a levels effect applied
| | 01:00 |
to this layer.
Now, we'll start by swapping out the logo
| | 01:04 |
make sure layer seven is selected and then
go to the graphics folder.
| | 01:08 |
In there, we have another logo called
determined so let's go ahead and hold down
| | 01:13 |
the Opt key on the Mac, Alt key on Windows.
| | 01:16 |
Click and drag on the logo and drag it
down into the timeline, there you have it.
| | 01:21 |
We've automatically swapped the layer.
If you load up another ram preview, you
| | 01:25 |
can see the animation has been retained.
Let me press the Spacebar to stop
| | 01:35 |
playback.
As I'm looking at this logo, the only
| | 01:37 |
thing I would change is the fact that it's
out of title save right now, so I'd put it
| | 01:42 |
back in title save.
Let's go up under the grid and guide
| | 01:45 |
button, under the right-hand corner of the
composition, and will turn on our title
| | 01:49 |
and action save and we just wanted inside
of this square.
| | 01:53 |
Again, if we press the U key, we can open
up any animated parameters.
| | 01:58 |
Since the scales been animated, but not
the position, we can easily just
| | 02:02 |
reposition this.
Inside of title safe, and then as we scrub
| | 02:07 |
through, you can see the animation has not
been effected whatsoever.
| | 02:11 |
Alright, now let's deal with a slightly
more complicated issue.
| | 02:14 |
And that's our background video.
Now, just so we can see things more
| | 02:18 |
clearly, I'll turn my title and and action
safe off.
| | 02:21 |
Alright, with our video layer I have an
effect applied to it levels.
| | 02:25 |
So I want to go ahead and just swap out
this video, but I want to be able to
| | 02:29 |
adjust the levels for my new clip.
So let's open up the video footage folder,
| | 02:34 |
and let's choose the stairs run up movie.
Now if you hold down Opt on the Mac, Alt
| | 02:40 |
on Windows, you can click and drag down
into the timeline.
| | 02:43 |
And look what happens, the video disappears.
| | 02:46 |
This is quite common whenever you're
working with multiple sources from
| | 02:50 |
multiple places.
A lot of times, you have different
| | 02:54 |
resolutions of footage or, different
lengths of image.
| | 02:58 |
So, let's do a little deductive reasoning
here and go up to our project panel.
| | 03:03 |
If we click on our stairs run up movie,
you can see it's 30 seconds long.
| | 03:07 |
And then if we click on our stair run down
movie, it is two minutes long.
| | 03:12 |
So there has to be a better way to swap this.
| | 03:15 |
I could go ahead and adjust the endpoint
of this layer by pressing the Left Bracket
| | 03:19 |
key, I'd want to make sure I have my
timeline active and then go ahead and hit
| | 03:23 |
my Left Bracket key.
But notice now, I'm at the start of the
| | 03:27 |
clip, which is not at all where I want to be.
| | 03:30 |
So this is not the way to work when you're
trying to swap a video layer.
| | 03:34 |
This is when you want to utilize the
Pre-compose command layer.
| | 03:38 |
So I'll go ahead and just Cmd + Z, Cmd + Z
to undo.
| | 03:42 |
And make sure we have layer ten selected.
Our original stair rundown Quicktime file.
| | 03:49 |
Now, go up under layer, and choose Pre-compose.
| | 03:54 |
This would be the time where you want to
make sure that, Leave all attributes, is
| | 03:58 |
selected.
This way, when we pre-compose, the effect
| | 04:02 |
is going to stay inside of our swap layers composition.
| | 04:07 |
Now I'm going to go ahead and click okay
since I have the proper selection for
| | 04:10 |
pre-compose.
Now we just have a composition for layer
| | 04:14 |
ten.
And if we press e on our keyboard, we can
| | 04:17 |
see that the levels effect is still there.
Now if we double click on layer ten, we've
| | 04:22 |
opened up our pre-composition.
Now in here, we don't have to use the
| | 04:26 |
option command, we can just go ahead and
double click on our stairs run up
| | 04:30 |
Quicktime.
Now, if we quickly scrub in the layer
| | 04:33 |
timeline just by grabbing our current time indicator.
| | 04:37 |
We could choose our endpoint for this layer.
| | 04:39 |
.So I'll just go ahead and click the left bracket.
| | 04:43 |
Now, I can go ahead and drag down the
timeline and make sure I have at least 10
| | 04:47 |
seconds of video and I'll trim my out point.
| | 04:51 |
Now we can drop this in the composition
just by clicking this edit overlay button.
| | 04:55 |
Now, when we've done that, you notice just
how much shorter our clip is than layer 2.
| | 05:01 |
Well, let's go back to our swap layers
composition for a quick second.
| | 05:05 |
Notice this doesn't look quite right.
Well, if we look at our current time
| | 05:08 |
indicator in the timeline, it's at one second.
| | 05:11 |
Let's go ahead and drag it tot he front of
our timeline and you'll notice we still
| | 05:16 |
have our old video clip.
When you move between compositions, the
| | 05:20 |
current time indicator stays in place.
So I can go to the Stair_RunDown comp, and
| | 05:25 |
you notice my new video hasn't even
started yet.
| | 05:28 |
So let's go ahead and just click and drag
that down.
| | 05:31 |
Now my new video is a little smaller than
I expected so let's go ahead and press s
| | 05:36 |
to open up the scale.
And we can just scale it up a little bit.
| | 05:39 |
I know this causes a slight loss in image
quality, but since it's under so many
| | 05:43 |
graphics, it's going to work just fine.
Now, if we go back to our swap layers comp
| | 05:49 |
one more time, notice that our runner is
hidden behind all of these graphics, so
| | 05:55 |
let's go back to our pre-comp one last
time and just change the scale.
| | 06:00 |
I'm going to unlock the scale for this layer.
| | 06:03 |
If you don't have your scale property
open, go ahead and just press S on your
| | 06:07 |
keyboard.
Now I'm going to unlock the scale the
| | 06:09 |
scale parameter and we'll just click for
the X value and change it to minus 108.
| | 06:16 |
Now when we press Enter she's flipped around.
| | 06:19 |
Since we don't have any words or anything
in this shot this is going to work
| | 06:22 |
perfectly well.
Now we can just close our pre-composition
| | 06:26 |
and in our original comp here now all we
have to do is make our levels adjustment.
| | 06:32 |
So since we have our in for layer 10 we
can just go up to our effect controls and
| | 06:38 |
then make adjustments in the histogram.
I'm going to click here to bring the black
| | 06:42 |
levels down and I'll click on my gray
levels and just bring them down as well
| | 06:47 |
just to kind of give it a little bit more
contrast to pack in the scene.
| | 06:51 |
Okay, we may have to increase the black
levels again.
| | 06:55 |
So we've successfully swapped out a logo
and we've learned a workflow to swap out
| | 07:00 |
our video.
I hope you enjoy working a little smarter
| | 07:03 |
with swapping layers.
| | 07:05 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Keyboard shortcuts for layers| 00:00 |
In this video, we're going to cover some
key commands that can be kind of helpful
| | 00:03 |
when you have a composition that has a lot
of layers.
| | 00:06 |
With these commands, we'll quickly be able
to select layers, and then move up and
| | 00:10 |
down through the different layers without
necessarily having to use our mouse.
| | 00:15 |
Before we start, it's always a wise idea
to make sure that we have the panel
| | 00:18 |
selected that we're going to be working
with, so I'll just click on my
| | 00:22 |
Training_Swoosh tab there and make sure
that my Timeline panel is active.
| | 00:27 |
Now, if you have a full size keyboard, you
can quickly and easily select an
| | 00:31 |
individual layer just by clicking the
number in the keypad.
| | 00:34 |
So for example, if I want to select Layer
8, I'll just type 8 on my keypad.
| | 00:39 |
Now, if it's a double-digit layer, you can
just type those numbers relatively
| | 00:42 |
quickly.
Let's type 12.
| | 00:45 |
If you need to see an animated parameter
for any layer, you could press the u key.
| | 00:50 |
Now, if I want to hide that, I'll press
the u key again.
| | 00:53 |
If I need to select any specific parameter
for a layer, I can go ahead and type the
| | 00:58 |
letter for that parameter.
For example opacity, I'll use T.
| | 01:03 |
For rotation I'll press R.
For scale I'll press S.
| | 01:08 |
You get the idea.
Now, if you just hit it again, it'll go
| | 01:11 |
ahead and collapse that layer.
If I need to quickly select the layer
| | 01:14 |
above the layer that I currently have
selected, I can press Cmd on the Mac or
| | 01:19 |
Ctrl on Windows and then use my Up and
Down arrows.
| | 01:22 |
Now, let's say I'd like to select layers 8
and 9, if I hold down Cmd on the Mac, Ctrl
| | 01:27 |
on Windows and then add Shift, I can use
the Down arrow to add to the selection.
| | 01:32 |
Every time I keep clicking that arrow,
it'll add to the selection.
| | 01:36 |
If I go back up it'll actually continue
adding to the selection.
| | 01:39 |
If I want to start over, I can just press
the Cmd key and press Down or Up, and it
| | 01:44 |
will go ahead and jump to the bottom or
the top of that selection.
| | 01:47 |
So again, Cmd on the Mac, Ctrl on Windows,
and then Shift, and that'll allow you to
| | 01:54 |
add to the selection of that individual layer.
| | 01:57 |
And finally, if I want to create new
layers in my project, I can create those
| | 02:02 |
layers with the y key.
Now, on the Mac, if I press Cmd+Y, it'll
| | 02:07 |
automatically create a new solid.
On Windows, it's Ctrl+Y.
| | 02:11 |
If I add the Option key to that or the Alt
key to that, I'm going to press Cmd+Opt+Y,
| | 02:18 |
that would be Ctrl+Alt+Y on Windows.
That'll add an adjustment layer.
| | 02:24 |
Now, there are many other key commands you
can use in your Layers panel, just most of
| | 02:29 |
those correspond to navigating through time.
| | 02:31 |
So we'll definitely explore those in the
Animation Chapter.
| | 02:34 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
5. Creating AnimationUnderstanding animation| 00:00 |
Now before we get started in animation
it's important to have a firm foundation
| | 00:05 |
as to how animation works inside of after effects.
| | 00:08 |
So I've created a couple of very simple
project examples so we can have some
| | 00:13 |
reference to talk about.
I'm going to start with this 01 temporal
| | 00:17 |
key frames composition.
I'm going to load up a ramp preview here,
| | 00:21 |
and you can see I have a scale and rotation.
| | 00:24 |
These are known as temporal keyframes,
because it's not keeping track of any
| | 00:29 |
spacial data.
So let me go ahead and stop playback here
| | 00:32 |
for a second.
Now if you notice the animation actually
| | 00:36 |
stopped in a very abrupt pattern.
If you turn off the visibility of layer 2,
| | 00:41 |
and turn on the visibility of layer 1, you
can go ahead and rotate here.
| | 00:45 |
And notice now this looks like a much more
organic motion.
| | 00:50 |
This is called ease or easy ease inside of
After Effects.
| | 00:54 |
The key frames ease out of one position
and ease back into another.
| | 00:58 |
And let's stop playback there.
Now if you want to see key frames on any
| | 01:03 |
layer or any kind of animation on any layer.
| | 01:06 |
You can have those layers selected and
then select the u key, the uber key, to
| | 01:11 |
open up any of those keyframes.
Notice linear key frames look like
| | 01:15 |
diamonds and keyframes with these, look
like the greater than or less than symbol.
| | 01:21 |
Now you can navigate between keyframes and
with these navigation arrows.
| | 01:25 |
And when you're parked on a key frame,
you'll see the golden diamond actually
| | 01:29 |
filled in.
Any time your current time indicator is
| | 01:32 |
off of the key frame, notice there's no
diamond in the time line.
| | 01:37 |
Now, let's look at spacial key frames.
And go to Spatial here, we have a position
| | 01:42 |
keyframe and it's a linear animation.
If you look at the line here, you can see
| | 01:47 |
these dots are all in the same place all
the way across the line.
| | 01:51 |
That's letting me know that it's going to
travel at the same speed across the
| | 01:55 |
animation.
So, if I load up a RAM preview here, you
| | 01:58 |
can see it's moving in a linear fashion.
It just starts and stops very robotic.
| | 02:03 |
I'm going to stop playback here.
If you turn the visibility of three off
| | 02:08 |
and then turn the visibility of two on,
these have Es.
| | 02:11 |
And notice how the points on the motion
path are tighter together at the beginning
| | 02:17 |
and end.
Let's load up a RAM preview of this one,
| | 02:19 |
and you'll see it looks much more organic.
It's kind of like driving a car.
| | 02:24 |
You speed up, and then you gradually slow down.
| | 02:27 |
Now, another term that you'll see in
animation, in addition to Ease, is Motion
| | 02:31 |
Blur.
So let's turn on layer one.
| | 02:34 |
And this layer has ease on the keyframes,
but it has motion blur applied to it, so
| | 02:39 |
it'll have a little bit more of a
realistic view when you're actually
| | 02:43 |
watcing it.
I'll stop playback here for a second.
| | 02:47 |
I've been referencing this line in the middle.
| | 02:49 |
And this is called a motion path.
If I click on any one of the ends of the
| | 02:54 |
motion path, I can select keyframes, or I
can just change the motion path.
| | 03:00 |
Now we'll get into how to do this a little
bit later in the chapter, but I wanted you
| | 03:04 |
to see the motion path.
And notice how the blur will now adjust as
| | 03:09 |
the motion of my object changes.
Alright, parenting is one of my favorite
| | 03:15 |
styles of animation.
This starts off our intermediate style of
| | 03:19 |
animation.
Parenting causes one layer to drive the
| | 03:23 |
other layer.
Notice we have a parent column here.
| | 03:26 |
If you don't see that column, all you have
to do is right click on the gray area of
| | 03:30 |
your timeline.
And then you can go to columns and choose
| | 03:34 |
parent.
Now the parent of layer one is layer two.
| | 03:39 |
If I turn the parenting off and then go
ahead and preview that animation again,
| | 03:43 |
notice.
The cube for layer two is the only thing
| | 03:47 |
that's animated.
If you want to double check that you can
| | 03:50 |
select both layers and press the u key and
sure enough.
| | 03:54 |
So the child layers choose the parent, and
again we'll show you all of this in the
| | 03:58 |
chapter.
It's just important to understand how it's
| | 04:01 |
working.
Now this is my own name, I call it the
| | 04:05 |
wild child.
But just to reinforce how parenting works,
| | 04:08 |
you can have the child layer doing its own animation.
| | 04:12 |
This one is just kind of bouncing back and forth.
| | 04:15 |
The second we add the parent to that
animation, notice the child's not really
| | 04:19 |
changing.
But I can go ahead and select my parent
| | 04:22 |
layer and press P to open the position key frame.
| | 04:24 |
And let's add a key frame here.
And I'll just move it down 12 frames and
| | 04:29 |
slide it over to the right here.
Now notice as we preview this, my child
| | 04:36 |
animation is still moving in correlation
to what my parent layer is doing.
| | 04:40 |
If I wanted to move my child layer closer,
I can just move it closer because I
| | 04:47 |
animated the anchor point - thats another
thing you need to pay attention to if
| | 04:51 |
you're going to do animation, the anchor point.
| | 04:54 |
This is the center point at which the
layer orbits around, so if I grabbed by
| | 04:58 |
rotation tool by pressing W.
I could go ahead and change that, and
| | 05:02 |
it'll rotate around the anchor point.
The anchor point's also good to offset
| | 05:07 |
position, like it's doing right here.
Since I rotated it, now it's just going to
| | 05:11 |
bounce around.
And since i repositioned the child layer
| | 05:15 |
next to the parent layer I now have the
relationship moving a little closer.
| | 05:20 |
So the parent layer is controlling the
child layer.
| | 05:23 |
The child can do whatever it wants.
The last example is expression.
| | 05:29 |
Expressions can not only tie together one
layer to another, like parenting.
| | 05:34 |
But you can tie one parameter to another.
So I'm going to draw a lasso over both
| | 05:39 |
layers aand press U.
In here you can see there's an expression.
| | 05:43 |
If I read the expression in my timeline,
it says this comp layer named Parent layer
| | 05:49 |
transforms the x posiiton.
Well, that means if I go ahead and Scrub
| | 05:56 |
through any time this layer moves its x
position, that value is going to drive the
| | 06:03 |
rotation of the child layer.
Now, again, we'll definitely cover all of
| | 06:08 |
these examples in the animation chapeter.
I just wanted you to have a quick glimipse
| | 06:13 |
at some of the key expressions and terms
that we're going to be using inside of
| | 06:18 |
this chapter.
| | 06:19 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Adding and adjusting keyframes| 00:00 |
Key framing is arguably the most
fundamental aspect of creating any kind of
| | 00:05 |
motion graphics.
And we're going to explore how to add and
| | 00:08 |
adjust key frames by animating the
appearance of this logo into the scene.
| | 00:13 |
Now, rather than trying to describe the
move, let's go ahead and double click on
| | 00:18 |
the logo animated comp in the Project panel.
| | 00:21 |
Let's load a ram preview by pressing 0 on
your key pad or Ctrl + 0 on your regular
| | 00:26 |
sized keyboard.
So as you can see, we have the logo
| | 00:33 |
sliding into the scene.
And while it's a relatively simplistic
| | 00:37 |
animation, there's a fair amount of work
that goes in behind something like this.
| | 00:41 |
So I'm going to press the Spacebar and
stop play back.
| | 00:43 |
And let's go ahead and get started.
So if you click on the h+ logo tab on the
| | 00:49 |
left side of your Timeline panel, you can
see here we've got our logo.
| | 00:54 |
Now, go ahead and press home to move your
current time indicator to the start of the
| | 00:58 |
timeline.
That's a good general practice when you're
| | 01:02 |
starting to build your animations, just in
case you've built a composition and moved
| | 01:07 |
the current time indicator anyway.
You'll see the tight role it plays with
| | 01:10 |
setting keyframes in a moment.
Now, I know in the example animation, we
| | 01:15 |
had both the logo and the circle moving
together as one unit.
| | 01:20 |
And if we look at the layers in our
composition, we have layer one, layer two,
| | 01:25 |
and layer three.
I'm just turning their visibility often
| | 01:28 |
the timelines you can see there indeed 3
separate layers.
| | 01:32 |
Now what we'll do is animate just the
circle and then later tie the h logo to
| | 01:38 |
the circle so it moves at the same time
rather than setting key frames for each
| | 01:42 |
and every layer.
So turn the visibility off for layer one
| | 01:46 |
and click on the triangle for layer two to
open up its parameters that we could
| | 01:51 |
animate.
Now if your transform parameters didn't
| | 01:54 |
already open go ahead and open those parameters.
| | 01:58 |
Since this is a shape layer we have
contents as well as transform.
| | 02:03 |
Now, since this is a shape layer, we could
add keyframes to both the contents or the
| | 02:09 |
transform.
For simplicity's sake, I just want to
| | 02:12 |
animate the transform options for this
entire layer.
| | 02:15 |
So, as you can see, we have five
parameters under Transform, and there are
| | 02:20 |
stopwatches to the left of each one of
those parameters.
| | 02:23 |
That means you can add key frames for any
one of those parameters.
| | 02:26 |
And you'll see these stopwatches repeated
throughout many different parts of the
| | 02:30 |
interface.
Since the circle already exists where I
| | 02:34 |
want it to stop.
I'm going to employ a technique of
| | 02:36 |
animating backwards to get started with my
first keyframe.
| | 02:40 |
So move your current time indicator to
around one second in your timeline.
| | 02:44 |
It's fine if you're a frame off here or there.
| | 02:47 |
Now, we can go ahead and add a keyframe
for the position by clicking the Stopwatch
| | 02:51 |
to the left of the position parameter.
That records a keyframe specifically where
| | 02:56 |
the current time indicator is set.
So let's press home so we can now move our
| | 03:00 |
shape layer off the left side of the canvas.
| | 03:03 |
So click in the comp window, over the
shape, and drag.
| | 03:07 |
And as you drag to the left, go ahead and
hold down shift, after you've started
| | 03:11 |
dragging, to make sure that the object
stays snapped to the x parameter.
| | 03:16 |
Now make sure the object goes off the left
side of the screen and let go.
| | 03:19 |
Now you should see a line like this.
Now this line pertains to the motion path
| | 03:25 |
and the way the motion path is drawn
there's a box for every single key frame.
| | 03:30 |
So notice when I click on this keyframe in
the center this second key frame is
| | 03:35 |
already high lighted.
If I zoom out by pressing the Comma key on
| | 03:40 |
the keyboard you can see I have a second
key frame that's right here.
| | 03:44 |
If I click on it, that automatically
selects that one in the timeline.
| | 03:48 |
Now, with the object all the way off the
side of the screen, this part is not going
| | 03:53 |
to be a part of the rendered animation.
We won't see that circle until we start
| | 03:58 |
moving down the timeline.
Now, go ahead and click on the current
| | 04:01 |
time indicator and scrub down your timeline.
| | 04:04 |
This is a way to preview animations
without necessarily having to load up a
| | 04:08 |
RAM preview all the time.
Now since we want to move this off the
| | 04:12 |
right side of the canvas go ahead and move
your current time indicator anywhere you
| | 04:16 |
want further down the time line.
I'm moving mine to around 3:18.
| | 04:21 |
Now, click and drag again on our shape in
the top window and hold down shift as you
| | 04:27 |
start to drag.
Now you should notice, the dots on the
| | 04:30 |
right side of my motion path are more
close together than on the left side of
| | 04:34 |
the motion path.
That's a visual representation of the
| | 04:37 |
speed of the object.
So if I scrub through my animation here,
| | 04:42 |
I'm getting an idea that it's going to
move quickly and then slowly.
| | 04:46 |
Now go a head and load a ram preview, and
as you can see, the play back its going
| | 04:51 |
very quickly and then very slowly.
Well, I'm going to press this Spacebar to
| | 04:56 |
stop playback here.
What we need to do is have the circle
| | 04:59 |
pause in the middle and in order to do
that, we need to have another keyframe
| | 05:04 |
that's exactly the same as our second keyframe.
| | 05:07 |
So, move your current time indicator to
around 1:12.
| | 05:11 |
If you draw a lasso around the middle
keyframe, not a selected I encourage you
| | 05:16 |
not to click directly on key frames in the
timeline because you might accidentally
| | 05:20 |
move them as you click.
So again, draw a lasso again the key frame
| | 05:25 |
and press Cmd + C or Ctrl + C.
And then Cmd + V or Ctrl + V to copy and
| | 05:32 |
paste.
Notice it copied the keyframe we had
| | 05:35 |
selected, and when I went to Paste, it
pasted right where the current time
| | 05:39 |
indicator resides.
We can press Home and then load up another
| | 05:44 |
RAM preview.
Again, 0 on your keypad.
| | 05:50 |
So that looks pretty good, but it's still
extraordinarily slow.
| | 05:53 |
So I'm going to press the space bar to
stop playback and draw a lasso around all
| | 05:58 |
four keyframes.
Now, if you hold down the Option key on
| | 06:02 |
the Mac or Alt on Windows, you can click
on either the end keyframe or the
| | 06:06 |
beginning keyframe.
I'm going to click on the end keyframe.
| | 06:09 |
And drag it to left.
Notice that all the other keyframes in
| | 06:14 |
between, are dragging in proportion.
So I'm always going to have a fast
| | 06:18 |
section, a stop and then a slow section.
This is a great way to re-time things in
| | 06:24 |
your timeline without necessarily having
to create all new keyframes.
| | 06:29 |
If you're working with keyframes, and you
notice all of your keyframes are starting
| | 06:32 |
to reside in one small Small area in your
timeline, you might want to reset your
| | 06:37 |
work area.
So I'm going to move my current time
| | 06:40 |
indicator to around 1:19 and press N, as
in Nancy, on my keyboard.
| | 06:45 |
When I do that, that resets my preview range.
| | 06:49 |
So if I load a RAM Preview, it's only
going to preview these parts in the
| | 06:52 |
timeline.
So that looks a little bit better.
| | 06:57 |
I'm going to go ahead and press the space
bar to stop playback and there's one last
| | 07:02 |
thing we should do before we go ahead and
try to render this.
| | 07:06 |
Just so you can see it, I'm going to zoom
back in and press play on my bar.
| | 07:15 |
Now go ahead and move the current time
indicator to around frame six.
| | 07:18 |
Now look at the third check box from the
right in your switches area.
| | 07:24 |
If you don't currently see this, you want
to go ahead and toggle your switches and
| | 07:27 |
modes to make sure you have this active.
Go ahead and enable that option, if you
| | 07:33 |
click and hold you can see it's called
motion blur.
| | 07:36 |
When I enable Motion Blur I don't
immediately see it in the Comp window.
| | 07:40 |
This allows me to enable motion blur for
any layers I want but then still continue
| | 07:45 |
to work rather quickly and then before I
go to render, I can enable my motion blur
| | 07:52 |
so I can actually see it in the canvas.
This just allows you to work more quickly.
| | 07:57 |
Now what Motion Blue does, is just adds a
little bit more sense of realism to what's
| | 08:03 |
moving through the scene.
Since this is moving rather quickly, I
| | 08:06 |
have a large amount of Motion Blue for the
front area.
| | 08:10 |
No motion blur for when it stops and then
a little less as it moves out of the
| | 08:14 |
scene.
Now of course,you finish our animation, we
| | 08:18 |
want to make sure that our H animation
moves with the circle.
| | 08:22 |
So turn the visibility for layer 1 on, and
then scrub and timeline.
| | 08:28 |
In order to have this move with the
circle, you want to position your current
| | 08:32 |
time indicator in the area where it's stopped.
| | 08:35 |
This way we know it's lined up perfectly
over top of the circle.
| | 08:38 |
And now we're going to use a feature
called parenting.
| | 08:42 |
So if you don't see this Parent panel in
your timeline, you can go ahead and just
| | 08:46 |
right click anywhere along this gray bar.
I usually right click next to the layer
| | 08:51 |
name.
If you go to Columns, you can enable any
| | 08:55 |
of these different options.
You want to make sure Parent is selected.
| | 08:59 |
Since it's already selected in mine, I'm
just going to click outside of that area.
| | 09:02 |
And click on this little curly Q shape.
If you click on that and then start to
| | 09:08 |
drag, notice I can point it at different things.
| | 09:12 |
Well, specifically, I want to point it
right at the word circle on layer 2.
| | 09:17 |
Now, when I let go, notice the parent has listed.
| | 09:21 |
The circle layer as the parent layer for
the h+ logo.
| | 09:25 |
Now, as I scrub through the scene, you can
see, oh yeah, it's totally tied to the
| | 09:30 |
circle, but what's wrong?
We haven't enabled motion blur.
| | 09:34 |
So go ahead and enable motion blur, and
let's click on the right side of our work
| | 09:40 |
area end.
And drag it all the way to the end of our
| | 09:42 |
comp.
Then go ahead and load up a RAM preview,
| | 09:45 |
so you can check out what we've built
using keyframes and enabling some extra
| | 09:49 |
features like motion blur and parenting.
| | 09:51 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Understanding keyframe interpolation| 00:00 |
Understanding keyframe interpolation is a
surefire way to take your animation skills
| | 00:05 |
to the next level.
In this project, we're going to animate
| | 00:08 |
this layer solid to move along the path.
That's going to give us a perfect example
| | 00:13 |
to show you all the different kinds of
variations you can create on an animation
| | 00:17 |
Just by adjusting the key frame interpolation.
| | 00:19 |
Now, just to make sure everyone's on the
same page.
| | 00:22 |
I want you to go to your preferences.
On the Mac, it's under after effects.
| | 00:26 |
Windows, it's under edit.
So let's go to our preferences in the
| | 00:30 |
general setting.
And make sure the fourth option down,
| | 00:33 |
default spatial interpolation, is de-selected.
| | 00:37 |
Now we'll click OK.
I want to enable automatic key framing,
| | 00:41 |
and select layer 1.
If you don't already have the position
| | 00:45 |
data open, press P on your keyboard.
Just so you can see whether or not we're
| | 00:49 |
adding key frames.
And I'll press Home on the keyboard to
| | 00:52 |
move my current time indicator back to the
beginning, before I create my first key
| | 00:57 |
frame.
Now, with automatic key framing selected,
| | 01:00 |
I can go ahead and click and drag on my
layer solid.
| | 01:03 |
Making sure not to drag on the anchor
point in the middle or any of the control
| | 01:07 |
handles and I've already set my first key frame.
| | 01:11 |
So lets move 12 frames down and click and
drag, and hold Shift after we start to
| | 01:15 |
drag to snap on an axis, and we'll keep
repeating this every 12 frames.
| | 01:21 |
I just want you to move, the solid down
and then hold Shift as you start to drag
| | 01:25 |
and move it to the next point.
Now I'm sure you can tell that the
| | 01:31 |
animation panel looks a little funny, even
though I'm just dragging it in very
| | 01:36 |
straight lines.
I'm going to click on the shape, and then
| | 01:39 |
I'll hold down the Shift, okay.
So now if we load up our RAM preview, you
| | 01:45 |
can see it's not quite exactly what I was thinking.
| | 01:49 |
The first time this happened to me, I
sort of freaked out.
| | 01:52 |
But if you press the Spacebar and stop
playback here for a second, I want you to
| | 01:56 |
remember a minute ago when we were in our preferences.
| | 01:59 |
If you go to your preferences under the
general setting, and enable default
| | 02:03 |
spacial interpolation, this issue won't happen.
| | 02:06 |
Now since I've already created this
animation, I'm going to go head and click
| | 02:10 |
cancel for now.
Now just so we won't create any more key
| | 02:13 |
frames, let's turn off automatic key
framing in the time line.
| | 02:16 |
Now double click on the linear composition
in the comp panel Notice I've already
| | 02:22 |
created comps and I did this so you'd have
a nice reference project when we're
| | 02:26 |
finished making all these adjustments.
Now to quickly and easily select all the
| | 02:31 |
keyframes for layer one let's click on the
word position.
| | 02:35 |
And there we can see our motion path.
I just want to change the interpolation by
| | 02:39 |
right clicking on any one of the key frames.
| | 02:42 |
Since they're all selected, they'll all change.
| | 02:45 |
Now if we go to Keyframe Interpolation,
there's the option for Spacial
| | 02:48 |
Interpolation, and we can change that from
auto to linear.
| | 02:53 |
Now when I click OK, notice our motion
path is snapped along the line.
| | 02:58 |
Now getting some visual cues that there is
still going to be an issue because the
| | 03:01 |
spacing between these dots is different
between each area.
| | 03:05 |
That just refers to the speed and that has
to do with the fact that there are only 12
| | 03:09 |
frames between each one of the key frames.
So, if it's only moving a little bit
| | 03:13 |
across the page it's going to move very slowly.
| | 03:15 |
And if it's moving a lot it's going to
move more quickly.
| | 03:18 |
So let's set up a RAM preview so we can
check that out.
| | 03:23 |
Okay, press the Spacebar to stop playback.
Now if you want your animation to move
| | 03:29 |
along at a constant speed and go through
each one of these points, you can do that
| | 03:34 |
by using roving key frames.
So let's double click on the rove comp and
| | 03:38 |
make sure we have roving Up.
Now, for roving keyframes, you want to
| | 03:43 |
have a first keyframe and a last keyframe.
But you could have all the middle ones
| | 03:48 |
rove across time.
So, what I want you to do is draw a lasso
| | 03:51 |
around all the middle ones, right click on
any of them, and choose rove across time.
| | 03:56 |
Now, they'll shift their space in the
timeline and what this has done is evened
| | 04:01 |
out the speed.
So, you can load a RAM preview to check
| | 04:05 |
this out as well.
So now that's a nice, constant velocity.
| | 04:10 |
Now, I'm going to press the Spacebar and stop.
| | 04:13 |
We still have a bunch of artificial movements.
| | 04:15 |
Because there's no velocity change as it
hits each point.
| | 04:19 |
It's just linearly, you know, banging
through the corner.
| | 04:22 |
Now, we want to fix that by actually going
to the Ease option.
| | 04:26 |
Ease simulates real-world movement in animation.
| | 04:31 |
What I mean by that, when you're in your
car, if you start to accelerate, you don't
| | 04:35 |
just go from 0 to 60 in 0 time, you slowly
accelerate up to that speed.
| | 04:41 |
So to ease this animation into its start,
what we're going to do is Draw a lass
| | 04:46 |
around the first key frame.
And this time I'll go up under animation
| | 04:50 |
and key frame assistant.
And we will choose Easy Ease Out.
| | 04:54 |
The reason that we are choosing out to
start is that its moving out from its
| | 04:58 |
current state into its animation.
Now for all the middle ones here I wanted
| | 05:04 |
to ease through the entire key frame both
in and out.
| | 05:07 |
So if I go ahead And right click on that
specific key frame.
| | 05:12 |
I can get to the frame assistant again and
choose EZ Ease.
| | 05:16 |
Now the shape of that is different,
showing the ease on both sides and then we
| | 05:20 |
can right click on the last one, Key Frame
Assistant, and EZ Ease it back into its
| | 05:25 |
natural state, where it was if we press
home, we can load up a ram preview.
| | 05:31 |
And this is a much more natural movement
for animation.
| | 05:34 |
We still have the varying speeds because
of the spacing between the different key
| | 05:38 |
frames but it's definitely easing across
the different points.
| | 05:42 |
I'm going to press the Spacebar here and
we'll show you the last different
| | 05:46 |
interprolation setting. Hold.
| | 05:49 |
So let's go to the hold comp in the timeline.
| | 05:51 |
You could double click in the project panel.
| | 05:53 |
And hold key frames are relatively simple.
You can just select any or all of them.
| | 05:58 |
Right click, and choose toggle hold key frame.
| | 06:01 |
This'll hold the current value until it
gets to the next point.
| | 06:06 |
This is a great way to create an animation
where something is popping around the
| | 06:09 |
scene.
Now I hope you enjoyed the tour we had of
| | 06:13 |
key frame interpolation and definitely
save this project opt so you have a
| | 06:17 |
reference for the future.
| | 06:19 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Adjusting keyframes in the Graph Editor| 00:00 |
If you've ever created an animation and
just thought that it lacked a little pop,
| | 00:04 |
it's probably because you haven't been
editing the keyframes in the Graph Editor.
| | 00:08 |
Now in this exercise we'll animate all
four of these words using the Graph
| | 00:12 |
Editor.
But we'll work efficiently by only
| | 00:15 |
animating one word and then copy and
pasting those keyframes to the subsequent
| | 00:19 |
layers.
So to get started, I want to animate the
| | 00:22 |
word Success.
So let's select the layer three, and just
| | 00:25 |
so we can see that layer only, let's click
the Solo button.
| | 00:29 |
Now that we've isolated Success, let's
press P on our keyboard, and then hold
| | 00:33 |
down Shift + S to open up the Scale and
Position parameters.
| | 00:38 |
Those are the two parameters that we're
going to animate.
| | 00:41 |
Now since this is where I want the word to
end up I'm going to go ahead animate
| | 00:45 |
backwards.
By positioning my current time indicator
| | 00:48 |
on frame 12.
And then clicking the stop watch's next
| | 00:52 |
position and scale.
Now that we have our first key frame set
| | 00:55 |
press home on your keyboard to move back
to frame 0.
| | 01:00 |
Now change the scale to zero.
And you can still see where the word is
| | 01:03 |
because of this control handle in the
middle of the Comp window.
| | 01:06 |
now I just want this to slide a little bit
to the right, so I'm going to click and
| | 01:10 |
drag on the x parameter for position.
Now that we have our keyframe set, let's
| | 01:15 |
set our work area somewhere down the timeline.
| | 01:17 |
I'm going to click near three seconds.
And I'll press N on the keyboard.
| | 01:22 |
Now we can load a ramp preview.
As you can see, I've got a rather vanilla
| | 01:29 |
animation.
So I'm going to press the Spacebar to stop
| | 01:32 |
playback.
And now we can go into the graph editor to
| | 01:34 |
make some adjustments.
So click on the graph editor button which
| | 01:38 |
is just to the right of the automatic
Keyframe button.
| | 01:41 |
You could also press Shift + F3 on your keyboard.
| | 01:44 |
If your graph doesn't look like this,
don't panic.
| | 01:47 |
We have multiple buttons across the bottom
of the graph editor.
| | 01:50 |
And the second one in, if you click it,
has some options for the type of graph
| | 01:55 |
that you're going to look at.
I want you to make sure yours is set to
| | 01:58 |
auto select graph type.
Since my key frames are only my first 12
| | 02:03 |
frames I want to change the magnification
on the timeline.
| | 02:06 |
And rather than clicking on the slider you
can quickly change that by clicking this
| | 02:10 |
button here with the two lines.
This'll fit all the graphs into this area.
| | 02:14 |
And just so I have more space vertically,
I'm going to click at the top of my
| | 02:18 |
timeline, and just drag up.
This should automatically resize, as long
| | 02:22 |
as you have the auto zoom button selected.
It looks like a magnifying glass.
| | 02:27 |
Now, when you're editing in the graph
editor, you want to pay attention to what
| | 02:30 |
parameters you have selected on the left
side of your timeline.
| | 02:33 |
I have position selected.
So the speed graph automatically loaded.
| | 02:37 |
That's because this is a spatial set of
key frames.
| | 02:41 |
Spatial will automatically default
auto-graph to open the Speed settings
| | 02:45 |
first.
Now, if I click on the Scale parameters,
| | 02:48 |
this is going to open a Value graph first.
So click on Scale and make sure that you
| | 02:53 |
have this red line in your scene.
Now, this second dot up here on the right
| | 02:59 |
actually signifies a keyframe, so I want
to go ahead and click and draw a lasso
| | 03:02 |
around that keyframe.
You can double check that just by turning
| | 03:06 |
off and on the Graph Editor.
Now, with the second key frame selected,
| | 03:10 |
let's add an ease.
We can do that with these buttons down
| | 03:14 |
here on the right side of the Graph Editor.
| | 03:16 |
So lets hit the second button in.
We just added in ease in.
| | 03:21 |
Now I want the word to pop larger than its
final key frame value and if we look at
| | 03:26 |
the graph 100 percent is right here and
you could see it never passes that line.
| | 03:31 |
So to make it pass that line and go ahead
and click and drag on that handle and drag
| | 03:34 |
up.
It doesn't need to go way past the line,
| | 03:37 |
it can just go past a fair amount.
And if you want to preview what is looking
| | 03:41 |
like, go ahead and click up in the number
area of your time line to move your
| | 03:45 |
current indicator under there.
That way as we make changes, you can see
| | 03:49 |
how the word changes.
Now I want to accentuate this move, so
| | 03:53 |
let's do the same thing with the first key frame.
| | 03:55 |
Draw a Lasso.
But this time we'll add an eased out.
| | 03:59 |
That's close to perfect but let's go ahead
and drag the handle a little bit further
| | 04:03 |
out to the right.
Now let's preview this again.
| | 04:07 |
Okay, that's definitely giving it a little
bit more pop.
| | 04:10 |
But I'm going to press the Spacebar and
stop playback.
| | 04:13 |
Let's accentuate it even more by adjusting
the position key frames.
| | 04:17 |
So select the word position.
And we'll start by adjusting its speed
| | 04:21 |
value.
I want it to animate slowly and then get
| | 04:25 |
quicker as it gets over to the right.
So draw a lasso around the first keyframe
| | 04:30 |
of the speed value graph for position.
And you'll see we have a control handle
| | 04:34 |
here.
Go ahead and click on the control handle
| | 04:36 |
and drag down.
I'm going to drag it all the way down to
| | 04:40 |
zero, and then I'm going to drag the
handle to the right.
| | 04:43 |
And when I let go, now you can see I have
this kind of cool mountain looking graph.
| | 04:49 |
Now anytime you're editing speed, you
want to try and get rid of any kinks.
| | 04:52 |
So what I'm going to do is click and drag
on the right handle a little bit here.
| | 04:55 |
So this is a little bit more straight.
This is going to give it a really
| | 04:59 |
interesting pop.
Lets load up a ramp preview.
| | 05:03 |
I think that already looks pretty dynamic
but I'm going to go ahead and press the
| | 05:07 |
space bar one more time because we edited
this speed, I also want to go ahead and
| | 05:12 |
edit the value.
I want it to slide a little bit past its
| | 05:16 |
second value.
So to change graphs let's click that
| | 05:20 |
second button again.
And then go to Edit > Value Graph.
| | 05:25 |
Notice we don't have any control handles
in the value graph.
| | 05:28 |
That's because spatial parameters like,
position that have x and y.
| | 05:33 |
Actually record both in one keyframe.
If we want to manipulate only the move on
| | 05:38 |
the X, we need to break these values apart.
| | 05:41 |
And to do that, there's a button right
here on the bottom, that XYZ button,
| | 05:44 |
that'll break the values apart.
And if we look back to the left of our
| | 05:48 |
timeline, you can see I have one for X And
one for y.
| | 05:52 |
Now, I know I'm not animating anything for
the y position, so let's go ahead and
| | 05:58 |
deactivate the Y.
Now, notice when I did that, it
| | 06:01 |
deactivated the x so let me just Cmd + Z
or Crtl + Z.
| | 06:04 |
I'm going to click off of those keyframes,
and now I can click the stopwatch for Y.
| | 06:08 |
And it'll no longer be there.
Now just so I'm looking at X in scale, I'm
| | 06:12 |
going to select that layer and press U.
It'll just show me only the parameters
| | 06:18 |
that have key frames assigned.
Now let's click on X position.
| | 06:22 |
And as you can see, we have a value graph.
And it's got some strange codes here.
| | 06:27 |
So, let's go ahead a draw a lasso around
the first key frame.
| | 06:30 |
I'm going to smooth this out a little bit.
In the second key frame I want this to
| | 06:35 |
actually slide past its current value, so
I'm going to drag it up.
| | 06:39 |
Okay, now let's preview your animation.
That definitely has a little bit more pop
| | 06:47 |
and interest than what we had originally.
So now all we have to do is apply these to
| | 06:51 |
the rest of the words.
I'm going to press the Spacebar to stop
| | 06:54 |
playback.
Now we can turn off the Graph Editor by
| | 06:57 |
clicking the button.
Now go ahead and click on exposition and
| | 07:01 |
hold down shift and click on scale.
That'll select all the keyframes so now we
| | 07:06 |
can just copy and paste.
Now before we paste the key frames, you
| | 07:10 |
want to pay attention to where the current
time indicator is.
| | 07:12 |
So press home on your keyboard to return
the current time indicator back to 0.
| | 07:19 |
And I'm going to extend my magnification
of my timeline just by clicking this
| | 07:23 |
little yellow button and dragging all the
way to the right.
| | 07:26 |
Now, we can paste all the key frames.
You can paste key frames to multiple
| | 07:30 |
layers just by selecting all those layers.
So, I'm going to select layer one and hold
| | 07:34 |
down the Cmd key on the Mac, Ctrl on the
PC and then click on any subsequent layers
| | 07:39 |
you want to add key frames to.
So, one, two and four.
| | 07:42 |
Now go ahead and place your key frames.
Cmd + V or Ctrl + V on the PC.
| | 07:48 |
Now let's turn off solo for layer three.
Then we can preview our animation.
| | 07:53 |
All right.
I'm going to stop playback here.
| | 07:57 |
Now to add a little bit more interest, I'm
going to slide our key frames.
| | 08:01 |
So each word animates in at a different pace.
| | 08:04 |
Press the U key on your keyboard and you
will automatically open up all of the
| | 08:09 |
layers keyframes.
So we can just click and drag a lasso
| | 08:12 |
around any of the other key frames to
change their specific timing.
| | 08:17 |
So as I wrote up the frame preview here,
you can see that we've created a rather
| | 08:22 |
dynamic and interesting animation, all
using the Graph Editor.
| | 08:25 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| The power of parenting| 00:00 |
When you need to create an animation where
elements in the scene interact with each
| | 00:04 |
other, you'll need to know about Parenting.
| | 00:06 |
With Parenting, you can have one layer
take control over any other layer in your
| | 00:10 |
composition or even groups of other layers
in your composition.
| | 00:14 |
In After Effects, Parenting is kind of fun
because layers actually get to choose
| | 00:18 |
their own parents, imagine that.
So let's look at the animation we're
| | 00:22 |
going to create today.
In the Parenting Animation composition, go
| | 00:27 |
ahead and scrub in the timeline by
clicking on the current plan indicator.
| | 00:30 |
Here, we can see we've got an H and a plus
rotating to meet the word sport.
| | 00:36 |
And it looks like from about frame 12 to
frame 20.
| | 00:40 |
That, it's the plus layer that's
controlling the H layer.
| | 00:43 |
That was made possible through good parenting.
| | 00:46 |
So, let's go ahead and practice by jumping
into our Parenting_Start composition.
| | 00:51 |
Now, if you remember, it was frame 12
where the rotation started to happen.
| | 00:54 |
So of course, let's start at frame 12.
Now, we need to specify the parent-child
| | 00:59 |
relationship between our h layer and our
Plus layer.
| | 01:04 |
If the Parent column isn't already opened,
go ahead and right-click or control+click
| | 01:08 |
in this gray area next to the Layer Name,
and in the Column section, make sure
| | 01:12 |
parent is selected.
Now, for layer 3, let's go ahead and
| | 01:18 |
specify layer 1 as the parent layer by
using the pick whip, that's this little
| | 01:22 |
curlicue icon on the left side.
If you go ahead and click on that and hold
| | 01:25 |
your mouse button down as you drag up to
layer 1, you can let go, and now, in the
| | 01:31 |
pull-down menu you notice that that layer
was chosen.
| | 01:34 |
So, the pull-down menu or the pick whip
will allow you to choose different parent
| | 01:39 |
layers for the currently selected layer.
So select layer 1.
| | 01:43 |
Then press R to open up the Rotation parameter.
| | 01:47 |
And let's change this second 00 parameter
to 90.
| | 01:53 |
This is the proper angle based on our
source animation, so let's go ahead and
| | 01:57 |
add a keyframe by clicking the stopwatch
next to the Rotation parameter.
| | 02:01 |
Now, let's move six frames down the
timeline, so click in your time and type
| | 02:06 |
plus, 6, and press Enter.
Now, we can change the rotation back to 0
| | 02:11 |
for layer 1.
Now, if we scrub through the animation,
| | 02:14 |
you can see we've the proper parent-child
relationship, and that's it.
| | 02:19 |
You've now mastered Parenting.
It's never quite that easy.
| | 02:22 |
What we really need to pay attention to
now is what happens before the parenting
| | 02:27 |
relationship.
So for example, let's go back to our
| | 02:30 |
Parenting Animation composition and scrub through.
| | 02:35 |
Whenever you have animation that happens
before the parenting is required, like
| | 02:39 |
this rotation here.
This tends to complicate things, because
| | 02:45 |
at this point in time we actually don't
need a parent-child relationship, because
| | 02:49 |
if the plus were controlling this h, it
would be spinning all over the place.
| | 02:53 |
So we need to use a workaround in this situation.
| | 02:56 |
So let's go back to our Parenting_Start composition.
| | 03:00 |
If you move your playhead to frame 12, I'm
just using my key frame navigation to do
| | 03:04 |
that.
Now, on frame 12, let's work on
| | 03:08 |
repositioning our h layer.
Select layer 3 and press Opt+P or Alt+P on
| | 03:14 |
the PC, and that'll set a Position keyframe.
| | 03:17 |
Now, if we press the Home button, we can
now reposition our h layer by clicking on
| | 03:22 |
it in the Comp window and dragging over to
the left.
| | 03:25 |
Hold down Shift as you drag to make sure
that it snaps on the x-axis.
| | 03:29 |
Drag it all the way off the left side of
your Comp Viewer.
| | 03:33 |
Now, this still looks like everything is
working extraordinarly well.
| | 03:36 |
If you scrub through, it looks fine.
The issue's going to happen when we start
| | 03:41 |
positioning the plus layer.
So select layer 1 and let's move back to
| | 03:46 |
frame 12 and I'm going to press Opt+P or
Alt+P to go ahead and set our first
| | 03:51 |
keyframe for the position of that layer.
Now, just like before, we'll press the
| | 03:56 |
Home key, and then with the plus there
selected, we'll click and drag in the Comp
| | 04:01 |
window.
And then hold down Shift as we're dragging
| | 04:03 |
to snap it on its x-axis.
Drag it off the bottom of the screen.
| | 04:08 |
And then scrub with your current time indicator.
| | 04:10 |
Now, notice the h was also moving
vertically in addition to horizontally.
| | 04:15 |
This is a problem we need to fix.
So the easy work around for this is to
| | 04:19 |
split a layer.
So for example, this h layer we can make
| | 04:24 |
it not be parented by splitting it into
two separate layers.
| | 04:29 |
So make sure you're on frame 12 with layer
3 selected, go up under Edit and choose
| | 04:35 |
Split Layer.
Now, if you select layer 4 and scrub
| | 04:39 |
through, you can see that's the layer
where we don't need the parent-child
| | 04:43 |
relationship set up.
So I'm just going to make sure I'm back on
| | 04:46 |
frame 12, and I'll change the Parent layer
setting for layer 4 to None.
| | 04:52 |
Now, as we scrub through, you can see it's
sliding around and working exactly as we'd
| | 04:56 |
hoped.
Now, for our Source Animation, we had the
| | 05:00 |
plus spinning, and we had the word sport
sliding into the scene, but I'm sure
| | 05:04 |
everyone knows how to create basic
keyframes so I'm going to leave those
| | 05:07 |
steps up to you.
But for now, I hope you can see how
| | 05:11 |
Parenting and the Split Layer command can
give you one added level of control for
| | 05:16 |
your animations.
Just remember the Child layer can do
| | 05:20 |
pretty much whatever it wants.
It's really the Parent layer that brings
| | 05:23 |
the control into the situation.
| | 05:25 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using null objects| 00:00 |
Now I have to say null objects in and of
themselves aren't all that astounding.
| | 00:04 |
After all, they're just transparent little layers.
| | 00:07 |
It's when you combine them with parenting
that they actually kind of become the
| | 00:11 |
unsung hero of After Effects.
To show you what I mean, let's go ahead
| | 00:15 |
and scrub through our null objects timeline.
| | 00:17 |
I'm going to click on the current time
indicator and scrub, and as you can see,
| | 00:21 |
we have this H+ logo animated.
Now, I want to move the H and the plus a
| | 00:27 |
little lower in the scene, so when they
animate in, they're more centered.
| | 00:31 |
In order to do that, I'll use my null objects.
| | 00:35 |
Let's go up under Layer and choose New >
Null Object.
| | 00:39 |
Now, with the null on the top of my layer
hierarchy, you can see here in the comp
| | 00:44 |
panel, that it actually just has control
handles and it's completely transparent.
| | 00:49 |
If we were to render this, you wouldn't
see any of these control handles, you
| | 00:52 |
would see nothing.
Now, in order to control all of the
| | 00:56 |
different layers involved, in this logo
animation, we need to make them the
| | 01:00 |
children of the Null1 object.
In order to do that, we should have the
| | 01:04 |
parent column open.
If it's not currently open, just right
| | 01:07 |
click or control click right next to the
layer name and in columns, make sure
| | 01:11 |
parent is enabled.
It's important to pay attention if any
| | 01:15 |
layers already have a parent, because you
don't want to mess with those parent child
| | 01:20 |
relationships.
But you do want their parent to actually
| | 01:23 |
become the child of the null.
So if we were to talk through this, you
| | 01:27 |
would see.
Layer3 has a parent, which is Layer2.
| | 01:32 |
And so if we select Layer2, we can go to
the parent column and grab the pick whip
| | 01:37 |
and specify Null1 to be it's parent.
Now let's do the same thing for Layers
| | 01:43 |
four and five.
I'm just going to click on one and shift
| | 01:46 |
click on the other.
And now I'll just click on the pull down
| | 01:49 |
and specify Null1 as the control.
Now, with Null1 selected in the top of our
| | 01:55 |
layer hierarchy, we can press P to open
the position parameters, and click and
| | 02:00 |
drag on the Y position.
As we do that, they'll move lower into the
| | 02:04 |
scene.
I'll just drag it to around 493.
| | 02:07 |
I could also click and drag in the comp
panel, but I don't want to do that for
| | 02:12 |
now, so We'll go ahead and add a key frame
for 493 once we figure out where we should
| | 02:18 |
place it.
So let's move our current time indicator
| | 02:22 |
to around frame 12 because that's where
the rotation starts.
| | 02:26 |
And we will want to move it up in the
scene so we're not cutting off the word
| | 02:29 |
Sport.
So let's go to frame 12 and we will add a
| | 02:33 |
position key frame for our Null1 object.
Now go ahead and scrub down the timeline
| | 02:39 |
till we get to where sport pops in, which
is frame 18.
| | 02:42 |
And let's click and drag on that Y
parameter and just slide our logo up into
| | 02:47 |
the middle of the scene.
If we go ahead and enable our title and
| | 02:51 |
action save by clicking on the button
lower left corner of the comp panel, you
| | 02:54 |
can see we've repositioned our logo in the
center of the scene.
| | 02:59 |
Now as we scrub through, you can see it's
lower in the scene and then it slides up.
| | 03:05 |
And it doesn't really look like it's
moving all that much, and that's just
| | 03:08 |
because of the speed at which this is moving.
| | 03:12 |
It's actually moving on the Y axis.
Now if we want to add a little bit more
| | 03:17 |
complexity to this, we can add yet another
null object.
| | 03:22 |
So, let's rename Layer1.
I'm going to select Null1 and press Return
| | 03:27 |
and let's call this move down null.
And press Return.
| | 03:33 |
Now I'm going to go up under the layer
hierarchy and choose New No object, and
| | 03:38 |
this one we'll call Z move.
So press Return on your keyboard and we'll
| | 03:42 |
say Z move.
Now, since I want to move along the Z
| | 03:47 |
axis, I want to enable 3d for all the
layers I'd like to move, so that would be
| | 03:52 |
layers two through six.
So if you click on one and just drag down
| | 03:57 |
we can click down through layer six.
And here I'll just deselect all the little
| | 04:01 |
layers.
Now 3D has been enabled for all those
| | 04:06 |
layers.
And of course we want to have 3D enabled
| | 04:09 |
for our Z move layer.
Now let's make the Z move the parent of
| | 04:14 |
our move diagonal.
So then I'm going to click on the pick
| | 04:18 |
whip then point it at the Z move layer.
So, again as we scrub through you can see
| | 04:22 |
we've got our animation that comes in and
then it's sort of turning and rotating.
| | 04:26 |
Now, at this point we want the logo to
start moving backwards in Z space.
| | 04:32 |
So just to keep a cleaner view, I'm
going to turn my title and action safe off
| | 04:37 |
in the comp panel, and I'll press P since
I already have layer 1 selected that'll
| | 04:41 |
open the position parameter.
And let's add a key frame.
| | 04:45 |
Now, I'm on frame 19, that's perfectly fine.
| | 04:49 |
Now let's go ahead and scrub down the
Timeline, maybe down to around 112, and
| | 04:54 |
click and drag on the Z parameter for our
Z Move layer.
| | 04:58 |
Now as we move through the scene, you can
see it animates in, rotates, and then
| | 05:02 |
starts to slide back, and then we'll have
it spring forward really quickly.
| | 05:06 |
Let's go ahead and position our Current
time indicator at 1:21, let's keep making
| | 05:12 |
that larger, here we go, minus 16 69 or
minus 16 70.
| | 05:21 |
Okay, so now as we scrub through the scene
you can see we have our logo that
| | 05:25 |
animates, it slides backwards and then
shoots forwards.
| | 05:29 |
Now in order to keep all of our vectors
nice and sharp, let's just go ahead and
| | 05:33 |
collapse our layers here.
And make sure we have continuously
| | 05:36 |
rasterize.
So that's good for all the Illustrator
| | 05:38 |
layers.
So let's click on layer here and shift
| | 05:42 |
click through layer six.
We don't need to select seven because
| | 05:45 |
that's a background element.
And then enable continuously rasterize.
| | 05:49 |
So let's scrub through the timeline one
more time.
| | 05:51 |
And as we're looking at the animation it
looks pretty cool.
| | 05:55 |
I like the added focus we created by
moving the logo down and we have kind of a
| | 05:59 |
cool move with the z move.
I think the final finishing touch we just
| | 06:03 |
need to enable motion blur.
So make sure that switch is selected in
| | 06:06 |
the middle of your timeline.
And let's scrub back here a little bit,
| | 06:09 |
and you can see, as the sport logo is
zooming out, we've actually got a little
| | 06:15 |
motion blur.
So, let's check out our final animation by
| | 06:18 |
loading up a RAM preview.
Now that we've animated the scene, I want
| | 06:26 |
you to understand that null objects not
only allow you to animate already-animated
| | 06:31 |
layers.
But they in essence, save you from having
| | 06:34 |
to pre-compose those layers.
And they also give you a little bit more
| | 06:38 |
flexibility, and hopefully allow you to
have a little bit more creativity in your
| | 06:42 |
projects.
Again, all using null objects.
| | 06:45 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating expressions with the pick whip| 00:00 |
When you hear the term expression inside
of After Effects, it's referring to a
| | 00:04 |
scripting language, where you can create
complex animations with different scripts.
| | 00:09 |
But in this video what we're going to do
is learn how to apply expressions just
| | 00:14 |
using the pick whip.
So if you're familiar with using the pick
| | 00:18 |
whip in parenting, the process is going to
be remarkably similar.
| | 00:22 |
The advantage is the fact with Expressions
you can apply the control of parameters to
| | 00:28 |
control other parameters.
So as opposed to one whole layer
| | 00:32 |
controlling another layer, you could say
have the rotation of one layer control the
| | 00:36 |
position of another.
So that's why we're starting with this
| | 00:40 |
very basic example.
And once we learn how to apply the
| | 00:44 |
expressions between these two objects,
then we're going to go ahead and apply an
| | 00:49 |
expression in this composition and use the
Z position of this logo to rotate through
| | 00:54 |
a bunch of colors for the background of
the his graphic.
| | 00:59 |
So let's go ahead and select the basic
expressions composition, and get started
| | 01:03 |
by opening the different transform options
for both layer two and layer one.
| | 01:08 |
So, I'm going to open up layer two and
just make sure transform is open, and then
| | 01:14 |
in layer one, for the circle, let's go
ahead and select the circle and press p to
| | 01:18 |
open the position parameter for that layer.
| | 01:21 |
I know this is a shape layer, but we're
expressly just going to be dealing with
| | 01:25 |
the position parameter.
We want the rotation of the square layer
| | 01:30 |
to be determined, by the position of the
circle on its y axis.
| | 01:35 |
So, we'll start by applying the expression
to the child, so let's select the rotation
| | 01:41 |
parameter of this square just by clicking
on the road rotation.
| | 01:45 |
And then, you can go up under Animation
and choose Add Expression.
| | 01:50 |
Once we do that, notice we have a very
similar looking little curly Q icon to the
| | 01:55 |
parent curly Q icon, called the pick whip.
So, if we click on the pick whip here in
| | 02:02 |
our rotation, we can specify anything in
this composition to control that rotation.
| | 02:09 |
So, I could say, the scale is going to
control the rotation or the position.
| | 02:13 |
But that wouldn't make much sense, so what
I'm going to do is Map it to the
| | 02:17 |
y-parameter only of the position data for
the circle layer.
| | 02:22 |
So point your Pick Whip right up at the
number 360 here for layer one and let go.
| | 02:29 |
Now it's written out the full script
required to create that link between the
| | 02:33 |
two parameters.
Now in order to set this parameter, just
| | 02:36 |
click anywhere outside of this scripting area.
| | 02:39 |
So I'm just going to click up here.
Now it was successfully applied, and I can
| | 02:43 |
tell that because.
The rotation parameter was set to 1 and
| | 02:46 |
that's because the value on the Y axis for
the orange circle was 360, which has a
| | 02:51 |
direct one to one relationship with
degrees, 360 degrees is one full rotation.
| | 02:58 |
So now, if we were to animate the position
of the orange circle on the Y axis It
| | 03:05 |
would adjust the rotation of the square accordingly.
| | 03:10 |
Now you could apply this, you know, to the
x parameter or, you know, apply it to some
| | 03:14 |
of the other parameters inside of your composition.
| | 03:18 |
The point to understand this video is that
you can apply it to any of the parameters
| | 03:23 |
just by using the (UNKNOWN).
Now if you need to disable an expression
| | 03:27 |
at any given time, you can either click
this little equal button, which will just
| | 03:32 |
enable or disable.
Or you can select the parameter and go up
| | 03:36 |
under the animation menu and choose remove expression.
| | 03:39 |
That will get rid of it completely.
Now let's go ahead and see if we can apply
| | 03:44 |
that logic to our working project.
At the H+ expression project, so if you
| | 03:49 |
don't have it opened go ahead and double
click on the H+ composition comp, and all
| | 03:54 |
select layer 1, the sea move layer.
If you press P to open up the position
| | 03:59 |
parameter here, you can see that I've got
X, Y, and Z.
| | 04:04 |
And if we scrub through the timeline, you
can see the Z actually moves back and
| | 04:08 |
shoots out.
Now I want this move on the Z axis to
| | 04:11 |
control the colour of the background.
So the background is being created by
| | 04:17 |
layer nine, this colourize option.
If I turn it off and on we can see that's
| | 04:21 |
what's actually creating that deep
greenish blue colour.
| | 04:24 |
Now since we're going to be dealing with time.
| | 04:27 |
Specific parameters togther.
Let's go ahead and maximize the timeline
| | 04:30 |
by pressing the tilda key on your keyboard.
| | 04:33 |
Now, I want this layer color to go ahead
and rotate a bunch of diffetrent colors
| | 04:39 |
based on the z position.
So, in order to do that, I'm going to
| | 04:43 |
apply an effect.
If you go up to the effect pulldown with
| | 04:47 |
layer 9 selected, I want you to go to
color correction.
| | 04:49 |
And choose colour balance key levels
saturation or HLS.
| | 04:55 |
Now if you press E with your keyboard,
that will open any effects applied to that
| | 04:59 |
layer.
If we open the colour balance layer you
| | 05:01 |
can see we have the hue.
Now I want the hue to start at zero.
| | 05:06 |
But the position for the Z move is already
set at 265.
| | 05:12 |
So I'm not exactly sure what's going to
happen here but let's go ahead and go with
| | 05:15 |
it.
Select the hue parameter for hue level
| | 05:19 |
saturation and go up under animation and
choose add expression.
| | 05:23 |
So we want to hue to be colored by the Z
parameter of the Z move.
| | 05:28 |
So let's go ahead and click and drag on
that, and have it point at the z
| | 05:32 |
parameter.
Now we need to set this, so I'm just going
| | 05:36 |
to click outside of that light grey area,
and that's been set.
| | 05:40 |
Now we can press the tilde key again so we
can see our project.
| | 05:43 |
And as you can see, it's already rotated
to a different colour.
| | 05:47 |
If you go ahead and click and drag with
your current time indicator, good, you can
| | 05:52 |
see that it actually kept the proper
colour and then only started to rotate
| | 05:56 |
through the colours once the object
started moving on the Z axis.
| | 06:01 |
This is exactly what I wanted to create.
So, lets go ahead and watch a RAM preview.
| | 06:11 |
Now, this concludes our little whirlwind
tour of how to apply expressions using the
| | 06:16 |
pick whip.
I encourage you to continue exploring how
| | 06:19 |
to use this tool by applying expressions
to anything and everything.
| | 06:24 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating and adjusting motion paths| 00:00 |
Any time you record keyframes with special
data, like position keyframes, you may
| | 00:05 |
have noticed a motion path in your scene.
So, to look at one, let's go ahead and
| | 00:10 |
select layer 2 in our timeline.
Now, layer 2 selected, you see this dotted
| | 00:15 |
line in the middle of the page.
This is just showing me that there is
| | 00:18 |
animation on this sphere.
If we press the u key on our keyboard, the
| | 00:22 |
uber key, it'll open up any animated
properties for that layer.
| | 00:26 |
So now that we can see our keyframes in
the timeline.
| | 00:29 |
I want you to go ahead and click on this
box on the left side of this dotted line.
| | 00:35 |
Notice the second I click on that box,
this keyframe here in the front of my
| | 00:39 |
timeline will highlight.
That's letting me know that I'm actually
| | 00:42 |
moving the keyframe.
Whenever you create motion paths, you'll
| | 00:46 |
have keyframes represented by these big squares.
| | 00:49 |
And you can go back and click on them and
then move them after the fact.
| | 00:54 |
Now if I try and click on this second
keyframe, right here where the sphere is
| | 00:57 |
currently living, as I click and drag,
notice it's automatically going to create
| | 01:02 |
a third keyframe.
That's because with this second keyframe,
| | 01:07 |
if I don't have my current time indicator
already on that keyframe, it thinks that
| | 01:12 |
I'm trying to create yet another keyframe
now that I'm further down the timeline.
| | 01:16 |
So let me just Cmd+Z or Ctrl+Z on the PC
to undo.
| | 01:20 |
I'm going to press J to move my current
time indicator to my previous key rame,
| | 01:25 |
which is this one right here at 2 seconds.
Now, if we click on that keyframe and
| | 01:30 |
move, we can move it around and it's just
going to modify this one keyframe.
| | 01:35 |
Now, if you look on your motion path,
you'll see other slightly bigger squares.
| | 01:40 |
There's one here and one here, and
basically, they're really close to the
| | 01:44 |
edges of our keyframes, because these are
control handles.
| | 01:47 |
If I click and drag on the rightmost
little square, let's drag down.
| | 01:52 |
Now, I'm controlling the path that the
shape will take in its animation.
| | 01:56 |
I can do the same thing with this other
handle here by clicking and dragging up.
| | 02:02 |
Now, if we scrub through our animation,
you can see that the sphere is going to
| | 02:05 |
move along that motion path.
This is the easiest way to create smooth
| | 02:10 |
moves inside of After Effects.
You want to create as few keyframes as
| | 02:15 |
possible, and then, go ahead and make
adjustments to the motion path.
| | 02:19 |
And again, that will give you smooth results.
| | 02:22 |
Now, these little dots here signify how
fast that object is moving along the
| | 02:27 |
motion path.
So if I want to see a change, let's go
| | 02:30 |
down to the second keyframe in the
timeline at 2 seconds, right-click or
| | 02:33 |
control-click on the keyframe and go to
Keyframe Assistant, then choose Easy Ease
| | 02:38 |
In, because I want this move to slowly
move into its final resolution.
| | 02:43 |
And now, you can see how the spacing, now,
let me zoom into 100%.
| | 02:46 |
I'm going to press the Space Bar to grab
my Hand tool to move over.
| | 02:50 |
Now, you can see, as it gets close to that
keyframe, they slightly start to move
| | 02:55 |
closer together.
Now, to better see that, we'll go ahead
| | 02:58 |
and load up a RAM preview here.
Once you get past the second keyframe, go
| | 03:03 |
ahead and press the Space Bar to begin
playback of your RAM preview.
| | 03:07 |
And as you can see, it gives a much more
natural motion to that object once it
| | 03:11 |
actually moves into its final resting place.
| | 03:14 |
Now, let's stop playback for a second.
Go ahead and hit your Spacebar.
| | 03:18 |
Now, this kind of animation is sort of
exciting, but what if I wanted to actually
| | 03:22 |
create a perfect circle for a move?
Well, that's when you want to actually
| | 03:27 |
look at pasting spatial data into your
Position keyframes.
| | 03:32 |
And the way you can do that is by using Paths.
| | 03:34 |
Now, you cpoucould use Paths from an
Illustrator file by literally going into
| | 03:38 |
Illustrator and selecting a Path and
copying it, or you could use Paths from
| | 03:42 |
inside of After Effects like Paths applied
to a layer.
| | 03:47 |
So let's go down to layer 4 and just
select layer 4.
| | 03:50 |
And you notice, I already have a path on
that layer or a mask.
| | 03:54 |
This mask was created using the Ellipse tool.
| | 03:58 |
So, with layer 4 selected, I just did a
click and drag and held down Shift, and
| | 04:02 |
that created the circle.
Now, I'm going to zoom out to 50% here.
| | 04:05 |
Just sort of reposition my canvas, again
using the Spacebar and dragging.
| | 04:10 |
Now, notice I have this little circle up
here around the top keyframe, and then I
| | 04:14 |
have other dots around the circle.
Well, each one of those dots is an anchor
| | 04:20 |
point for the path used to create this mask.
| | 04:24 |
Now, if we press M that will open up our
Mask Path.
| | 04:27 |
And then you want to make sure to click on
the words Mask Path to select the path,
| | 04:32 |
then go up under Edit and choose Copy.
Now, we've copied this path into our
| | 04:37 |
clipboard, and we can paste it onto the
position data for the sphere.
| | 04:42 |
Now, I don't want to necessarily do that,
I want to have a little bit more control.
| | 04:46 |
So what we're going to do is actually
paste it onto a null object.
| | 04:50 |
So go up to Layer menu, choose New, Null Object.
| | 04:55 |
Now that we have a null object in the
scene, go ahead and press P to open its
| | 04:58 |
position parameters.
Click on the word Position, and then press
| | 05:02 |
Home to move your current time indicator
back to the beginning of the timeline.
| | 05:06 |
Now, we can press Cmd+V to paste those
keyframes into the Position data for this
| | 05:12 |
null object.
So, if we scrub through, you can see that
| | 05:16 |
null is moving around the circle.
Now, if we go back to the beginning of the
| | 05:21 |
comp, notice, it automatically positioned
that null at the top point of that path.
| | 05:26 |
If we reselect layer 5, notice that's,
that anchor point that has that extra
| | 05:31 |
circle around it.
That's going to be your starting point for
| | 05:35 |
anytime you create motion paths by pasting
from a mask path.
| | 05:40 |
Now we can make adjustments to this motion
path the same way that we adjusted the
| | 05:44 |
other path, but I like the perfect circle,
so I want you to leave it alone.
| | 05:48 |
Look back in the timeline, and make sure
to just click anywhere off of these four
| | 05:52 |
keyframes to deselect all the key frames.
Now, click on that keyframe at 2 seconds
| | 05:57 |
and drag to the right.
Notice as I'm dragging, the three
| | 06:01 |
keyframes in the middle are moving.
That's because these are roving keyframes
| | 06:05 |
and the ones at the beginning and the end
are linear keyframes.
| | 06:09 |
Now, as I drag to the right, it's going to
make it move more slowly.
| | 06:12 |
That's why the dots on the line are
getting closer together.
| | 06:15 |
Let's go ahead and move this, so it moves
more quickly.
| | 06:18 |
Let's go ahead and drag it to around 1
second 12 frames.
| | 06:22 |
Now, the reason I use the null object
instead of the sphere, was so we could
| | 06:26 |
actually create a secondary animation to
this null object move.
| | 06:31 |
So to do that, let's delete all the
keyframes off the Sphere layer.
| | 06:34 |
Just go ahead and click the stop watch
next to the word Position.
| | 06:38 |
Now, I want to go ahead and reposition my
sphere to be up next to the null object.
| | 06:44 |
To do that, I'm going to hold down Shift
as I click on the pick whip for the Parent
| | 06:48 |
column.
Let's go ahead and point the pick whip
| | 06:51 |
towards the Null object 1.
When I let go, it will automatically move
| | 06:55 |
my layer up to the position of that null object.
| | 06:59 |
Now, that happened because I held down
Shift as I created the parent-child
| | 07:04 |
relationship.
If for any reason this Parent column
| | 07:07 |
wasn't open in your project.
You can right-click or control-click next
| | 07:10 |
to Layer Name and go to columns and just
make sure it's active.
| | 07:14 |
Now that we have the parent-child
relationship set up.
| | 07:17 |
We can just offset this sphere a little
bit from this point.
| | 07:20 |
So I'm going to select layer 3, hold down
Shift, and use my Up arrow.
| | 07:25 |
Go ahead and click the Up arrow three times.
| | 07:28 |
Now, just so I have two copies of that
sphere, I'll go ahead and reselect layer
| | 07:33 |
3, just by clicking it, and press Cmd+D to
duplicate, and then we can hold down Shift
| | 07:38 |
and use the Down arrow.
So let's press this six times.
| | 07:43 |
Three to get back down to the original
place and then three more to offset it
| | 07:48 |
accordingly.
Now, we have these two spheres, and if we
| | 07:53 |
scrub through, you can see that they're
moving in unison with a null object And
| | 07:58 |
while that's kind of fun, it's not nearly
as fun as it can be.
| | 08:01 |
So, let's animate the rotation of the null object.
| | 08:06 |
Make sure your current time indicator is
back at frame 0 and press Opt+P to add a
| | 08:11 |
keyframe for rotation.
Now, let's go ahead and move to the end of
| | 08:15 |
our project.
I'm just going to drag my current time
| | 08:17 |
indicator there, and let's add 12 full
rotations to our null object.
| | 08:22 |
So in the first parameter for rotation I'm
going to go ahead and type 12 and enter.
| | 08:28 |
Now, if we scrub through, you'll see it's
spinning and that's exactly what I wanted.
| | 08:33 |
Now, it's spinning and it stopped moving
around the circle, and that's just because
| | 08:36 |
of position keyframes end at 1:12f.
So let's quickly make these last the rest
| | 08:42 |
of the timeline.
Click on the word Position for the null
| | 08:45 |
object, and then, press Cmd+C Ctrl+C on
the PC to copy those keyframes.
| | 08:50 |
And then, I'm going to press J to move my
current time indicator back to my previous
| | 08:55 |
keyframe.
Now we can command v or control v to
| | 08:59 |
paste.
Let's move our current time indicator down
| | 09:02 |
towards the end of those key frames and
press J again, just to make sure on that
| | 09:06 |
last one and we can press Cmd+V to paste.
Now, let's select all those keyframes,
| | 09:12 |
since that's relatively close to what we want.
| | 09:15 |
And now, I can hold down the Opt key as I
click on the last keyframe I can resize
| | 09:19 |
all of these key frames and they'll all
stretch out.
| | 09:23 |
Now we can look at our handiwork.
Let's go ahead and load up our RAM
| | 09:28 |
preview.
Now, I don't know about you, but I think
| | 09:31 |
that' pretty cool.
And, we could continue building on this
| | 09:35 |
animation by using precompose.
But, for now, I just want you to remember
| | 09:39 |
that adding motion paths into your
workflow can allow you the ability to
| | 09:45 |
create precise animations.
It's when you start adding some of your
| | 09:49 |
other animation techniques like null
objects, where you can really start
| | 09:53 |
creating complex animation.
| | 09:55 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Building complex graphics with Pre-compose| 00:00 |
If you want to create a seemingly complex
graphic inside of After Effects.
| | 00:05 |
It's just a matter of precomposing.
Now, let's look at the project that we're
| | 00:09 |
currently working in, by clicking on the
current time indicator, and scrubbing
| | 00:14 |
through the timeline.
Now, I can see that I have a null object
| | 00:18 |
and that's what's controlling these two
spheres moving around.
| | 00:22 |
But just so you can see things more
clearly, let me go ahead and select layer
| | 00:25 |
1.
And you can see clearly, there's our null
| | 00:28 |
object.
And you can see its motion path is a
| | 00:31 |
perfect circle.
Now, if you press R, it has rotation and
| | 00:35 |
that's what's actually causing these two
spheres to move around.
| | 00:39 |
If you look in the Parent column, you can
see Sphere 2 and Sphere one are both
| | 00:44 |
children of the Null 1 layer.
So I'm going to rename this Null 1 layer
| | 00:48 |
by selecting it and pressing Return on my
keyboard, and we can call this Sphere
| | 00:53 |
Control.
And just so I don't forget it's a null,
| | 00:58 |
I'll call it Null.
Now, if you ever don't want to see these
| | 01:01 |
control handles in your project, you can
just turn the visibility of the Null off.
| | 01:06 |
It's still going to allow me to scrub
through the timeline, I just don't
| | 01:09 |
necessarily need to see that level of complexity.
| | 01:12 |
All right, now if I want to create
multilple spheres moving around in kind of
| | 01:19 |
an interesting pattern on the screen.
I'm going to go through several layers of
| | 01:23 |
precomposing.
So let's do just that.
| | 01:27 |
Let's move layer 1 down just above layers
3 and 4.
| | 01:30 |
This way they can be all right next to
each other when we go to precompose.
| | 01:34 |
Now, before I precompose, I want to make
sure that I have Motion Blur enabled for
| | 01:38 |
these two layers.
So if you don't have the switches
| | 01:41 |
currently set up, make sure to toggle your
Switches and Nodes button, till you get to
| | 01:45 |
this scene right here.
Now, for these two spheres, I'm going to
| | 01:49 |
go ahead and enable my Motion Blur there
and there, layers 3 and 4, just by
| | 01:54 |
clicking on the Motion Blur boxes.
Now, if you want to see a preview, you can
| | 01:58 |
enable Motion Blur just by clicking the
button in the middle of the Timeline
| | 02:02 |
panel.
There, you can see, I've got a pretty good
| | 02:04 |
blur working for that one sphere.
Now, let's just disable Motion Blur for
| | 02:09 |
the time being, because we don't need to
see it as we're building this graphic.
| | 02:13 |
So select layer 2, hold down Shift, and
select layer 4 to select all three layers.
| | 02:18 |
Now, press Shift+Cmd+C or Shift+Ctrl+C on
the PC to open Precompose.
| | 02:24 |
Let's call this 2 Sphere Pre-Comp, and we
can click OK.
| | 02:29 |
Now, let's duplicate this layer.
Since layer 2 is already selected, just
| | 02:36 |
press Cmd+D or Ctrl+D and that will
duplicate the layer.
| | 02:40 |
Now, I want two spears kind of mirrored on
the other side.
| | 02:45 |
So I'm going to press S to open up the
Scale parameter and rather than rotating
| | 02:49 |
this.
I'll just unlock the x and y and change
| | 02:53 |
the x parameter to be minus 100.
Now, when I press Enter on the keyboard, I
| | 02:58 |
have an exact mirror image.
So if we scrub through, you can see I've
| | 03:02 |
created kind of a cool animation there.
Now, we're not finished.
| | 03:06 |
We're going to go ahead and precompose a
few more times.
| | 03:09 |
So let's go ahead and collapse layer 2 by
clicking on the triangle, and select
| | 03:14 |
layers 2 and 3.
Just make sure to hold down Shift and
| | 03:17 |
select those layers and press Shift+Cmd+,
again, Shift+Ctrl+C on the PC for
| | 03:23 |
Precompose.
I'll call this 4 Sphere Pre-Comp.
| | 03:27 |
I think you can see a pattern going here. Okay.
| | 03:30 |
Now, let's duplicate this layer and this
time we'll go ahead and rotate.
| | 03:34 |
So I'll press R to open Rotation, and
let's change this rotation to 180 degrees.
| | 03:40 |
Now, as we scrub through, you can see oh,
we have an even more complex animation.
| | 03:45 |
Now, we could continue this pattern
several more times to create a complex
| | 03:49 |
animation.
But I think you get the point in how easy
| | 03:53 |
it is to actually create complex
innovation just using the precompose
| | 03:58 |
commit.
Now, there's one more layer of flexibility
| | 04:00 |
that we've created based on how we've
built this composition.
| | 04:03 |
And that's because we can change this
sphere graphic at any time.
| | 04:06 |
If we open the Pre-Comps folder, in the
Project panel, you can see we have our
| | 04:12 |
sphere element Pre-Comp.
Let's go ahead and just double click that
| | 04:15 |
Pre-Comp.
In here, we have our Sphere element.
| | 04:19 |
But let's say for some reason, we wanted
to make it a square.
| | 04:22 |
I could come up to my Shape tools.
And grab my Rectangle tool and I'll just
| | 04:27 |
click and drag and create a square over
top of this sphere.
| | 04:31 |
I can just turn the visibility of the
sphere off.
| | 04:33 |
If we go back to our Complex_Graphics and
scrub through, now, you can see I've built
| | 04:38 |
that graphic using squares.
So, when it comes to composing and
| | 04:43 |
precomposing, you have extra flexibility.
It's not just the ability to create
| | 04:48 |
complex graphics.
But you also have the ability to change
| | 04:51 |
your graphics should you decide.
| | 04:53 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Preparing audio for animation| 00:00 |
I find animating to audio to be a truly
liberating experience.
| | 00:04 |
It opens up my creativity because I'm
inspired by audio.
| | 00:08 |
And I have a feeling a lot of you are.
Now, one of the beautiful things about
| | 00:12 |
After Effects is it makes the ability
import and edit audio relatively simple.
| | 00:17 |
So let's go ahead and get started by
importing some audio into our project.
| | 00:21 |
Double-click in the Project panel to open
the Import File dialog box, and make sure
| | 00:26 |
you navigate in your Exercise Files to the
Footage folder, and go into your Audio
| | 00:31 |
folder.
In there, let's select
| | 00:34 |
Animation_Music.wav.
Now, before we import, let's talk about
| | 00:38 |
audio compression.
Right now, we've got a WAV file selected.
| | 00:42 |
WAV and AIF are uncompressed formats.
Those are the formats I recommend that you
| | 00:47 |
import into After Effects.
I found they give you the least amount of
| | 00:51 |
headache.
I know you might be thinking, well, does
| | 00:53 |
it import and support MP3 files?
And I'll say, yes.
| | 00:57 |
But in general, if you can get a WAV, you
want to have the uncompressed format to
| | 01:01 |
work with.
Now, let's go ahead and import the file.
| | 01:03 |
Just click the Open button and now, we
have the audio in our project.
| | 01:09 |
So let's click on that file and drag it
down to the folder icon.
| | 01:12 |
When we let go it's already been dropped
into an untitled folder.
| | 01:16 |
So let's go ahead and rename this Audio.
Now, it's open the audio folder, because I
| | 01:22 |
want to create a composition based on the
length of this WAV file.
| | 01:25 |
Let's just click and drag on that file,
and drag it down to the comp button.
| | 01:29 |
The third button from the right.
When you let go, it's automatically going
| | 01:33 |
to create a composition based on the
length of the music.
| | 01:37 |
Now, when I'm editing audio or even
listening to audio, I like to see the
| | 01:40 |
waveform.
Now if you press L, that'll open the audio
| | 01:43 |
levels.
That just tells you how loud or quiet the
| | 01:47 |
song is.
You could see, ours is set at 0 dB, so
| | 01:50 |
it's going to be fine.
Let's go ahead and press LL to open our
| | 01:53 |
Waveform setting.
So now, if we press period on our keypad,
| | 01:59 |
we can do a Real Time audio preview.
The reason I recommend Real Time audio
| | 02:03 |
preview?
It allows you to add markers in real time,
| | 02:07 |
so it's very easy to create markers that
correspond to key things that are
| | 02:12 |
happening in the music.
So let's go ahead and do that.
| | 02:15 |
I'm going to select Layer 1 and I could
press Period on my keypad to go ahead and
| | 02:21 |
start audio playback or I could use a key
command on my normal sized keyboard,
| | 02:27 |
Ctrl+Period.
Now, once it starts playing back, I'm
| | 02:31 |
going to go ahead and press the Asterisk
key on my keypad to add a marker.
| | 02:35 |
You can press Ctrl+8 on a normal size
keyboard, if that's what you need.
| | 02:39 |
All right, so let's go ahead and preview this.
| | 02:56 |
(MUSIC) Now, go ahead and press the
Spacebar to stop playback.
| | 03:15 |
As you can tell, this audio track just has
different elements coming in at different
| | 03:19 |
points in time.
It's building.
| | 03:22 |
Now, of course, I find this inspirational
to build graphics over top of, so we're
| | 03:28 |
going to go ahead and use this track.
And this time I want you to add a marker
| | 03:31 |
every time you think you're going to hear
a new instrument get introduced into the
| | 03:35 |
song.
So, again, Period on the keypad.
| | 03:39 |
And Asterisk to add markers. (MUSIC).
| | 04:13 |
Now, I'm going to press the Spacebar to
stop playback.
| | 04:16 |
Now, as you're adding your markers, you
may or may not see them appear in the
| | 04:19 |
timeline.
A lot of times, you'll just have to wait
| | 04:22 |
'til you stop playback.
And then you'll see that they've been
| | 04:24 |
added to the timeline.
Now, the kind of markers that we created
| | 04:28 |
right here are called layer markers.
Because they are applied directly to the
| | 04:32 |
layer.
We can use them for navigation by clicking
| | 04:36 |
on our current time indicator and then
holding down Shift after you start it
| | 04:39 |
moving.
That will cause the time indicator to snap
| | 04:43 |
to the different layer markers.
Now, I want to double check my edit point
| | 04:47 |
here for the beginning of my markers.
I'm going to go ahead and change the
| | 04:50 |
magnification of my timeline by clicking
this button in the upper right hand corner
| | 04:55 |
to change the magnification.
As I click and drag to the left, it's
| | 04:59 |
changing the magnification.
Now let's preview and see how well the
| | 05:04 |
markers lined up.
(MUSIC) I'm going to stop playback.
| | 05:15 |
I can tell that I did a pretty good job.
I must have good rhytm today.
| | 05:19 |
So what we'll do is actually trim off the
different parts of the audio that we no
| | 05:23 |
longer need.
To do that, with Layer 1 selected, I want
| | 05:27 |
you to press Shift+Cmd+D, or Shift+Ctrl+D
on the PC.
| | 05:31 |
That automatically split the layers.
So I can go ahead and select Layer 2 and
| | 05:37 |
press Delete, because I no longer need it.
Now, let's move our current time indicator
| | 05:42 |
past all four of the markers and then hold
down shift and drag it back towards the
| | 05:46 |
last marker.
Let's make sure this lined up with the
| | 05:48 |
audio as well by loading another audio
only preview.
| | 05:52 |
(MUSIC).
I'm going to press the Spacebar to stop
| | 05:57 |
playback and just move back a couple of
frames here in the timeline, and I'll try
| | 06:02 |
and preview that one more time.
(MUSIC) Okay, so it did appear as though
| | 06:06 |
the marker was added in the right place.
So let's make sure that we snap our
| | 06:13 |
current time indicator to that marker.
And then select Layer 1 and press
| | 06:17 |
Shift+Cmd+D or Shift+Ctrl+D on the PC.
Now, with Layer 1 selected, we can press
| | 06:23 |
Delete and that gets rid of all the extra music.
| | 06:26 |
Now, if we want to add labels to our
markers, we can do so just by
| | 06:30 |
double-clicking on the marker.
So let's double-click the second one here
| | 06:33 |
and I'll just call this 2nd.
And when I click OK, notice I've added a
| | 06:38 |
label for that marker.
We can do the same thing here by double
| | 06:42 |
clicking on our third marker and call it 3rd.
| | 06:44 |
Now, these markers get tied to the layer,
but if I'm going to use this composition
| | 06:49 |
as a precomposition and a different comp,
I'd want to go ahead and add some markers
| | 06:55 |
Into my Timeline panel.
So, to do that, make sure that Layer 1 is
| | 06:58 |
not selected and then go ahead and snap
your current time indicator to the second
| | 07:03 |
key frame.
Now, when you press the Asterisk key its
| | 07:06 |
added a key frame in the top of the composition.
| | 07:08 |
This way, if I precompose this, you'll
still see these markers in use.
| | 07:13 |
So, let's do that for the other markers.
Let's make sure we use the Shift drag
| | 07:18 |
technique.
And we can go ahead and add markers for
| | 07:21 |
the rest.
Now, I don't need to label these markers,
| | 07:27 |
but you can using the same double-click technique.
| | 07:29 |
What we're going to do right now is change
the length of the composition to the
| | 07:33 |
length of the audio.
We're almost finished.
| | 07:36 |
All we have to do is select Layer 1, press
O to make sure that we're on the outpoint
| | 07:41 |
for that layer and then press N to reset
the work area for that layer.
| | 07:46 |
Now, press I to move to the endpoint of
that layer.
| | 07:49 |
And again, we'll reset the work area, but
this time we'll reset the work area start.
| | 07:54 |
So press B for the beginning.
Now, we have a selection over the layer.
| | 08:00 |
Now, this work area can be used to change
the duration of a composition.
| | 08:04 |
So if I right-click or Ctrl+Click anywhere
in this work area, I can choose trim comp
| | 08:10 |
to work area.
That way, everything has been resized.
| | 08:13 |
And it fits all within this one composition.
| | 08:16 |
Now, if you notice up at the beginning
here, my number starts at 901.
| | 08:20 |
I like to start at 0.
So I'm going to go ahead and change that
| | 08:23 |
setting.
Press Cmd+K or Ctrl+K on Windows to open
| | 08:27 |
your Composition settings.
In here, let's change the start time code
| | 08:32 |
to 0.
Now, when we click OK, you can see the
| | 08:34 |
overall length of this is 18 seconds.
And we were able to add markers.
| | 08:39 |
So when it comes to previewing your audio,
you want to make sure to do real-time
| | 08:44 |
audio-only previews using Period on your
keypad or Ctrl+Period on your keyboard.
| | 08:49 |
And then if you want to add markers, it's
the Asterisk key on your keypad or Ctrl+8
| | 08:54 |
on your normal-size keyboard.
| | 08:57 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating graphics with audio| 00:00 |
Animating graphics to audio can take on
two different forms inside of After
| | 00:04 |
Effects.
The first form is the most traditional
| | 00:07 |
form of animation just cutting up your
graphics to the beat of the music.
| | 00:12 |
But the second form is actually using
audio to generate new graphics.
| | 00:17 |
We'll explore both forms in this video.
To get started, I want to actually animate
| | 00:22 |
the text in this scene.
But before we do that, let's go ahead and
| | 00:25 |
press period on our keypad to load up an
audio only preview.
| | 00:28 |
On a standard sized keyboard, you can
press control period.
| | 00:31 |
(MUSIC) So I'll press the Spacebar to stop playback.
| | 00:48 |
You can see we've already added some
markers into our composition and our audio
| | 00:54 |
layer.
These are signifying the different frames
| | 00:57 |
of the audio build and your new
instruments are actually popping into the
| | 01:01 |
track.
So let's go ahead and animate our text.
| | 01:05 |
We can select layer 1, and load another
audio preview.
| | 01:09 |
But this time I want you to look very
closely at the current time indicator as
| | 01:13 |
it's playing.
I'm going to chose an area in here where
| | 01:16 |
I'd like to actually begin my edit and
change the text but I don't want to
| | 01:20 |
specifically add a marker there.
So let's go ahead and start.
| | 01:23 |
(MUSIC) Now I'll stop playback here, and I
believe it was right around this area, one
| | 01:32 |
second, nine frames.
Let's go ahead and press the Period button
| | 01:35 |
again to preview our audio.
So that was a little late, I'll go ahead
| | 01:39 |
and just move it back here.
(MUSIC) Okay it's somewhere in between.
| | 01:44 |
(MUSIC) Okay if you're ever having an
issue trying to find this specific point
| | 01:50 |
for the wave form go ahead and press ll on
your keyboard with the audio track
| | 01:55 |
selected.
So let's select layer four and press L, L.
| | 02:00 |
In here, I can see the exact audio track,
and I can zoom really really closely in to
| | 02:05 |
be very precise on one of the tick marks
for the audio.
| | 02:09 |
Let's go ahead and just move back here now
that I can see my audio and let's load up
| | 02:13 |
an audio only preview.
Again, it's Ctrl + Period on a standard
| | 02:16 |
size keyboard.
(MUSIC) and that's it exactly.
| | 02:21 |
One second, three frames.
So, perfect.
| | 02:24 |
Let's go ahead and open up our layer one,
and open up the text options, and we'll
| | 02:29 |
click on the key frame option for source text.
| | 02:32 |
Now, I want that change to happen right
here, so let's move down one frame.
| | 02:36 |
I'll just click and drag on my current
time indicator, and now we can change our
| | 02:40 |
text.
I would like to change from the word
| | 02:43 |
energy to exercise so let's double click
on the text in the Composition panel.
| | 02:50 |
When you're finished setting your text go
ahead and grab your Selection tool.
| | 02:54 |
Now let's make the text larger by going to
our Character panel and changing that
| | 02:59 |
value from 80 to something around 120.
Now, since the text popped off the side of
| | 03:06 |
the screen, I'm going to go ahead and just
reposition it here towards the center of
| | 03:09 |
the screen in between our flying circles.
So let's scrub through the timeline and
| | 03:15 |
you can see now the word is actually
repositioned in the page.
| | 03:19 |
This has happened because when we use
these two keyframes, they're only
| | 03:23 |
recording the specific parameters of the word.
| | 03:26 |
Like the typeface, what it says, the font,
the size.
| | 03:30 |
It's not recording things like the
position or the rotation.
| | 03:33 |
Those values are down here and none of
those have been key framed.
| | 03:37 |
So, when we re-positioned, now we
positioned both instances of the word.
| | 03:44 |
Now that we've animated layer one, let's
go ahead and collapse that layer Let's
| | 03:48 |
focus on creating our new graphic element
that'll animate to the music.
| | 03:52 |
To do that, we need to create a layer solid.
| | 03:54 |
Let's go up to the layer menu and choose
new solid.
| | 03:59 |
The most important setting is make comp
size so go ahead and select that.
| | 04:03 |
It doesn't matter what your color is
because we're going to generate a whole
| | 04:07 |
new graphic, so I'm just going to click okay.
| | 04:09 |
Let's go back to effect one more time.
This time, we'll go to Generate.
| | 04:15 |
The two audio parameters that we can
generate graphics with are Audio Spectrum
| | 04:19 |
and Audio Waveform.
They both have very similar features, so
| | 04:23 |
I'll show you the features of one, and you
can apply it to the other.
| | 04:27 |
Let's choose Audio Waveform.
Now, notice we have this pink line in the
| | 04:32 |
middle of our comp.
Let's make the line go all the way across
| | 04:35 |
the comp by clicking on these control handles.
| | 04:37 |
Just hold down shift as you click and drag
the control handles off the sides of your
| | 04:42 |
composition.
Now if we were to load up a RAM preview,
| | 04:46 |
nothing would be happening because we
haven't chosen the audio track to drive
| | 04:49 |
this graphic.
So if we go up to the audio layer pull
| | 04:52 |
down and the effect control.
Let's click on that and make sure to
| | 04:56 |
choose animation music dot wave.
Now we've started creating some graphics.
| | 05:01 |
Now just to create some noticeable
graphics, I'm going to click and drag on
| | 05:05 |
the maximum height setting and let's drag
this up quite a bit.
| | 05:09 |
Let's drag it up to about 1,100.
With our graphic a little larger, let's go
| | 05:13 |
ahead and load up a ram preview.
I'm going to press 0 on my keypad.
| | 05:18 |
After a few seconds go ahead and press the
Spacebar to preview.
| | 05:29 |
(MUSIC) So, let's stop Playback there.
Now, I like how that's going, but as the
| | 05:32 |
music builds I'd like to go ahead and
animate the color change for this graphic.
| | 05:37 |
So, let's go ahead and click and drag to
change the magnification of our timeline.
| | 05:43 |
Let's move our current time indicator to
the second key frame.
| | 05:45 |
I'm going to hold down shift as I drag and
right here's where we want to add a key
| | 05:50 |
frame for our color parameter for our wave form.
| | 05:53 |
So let's go ahead and just click and drag
from inside color to outside color and
| | 05:57 |
that'll add a key frame.
For both parameters.
| | 06:00 |
Since we added the key frame exactly on
six seconds, let's move down one frame in
| | 06:05 |
the time line and then we can change the
color here.
| | 06:08 |
So let's grab our eye dropper for the
inside color, and sample this kind of teal
| | 06:12 |
color.
And for the outside color, let's click and
| | 06:15 |
sample this yellow color.
Now between those two its created kind of
| | 06:19 |
a green effect, but it definitely blends
with the background a little but more.
| | 06:23 |
Now we can scrub back through and you can
see that its actually going to change at
| | 06:27 |
that marker.
Now I encourage you to keep going through
| | 06:30 |
the different markers and make changes accordingly.
| | 06:33 |
I'm sure you understand how this function works.
| | 06:35 |
So I'm going to continue building the graphic.
| | 06:37 |
Lets add some separation between our
graphic elements in this scene.
| | 06:41 |
Everything looks kind of busy.
First thing lets click our layer two text
| | 06:45 |
layer and bring it up to the top of the
layer hierarchy.
| | 06:48 |
Lets press T to open its opacity and you
can see its already up at 100%.
| | 06:54 |
Just to make this pop a little more I'm
going to press Cmd + D to duplicate the
| | 06:57 |
layer.
Now it's significantly brighter in the
| | 07:00 |
scene.
If I wanted to change how bright that was
| | 07:03 |
I could press T on the second layer and
just adjust its opacity up or down.
| | 07:09 |
Now we need to set back this audio wave
form a little bit because it's very
| | 07:12 |
dominant and it's cutting up our text.
So to do this, I'll add a very soft blur
| | 07:17 |
and we can adjust that in the Effect
Control panel.
| | 07:19 |
Let's click and drag on the softness parameter.
| | 07:23 |
We can also adjust the thickness so let's
click and drag the thickness to increase
| | 07:27 |
it.
Now it looks a little blurry, but it's
| | 07:29 |
still too dominant in the scene.
We can fix this with a Blend mode.
| | 07:33 |
If you don't have your blend modes up,
make sure you toggle your switches and
| | 07:37 |
modes 'til you see the Blend modes.
Now let's change it from normal to screen.
| | 07:43 |
This'll help it blend with some of the
other elements.
| | 07:45 |
Now we can press t on our keyboard to
blend the opacity back down.
| | 07:50 |
Now there's one more thing we can do to
create a little bit more separation for
| | 07:53 |
this.
Let's select layer 3 and press Cmd + D or
| | 07:56 |
Ctrl + D on Windows to duplicate.
I want to blur this out and scale it up.
| | 08:02 |
And this'll create a little more of a halo
around this graphic.
| | 08:06 |
So, let's go to Effect.
Blur, and we'll do fast blur, and we can
| | 08:11 |
increase the blurriness value in the
effect controls, just by clicking and
| | 08:14 |
dragging up to the right.
Now we can press S to open the scale for
| | 08:19 |
that layer, and go ahead and click and
drag to increase the scale of that layer.
| | 08:24 |
Now lets move this below layer four.
Now I know it looks like a random blur,
| | 08:28 |
but as you actually watch this animate,
you'll notice the blur is going to create
| | 08:33 |
these really interesting pops in the background.
| | 08:36 |
Now I could continue going through
different blend modes and tweaking
| | 08:39 |
different layers.
But I think you understand the process for
| | 08:43 |
creating graphics, edited to audio.
Lets go ahead and load up a ramp preview,
| | 08:51 |
and checkout our finished work.
(MUSIC) So I think we definitely have the
| | 09:05 |
base of a good project started, so, as
usual, I encourage you to continue
| | 09:10 |
exploring and pushing it in your own
direction.
| | 09:12 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Working smarter: Navigating the Timeline| 00:00 |
In this video, we're going to go over some
key commands you can use to quickly
| | 00:04 |
navigate up and down your timeline.
Now, I'm not talking about up and down the
| | 00:08 |
layers, I'm literally talking about up and
down in time in your timeline.
| | 00:13 |
So, to get started, let's actually go
ahead and select Layer 6.
| | 00:17 |
I'm going to press 6 on my keypad.
Now, with Layer 6 selected, I want to see
| | 00:22 |
any keyframes that have been applied to
that layer.
| | 00:24 |
So, I'm going to press the U key.
Now if you see keyframes in a layer, you
| | 00:29 |
can go ahead and navigate between those
keyframes just by pressing the J key to
| | 00:34 |
move earlier in your timeline.
Or press K to move down in your timeline.
| | 00:40 |
Now if you want to quickly move to the
beginning or the end of a layer, you can
| | 00:43 |
press I to move to the beginning and O to
move to the end of the layer.
| | 00:48 |
Now, I'm going to press J twice to move
back to a couple keyframes here.
| | 00:53 |
If you want to trim the start point of a
layer you can hold down the Option key on
| | 00:57 |
Mac or Alt on Windows, and then press the
Left Bracket key which is right next to
| | 01:02 |
the P key.
I'm just going to undo that.
| | 01:05 |
If you want to trim the out point of a
layer, it's the same sort of function just
| | 01:09 |
with the Right Bracket key.
So again, Option on Mac, Alt on Windows,
| | 01:14 |
and then the Right Bracket key.
I'll just go ahead and undo that command
| | 01:17 |
as well.
Now if I select Layer 7 just by pressing 7
| | 01:22 |
on my keypad, and then, I press U again to
open up the keyframe parameters for that
| | 01:27 |
layer.
Notice when I press J to move up in the
| | 01:30 |
timeline, I'm still moving across key
frames, across multiple layers.
| | 01:34 |
So it doesn't necessarily matter when you
press K or J.
| | 01:37 |
Whether or not you have that layer
selected, it'll just move to the next
| | 01:41 |
grouping of animated parameters.
Now, if I want to select all the layers in
| | 01:45 |
the timeline, I can press Command+A on the
Mac, and Control+A on the Mac.
| | 01:50 |
Now if I press U it'll quickly expand all
those layers.
| | 01:53 |
If I press the Tilde key, I can maximize
any panel that I currently have selected.
| | 01:59 |
Since I have the project panel selected it
magnified that.
| | 02:02 |
So let's go ahead and make sure we have
the timeline selected and we'll press the
| | 02:06 |
tilde key.
Now I can quickly and easily see
| | 02:09 |
everything that's been animated in my project.
| | 02:12 |
If I need to zoom in to the area where my
current time indicator is placed, I can
| | 02:17 |
use the Plus key which is up near my
Delete key.
| | 02:21 |
Each time I tap it'll increase the magnification.
| | 02:24 |
And, of course, if I want to zoom back out
I can press the Minus key.
| | 02:27 |
Now, as I'm working, if I want to reset my
work area, I can press B for the beginning
| | 02:32 |
of that work area.
Then, I'll press K, to just move down the
| | 02:36 |
timeline in time.
Notice as I'm clicking through, I'm
| | 02:40 |
literally moving from keyframe to keyframe.
| | 02:42 |
Since I have all my key frames available,
it's taking a while to move down the
| | 02:47 |
timeline.
Now, if I want to set my work area out
| | 02:49 |
point I can press N.
Now, if I want to jump directly to the
| | 02:53 |
start of the work area, I'll press Shift
and Home.
| | 02:57 |
I can press Shift and End to jump to the
end of the work area.
| | 03:01 |
Now, if I press Home without Shift, it'll
just move to the beginning of the
| | 03:05 |
timeline.
Then I can press B to reset the start of
| | 03:09 |
my work area.
And if I press End, then I can go ahead
| | 03:12 |
and press N, as in Nancy, to reset my work
area that way.
| | 03:17 |
Now, what if I want to jump to a specific
point in time?
| | 03:20 |
I can do that by pressing Alt+Shift on
Windows or Option+Shift on the Mac.
| | 03:25 |
And then you can hold down the J key.
When I do that, it'll open the Go To Time
| | 03:30 |
dialog box.
So here, I can type 500 if I want to jump
| | 03:34 |
to five seconds.
So it's shift+option or Shift+Alt and the
| | 03:39 |
J key, again.
If I want to go to frame 2:12, I can type
| | 03:43 |
that in and boom.
My current time indicator is automatically
| | 03:46 |
going to move there.
Now if you need to move frame by frame
| | 03:50 |
through an animation, I'm going to press
the Tilde key just to get back so we can
| | 03:54 |
see our composition again.
And I'll click off any of the layers to
| | 03:58 |
deselect.
Now if you want to move your current time
| | 04:01 |
indicator forwards in time or backwards in
time you can press Page Up or Page Down.
| | 04:06 |
Now, if you don't have a full-sized
keyboard and you want to move forwards and
| | 04:10 |
backwards by single frames, you can use
the Command Key and Right Arrow or Left
| | 04:15 |
Arrow.
On Windows, it would be Control+Right
| | 04:17 |
Arrow and Left Arrow.
If you want to move 10 frames at a time,
| | 04:21 |
just add Shift to that, then you'll be
moving 10 frames at a time up and down the
| | 04:25 |
timeline.
Now that concludes our keyboard shortcuts
| | 04:28 |
we can use to navigate through our
timeline.
| | 04:31 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
6. Using EffectsUnderstanding the order of effects| 00:00 |
A lot of times when you layer effects,
you're just trying to create a specific
| | 00:04 |
look for an idea that you have in your
head, or maybe you're just trying to spur
| | 00:08 |
your creative juices so you can come up
with something different.
| | 00:11 |
It's important to understand as you're
layering effects, the order in which you
| | 00:16 |
apply effects has.
A great impact on the final project.
| | 00:21 |
To show you what I mean in this project
we're going to layer some effects to
| | 00:25 |
create kind of a stylized glow edge look
to sort of give this runner a little bit
| | 00:30 |
more pop.
So to get started lets select layer one in
| | 00:34 |
our timeline and then go up under the
Effects tab.
| | 00:37 |
Now when you're looking at effects, it's
important to understand they're divided up
| | 00:41 |
into different groups, and each one of
these groups have specific functions.
| | 00:45 |
For example, blur obviously creates
different kinds of blur.
| | 00:50 |
Color correction is a good place to go if
you want to change the color.
| | 00:55 |
Matte is great for compositing.
Like if you're doing green screen keying
| | 00:59 |
and things like that.
Now since I want to create a style I'm
| | 01:02 |
going to jump down to the Stylize group.
Under Stylize let's go ahead and choose
| | 01:07 |
Find Edges.
When we apply that effect notice it
| | 01:11 |
automatically pops up the Effects Control panel.
| | 01:14 |
Now with this effect set up, I'm looking
at the scene realizing I don't want to
| | 01:18 |
make it so white, I'd like it to have
black as the primary background.
| | 01:22 |
So let's see what happens if we select the
invert checkbox.
| | 01:26 |
Now this is definitely starting to look a
little bit more like what I was hoping
| | 01:30 |
for.
The fact that the edges of the lines are
| | 01:33 |
all different colors is kind of bothering me.
| | 01:36 |
So I'm going to layer another effect on
here and I want to deal with the colors.
| | 01:40 |
So I'm going to go up under effects and go
to color correction.
| | 01:43 |
And this time I want to make those colors
black and white.
| | 01:47 |
So I'll go ahead and apply black and white
and now we have kind of light outlines for
| | 01:52 |
our runner.
This looks great.
| | 01:54 |
If I want to go ahead and make a
adjustment to how these different elements
| | 01:58 |
look I can start scrubbing through the
different parameters of both of the
| | 02:01 |
effects.
So I'm going to click and drag on blend
| | 02:04 |
with original and you'll notice that just
controls the intensity of my fine edges
| | 02:09 |
effect.
Now with the black and white effect, as
| | 02:12 |
you scrub on the different channels,
understand it's going to adjust the
| | 02:15 |
luminance of each of the different types
of colors that it's changing to black and
| | 02:20 |
white.
So if we click and drag red back to -67,
| | 02:24 |
notice we're bringing down the highlights
in the runner here.
| | 02:27 |
So I'm going to go ahead and drag that
down to the left.
| | 02:32 |
Yellows we could go ahead and drag up to
pop or down, you get the general idea.
| | 02:37 |
You can tweak this to get the stylized
look that you're looking for.
| | 02:41 |
So far this looks relatively okay, but I
want to start trying to blend it back into
| | 02:45 |
the scene.
In order to do that, I'll go ahead and
| | 02:49 |
select layer 1 and press Cmd+D to indicate
the layer.
| | 02:52 |
Now a quick way of turning off the
effects, if you have them applied to a
| | 02:56 |
different layer, is to select the layer
that you'd like to remove the effects from
| | 03:01 |
and then go up under the effect pull down
menu and choose remove all.
| | 03:05 |
Nothing's happened yet.
And that's just because I haven't started
| | 03:08 |
blending layer one back into layer two.
So I'm going to click the toggle switches
| | 03:13 |
modes button and change the mode from
normal to soft light.
| | 03:20 |
This is going to knock out a fair amount
of the black pixels, but it's going to
| | 03:23 |
allow me to see the glow and highlights.
Now in order to intensify the glow.
| | 03:29 |
I want to make sure that I have layer 1
selected, and then we can go back up under
| | 03:33 |
effect, and close under stylize.
But just in case you don't remember where
| | 03:39 |
an effect is, which kind of happens to me
quite a bit, you can go over the effects
| | 03:43 |
and Preset panel.
So I'm going to go ahead and click in here
| | 03:47 |
and I'll start typing the word glow and
notice there it is.
| | 03:51 |
Stylize and its a 32 bit effect.
So this is kind of cool.
| | 03:54 |
I'm going to click and drag on the effect
and just drag it right on to layer one.
| | 03:58 |
When I let go now I'm getting a nice pop
along the edges of my runner.
| | 04:03 |
So if I scrub through my project here you
can see I've created this kind of glowy
| | 04:08 |
stylized edge look for our runner.
And we did this applying multiple effects.
| | 04:14 |
Just to kind of drive home the point of
how applying the effects works, let's add
| | 04:19 |
one more effect.
With layer one selected, let's go up under
| | 04:23 |
Effect and choose Generate.
And this time, I want to generate a lens
| | 04:28 |
flair.
With the lens flair set up.
| | 04:32 |
I know this is kind of cheesy, but this is
going to illustrate my point.
| | 04:34 |
Let's go ahead and click on this control
handle for the lens flair.
| | 04:38 |
And move it up to the left.
Just so it's not quite so dominant in the
| | 04:41 |
scene.
If we start collapsing the different
| | 04:44 |
effects in our Effects Control panel by
clicking the little triangles next to each
| | 04:48 |
one of the effects we can more clearly see
the order in which the effects are
| | 04:52 |
applied.
So lets change the order.
| | 04:55 |
For example if I move the lens flare up
above black and white now the lens flare
| | 05:00 |
is black and white Now let's see what
happens when we drag lens flare up above
| | 05:04 |
black and white.
Notice it's taken all of the color out of
| | 05:08 |
the lens flare itself.
If I took find edges and dragged it
| | 05:12 |
towards the bottom of the layer hierarchy,
notice now it's finding the edges of the
| | 05:17 |
lens flare, even after the glow.
So let's change the glow and move it down
| | 05:22 |
below five edges.
Now we've got a glow on our edges and our
| | 05:26 |
lens flare, but everything is still kind
of black and white.
| | 05:30 |
If I turn off black and white, we can get
the colours of the edges back into the
| | 05:35 |
scene.
I could continue clicking through all
| | 05:37 |
these different options and keep
illustrating exactly what it does but I
| | 05:41 |
think you get the point.
As you change the order of effects you
| | 05:45 |
definitely going to create vastly
different looks based on how those effects
| | 05:49 |
are applied.
They work very much like layers.
| | 05:52 |
You want to look in the effects control
panel and just see how they're applied and
| | 05:56 |
work from the top, down.
| | 05:57 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Generating backgrounds with effects| 00:00 |
After Effects has several tools that will
give you the ability to generate graphics
| | 00:05 |
from scratch.
And of course, as designers we've all been
| | 00:08 |
in situations where we've had to create
something out of nothing.
| | 00:12 |
So for our example here, we have our h+
sport logo sitting over top of a black
| | 00:17 |
background.
We're going to create a seamless loopable
| | 00:20 |
background that we can place behind this.
So it has just a little more pop.
| | 00:26 |
To start, let's go up under the Layer menu
and I'll choose New > Solid.
| | 00:31 |
Since we're generating graphics from
within the effects with in After Effects,
| | 00:35 |
we don't need to worry about the color.
So I'm going to leave the color set at
| | 00:39 |
blue, you can choose whatever color you
like for yours.
| | 00:42 |
I'm just going to make sure that we have a
Comp Size layer solid.
| | 00:46 |
So, select the button that says Make Comp Size.
| | 00:50 |
Now, we can go ahead and click Okay, and
our solid's been added to the scene.
| | 00:54 |
Let's go up under effect, and we'll go
down to the generate option.
| | 00:59 |
Under generate, my favorite effect to
create different patterns.
| | 01:03 |
Cell pattern.
Let's go ahead and choose cell pattern.
| | 01:06 |
And with that effect applied, you can see
we have several different options here in
| | 01:11 |
our Effect Control panel.
Now before I go through all these
| | 01:15 |
different options, I want to show you that
our composition if five seconds long.
| | 01:20 |
Usually when I create a seamless
background, I create something that's at
| | 01:23 |
least 30 seconds long.
That way, there's just a little bit more
| | 01:26 |
time before it loops back on itself.
For the sake of this lesson and speed,
| | 01:32 |
we're going to create a quick 5 second
looping background.
| | 01:36 |
Back to our cell patterns here.
You can see we can generate different cell
| | 01:39 |
patterns if we click on this bubbles pulldown.
| | 01:42 |
Let's choose crystals.
With the crystal setting, notice how we're
| | 01:46 |
getting a slightly more harsh texture.
We could adjust this by adjusting the
| | 01:51 |
contrast up or down.
Now I'm going to adjust the contrast up to
| | 01:54 |
around 250.
If you wanted to create a slightly
| | 01:58 |
different style, you can go to the
overflow pull down.
| | 02:01 |
This just controls how the colors clip as
they go over from black to white.
| | 02:07 |
If we change it to wrap back, notice we
have a slightly more detailed texture.
| | 02:12 |
I'm going to leave mine set to wrap back.
Now in order to make this seamless, I'm
| | 02:17 |
going to animate the evolution property.
But we want to open up the evolution
| | 02:21 |
options, and make sure that cycle
evolution is selected.
| | 02:25 |
This way, when we have one complete
evolution it'll be seamless.
| | 02:30 |
Let's go ahead and set our first keyframe.
I'm going to click on the stopwatch next
| | 02:33 |
to evolution.
Since our current time indicator is at the
| | 02:37 |
start of our composition, that's where our
keyframe is.
| | 02:40 |
Now we can press End on our keyboard to
move the current time indicator to the end
| | 02:44 |
of the composition and let's change our
evolution rotation parameter to one full
| | 02:49 |
rotation.
Now you should notice there's no
| | 02:52 |
difference here in my composition window.
If I press Home and End as I move back and
| | 02:57 |
forth, there's no difference in the frame.
Let's press U on our keyboard to open up
| | 03:02 |
our Keyframes we just created.
If you look in the end of our timeline we
| | 03:06 |
have a Keyframe.
In order to make this seamless I want to
| | 03:10 |
go ahead and move this Keyframe off the
end of the project.
| | 03:14 |
But before I do that let me preview the
project to see if you can notice the
| | 03:18 |
repeating frame.
In the preview panel make sure you
| | 03:21 |
deselect from current time and then load
up a RAM preview.
| | 03:25 |
It'll load all the frames of the background.
| | 03:28 |
And notice, when it gets to the end,
there's just a little slight pause.
| | 03:33 |
It's one frame, it's barely noticeable,
but it is there.
| | 03:36 |
And I'm going to go ahead and stop
playback here for a second.
| | 03:40 |
I'm going to zoom into 100%.
Let's press End to move the current time
| | 03:45 |
indicator to the end of the comp.
Now let's click on the second key frame,
| | 03:49 |
and click and drag it off the composition
by one frame.
| | 03:53 |
I'll know what frame I'm on because the
info panel gives me that update, in the
| | 03:57 |
upper right-hand corner.
Notice when I move that one frame, I'm
| | 04:01 |
seeing a slight shift in my pattern.
Now, if we press 0 on our key pad to load
| | 04:06 |
up the seamless loop, once it actually
gets to the end it'll loop back to the
| | 04:10 |
beginning and be completely seamless.
Now in order to add this underneath of our
| | 04:15 |
graphic, I'm going to go ahead and stop
playback here for a second.
| | 04:19 |
And move the solid underneath of our logo.
Now obviously it's a little busy.
| | 04:23 |
I'm going to go ahead and zoom out here
just by scrolling with my mouse wheel.
| | 04:28 |
In order to soften this a little bit let's
add one more effect.
| | 04:32 |
I'm going to go up under effect and go to
blur and we'll choose Fast Blur.
| | 04:36 |
This will allow us to blur the scene but
it won't be too taxing on the processing
| | 04:41 |
of your system.
Now we've added a soft blur.
| | 04:45 |
If we want, we could continue tweaking
this by adding colors.
| | 04:48 |
Let's go ahead and do that, just to add
one more level of separation.
| | 04:52 |
If you go up under Effect, we can go to
Color Correction, and choose Tint.
| | 04:58 |
And there we have exact controls over what
colors the pixels will become.
| | 05:02 |
So let's choose to map our white pixels to
this blue solid.
| | 05:07 |
So I'll go ahead and click on eye dropper
and then sample the blue.
| | 05:11 |
Now, I have this kind of crazy blue
background that's been generated for our
| | 05:16 |
logo.
And, of course, it's a seamless loop.
| | 05:20 |
Let's go ahead and load up our RAM preview
So we can see our finished work.
| | 05:25 |
I think that looks pretty good now I
encourage you to go back to some of the
| | 05:29 |
different cell pattern options and see how
you can make yours different.
| | 05:32 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Generating a scribble effect| 00:00 |
When I was a kid, I'd love to scribble all
over my coloring books.
| | 00:04 |
Now, if you happen to be one of those
kids, I encourage you to follow along and
| | 00:08 |
learn a little bit about one of the most
versatile effects for creating detailed
| | 00:13 |
animated graphics inside of After Effects,
the Scribble effect.
| | 00:17 |
Now, the Scribble effect likes to work
with paths.
| | 00:20 |
So, let's go ahead and create a new layer
solid so we can add a path to our scene.
| | 00:23 |
Make sure you have the timeline selected,
and then press Cmd + Y or Ctrl + Y on the
| | 00:28 |
PC to create a new solid.
Go ahead and click the Make Comp Size
| | 00:33 |
button to make sure that the layer is the
size of our composition.
| | 00:37 |
Then lets change the color from black to
this blue color.
| | 00:41 |
That way we're just not creating something
on solid black.
| | 00:44 |
Now click OK.
Now lets start with a square.
| | 00:48 |
I'm going to go ahead and grab the
Rectangle tool.
| | 00:50 |
If this tool is inactive for you, just
keep pressing Q on your keyboard, til you
| | 00:54 |
get to the Rectangle tool.
And I'm going to click and drag in my
| | 00:58 |
canvas, and then hold down Shift to create
that square.
| | 01:02 |
Now with the square in the middle of the
scene, we're ready to add our scribble
| | 01:06 |
effect.
I'm just going to go to the Effects and
| | 01:08 |
Presets panel over here and start typing
the word scribble.
| | 01:11 |
And there it is, it's an 8 bit effect.
I can drag it and drop it right onto my
| | 01:16 |
shape, and when I let go, I already have
an effect that's created.
| | 01:21 |
One of my favorite things about this
effect is the fact that it's already
| | 01:24 |
animated.
If you go ahead and load up a RAM Preview,
| | 01:27 |
check it out.
Once the RAM Preview's loaded you'll get a
| | 01:31 |
real time play back, hopefully on your
system, that'll show you how these
| | 01:35 |
scribbles are working.
Now, the one setting I make adjustments to
| | 01:39 |
the most in Scribble are start and end.
So, I'm going to press the Spacebar to
| | 01:43 |
stop playback here for a second, and just
scrub through the end parameter.
| | 01:47 |
As I scrub through, you can see I could
control the animation of the appearance of
| | 01:52 |
this square.
So, let's go ahead and create an animation
| | 01:55 |
for that.
We'll start at frame zero, and let's
| | 01:59 |
change the end parameter to zero.
Go ahead and click the stopwatch next to
| | 02:03 |
end and that'll set your first keyframe.
Now let's have the square draw on over the
| | 02:08 |
first second.
So click in the time and just type
| | 02:10 |
one-zero-zero and enter on your keyboard.
Now we'll change the end parameter to 100.
| | 02:18 |
And that's it.
All we have to do is load a ramp preview
| | 02:21 |
to see how that goes ahead and draws into
the scene.
| | 02:23 |
If that were it to this effect, this would
be kind of a boring video.
| | 02:28 |
Lets go look at some of the other options
that we have for that square.
| | 02:32 |
But before we do that, I'm going to go
ahead and duplicate this layer, because I
| | 02:36 |
do like the start of how this is set up.
So I'm going to select layer one.
| | 02:40 |
And press Cmd + D or Ctrl + D on the
Windows to duplicate.
| | 02:44 |
And let's turn off the visibility of our
background layer.
| | 02:47 |
Now with layer 1 selected, let's look at
some of these different options.
| | 02:53 |
First option is mask, if we click on that,
notice we have an option for mask 1.
| | 02:58 |
That's because we only have 1 mask in our layer.
| | 03:01 |
So, if you go to the scribble pull down at
the top, notice we have an option for all
| | 03:07 |
masks or all masks using modes.
Well we'll get to that in a quick second,
| | 03:11 |
let's look at the Fill Type options.
If I click on that we have inside,
| | 03:15 |
centered edge, inside edge, outside edge,
let's click through a couple of these.
| | 03:21 |
Centered edge it centers the scribble on
the path itself.
| | 03:25 |
Inside it puts it inside of the path
outside goes on the outside.
| | 03:30 |
Now left edge and right edge are kind of
interesting because they don't make much
| | 03:34 |
of a difference in terms of a square.
So let's go ahead and add another pathway
| | 03:38 |
quickly by grabbing our pen tool.
And I'm going to click and drag a diagonal
| | 03:42 |
path here.
And just to set that here we'll grab our
| | 03:45 |
Selection tool.
So now we have a second path on layer two.
| | 03:49 |
Let's go ahead and select Mask 2, and now
we've got our scribble here.
| | 03:54 |
If we change the Fill Type from Right Edge
to Left Edge, it's looking at the motion
| | 04:00 |
of the path that's being drawn.
So this is the start and this is the end.
| | 04:05 |
The left edge is actually up here and the
right edge is down there.
| | 04:09 |
Here if I rotate this around.
So let's say we drew the path from this
| | 04:13 |
point to that point.
Now you can more clearly see the left edge
| | 04:17 |
and the right edge.
So outside, centered, inside.
| | 04:24 |
Obviously this is one path, so we're not
going to get anything for inside.
| | 04:28 |
It'll all just depend on the specific
shape that you have selected.
| | 04:32 |
Now before we explore some of these other
options, let's go ahead and have scribble
| | 04:37 |
create some text in the scene.
Let's go ahead and grab out Text tool, and
| | 04:42 |
we'll call this scribble, and press Enter
on your keypad, or just grab the Selection
| | 04:49 |
tool to set your type.
Now I want to reposition my scribble text
| | 04:53 |
down in the bottom of the panel.
I can't just go up under effect and apply
| | 04:58 |
scribble, because it's not going to apply anything.
| | 05:00 |
It's looking for masks.
So let's just delete that effect by
| | 05:04 |
pressing Delete on our keyboard.
What we need to do is turn the text into
| | 05:09 |
outlines.
So in order to do that, let's leave our
| | 05:12 |
text layer selected.
And go up under layer and choose.
| | 05:15 |
Create Masks from Text.
With those masks created, now we can go up
| | 05:20 |
under the Effects panel and apply our
Scribble effect.
| | 05:24 |
This is where things start to get really interesting.
| | 05:27 |
You can have it scribble individual
letters, or you could just have it
| | 05:32 |
scribble All Masks.
Now, notice it filled in the Rs and the
| | 05:37 |
Bs.
Just to see this more clearly, I'm going
| | 05:39 |
to press shift command h to quickly hide
the edges of our masks.
| | 05:44 |
If you change the option from all masks to
all masks using modes, it will take into
| | 05:49 |
account the actual modes that were created
to isolate the inside of each one of these
| | 05:54 |
letters.
Now we could go through and adjust some of
| | 05:58 |
the other parameters, like let's say the angle.
| | 06:01 |
If you click and drag on the angle, you
could change the angle of the scribble.
| | 06:06 |
The stroke width obviously makes it fatter
or skinnier.
| | 06:09 |
If we looked at our stroke options, we can
adjust the curviness.
| | 06:13 |
So for example, let's say I wanted this to
look more like Lassos from the wild west.
| | 06:18 |
If we drag curviness all the way up, we
can see we have a little bit more of that
| | 06:22 |
lasso look.
I'm going to scroll in, just by hovering
| | 06:25 |
with my mouse and scrolling up and then
I'll press the Spacebar and drag up to go
| | 06:30 |
ahead and reposition in the scene.
Curving as variation will just allow me to
| | 06:34 |
create a little bit more variation amongst
the curves.
| | 06:38 |
Spacing controls how dense the scribbles are.
| | 06:43 |
You can adjust the spacing variation to
make it a little more random in its
| | 06:47 |
filling of the letter, and then path
overlap is fun to control how far its
| | 06:52 |
actually overlapping the letters within
the scene.
| | 06:56 |
Each one of these parameters you can
create a key frame for.
| | 07:00 |
Now before we stop with our scribble, I
want you to look at the scribble type.
| | 07:05 |
Right now it's set to smooth.
If we load up a RAM Preview you can see
| | 07:09 |
smooth creates kind of a smooth motion.
I'm going to press the Spacebar just so we
| | 07:14 |
can preview this.
That's relatively smooth and we see a
| | 07:17 |
little bit from our other layer but that's fine.
| | 07:20 |
If we go ahead and adjust our wiggle type
from smooth to jumpy, now when we lit up a
| | 07:26 |
RAM Preview here, you'll notice it's going
to be much more frenetic in its actually
| | 07:30 |
change of that scribble.
So let's go ahead and press the Spacebar.
| | 07:34 |
Here it's a little bit more jumpy if you
will, and of course the last but not least
| | 07:41 |
option you could change this from jumpy to
static and that would add absolutely no
| | 07:46 |
animation to this layer whatsoever.
So as you can see with scribble we've
| | 07:51 |
created all different kinds of options.
And while all these different options give
| | 07:57 |
you the ability to add keyframes, if you
really want to take your animation up
| | 08:01 |
another level, go ahead and create
duplicates of the scribble layer, and then
| | 08:05 |
start using different blend modes and
different scribble settings to actually
| | 08:09 |
create layered effects with your scribble.
| | 08:11 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Animating strokes with effects| 00:00 |
One of the most fundamental elements of
any graphic design is the use of lines.
| | 00:05 |
And of course, After Effects makes it
relatively easy to create multiple
| | 00:09 |
animated lines moving throughout your scene.
| | 00:13 |
You have many different options.
One is to animate shape layers themselves.
| | 00:17 |
The other is to use the Stroke effect.
I personally like to use the Stroke effect
| | 00:22 |
so that's what I'm going to show you in
this video.
| | 00:24 |
Let's go ahead and look at our scene and
we have these swooshes kind of moving
| | 00:30 |
across the bottom of our project.
If we load up a RAM preview let's look at
| | 00:35 |
what's animated.
And as you can see we've got this crazy
| | 00:39 |
busy animation and of course we want to
add one more layer of interactivity to
| | 00:43 |
this by animating the swooshes in the background.
| | 00:46 |
So I'm going to press the Spacebar to stop
play back but just because this is such a
| | 00:50 |
busy graphic I do want to isolate the
strokes on a layer by themselves.
| | 00:55 |
Now if we look at these lines, they're
created by Layer7.
| | 00:59 |
So select Layer7 and then press the Solo
key to go ahead and solo that layer.
| | 01:05 |
I know this is an Illustrator layer
because I can see the Illustrator icon on
| | 01:09 |
Layer7.
If you go ahead and Ctrl + click or
| | 01:12 |
right-click on Layer7.
You could go up in the menu and choose
| | 01:15 |
reveal and finder and then double click on
that to edit it inside of illustrator and
| | 01:20 |
to make changes etc.
That's not what I want to do.
| | 01:23 |
What I'd like to do is just copy the paths
from that illustrator file to a new layer
| | 01:29 |
solid inside of After Effect.
So instead of right clicking leave the
| | 01:33 |
layer selected and go up under the Edit command.
| | 01:36 |
And let's choose Edit Original.
Now it may take a second for your system
| | 01:41 |
to launch but once you choose Edit
Original, Illustrator will start launching
| | 01:45 |
in the background.
It looks like the swoop had changed
| | 01:49 |
directions upon import into After Effects,
but all in all this is exactly what I was
| | 01:54 |
looking for.
So let's go ahead and click on the black
| | 01:57 |
arrow.
That will allow us to select the graphic.
| | 02:00 |
Now when we click on any one of the lines,
notice the only lines that actually have
| | 02:04 |
paths going through them are the first and
the last line.
| | 02:08 |
This is quite a common occurrence when
you're creating multiple strokes like this
| | 02:12 |
inside of Illustrator.
And that's because there's a tool called
| | 02:16 |
the blend tool, that allows the creation
of these kind of things, really easily.
| | 02:21 |
Now since this isn't an illustrator
course, I'm not going to dive really deep
| | 02:24 |
into the blend tool, I'm going to show you
how you can optimize this, to actually
| | 02:27 |
copy it into After Effects.
If we go up under Edit and choose Copy,
| | 02:33 |
what we can do is jump back into After
Effects, lets choose layer and choose New
| | 02:38 |
Solid.
Lets leave it blue just so we know it's
| | 02:42 |
completely different and make sure it's
comp size by clicking to make Comp Size
| | 02:46 |
button.
Now we can go under Edit and choose Paste.
| | 02:52 |
And notice all the paths came in perfectly.
| | 02:56 |
What we need to do is actually generate
the stroke.
| | 02:59 |
So let's go up under the Effect menu.
We go to generate and choose stroke.
| | 03:04 |
Now with stroke in the effects Control
panel, go down to the bottom under Paint
| | 03:08 |
style and click on the pull down.
Now if the stroke affect is loaded into
| | 03:12 |
the effects Control panel, and go down to
the bottom under Paint style.
| | 03:16 |
Let's change that pull down to say reveal
original image.
| | 03:19 |
Now as you can see, we've got our strokes
going the wrong way.
| | 03:24 |
So what we need to do is press S to open
up the Scale and then we can go ahead an
| | 03:30 |
unlock the scale.
And I'm just going to change the X
| | 03:32 |
parameter to minus 100.
Now when I press enter on my keyboard,
| | 03:36 |
it'll be flipped around and these will
work beautifully.
| | 03:40 |
Now I can continue repositioning this
layer with the position key frames, etc.,
| | 03:44 |
but I think this works great so I'm
going to go ahead and scroll down to layer
| | 03:48 |
eight and turn off its visibility.
So now we need to just be able to see our
| | 03:53 |
strokes more clearly.
In order to do that, let's press Shift +
| | 03:57 |
Cmd + H to hide the pass in the window.
I can barely see what's going on with my
| | 04:03 |
strokes here.
That's because its revealing he original
| | 04:06 |
image.
If we go ahead and change our paint style
| | 04:10 |
on transparent it'll cut out the
background and allow me to choose the
| | 04:14 |
color here as opposed to the color from my
layer solid.
| | 04:17 |
Now with that setup lets go ahead and
increase the brush size to around 5.
| | 04:24 |
Now Brush Hardness may appear not to do
anything when you Scrub on it.
| | 04:27 |
But if you go ahead and change the
spacing, let's click and drag on the
| | 04:31 |
spacing, and increase it up to 100, now as
we adjust the hardness.
| | 04:37 |
Let's zoom into 100% so you can see it a
little better.
| | 04:40 |
We're getting softer dots versus harder dots.
| | 04:44 |
Each stroke is made up of a series of dots
and you can adjust those dots by adjusting
| | 04:49 |
the spacing.
Let's leave our setting for spacing around
| | 04:53 |
30% and we'll make our brush hardness a
little bit softer just so the edge doesn't
| | 04:57 |
appear quite as aliased.
So let's go ahead and bring that down to
| | 05:00 |
around 50%.
And then the opacity will just adjust the
| | 05:05 |
overall opacity of the stroke.
So we can leave that at 100.
| | 05:09 |
Now if we want to animate the appearance
of this stroke I'm going to scroll back
| | 05:13 |
out with my magnification or let's just
fit it up to 100%.
| | 05:18 |
To animate our stroke, all you have to do
is just click and drag on that end
| | 05:21 |
parameter and that'll allow us to change
how that stroke animates.
| | 05:25 |
I'd like to stroke all of the strokes
sequentially so select All Masks in the
| | 05:30 |
top of the Stroke panel.
Notice stroke sequentially's set by
| | 05:34 |
default.
This way, when we key frame the start and
| | 05:37 |
the end It'll stroke one stroke after the
other to create this kind of interesting
| | 05:41 |
look.
Let's go ahead and create an animation for
| | 05:45 |
that.
We'll change the end parameter to 0% and
| | 05:49 |
press home to move our time indicator to
the start of our project.
| | 05:53 |
We'll create the key indicator for the
end, move down to one second, and increase
| | 05:58 |
that up to 100%.
Now let's re-position our stroke layer
| | 06:02 |
down to the bottom of the layer hierarchy,
just below the blue color solid.
| | 06:06 |
Now if we turn off soloing, you can see
we've got our stroke here in the
| | 06:11 |
background.
We can blend it a little bit more by
| | 06:14 |
pressing T.
And adjusting the opacity down, or we
| | 06:17 |
could literally adjust the color and
adjust the blend mode of the layer itself.
| | 06:23 |
But for now, I think this is looking
pretty cool.
| | 06:26 |
So let's go ahead and preview our animation.
| | 06:28 |
I'm going to load up a RAM preview.
So there you have it.
| | 06:33 |
We've created animated strokes using the
Stroke effect.
| | 06:37 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using adjustment layers| 00:00 |
Adjustment layers give you the ability to
apply an effect to an invisible layer.
| | 00:05 |
But the position of that layer allows you
to determine exactly how many layers you'd
| | 00:09 |
like that effect to apply to.
So it's great to make overall adjustments
| | 00:14 |
to a composition, or multiple layers in a composition.
| | 00:18 |
Let's check out the project we're looking
at, and see how we can use Adjustment
| | 00:21 |
layers to make it look a little bit better.
| | 00:23 |
I'm going to load up a Ram preview.
And after the first few seconds of
| | 00:28 |
loading, you can go ahead and press your
Spacebar to begin playback.
| | 00:33 |
As you can see, we have kind of a bland
track and field animation here because
| | 00:37 |
there's been no color treatment or
anything chosen for the images.
| | 00:41 |
It's just kind of a rough animation.
Let's go ahead and use an Adjustment layer
| | 00:46 |
to add a little bit more style, in a sense
a visual separation of all the different
| | 00:51 |
elements.
I'm going to press the Spacebar to stop
| | 00:53 |
playback.
Now, to create an Adjustment layer, you
| | 00:57 |
can go up under the Layer menu.
If you don't have the comp panel active or
| | 01:00 |
the timeline panel active, make sure one
of them is active.
| | 01:03 |
Then, Layer > New > Adjustment Layer.
Now that we have an Adjustment layer on
| | 01:08 |
the top of the layer hierarchy, you should
notice nothing has changed.
| | 01:13 |
That's because we need to apply an effect.
Now since I want to kind of colorize
| | 01:17 |
everything that's going on in this scene,
I'm going to use a color effect.
| | 01:21 |
So let's go up under Effect > Color
Correction > Tint.
| | 01:25 |
Tint takes the entire image and makes it
black and white.
| | 01:29 |
And then it allows you to selectively add
color back into the scene based on the
| | 01:35 |
Luminance values of white or black.
So let's go ahead and change the White
| | 01:40 |
option.
Click on the white rectangle and change
| | 01:44 |
the color to kind of a dark red.
Now, this is going to be rather drastic,
| | 01:49 |
but we can change how much this tints the
object a little bit later.
| | 01:53 |
So let's click OK.
(SOUND) And now under amount to Tint,
| | 01:58 |
let's decrease this just a little bit.
We'll bring it down to around 82%.
| | 02:02 |
That's fine.
Now we have the Adjustment layer in our
| | 02:06 |
layer hierarchy.
I'm going to rename this red.
| | 02:08 |
So just press Return on your keyboard and
type red.
| | 02:12 |
(SOUND).
Now, let's bring the words track and field
| | 02:15 |
back up visually by just dragging the red
layer underneath the words track and
| | 02:20 |
field.
Now, I can clearly see those words and
| | 02:23 |
it's very obvious what the dominant player
in the graphic is.
| | 02:27 |
We still want to kind of add a little bit
more separation with these background
| | 02:32 |
elements as well.
So let's see if we can bring those back
| | 02:36 |
in.
If you click on Layer 3 and then
| | 02:38 |
Shift+click on Layer 8, we'll set all the
layers that create that part of the
| | 02:42 |
graphic.
Notice these video boxes are being
| | 02:46 |
controlled by a null object.
Sometimes it makes more sense to go ahead
| | 02:51 |
and precompose as opposed to using an
adjustment layer.
| | 02:54 |
This is one of those times.
I want to isolate all of these layers, but
| | 02:58 |
I like how the animation's already set up.
With Layers 3 through 8 selected, I'll go
| | 03:03 |
up under the Layer > Pre-compose.
You can leave the default settings and
| | 03:09 |
just click OK.
Now our pre-comp is its own layer in the
| | 03:13 |
timeline.
And we could bring it right above our red
| | 03:16 |
layer.
Now the red is only affecting the
| | 03:19 |
background video, these lines and then a
dark black box which is underneath these
| | 03:25 |
video layers.
That's great, but I still want to stylize
| | 03:28 |
these middle layers.
So let's select our pre-comp layer, Layer
| | 03:33 |
2 and then go up under Effect.
And this time I want to adjust their
| | 03:36 |
brightness.
So let's go to Color Correction and we'll
| | 03:40 |
add a Levels adjustment. (SOUND).
| | 03:41 |
Now I want to kind of heighten the
contrast while creating the brightness.
| | 03:46 |
So if we look at our levels histogram,
this is a visual representation of all the
| | 03:50 |
brightness involved in that scene.
First thing we need to do is click here on
| | 03:55 |
the arrow all the way on the right side.
Because there isn't much information here
| | 03:59 |
in the histogram, we want to go ahead and
click and drag this back towards the left.
| | 04:04 |
And notice the closer we get to this
information, the brighter the scene's
| | 04:07 |
going to be.
Let's leave it right around the middle
| | 04:11 |
there.
If we look at the left side, this
| | 04:14 |
information controls the dark pixels in
the image.
| | 04:17 |
So, I can go ahead and click and drag on
that left triangle, and bring it back
| | 04:21 |
towards the right a little bit.
And this is known as Crushing the Black
| | 04:24 |
Levels.
As you can see, it's making the image
| | 04:28 |
very, very dark.
Now, we're ready to preview our animation
| | 04:32 |
one more time.
Let's go ahead and press 0 on the keypad
| | 04:36 |
and load up our Ram preview.
After the first few seconds of loading, go
| | 04:40 |
ahead and press the Spacebar to check out
the animation.
| | 04:42 |
I'm going to stop playback here.
When it comes to adjustment layers, they
| | 04:47 |
do function just like any other layer.
So if at any point you decided that you
| | 04:52 |
wanted to actually mask off a section of
the Adjustment layer, you can definitely
| | 04:56 |
do that.
So just to give you an example, let's do
| | 05:00 |
that to our project.
Go up to the Shape tools and make sure
| | 05:03 |
that you have the Rectangle tool selected.
I'm just clicking and holding to bring up
| | 05:07 |
all the different options.
As long as I have layer three selected,
| | 05:10 |
when I start to drag with the Rectangle
tool, it's automatically going to start
| | 05:15 |
masking off that layer.
Let's go ahead and drag it to about half
| | 05:19 |
way down, our lower box images.
Now, if we open up the Mask options, we
| | 05:25 |
can go ahead and click and drag on the
feather parameter in the timeline.
| | 05:29 |
Now we're feathering the adjustment.
And as you notice, it's created kind of a
| | 05:33 |
soft gradient from the red into the bottom
dark area.
| | 05:39 |
When it comes to creating Adjustment
layers, they give you the ability to apply
| | 05:43 |
effect to multiple layers.
But they also give you the same
| | 05:46 |
flexibility as any other layer, because
you can actually control their visibility
| | 05:51 |
with masking.
| | 05:52 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Adding gradients and glows| 00:00 |
There are two effects I like to use quite
often in my graphics, and those are
| | 00:04 |
gradients and glows.
So in this video we're going to add a
| | 00:08 |
gradient into the scene, to better blend
out graphic element with the background
| | 00:14 |
video.
And then we're also going to add some
| | 00:16 |
glows onto the scene, to add a little bit
of softness.
| | 00:20 |
So to get started we need to create a new
Layer solid for our gradient.
| | 00:24 |
We're going to apply the gradient over top
of everything.
| | 00:27 |
Make sure we have the Composition Panel
selected, go up to the Layer menu and then
| | 00:32 |
choose New Solid.
Just make sure your solid is the Comp
| | 00:37 |
size, so I'm going to click Make Comp Size.
| | 00:39 |
Doesn't necessarily matter what color you
choose, so I'm just going to go ahead and
| | 00:43 |
choose white, for the sake of choosing whites.
| | 00:46 |
And then I'll click OK.
Now in order to create a gradient with a
| | 00:51 |
Layer Solid, you can go up under Effect.
In there, there's a Generate option, and
| | 00:57 |
the gradient in After Effects has always
been known as Ramp.
| | 01:02 |
If we go here, that's what this means,
it's a Gradient Ramp.
| | 01:06 |
In here, we have a Linear Ramp.
Obviously, we could choose a Radial Ramp
| | 01:10 |
if we'd rather, but let's choose Linear.
Since we want to blend this in with our
| | 01:17 |
background later, I'm going to go ahead
and toggle my switches and modes.
| | 01:21 |
In here, I'll change my mode from Normal
to Multiply.
| | 01:26 |
Now, I want the footage to be darker at
the bottom and lighter at the sky.
| | 01:30 |
So if we go down here in our Effect
Controls, let's click the bottom button
| | 01:34 |
that says, Swap Colors.
That's already looking a little bit
| | 01:38 |
better, but to stylize it even more, let's
add some blue.
| | 01:41 |
So I'm going to go to my End Color
dropper, and Click on it.
| | 01:45 |
And I'll choose this dark blue up in the
sky, here.
| | 01:48 |
For our Start Color, which is up here at
the top, I want a slightly off white
| | 01:53 |
color.
So, this time I'll just Click in the drop
| | 01:56 |
well, and just choose a different color.
If we chose like a red, we could do
| | 02:00 |
something really stylized.
I'll choose a funky blue green.
| | 02:06 |
Now when we click OK, we've added our
gradient into the background.
| | 02:10 |
Now the swoop lines need a little
softening, and we can do that with a glow
| | 02:14 |
and a blur.
I'm going to add the glow first, just to
| | 02:17 |
see if that fixes what I'm looking for.
So with Layer two selected, we can go up
| | 02:22 |
under Effect, Stylize and choose Glow.
The first thing you should pay attention
| | 02:29 |
to when you apply glow, is what is it
based on.
| | 02:32 |
So if we look at our swoop lines, it did
already have a Gradient Ramp applied, and
| | 02:37 |
that's how they're going from white to blue.
| | 02:40 |
Let's collapse Gradient Ramp, now our glow
is based on the color channels.
| | 02:46 |
I want to soften the edges, so I'm
going to change that from Color Channels
| | 02:49 |
to Alpha Channel.
Now I've already got almost what I'm
| | 02:53 |
looking for.
Down here, I could adjust the Glow Radius
| | 02:57 |
by Clicking and Dragging the number up,
and the Glow Threshold will just make an
| | 03:02 |
adjustment as to how hard or how soft the
gradient is being created, based on the
| | 03:08 |
brightness of the Alpha Channel.
Now if it was set on colors, it would be
| | 03:12 |
based on the brightness of the colors.
Now we can increase the glow intensity,
| | 03:17 |
just by Clicking and Dragging to the right.
| | 03:19 |
And that's definitely making my lines pop,
but it's not exactly what I want.
| | 03:24 |
So we'll just leave that alone.
Now, we could choose whether we want to
| | 03:27 |
Composite the original behind, or on top
of the glow.
| | 03:31 |
So if I say On Top, notice now our colors
kind of come back, and our gradient has
| | 03:38 |
reappeared as the dominant feature of the
glow lines.
| | 03:42 |
Let's go ahead and Disable Glow here, and
Re-enable Glow, and you can see it is kind
| | 03:47 |
of creating a soft halo.
Glow colors by default we'll choose the A
| | 03:53 |
and B colors.
So let's change our color A to this kind
| | 03:57 |
of blue green color, and we can change our
color B, down here, to just a slightly
| | 04:03 |
different blue green color.
Now if we turn the Glow off, and we turned
| | 04:07 |
it on, you can see its much more subtle.
We can change the glow operation to change
| | 04:12 |
the Blend mode, but as you can see there
are plenty of other options we could
| | 04:17 |
explore as well.
There's my quick little run down of two of
| | 04:21 |
my favorite effects.
I'm sure you will recognize these effects,
| | 04:25 |
throughout all of the different graphics
that we'll be creating in this course.
| | 04:29 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Saving pan and scan presets| 00:00 |
One of the first ways people start getting
exposure to After Effects is by animating
| | 00:05 |
still images.
I love to animate stills in After Effects
| | 00:09 |
but I actually like to use an old school
technique if animating just the scale and
| | 00:13 |
the anchor point, rather than flying
around in 3D space.
| | 00:17 |
Now one of the things I like about how I
animate these things, I can save them as
| | 00:21 |
presets.
So to show you what I'm talking about,
| | 00:25 |
let's go ahead and double-click on our
sand JPEG image.
| | 00:29 |
And here, I'll go ahead and resize it, so
we can see the proportions of this image.
| | 00:34 |
Whenever I create a preset, I create a
preset based on that proportion.
| | 00:39 |
So these two images that we're dealing
with were taken with iPhones and they are
| | 00:43 |
slightly different sizes.
But they are both, basically, this
| | 00:47 |
portrait dimension.
Let's get started actually creating a
| | 00:52 |
preset.
I'm going to go ahead and drag the
| | 00:54 |
tracks.jpg file down into my timeline.
Now, let's make this image a little
| | 01:00 |
smaller by pressing S to open scale.
And then we can type 70.
| | 01:05 |
Now I want to do a zoom in and tilt down
with this image.
| | 01:08 |
So I'll start here at the top, and add a
keyframe for scale.
| | 01:13 |
And let's go ahead and open up our anchor point.
| | 01:16 |
So I'll hold down Shift+A to open our
anchor point.
| | 01:19 |
(SOUND) Now with those two keyframes
selected, let's move down the timeline to
| | 01:24 |
around 2 seconds.
To move the image up in the frame, I'll
| | 01:28 |
just click and drag on the Y parameter for
the anchor point.
| | 01:32 |
And then we can go ahead and increase the
scale to a value of somewhere like 85%.
| | 01:37 |
Now let's load up a RAM preview so we can
check out this move.
| | 01:40 |
And it's a little fast, so I'll just stop
playback here and grab my last two
| | 01:46 |
keyframes, and just drag them down the
timeline to around 3 seconds.
| | 01:51 |
Now, just so I have a smooth move, I'm
going to go ahead and right-click on these
| | 01:55 |
two keyframes, and add an ease in under my
keyframe assistant.
| | 02:00 |
And we'll do the same for the start.
I'll right-click and choose Ease Out.
| | 02:04 |
So now we can load up a RAM Preview here
and you can see I have a nice move on my
| | 02:11 |
image.
Still a little fast but none the less a
| | 02:14 |
decent move.
Must save this as a preset.
| | 02:18 |
In order to do this, I'll press the
Spacebar and I'll draw all laugh so around
| | 02:23 |
all four keyframes.
With that set up, I can go over to My
| | 02:27 |
Effects and Presets panel and click on the
fly out menu.
| | 02:31 |
Here, we can choose save animation preset.
It'll choose to save in the default
| | 02:37 |
location for presets or wherever you specify.
| | 02:41 |
I recommend just saving in, in the default
location unless you plan on working in
| | 02:45 |
different systems.
If you are going to work on different
| | 02:48 |
systems, just choose wherever you like.
I'm going to go ahead and save mine to the
| | 02:52 |
desktop.
Here, I'll call this TiltZoomIn.
| | 02:58 |
Now, you could be as descriptive as you
like, but I'll go ahead and choose that
| | 03:01 |
and click Save.
Now let's go ahead and drag our sand.jpeg
| | 03:06 |
into our composition.
And since it has similar proportions, I'll
| | 03:11 |
go ahead and apply the same preset we just
used for the previous one.
| | 03:15 |
Let's go ahead and move our current time
indicator to back around 2 seconds.
| | 03:19 |
And I'll trim the start of this layer by
pressing Option on the Mac, Alt on Windows
| | 03:23 |
and the Left Bracket key.
Now, we can apply this preset by going up
| | 03:28 |
under the Animation menu and go to recent
animation presets.
| | 03:33 |
Let's choose TiltZoomIn.
Notice it's automatically applied that
| | 03:38 |
preset and if I press 0 on my keyboard,
I've got a move in on this other image.
| | 03:45 |
That's not exactly the move that I was
envisioning so what I'll do is just click
| | 03:49 |
and drag on that image.
And reposition it in the scene.
| | 03:52 |
Since I animated the anchor point, notice
the move is now going to move on a
| | 03:57 |
separate part of the image.
This is exactly what I was hoping for, and
| | 04:02 |
just so it starts exactly in the right
place, I'll go ahead and just offset that
| | 04:08 |
image.
Now if you want to animate a transition
| | 04:11 |
from one image to the next, I'll go ahead
and just move my sand image down in the
| | 04:16 |
layer hierarchy, so we'll transition from
our tracks to our sand image.
| | 04:21 |
Go ahead and select the tracks.
We can go to Effect > Transition, and
| | 04:27 |
let's just do a normal Linear Wipe.
Let's key frame the transition completion
| | 04:32 |
parameter.
Move to around three seconds and the
| | 04:37 |
change that up to 100% and just so it's
not so jarring, I'll go ahead and feather
| | 04:42 |
that transition.
Now, as we scrub through, we've got a
| | 04:45 |
transition from one To the next, so let's
go ahead and load up a RAM preview.
| | 04:50 |
Now we've created a preset for our pan and
scan image moves.
| | 04:55 |
Since we animated that anchor point
instead of the position, it's easy enough
| | 05:00 |
to reposition any of the pictures you
apply a preset to.
| | 05:04 |
Since we saved our preset to the desktop,
I can easily save this effect off to a
| | 05:09 |
jump drive or save it in the cloud, so I
can load it up on any system I'm working
| | 05:14 |
on at any time.
So I hope you've enjoyed this little tip
| | 05:17 |
for saving pan and scan presets.
| | 05:20 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Fixing exposure with Levels| 00:00 |
Of course, there'll be times where you
want to make adjustments to the exposure
| | 00:04 |
of a video file.
I encourage you to use levels to make
| | 00:08 |
these adjustments so you can get a real
time feedback as you make these
| | 00:11 |
adjustments.
To show you what I mean let's make sure we
| | 00:15 |
have Layer 1 selected in the timeline, and
then go up under Effect > Color Correction
| | 00:22 |
> Levels.
With levels selected, we get this box with
| | 00:26 |
another gradient underneath of it.
And as I'm looking at my image here, I can
| | 00:31 |
tell that it's slightly over exposed.
So I'm going to click on the left side of
| | 00:37 |
the histogram here, and when I start to drag.
| | 00:39 |
Notice I'm getting color information in here.
| | 00:42 |
Well, actually I'm getting some kind of
information in here.
| | 00:45 |
If you go to these two circles on the
right, if I click the top one, this
| | 00:50 |
actually contains the color information,
the red channel, the green channel, and
| | 00:54 |
the blue channel.
Now, if we click this other dot here,
| | 00:58 |
that's going to change for our Luminance values.
| | 01:01 |
And since we're making adjustments to
brightness, this is exactly what we want.
| | 01:06 |
I want to make an adjustment to the Luminance.
| | 01:07 |
So I'm going to go ahead and just click
and drag on this left arrow here and what
| | 01:13 |
this is doing is making an adjustment to
the black levels.
| | 01:16 |
So, as I click and drag, notice it's
changing the input black levels here in my
| | 01:22 |
Effect control panel.
As a general rule of thumb, you want to
| | 01:25 |
drag the little triangle all the way till
you get just to the edge of where there is
| | 01:31 |
image information.
Now if I continue past that as you can see
| | 01:35 |
I can create a stylized look.
I don't generally recommend this because
| | 01:39 |
this process is also known as crushing the
black levels which is generally not
| | 01:45 |
recommended.
So let's just drag it 'til we get right to
| | 01:48 |
the edge there.
And then, we could also make adjustments
| | 01:51 |
to our Gamma settings, which are our midtones.
| | 01:54 |
So I could click and drag, and if you
want to brighten up the image, we can drag
| | 01:58 |
them to the left.
If we want to go ahead and darken the
| | 02:00 |
image, we can drag them back over to the
right here a little bit.
| | 02:05 |
Since we have information all the way on
the right hand side of our histogram, we
| | 02:09 |
don't really need to make changes to the
white levels.
| | 02:12 |
If the image were under-exposed, we would
probably have to work the opposite way,
| | 02:17 |
where we would have our black triangle all
the way to the left edge and then we would
| | 02:22 |
be bringing our brightness up by dragging
this triangle to the left.
| | 02:28 |
We obviously don't need to increase
Brightness and are seen, so I'll just undo
| | 02:32 |
that.
Now this gradient down here at the bottom
| | 02:35 |
will allow us to make adjustments to the
output of both the black and white levels.
| | 02:40 |
So if I click on that output of our white
level, I can bring that down, and now the
| | 02:44 |
sky doesn't appear nearly quite as vibrant.
| | 02:47 |
I still have white levels here inside of
my light, but it's not coming straight
| | 02:53 |
from the clouds.
So any time you want to make adjustments
| | 02:57 |
to the exposure of your image, I encourage
you to use levels.
| | 03:00 |
T hat way you can see exactly what's
happening by checking out the histogram
| | 03:04 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
7. Jumping into 3DUnderstanding 3D in After Effects| 00:00 |
When you're working in After Effects, you
can work in After Effects in a number of
| | 00:04 |
ways.
You can work in two dimensions,
| | 00:06 |
traditional 2D.
You can work in what I would called 2.5D,
| | 00:11 |
where you have flat planes in 3D space.
You can work in true 3D, where you have 3D
| | 00:17 |
planes in 3D space, and then you can work
in Cinema 4D, which is also true 3D.
| | 00:25 |
There are a couple different iterations
for each one.
| | 00:27 |
So I figured I would just take you through
the process and in that process you would
| | 00:32 |
see the different variations and some of
the different settings we can adjust to
| | 00:36 |
move throughout all the different
dimensions of After Effects.
| | 00:40 |
In our composition here 2D, we have a 2D
layer and we have another layer.
| | 00:46 |
I know these layers are 2D because if we
go to the switches and loads area here,
| | 00:50 |
you can see I don't have any dimensions
set up.
| | 00:54 |
Now if you don't see these switches and
modes in your project, your interface may
| | 00:58 |
look like this, so you can toggle To make
sure you have these modes.
| | 01:03 |
I'm just clicking this button in the lower
left corner so we have both.
| | 01:08 |
In a 2-D environment, if I wanted to add
perspective to this text, a traditional
| | 01:14 |
way would be to go up under effect and go
to perspective.
| | 01:18 |
And I could choose radial shadow and this
way I can kind of fake 3D.
| | 01:25 |
If I move the light source here I'll move
the shadow and I can get kind of a cool,
| | 01:31 |
funky, retro look but that's 2D.
So I'm going to go to my project panel
| | 01:36 |
here and duplicate our 2D project and I'll
do that by pressing Cmd + D.
| | 01:43 |
I'll rename this 2.5D and double click.
Instead of having to use radial shadow,
| | 01:51 |
I'll just go ahead and delete that.
In two and a half D, what I can do is make
| | 01:56 |
our 2D layers live in 3D space.
So in this column here, underneath the
| | 02:01 |
box, we'll just click and drag and make
sure both layers become 3D layers.
| | 02:06 |
Now, notice with Layer 1 selected, now I
have these control handles.
| | 02:10 |
That's a dead giveaway that I'm in 3D
space inside of After Effects.
| | 02:15 |
Now I'll go ahead and double-click on the
text, and we'll call this 2.5D.
| | 02:19 |
Now we can select our gray solid.
Let's rotate it so it becomes a ground
| | 02:26 |
plane.
I'm going to press the W key and I'll
| | 02:29 |
hover my mouse over the X axis.
And I'll rotate it in the Z.
| | 02:34 |
I'll press V to grab my move tool and grab
my control handle there.
| | 02:39 |
And now we are happily living in 2.5D space.
| | 02:42 |
But with the addition of being able to
rotate our layers in three D space, we can
| | 02:47 |
now add lights and cameras.
So I'm going to go up under layer and
| | 02:51 |
choose New > Light, and I'll just choose
the spotlight with cast shadows, and click
| | 02:57 |
OK.
Now, I'm actually lighting the scene.
| | 03:01 |
I can move my light around the scene.
If I hold down Cmd or Ctrl on Windows as I
| | 03:06 |
move around, you can see I'm sort of
changing how this 2.5D works.
| | 03:12 |
Now within these settings I have material options.
| | 03:15 |
Let's go ahead and select Layer 3 and
press AA.
| | 03:18 |
Since it's a 3D Layer I have the ability
to make adjustments to things like whether
| | 03:25 |
they cast shadows or accept shadows or
lights or what have you.
| | 03:29 |
Let's actually select Layer 2 and press AA
and turn Cast Shadows from Off to On.
| | 03:37 |
Now in order to better see our shadows,
I'm going to go create a new camera.
| | 03:42 |
So I'm going up to layer, and choose new camera.
| | 03:46 |
I'll choose a two new camera and click OK.
We'll explore what all these different
| | 03:51 |
things do later.
But again I just want to take you through
| | 03:54 |
all the different levels of dimension.
Now in the toolbar, I'm grabbing my
| | 03:59 |
unified camera tool.
I can click inside my object and just
| | 04:03 |
orbit around.
And here you can see in 2.5 D space.
| | 04:07 |
I'm very happily existing with lights and
objects and materials.
| | 04:12 |
Another iteration of this is using a
different renderer inside of Adobe After
| | 04:19 |
Effects.
That will give us 3D.
| | 04:20 |
I'm going to select my 2.5D comp and press
Cmd+ D to duplicate and this time let's
| | 04:26 |
call it 3D.
And I'll underscore it and call it Adobe
| | 04:30 |
3D.
Now, if we double click this composition,
| | 04:34 |
and it's open.
And if we go over here to the right, see
| | 04:37 |
how we have a renderer?
If we click on this button that says
| | 04:40 |
classic 3D.
We can change the renderer from classic 3D
| | 04:45 |
to retraced 3D.
When we go to retraced and then click
| | 04:48 |
okay, its going to take a second for our
scene to process, but what that gives us
| | 04:53 |
is a whole new set of options for our
different objects.
| | 04:58 |
If we select our text layer here, layer
three, and press aa to open it's material
| | 05:03 |
options.
Notice now that I have a geometry options.
| | 05:07 |
So if I wanted to, I could extrude this
text in 3-D space.
| | 05:11 |
Let's go ahead and change the extrusion depth.
| | 05:15 |
I'm going to go here under my extrusion
and just click and drag and let's extrude
| | 05:20 |
this out to around a value of 93.
In order to speed this up a little bit, I
| | 05:26 |
can change my preview settings in the
bottom right of my composition panel.
| | 05:30 |
So I'll click here and I'll just chose
fast draft.
| | 05:34 |
With fast draft, I can now see the
dimension I've added to my numbers.
| | 05:38 |
If I click through here, here you can see,
this is no longer 2 1/2 D.
| | 05:43 |
So I will now, double click this and call
it 3D.
| | 05:49 |
Now I could continue lighting this and
make change, but I think you understand.
| | 05:53 |
In Adobe 3D, you can extrude text and
shapes, and you can even bend objects.
| | 05:59 |
So like my layer solid here.
If I pressed AA, I could open up some
| | 06:04 |
curvetry options.
So let me go ahead and change the
| | 06:07 |
curvature by just clicking and dragging.
Now I'm getting a bending floor which is
| | 06:12 |
kind of fun, so let me go ahead and move this.
| | 06:14 |
I'll press C to grab my unified camera tool.
| | 06:18 |
Really you can see we do have true 3D
inside of Adobe After Effects.
| | 06:23 |
But, what if we want crazy materials, and
textures, and all kinds of rigging, and
| | 06:29 |
other destruction options, and things like that?
| | 06:32 |
Well, that's when Cinema 4D comes in.
In order to create a Cinema 4D file, let's
| | 06:38 |
go ahead and duplicate our 2D projects.
I'm just going to have that selected and
| | 06:43 |
press Cmd+D.
Let's call this 3D Cinema.
| | 06:49 |
Now, when I double-click that, I'm not
going to use any of these layers, so I'll
| | 06:52 |
just turn the visibility off, but we can
go up under the Layer menu and choose New
| | 06:57 |
> MAXON CINEMA 4D File.
Now, I need to specify where I want to
| | 07:02 |
save that, so I'll just call this, you
know, c4d Sample3d.
| | 07:04 |
I'm going to save it into my Chapter 7 folder.
| | 07:06 |
Now in here, I have a full-fledged 3D
application with 3D render capabilities
| | 07:10 |
and the whole nine.
So very quickly, I'm going to go here to
| | 07:13 |
my Create tools and I'll create some text.
Of course, I'm going to want this text to
| | 07:26 |
say 3D.
And in order to create 3D text in Cinema
| | 07:32 |
this way Im going to go ahead and extrude
this text.
| | 07:36 |
So, I'm going to add this into an extrude
nerves, and I can make adjustment to my
| | 07:42 |
extrude nerve's object and make it really large.
| | 07:45 |
I can add a light into this scene, and
position that.
| | 07:50 |
I could add more than one light into the scene.
| | 07:52 |
Let's say I want to add a spotlight.
I could go ahead and do that.
| | 07:54 |
I have 3D adjustment tools, so I can
rotate around and really kind of have fun.
| | 08:01 |
I have world transform.
As you see the possibility are relatively
| | 08:07 |
endless.
I could come down here and create a
| | 08:09 |
texture.
Let me go create a preset in my materials.
| | 08:13 |
Let's go to Glossy and we'll choose Glossy Blue.
| | 08:18 |
That looks kind of fun.
Let's drag that on.
| | 08:21 |
Now, when I save this I can go back into
my After Effects project It'll take a
| | 08:27 |
second, but now there's my 3D layer.
If I change my renderer from Software to
| | 08:32 |
Final, it'll take a second, but now I have
true 3D.
| | 08:38 |
I could have more come back and forth
between cinema and after effects using
| | 08:43 |
Cineware, but that's a video in and of itself.
| | 08:47 |
As you can see, there are a lot of ways to
create dimension inside of After Effects.
| | 08:52 |
We have 2D, 2 1/2 D, 3D and 3D cinema.
The possibilities are pretty much endless.
| | 09:01 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Intro to cameras| 00:00 |
When you first start exploring 3D inside
of After Effects, I'm sure you'll probably
| | 00:05 |
want to start adding some cameras to the scene.
| | 00:07 |
Before you add your first camera, you'll
want to decide what layers you'd like to
| | 00:11 |
exist in 3D space.
You can have compositions that contain
| | 00:16 |
layers that live in 3D space And layers
that live in 2D space.
| | 00:20 |
And you can blend those two together into
one scene.
| | 00:23 |
Now in order to enable 3D for any
individual layer, you need to make sure
| | 00:28 |
that you have the switches panel.
So go down to the toggle switches and
| | 00:32 |
modes panel and just click on that until
you see our switches.
| | 00:35 |
Now the right-most switch has a square
over top.
| | 00:40 |
This enables 3D for any of those layers.
Now to enable 3D for a layer, all you have
| | 00:45 |
to do is just click in the empty switch area.
| | 00:49 |
Now it doesn't appear as though anything
has happened.
| | 00:51 |
But if we select layer one, you can I have
these control handles.
| | 00:56 |
Now they happen to appear on the anchor
point of that individual layer.
| | 01:00 |
So lets select the word pass layer four in
the timeline, now we can go over to our
| | 01:05 |
switch and enable 3D and shown off, you
see we have these control handles that
| | 01:10 |
will allow us to position the layer in 3D space.
| | 01:13 |
Notice with text layers they appeared at
the anchor point based on the fact that
| | 01:17 |
the text was left just the fact.
I want to enable 3D for Layers 1 all the
| | 01:23 |
way through Layer 7.
So you can quickly enable switches by
| | 01:27 |
clicking and dragging.
Once you have all those layers in 3D
| | 01:31 |
space, now we can go ahead and add a camera.
| | 01:35 |
To create cameras, you want to go up to
the Layer menu, then go to New And you can
| | 01:39 |
create a camera.
You should this panel that opens up.
| | 01:43 |
This is your camera settings panel.
There are two kinds of cameras you can
| | 01:46 |
create; one node cameras and two node cameras.
| | 01:50 |
For now, I want to focus on a one node camera.
| | 01:53 |
Now if you look over to the right we have presets.
| | 01:56 |
If you click on these presets.
You may recognize some of these numbers.
| | 02:00 |
They're based off of lenses that you'd
find on a typical DSLR camera.
| | 02:04 |
Now if you're unfamiliar with DSLR
photography I'll summarize some of these
| | 02:09 |
lenses for you.
Fifteen millimeter is an extraordinarily
| | 02:13 |
wide lens, it's kind of like a fish eye.
Twenty-four millimeter is still a wide
| | 02:18 |
angle but it's what I would call a normal
wide angle lens.
| | 02:20 |
50 millimeters, probably what you're most
familiar with.
| | 02:24 |
It simulates the human eye.
200 millimeter simulates a telephoto
| | 02:29 |
lense.
Like you would see at sporting events.
| | 02:31 |
Let's choose 50 millimeters.
When you choose a preset, all these
| | 02:36 |
different settings in the middle will
definitely update and change.
| | 02:40 |
Each camera has a unique set of properties.
| | 02:43 |
Even though I've chosen a preset, I can
click and drag on any one of these
| | 02:47 |
parameters if I'd like to change it and
make it a custom camera.
| | 02:51 |
Notice the focal length of the lens is
listed down here on the lower left side.
| | 02:56 |
Now you can enable depth of field, which
would allow you to focus on individual
| | 03:00 |
layers or just a very tiny area in your scene.
| | 03:04 |
We're not going to get into that right
now, so let's just make sure that that's
| | 03:07 |
disabled.
The last thing you should look at when
| | 03:10 |
you're trying to choose camera settings
are the units.
| | 03:13 |
Since we're dealing with video inside of
After Effects, most everything is measured
| | 03:18 |
with pixels.
So after I pick a preset I usually go to
| | 03:22 |
my units and then change them from
millimeters to pixels.
| | 03:25 |
After you switch it to pixels you'll have
a better idea as to where you need to
| | 03:29 |
place elements in the scene if you want to
take advantage of certain settings within
| | 03:33 |
the camera.
Now, let's go ahead and click OK.
| | 03:38 |
Notice our camera was added to the scene
and it's at the top of the layer
| | 03:41 |
hierarchy.
It looks as though nothing's happened in
| | 03:44 |
the project but if you go to the bottom of
the composition panel on the right side,
| | 03:47 |
you can click on this pull-down.
I want to choose 2 Views.
| | 03:51 |
This will give us two different
composition panels.
| | 03:54 |
There's a view on the left and a view on
the right.
| | 03:57 |
Between these two views, I want you to
look in the upper left corner of each
| | 04:01 |
view.
See how I have a word here that says top
| | 04:04 |
and then the one on the right says active camera?
| | 04:07 |
When you click on one side, you'll see
little golden triangles in the corner.
| | 04:11 |
These are letting you know which view is
currently active.
| | 04:15 |
You can switch to different views, so if
you haven't already clicked on the left
| | 04:18 |
side, click on the left side.
I want to change this view from the top
| | 04:22 |
view to the side view.
So I'll choose the left side.
| | 04:28 |
Now, in order to see the scene a little
bit more clearly I'm going to zoom out.
| | 04:31 |
So I'll hover my mouse over the left side
and just scroll out with my mouse wheel.
| | 04:35 |
You can also press Comma on your keyboard.
Now when you're working with cameras, a
| | 04:39 |
lot of times it's important to be able to
see where the camera is in the scene.
| | 04:42 |
So let's re-select layer one and you'll
notice now I can see my camera.
| | 04:47 |
If you press the Spacebar, you can grab
your hand tool and click and drag on the
| | 04:51 |
cameras to re-position the scene.
Now I can see where my camera is.
| | 04:55 |
But notice the second I click off of layer
one, the camera disappears.
| | 04:59 |
Now, we can fix this issue.
Making sure the left side is active, I
| | 05:04 |
want to go to the fly-out menu in the
upper-right corner of the composition
| | 05:07 |
panel.
Under view options, we can enable camera
| | 05:11 |
wireframes.
Let's change it from when selected to say
| | 05:15 |
on.
Now when I click OK, you can see I have
| | 05:19 |
the wireframes from my camera.
This is excellent because it allows me to
| | 05:23 |
reposition the camera in the scene, and I
can see exactly where that camera is.
| | 05:29 |
Now notice when I hover and click on the
green y-axis handle.
| | 05:33 |
I'm changing the view of that camera.
This is a great way to animate through a
| | 05:37 |
scene.
With a Single-Node Camera as I click and
| | 05:40 |
drag I'm moving the Camera and it's view
all at once.
| | 05:45 |
Now, let's create another Camera.
I'm going to go up to the Layer menu,
| | 05:50 |
choose New > Camera.
This time let's choose a Two-Node Camera.
| | 05:55 |
When you click OK, notice there's a line
now for this camera.
| | 05:58 |
I'm going to turn the visibility off for
layer two, our first camera, so we don't
| | 06:03 |
get confused.
This line points to an area of interest.
| | 06:08 |
If you open up the camera options for
camera two, under transform, there's a
| | 06:13 |
parameter called point of interest.
If I click and drag on the z parameter for
| | 06:18 |
point of interest, notice I'm moving that line.
| | 06:21 |
This is a target that controls where this
camera looks.
| | 06:25 |
So, unlike the one node camera, I can drag
this target and point it at different
| | 06:30 |
areas within the scene, and it'll allow me
to move that camera.
| | 06:34 |
From the point that it's actually looking at.
| | 06:37 |
If I hover over the y axis I can click and
drag, and it'll move very much like the
| | 06:41 |
one node camera.
But if I hold down the Cmd key as I click
| | 06:45 |
and drag, it'll make sure that the point
of interest stays in place, and I can move
| | 06:50 |
the camera around the scene.
This is the advantage of a two node
| | 06:53 |
camera.
As we continue moving throughout the rest
| | 06:57 |
of this course you'll see advantages of
each individual camera, but for now it's
| | 07:01 |
important to understand that there are two
different kinds of cameras inside of After
| | 07:04 |
Effects.
Before we leave I want you to activate
| | 07:08 |
camera one, layer two, and let's go ahead
and trim the start point of our top
| | 07:13 |
camera.
So I'm hovering over layer one and I'm
| | 07:16 |
going to trim back in the timeline.
Now notice if I scrub my current tim
| | 07:22 |
eidndicator the scene is going to change
from one camera to another.
| | 07:26 |
When you have more than one camera in your
composition in After Effects.
| | 07:30 |
You can actually create an animation where
you're cutting from one camera to the
| | 07:34 |
next, just like a live production.
So, when it comes to working with cameras
| | 07:38 |
and After Effects, just make sure that you
go through the different settings.
| | 07:41 |
Choose whether you're going to use a
one-node or a two-node camera.
| | 07:45 |
And then definitely pay attention to the
layer hierarchy, if you're going to use
| | 07:48 |
more than one camera in the scene.
| | 07:50 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Intro to lights and material options| 00:00 |
Lights and material options go together
like peas in a pod.
| | 00:04 |
Once you create one, you'll deffintally
want to go and change the settings for
| | 00:08 |
another.
Now before you create any lights inside
| | 00:11 |
yoru composition, it's important to pay
attention to the renderer that you're
| | 00:14 |
currently using.
So, let's go to the project panel and
| | 00:17 |
select our lights and material composition.
| | 00:19 |
Then press Cmd + K or Ctrl + K on the PC
to open the Composition settings.
| | 00:25 |
Click on the Advanced tab.
We want to make sure the Renderer setting
| | 00:28 |
is set to Classic 3D.
There are different material options for
| | 00:33 |
each different Renderer, so it's really
important to choose Classic 3D for this
| | 00:37 |
movie.
Now we can click OK.
| | 00:40 |
Now as a general rule, before you add a
light to the scene, you want to look at
| | 00:43 |
your layers and just make sure that you
have some layers that are 3D.
| | 00:48 |
And as you can see in our project, we have
seven layers that are currently in 3D
| | 00:51 |
space.
So we're ready to add a light.
| | 00:55 |
Let's make our Timeline active, and then
go up under Layer and choose New > Light.
| | 01:00 |
There're four different kinds of lights
inside of After Effects.
| | 01:04 |
If you click on the pulldown for Light
Type, you'll see them all.
| | 01:09 |
Point light and spotlight emulate quote
unquote real world light.
| | 01:12 |
Spotlights, you can equate to stage lights
that have an angle that kind of shoot out
| | 01:18 |
and can intensely point your light at any
specific area.
| | 01:22 |
Point lights I like to think of more like
and exposed light bulb without a
| | 01:26 |
lampshade.
Ambient and parallel lights will get to in
| | 01:30 |
a moment, but for now let's make sure we
have spotlight chosen.
| | 01:34 |
In the color settings, we could click on
the color option and choose any color.
| | 01:39 |
I'm going to choose a light blue, so let's
go up to the blue area here, and just
| | 01:42 |
choose light blue, and click OK.
The intensity is the overall brightness of
| | 01:47 |
the light.
The cone angle is unique to the spotlight.
| | 01:50 |
It just controls how wide that light goes.
And then the other is the transition from
| | 01:55 |
the area of the light to the area where
the light falls off.
| | 02:00 |
We do have a pull down for fall off and
let's choose smooth.
| | 02:04 |
You can set the settings for radius and
fall off distant manually.
| | 02:09 |
If we go to inverse square clamped, this
will control the light falloff to emulate
| | 02:13 |
quote unquote real world lights.
Now, many of the lights can cast shadows.
| | 02:18 |
If you have that option, go ahead and
enable it.
| | 02:21 |
Now, many lights can cast shadows.
With spotlights, we want to go ahead and
| | 02:25 |
enable our shadows.
The shadow darkness controls the darkness
| | 02:29 |
of the shadows just controlled by this one light.
| | 02:32 |
Let's change our setting to 65 and then
press tab to move to the diffusion
| | 02:37 |
setting.
Under diffusion, let's choose a number
| | 02:40 |
like 8.
The diffusion just determines how soft
| | 02:44 |
that shadow is going to be.
Now when we click OK, we have our
| | 02:48 |
spotlight, and its been created in the scene.
| | 02:51 |
Since it was blue, notice it tinted the
letters blue on our word PASS.
| | 02:56 |
Now with a spotlight, I can click directly
on the point of interest for that light
| | 03:00 |
and move it around the scene.
Moving a spotlight is a lot like moving a
| | 03:05 |
two node camera.
You can also click on the control handles.
| | 03:08 |
And if you hold down command on the Mac or
control on Windows, you can reposition the
| | 03:13 |
light and it'll keep the point of interest
snapped in a single place.
| | 03:18 |
Now if you want to make adjustments to the
setting of your light, you can select the
| | 03:22 |
layer and press AA to open up the light options.
| | 03:26 |
I'm going to collapse the light options
and we'll explore some of the material
| | 03:30 |
options.
In order to have a shadow cast from an
| | 03:33 |
object to another object, you need to make
sure both of those objects are kind of
| | 03:37 |
offset from each other in 3-D space.
So let's select layer five and press P to
| | 03:42 |
open its position.
You can see it's set at a position of zero
| | 03:46 |
on the Z depth.
Let's go ahead and click and drag on the Z
| | 03:50 |
axis.
We want to drag on the left so it comes
| | 03:53 |
out in the scene.
Now notice as I'm dragging it will go and
| | 03:57 |
move out past the light.
And just like something in the real world,
| | 04:00 |
when it's not lit, it will turn black.
Let's choose a value for this of around
| | 04:05 |
negative 45.
Now to get some material options you want
| | 04:09 |
to press A A on your keyboard.
In the material options for a pass layer,
| | 04:14 |
let's go down to where it says cast shadows.
| | 04:17 |
And change that setting from off to on.
Now that was kind of hard to see.
| | 04:21 |
So I'm going to zoom in on my canvas.
I'm going to press the spacebar so I can
| | 04:25 |
move over.
And lets continue clicking on the word on
| | 04:29 |
for cache shadows.
The second option is shadows only and just
| | 04:33 |
so you can see this shadow more clearly
I'll reposition my text layer over here in
| | 04:38 |
the scene.
Now you can see the words appear.
| | 04:40 |
If we continue clicking on the cache
shadow options we can turn our shadows off
| | 04:45 |
again.
So cash out (UNKNOWN) will toggle between
| | 04:48 |
off, on and only.
Sometimes when you're trying to acheive a
| | 04:52 |
specific effect using the only effect is
really helpful.
| | 04:57 |
Now let's make sure our setting is set to
on and then we'll explore some of the
| | 05:01 |
other light options.
I've created a folder, containing all the
| | 05:06 |
different kinds of lights we can use
inside After Effects.
| | 05:10 |
If you double click the parallel
composition and then click on these lines
| | 05:13 |
here in the comp, this is a parallel light.
| | 05:16 |
If you zoom in more closely, it's made up
of arrows that point.
| | 05:22 |
If we select the light and press a a to
open it's options, this light just has an
| | 05:27 |
option for intensity.
But notice there's no radius like a
| | 05:30 |
spotlight.
Now the falloff is interesting.
| | 05:33 |
Parallel lights are special, in that you
can set a falloff of none, no matter how
| | 05:38 |
far apart the objects are in the scene.
The intensity setting is always going to
| | 05:42 |
be the same on every single object.
The Ambient light just gives you an object
| | 05:47 |
for intensity and color.
If I click and drag notice I'm just
| | 05:51 |
changing the brightness of the scene
overall as a whole.
| | 05:54 |
The ambient light I found most useful when
I have multiple light setups in a
| | 05:58 |
composition.
It just allows to fill in the other areas
| | 06:02 |
that aren't lit, but you don't have to
worry about whether or not it can cast
| | 06:05 |
shadows or Any of the other little gotchas.
| | 06:07 |
Now the point light I like to compare to
an exposed light bulb.
| | 06:12 |
There's no lampshade and there are several
different options of control.
| | 06:16 |
Let's select layer one and press AA to
open its options.
| | 06:20 |
You can see you can adjust the intensity
and the colour.
| | 06:23 |
And we can also adjust the falloff and the radius.
| | 06:27 |
If you click on the radius and bring it
down, notice the light is getting smaller
| | 06:32 |
and larger.
I'm not controlling the overall brightness
| | 06:35 |
of the light.
I'm just controlling how far the light
| | 06:37 |
goes before it starts to fall off.
We also have other options for our
| | 06:43 |
shadows, as well, with point lights.
Generally, when I'm creating a light to
| | 06:47 |
cast shadows, I'll use the spotlight, but
sometimes shadows from point lights are
| | 06:51 |
fun as well.
Now let's go to the material settings
| | 06:54 |
composition.
I'll double click the comp, ZZ materials
| | 06:58 |
settings.
Now select layer 5 and press AA to open up
| | 07:02 |
it's material options.
In our scene, I have a single point light.
| | 07:07 |
If I click on that you can see it right in
front of the word pass.
| | 07:10 |
Now the material options for this light
give me a couple different things.
| | 07:15 |
We've already explored has to shadows, but
light transmission will allow you to
| | 07:19 |
actually control whether or not that color
passes through that layer.
| | 07:24 |
If I drag a value up to 100%, you can see
the shadow here on our guy's shirt is
| | 07:29 |
blue.
If I drag that down to 0, notice it's
| | 07:33 |
black.
I like to think of light transmissions
| | 07:36 |
like a stained glass.
Now, you can set individual layer
| | 07:40 |
properties as to whether or not they even
display shadows or whether or not they
| | 07:45 |
accept lights.
Ambient, diffuse, specular, or metal all
| | 07:50 |
kind of work together.
Ambient just controls the brightness of
| | 07:53 |
the layer itself and how it's reacting to
the light.
| | 07:57 |
The diffusion controls how that light
moves across that individual layer.
| | 08:02 |
Most of the time when I'm making
adjustments I adjust my diffusion first.
| | 08:07 |
Now specular intensity controls the
brightness of your specular highlight.
| | 08:12 |
To define specular, that's that one little
bright area when you're looking at say
| | 08:16 |
reflections on a coffee mug.
If I click on specular shininess, I can
| | 08:20 |
click and drag to the right.
Notice the appearance of that layer is
| | 08:24 |
changing.
Let's drag the specular shininess up to
| | 08:27 |
100 and increase the specular intensity up
to 100.
| | 08:32 |
Now you can see I'm getting this bright
spot on the layer.
| | 08:34 |
If I click on the light, I can scrub it
through the scene.
| | 08:37 |
And notice not only is the shadow moving,
but now I can see my specular highlight.
| | 08:43 |
The option for metal will allow me to
adjust how that highlight.
| | 08:47 |
Illuminates off of the text and the colors.
| | 08:52 |
Just click and drag to adjust it to your
own individual taste.
| | 08:55 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Animating cameras| 00:00 |
When it comes to animating cameras, it's
all just a question of maintaining
| | 00:04 |
perspective.
As long as you have a good idea as to
| | 00:07 |
what's going on in your scene, and you can
see a good overview of your project,
| | 00:11 |
animating your camera can be relatively painless.
| | 00:15 |
In this video, we're going to cover some
basic techniques to get you through just
| | 00:18 |
about any situation when you're trying to
re-position and create an animation with
| | 00:23 |
cameras.
In this video, we're going to go over some
| | 00:26 |
basic techniques that you can use to
animate your cameras and get you through
| | 00:29 |
just about any situation.
To get started we needed to add a camera
| | 00:33 |
to our project.
So make sure that you have your timeline
| | 00:36 |
panel active and go up under the layer
menu and choose New > Camera.
| | 00:41 |
Now the kind of camera I want to animate
first is a one-node camera.
| | 00:46 |
So let's click on the camera pull-down and
choose one-node.
| | 00:50 |
Then for preset, make sure you have 15
millimeter chosen.
| | 00:54 |
If you've made any changes to the camera
settings, you can always restore the
| | 00:57 |
default settings by Opt or Alt + Clicking
on the trash icon right next to the
| | 01:02 |
pull-down.
Just be aware if you do that, you might
| | 01:05 |
need to go back up to the type of camera
and change it back to a one node camera.
| | 01:10 |
Now we don't need to enable depth of field.
| | 01:12 |
But we can go ahead and click OK to create
our camera.
| | 01:16 |
Now in order to keep proper perspective of
our scene, I want to go ahead and change
| | 01:20 |
to two views.
So in the Composition panel click on the
| | 01:23 |
Pull Down, and choose Two Views Horizontal.
| | 01:27 |
Now, that I can see my camera in the top
view here on the left side.
| | 01:31 |
I'm noticing that that's not quite the
best view for the type of move that I'm
| | 01:34 |
trying to create.
We want to do a move on our graphic, were
| | 01:38 |
we move from the middle image up to the
top image.
| | 01:41 |
So let's go ahead and click on the left
side of our composition panel and change
| | 01:45 |
the view from Top to Left.
This way, I can see it from the side of
| | 01:51 |
the view, and let's go ahead and scroll
with our mouse wheel, or press Comma on
| | 01:55 |
your keyboard to zoom out.
Now, this little dot over here is my
| | 01:59 |
camera.
I want to make sure that I can always see
| | 02:01 |
my camera.
So, let's go to the Flyout menu in the
| | 02:04 |
upper right corner of the Composition
panel and go to our View options.
| | 02:08 |
In here, we want to make sure to enable
our camera wire frames.
| | 02:12 |
So click on the pull down and change it
from one selected to on.
| | 02:16 |
Now when we click OK, I can see the camera.
| | 02:19 |
Now just so I can see more clearly, I'm
going to Press period on my keyboard to
| | 02:22 |
zoom in and press the Spacebar to grab my
hand tool.
| | 02:26 |
And that'll just allow me to reframe.
Before we animate, we can go ahead and
| | 02:31 |
select the camera in our canvas.
Now, a quick, easy way of creating
| | 02:35 |
animation is just by enabling automatic keyframing.
| | 02:38 |
So let's turn that on by clicking the auto
keyframe button in the top of the
| | 02:42 |
timeline.
Now, since we want to start from this
| | 02:45 |
general area, I'm going to hover my mouse
over the Y axis, and then click and drag
| | 02:50 |
just a little bit.
Since this is a one node camera, it's
| | 02:53 |
going to maintain its perfectly parallel
position to our graphic elements.
| | 02:58 |
Now since I moved this up and down, if you
press the U key on your keyboard, it'll
| | 03:03 |
show you've created a position key frame.
I want to move to take place over two
| | 03:07 |
seconds, so I'm going to move my current
time indicator down, two seconds in the
| | 03:12 |
timeline, and we can click and drag on our
Y axis handle to move up in the scene.
| | 03:17 |
And we've already created our first camera move.
| | 03:20 |
Moving cameras is just like moving any
other element inside of After Effects,
| | 03:25 |
once you create two key frames, you have
an animation path.
| | 03:29 |
So if I zoom into my left view here and
press the Spacebar to move over.
| | 03:33 |
I can actually change that motion path if
I wanted to, by clicking on these handles
| | 03:38 |
and bring it back here to the left.
I want our camera to kind of push in and
| | 03:43 |
then pop back out when it creates the move.
| | 03:46 |
Now I'm going to turn off automatic
keyframing, just so we don't accidentally
| | 03:50 |
create any more keyframes.
And to smooth the move out here I'll go
| | 03:54 |
ahead and right click on our second
keyframe and under the keyframe assistant
| | 03:58 |
choose easy ease in.
We can do the same thing for our fist
| | 04:02 |
keyframe, let's right click on it go to
our keyframe assistant but this time we'll
| | 04:06 |
choose easy ease out.
So it eases out into the move and then
| | 04:10 |
back into it's current state.
So to preview our animation, let's load up
| | 04:14 |
our ram preview.
I'm just going to click the preview button
| | 04:17 |
in the right side of the preview panel.
Once the first two seconds of the frames
| | 04:22 |
are loaded, we can go ahead and press the
Spacebar to begin playback of our scene.
| | 04:26 |
So I'm going to press the Spacebar to stop playback.
| | 04:30 |
As you can see we completed a successful
move but I want to make a change to that
| | 04:34 |
move.
Just like manipulating other key frames,
| | 04:37 |
when you want to make changes, it's a
general good practice to position your
| | 04:41 |
current time indicator over one of those
key frames.
| | 04:44 |
I'd like to change this move to be the
exact opposite, we'll have the camera kind
| | 04:47 |
of pull out and then move back to its state.
| | 04:50 |
So let's click on this handle and drag it
over to the right.
| | 04:54 |
We could do the same thing with a lower
handle but notice the access control
| | 04:57 |
handle's in the way.
This is when I would just move my current
| | 05:00 |
time indicator down to our next key frame.
Then I'll have access to this other
| | 05:04 |
handle.
Then I can go ahead and bring it back.
| | 05:07 |
We could tweak the motion to whatever you like.
| | 05:10 |
If we scrub through, again we'll get a
preview as to what's happening in the
| | 05:14 |
scene.
If you find that the playback is moving
| | 05:19 |
rather slowly, go ahead and make sure your
active camera is selected and then in the
| | 05:23 |
RAM preview, we could change the
resolution down to about half resolution.
| | 05:28 |
And we could even tell it to skip certain frames.
| | 05:30 |
So I'll tell it to skip every other frame.
Now when we load up a RAM preivew it
| | 05:35 |
should load up more quickly and then we'll
get a better idea as to how this scene is
| | 05:40 |
moving.
I like that move much better.
| | 05:46 |
You've seen how to animate a one node camera.
| | 05:48 |
We're going to quickly animate a two node
camera just to create kind of a twist on
| | 05:52 |
that animation.
So let's go up under layer and choose new
| | 05:56 |
camera.
This time let's choose a two node camera.
| | 06:00 |
We can leave everything else the same and
click okay.
| | 06:04 |
Just so I don't get confused, I'll turn
off the visibility for our first camera
| | 06:09 |
layer two and actually enable shy for that
camera and click the shy button so we can
| | 06:14 |
hide it from view in the timeline.
Now this time I just want to create kind
| | 06:19 |
of a rotation around the scene.
So let's click on the left side of the
| | 06:23 |
composition panel and change the view from
Left to Top.
| | 06:27 |
Once were in the top view, we need to
re-frame the scene.
| | 06:29 |
I'm just going to press the Spacebar and
click and drag to the right, so we can see
| | 06:34 |
a better view of our camera and I can
scroll out a little bit to change the
| | 06:39 |
magnification.
Now to quickly create animation, again
| | 06:43 |
we'll turn on auto key framing.
Let's move our current time indicator to
| | 06:47 |
around one second And select our camera in
our top view.
| | 06:51 |
Now click on the X axis handle and hold
down the Command key after you start to
| | 06:57 |
click.
That way it'll keep the point of interest
| | 07:01 |
pointed at the center of our scene.
Now we can move our current time indicator
| | 07:05 |
to 2 seconds.
Click on that x axis handle, and again
| | 07:08 |
hold down Cmd after you start to click and
it'll keep the camera pointed at the point
| | 07:14 |
of interest.
Now since it moved so far over to the side
| | 07:18 |
I'm going to press the Spac bar and re-frame.
| | 07:21 |
In this time, I'll just click and drag on
the z axis to position it in towards the
| | 07:26 |
scene.
We could also adjust this motion by
| | 07:29 |
adjusting its motion path with a control handles.
| | 07:32 |
And just turn off auto key framing when
you're finished.
| | 07:36 |
Pay attention to the active camera.
I'm going to go ahead and make sure that
| | 07:39 |
that's active and switch my view back to
one view.
| | 07:43 |
Now if we scrub through the animation, you
can see that we've created a nice
| | 07:47 |
rotational move through the scene with a 2
node camera.
| | 07:51 |
Now, that didn't show me exactly what I
wanted to see for the scene so I'm
| | 07:55 |
going to go ahead and load up a RAM preview.
| | 07:57 |
Obviously, that camera move is in
desperate need of some easy ease on the
| | 08:03 |
keyframes, but I think you understand how
important it is to maintain perspective
| | 08:07 |
when it comes to animating your cameras.
When you go to animate cameras pay
| | 08:11 |
attention to the exact kind of camera
you're going to animate, and then adjust
| | 08:15 |
the view based on the kind of mood that
you're trying to recreate.
| | 08:18 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating depth of field| 00:00 |
In order to create depth of field in an
After Effects project, you must first have
| | 00:04 |
a camera because it's cameras that control
the depth of field.
| | 00:08 |
Now, if you're unfamiliar with the term
depth of field, it basically controls
| | 00:12 |
what's in focus along the z-axis in
relation to the camera.
| | 00:16 |
So let's go ahead and add a camera to our project.
| | 00:20 |
Make sure you have your timeline or
composition panel active, and then go up
| | 00:23 |
under the layer menu and choose new camera.
| | 00:27 |
In the camera settings for this camera, I
want to choose a two node camera for now,
| | 00:32 |
and we'll use the 50 millimeter preset.
Make sure enable Depth of Field is
| | 00:38 |
selected.
let's look down here at the bottom.
| | 00:42 |
The first setting I want you to make an
adjustment to is the f-stop.
| | 00:45 |
Now, those of you who are familiar with
DSLR cameras or photography in general
| | 00:50 |
will be familiar with the term f-stop.
The smaller the number, the more shallow
| | 00:55 |
the depth of field.
So, let's change our f-stop from 5.6 to
| | 01:00 |
1.8.
That's going to give us as a very shallow
| | 01:03 |
depth of field.
Now we can also adjust the aperture and
| | 01:06 |
the blur level.
But we'll do that inside the composition.
| | 01:11 |
If your project isn't set to pixels, click
on the pull down and make sure it's set to
| | 01:16 |
pixels.
This way, we can kind of pay attention to
| | 01:19 |
the zoom level.
See, the zoom level show me how many
| | 01:22 |
pixels apart my camera has to be from an
object for it to be in focus.
| | 01:27 |
Notice the zoom matches the focus distance.
| | 01:32 |
So I'm going to click OK.
Now since we've created our camera in the
| | 01:35 |
scene, let's create some objects that are
offset in z space.
| | 01:40 |
Because currently we just have the word
PASS and these video layers.
| | 01:44 |
And they're at slightly different planes,
but I really want to accentuate things.
| | 01:49 |
Let's start by clicking on these dashes
over here on the left side.
| | 01:52 |
You can also just click on Layer six.
With the dashes selected, I'm going to
| | 01:57 |
press W to grab my rotation toll, and then
you can hover over the X-axis in the
| | 02:02 |
Composition panel and then click and drag.
You can drag either down or up but I want
| | 02:07 |
these lines to go ahead and draw out a
sense of depth along the z-axis.
| | 02:13 |
Now press V on your keyboard to grab your
selection tool and click on the x-axis and
| | 02:19 |
just drag over along the right.
Just to simplify the scene so we don't get
| | 02:24 |
distracted with everything else.
We'll just work with these dashes and the
| | 02:29 |
word pass.
So let's click on pass and we'll shift
| | 02:32 |
click on dashes.
So we have both layers selected in the
| | 02:35 |
layer panel.
And then we can go ahead and click the
| | 02:37 |
solo button to solo those two layers.
Just so we have more than one word.
| | 02:43 |
Let's deselect our two layers and just
click on layer 9 so that's the only thing
| | 02:48 |
we have selected.
Press Cmd + D on the Mac or Ctrl + D on
| | 02:51 |
Windows to duplicate.
And let's hover over the Z axis.
| | 02:56 |
If we click and drag on the Z axis we can
move our new word back in Z space.
| | 03:02 |
Just to reposition it in the scene, I'm
going to click on its Y-axis to move it
| | 03:06 |
up, and I'll click on its X-axis to move
it over towards the other lines.
| | 03:12 |
I want to go ahead and just click anywhere
in the canvas to deselect our second word.
| | 03:16 |
As you can see, we've already created
depth of field.
| | 03:20 |
This back word is actually slightly out of focus.
| | 03:23 |
Now I want to accentuate that, and show
you another way that you can actually
| | 03:26 |
control depth of field, so let's get the
proper perspective of our scene by going
| | 03:32 |
to the pull down here on the right side of
the composition panel.
| | 03:35 |
Let's change the view from one view to two
views horizontal.
| | 03:40 |
Now if you don't have the top view already
selected on the left side, go ahead and
| | 03:43 |
click on the left side and make sure you
have the top view active from the
| | 03:47 |
pull-down.
You can zoom in and out just by scrolling
| | 03:51 |
with your mouse wheel, or pressing the
Period key or Comma keys to zoom in and
| | 03:55 |
out.
Now, if you can see your camera, go ahead
| | 03:58 |
and click on it so we can see the view of
that camera.
| | 04:01 |
Now I going to press the Spacebar and
click and drag to sort of reposition in
| | 04:06 |
the scene and you may have to zoom out a
little bit.
| | 04:09 |
As I'm looking at the scene if we click on
this line here that's going to show me my
| | 04:14 |
first Pass layer.
Now just so I can bring the other one more
| | 04:17 |
into the scene, I'm going to click on the
other pass layer in the active camera view
| | 04:21 |
and I can see it here in the top of my view.
| | 04:23 |
I'm going to click and drag that forwards
in my scene.
| | 04:27 |
And then let's go ahead and click on our
other word pass and just drag that a
| | 04:31 |
little closer in the scene.
Now I can more clearly see what we're
| | 04:35 |
working with.
If you select the camera, notice I have
| | 04:39 |
the center line.
That points at the point of interest.
| | 04:42 |
I can click on that center point of
interest and frame it up on this first
| | 04:47 |
word pass.
If I want to rack focus between the first
| | 04:51 |
word pass and the second word pass, we
could go ahead and animate the focus
| | 04:56 |
distance.
In order to do that, we need to lock the
| | 04:58 |
focus distance to our point of interest.
We can do that by going up to the Layer
| | 05:04 |
Menu.
As long as we have our camera layer
| | 05:06 |
selected, you can go down to camera.
And choose Link Focus Distance to Point of
| | 05:12 |
Interest.
Now the camera focus is locked to that
| | 05:15 |
point of interest.
And if I zoom in a little closer here, I'm
| | 05:18 |
going to press the Spacebar and
reposition, here you can see I have this
| | 05:22 |
plane in the field.
If I click and drag on my point of
| | 05:26 |
interest, I can move my focus from one
word to the other.
| | 05:30 |
Now I'm not seeing much of a difference.
So lets select our Camera Layer, and press
| | 05:35 |
AA to open up it's options.
Lets increase the blur level.
| | 05:39 |
I'm going to click and drag on the blur level.
| | 05:42 |
And we'll drag it up to around 362%.
Now I'm going to zoom in on my Active
| | 05:48 |
Camera View.
So now you can more clearly see the blur
| | 05:52 |
that we've set.
Now let's go back to the top view and I'm
| | 05:57 |
going to click on layer one to select the camera.
| | 05:59 |
That'll bring up my point of interest.
When I click on the point of interest, I
| | 06:04 |
can push it back in the scene towards our
second word pass.
| | 06:08 |
Notice how the focus is following that move.
| | 06:12 |
So when it comes to enabling depth of
field inside of After Effects, you want to
| | 06:16 |
go ahead and make sure you have depth of
field enabled on your camera.
| | 06:19 |
Then it's a matter of just making sure
that you lock that focus distance to
| | 06:24 |
something that you could easily position
through the scene.
| | 06:28 |
With your camera layer selected you can
always go up on your layer.
| | 06:32 |
Go to Camera, an link your focus to the
distance of the point of interest.
| | 06:36 |
Or, if you're really trying to push
things, you could link the focus distance
| | 06:40 |
to a specific layer, and then animate that
layer moving through the scene.
| | 06:44 |
And thus, animating your focus distance
that way.
| | 06:47 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Exploring the ray-traced 3D renderer| 00:00 |
There are two different types of renderers
inside After Effects.
| | 00:02 |
You'll hear me refer to them as Render Engines.
| | 00:05 |
The two different render engines that
we're going to deal with inside After
| | 00:11 |
Effects are Classic 3D and Ray Traced.
Now the Classic 3D render engine is the
| | 00:17 |
one that we've been working in up to this point.
| | 00:19 |
And to give us a better perspective as to
the different options ray trace gives us,
| | 00:24 |
let's look at our classic 3D render options.
| | 00:27 |
Double click on the Classic 3D composition
if it's not already active in your
| | 00:32 |
project.
Let's go down to layer 8 and then press aa
| | 00:36 |
to open it's material options.
Just so I can see this layer a little bit
| | 00:40 |
better on my timeline, I'm going to enable
shy for all of the other layers above it
| | 00:44 |
and just hide them for the time being.
So here in layer eight, under my material
| | 00:49 |
options, you can see I have several
different options, ambient, diffuse,
| | 00:54 |
specular, you get the idea.
In the ray trace render engine, we have
| | 00:58 |
many, many more options.
So, let's double click on the ray-traced
| | 01:03 |
composition.
In here, let's go ahead and select layer 8
| | 01:05 |
again.
And press A, A.
| | 01:09 |
I have the same set of options.
The reason I have the same set of options
| | 01:13 |
is because I haven't changed my renderer yet.
| | 01:16 |
Now, you can get to the options by
pressing Cmd + K to open your composition
| | 01:20 |
settings or you can go to the upper right
corner of your Composition panel.
| | 01:24 |
There you'll see the Classic 3D button.
If you go ahead and click on that it'll
| | 01:29 |
automatically take you to the advance tab
in your Comp settings.
| | 01:33 |
Here we can go ahead and click on pull
down next to the renderer and choose
| | 01:37 |
Retrace 3D.
Now when I click OK, we'll get this alert
| | 01:42 |
menu.
The alert menu just tells you all the
| | 01:45 |
things that you won't have anymore, like
track mats and blend modes, but it also
| | 01:50 |
tells you all the things that you've
gaining, like extruded and beveled text
| | 01:54 |
shapes, and environment layers, and curved
footage layers.
| | 01:58 |
These are all different things that will
allow you to create 3D elements within
| | 02:03 |
your scene.
If we look at the bottom of the panel
| | 02:06 |
you'll see once per session.
As your first getting started I recommend
| | 02:11 |
leaving it set to once per session so
it'll just remind you anytime you go to
| | 02:16 |
change renders.
Now when I click OK our render has
| | 02:21 |
changed.
If you look at layer 8 now, look at all
| | 02:24 |
the different material options that we have.
| | 02:27 |
We've gone from five, like Ambient,
Diffuse and Specular and Metal, and then
| | 02:32 |
we've added others like Reflection,
Transparency, Index of refraction, many
| | 02:38 |
others.
Now I want to make some slight adjustments
| | 02:40 |
to this layer before we start exploring
some of the key features of the Ray Trace
| | 02:45 |
renderer.
So let's scroll up and just make sure
| | 02:48 |
layer eight is selected.
I'm also going to change my magnification
| | 02:52 |
up to 100 percent and just make sure that
I can see exactly what's going on in the
| | 02:56 |
scene.
Now, when you change your magnification,
| | 02:59 |
it may take a second for your project to
re-render the scene.
| | 03:02 |
As you work within the Ray Traced render
engine, I recommend you pay attention to
| | 03:08 |
this button over here in the lower right
corner of the Composition panel.
| | 03:11 |
It has a lightning bolt on it.
If you click on that button, this will
| | 03:15 |
allow you to choose different resolutions
that you can work in where After Effects
| | 03:20 |
will parse off different parts of the
processing to different parts of your
| | 03:23 |
computer, like your video card or your RAM.
| | 03:27 |
Lets change it to fast draft.
Fast draft won't render certain aspects of
| | 03:33 |
our different material options, but it's a
great way to get started.
| | 03:38 |
Now with layer eight selected, I want to
change the color of my text.
| | 03:41 |
So I'm just going to quickly open my
character panel.
| | 03:45 |
I'll go up under window and go to
character and with layer eight selected
| | 03:49 |
I'll just grab my eye dropper and choose
this teal text.
| | 03:54 |
Just so we can see it better I'll go ahead
and pull down a little bit here.
| | 03:58 |
And then we can turn off that stroke.
You can also just click on the color chip
| | 04:02 |
to choose any color.
Now I like using a different color because
| | 04:07 |
when we go to change the geometry options
White doesn't always show the best for
| | 04:12 |
geometry.
So let's go to the Geometry options for
| | 04:15 |
layer 8.
In here, we have an option for Bevel
| | 04:18 |
Style.
Let's click on that pull-down and change
| | 04:20 |
it to Convex.
It doesn't appear as though anything's
| | 04:24 |
changed, and that's because we haven't
updated our Extrusion Depth.
| | 04:28 |
This is what'll actually make that text 3D.
| | 04:31 |
So click and drag on the extrusion depth
to make the text actually pop out from the
| | 04:36 |
scene.
It's kind of hard to see but it is
| | 04:39 |
actually three D text.
To get better definition, I could relight
| | 04:44 |
this text layer with a light by moving it closer.
| | 04:47 |
Or I could go down and make some changes
to my material options.
| | 04:50 |
So let's go down to our material options.
You'll see there's an option for
| | 04:55 |
transparency.
Let's increase that number by clicking and
| | 04:58 |
dragging.
I'll bring it up to something around 75
| | 05:01 |
percent.
It make take a second to re-render.
| | 05:05 |
But you notice nothing's happening.
Well, that's because of our preview mode.
| | 05:09 |
Click and hold on your preview mode.
And let's change it from Fast Draft to
| | 05:14 |
Adaptive Resolution.
In Adaptive Resolution, we'll lower the
| | 05:19 |
resolution of the scene to give me a
better real-time preview as to the changes
| | 05:23 |
that I'm actually making.
It takes a little bit longer to render the
| | 05:28 |
scene, but once the scene is rendered,
it's kind of worth it because you'll
| | 05:31 |
actually be able to see what adjustment
we've made with the transparency.
| | 05:36 |
Now this is starting to look a little bit
more like 3D text.
| | 05:40 |
Usually when I make changes to the
transparency, I turn around and make
| | 05:44 |
adjustments to the index of refraction.
Refraction is the distortion that happens
| | 05:50 |
when you look at an element, through
another transparent element.
| | 05:54 |
I'm going to change that index to, let's
say, 1.2.
| | 05:59 |
That's just going to give me a little bit
of distortion of this background element
| | 06:03 |
through our text layers.
Now, it'll be subtle, but it's just these
| | 06:07 |
little things that kind of add up to give
your 3D that little bit more of a pop.
| | 06:12 |
Other options you could make adjustments
to would be the specular intensity or the
| | 06:17 |
specular shininess.
I'm just going to stop making adjustments
| | 06:20 |
here because I think you can understand if
you just click through the different
| | 06:24 |
options, you'll see how they can effect
your scene.
| | 06:28 |
In addition to being able to create 3D
text, you can also create 3D shapes with
| | 06:33 |
shape layers.
If I scroll up in my timeline I can
| | 06:37 |
collapse layer eight here, and let's
select layer five.
| | 06:42 |
Layer five is our dashes layer.
I'm going to click on the X control handle
| | 06:46 |
and just drag the dashes over into the scene.
| | 06:50 |
Notice if we press AA on our keyboard, we
can open up the geometry options.
| | 06:55 |
If you're trying to make adjustments in
the time line and the composition panel is
| | 07:00 |
taking forever to update and you don't
really care whether or not it updates, you
| | 07:04 |
can hold down caps lock and that will stop
the refresh.
| | 07:07 |
This will allow you to move more quickly
through the interface.
| | 07:11 |
If I come down here, I can adjust the
extrusion but for that shape.So let's go
| | 07:16 |
ahead and crank that up to around 13.
Now when I press caps lock again, the
| | 07:21 |
scene will re-render.
In addition to being able to create 3-D
| | 07:26 |
objects with shape layers and text layers,
you can also bend traditional layers
| | 07:31 |
inside of After Effects.
Traditional layers being video layers or
| | 07:36 |
Photoshop layers.
Any standard bitmap graphic.
| | 07:40 |
So I'm going to collapse layer five and
scroll down here to layer 10, our throw
| | 07:44 |
layer.
If you press AA to open its geometry
| | 07:48 |
options, notice I have an option for curvature.
| | 07:50 |
Let's go ahead and crank that option up
just by clicking and dragging.
| | 07:54 |
Now this layer's going to bend in the
scene and it may take a second to
| | 07:58 |
rerender, so this would be another time
where we'd want to go ahead and switch our
| | 08:03 |
render options.
I just want to go to fast draft so I can
| | 08:06 |
get a quick idea as to what's going on in
the scene.
| | 08:09 |
If we change the magnification by
scrolling out on our mouse, you can see
| | 08:14 |
this layer is bending.
The number of segments give you a higher
| | 08:19 |
quality bend.
Just understand, the more segments the
| | 08:23 |
longer it's going to take to render.
When you're working in a rate-raised
| | 08:27 |
renderer in fast draft mode, there are a
number if things that you're not seeing,
| | 08:31 |
such as transparency.
Another thing would be layer intersection.
| | 08:37 |
Our background layer is actually
intersecting with our bent layer now.
| | 08:40 |
I know this because I've already done this
project a couple of times.
| | 08:44 |
If I click on the preview options and
change it took off, I'll get a full
| | 08:50 |
resolution render of this scene.
And that's going to show me that my
| | 08:53 |
background layer is intersecting with my
bent layer.
| | 08:57 |
This is what I would go ahead and just
click on the z axis handle for our
| | 09:01 |
background layer, and just move it back in
the scene before I actually render.
| | 09:06 |
It's really important before you render
any of your projects that you actually
| | 09:09 |
turn off your previews, so you can make
sure it's going to do exactly what you
| | 09:14 |
want it to do.
Now, there's one last setting you need to
| | 09:17 |
understand with the ray trace renderer.
I'm going to click on the Ray Trace option
| | 09:22 |
here to open up the advanced section of
our Comp settings.
| | 09:26 |
Then if you click on Options next to the
Ray Trace 3D pull-down, you can increase
| | 09:31 |
the ray tracing quality.
this is going to give you a high quality
| | 09:35 |
render when you go to actually output you
final ray traced composition.
| | 09:39 |
So if I click on the rate trace and
quality, typically I'd want to increase
| | 09:44 |
this to a number up around 10 or 12, then
you can increase the anti aliasing filter
| | 09:49 |
to a higher quality by changing it to cubic.
| | 09:52 |
Now when I click OK and click OK again,
it's going to take significantly longer to
| | 09:57 |
render the frame.
I don't recommend changing your render
| | 10:00 |
settings until you're absolutely positive
that you're ready to output your animation
| | 10:05 |
and your ray traced scene.
| | 10:08 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
8. Introducing CINEMA 4D LiteUnderstanding CINEMA 4D Lite and After Effects| 00:00 |
There's an excellent workflow that exists
in After Effects that gives you the
| | 00:04 |
ability to create true 3D elements and scenes.
| | 00:07 |
This is made possible by the integration
of Maxon Cinema 4D.
| | 00:11 |
There are layers that can be created
inside of After Effects called Maxon
| | 00:15 |
Cinema 4D files.
Cinema 4D Lite comes bundled with After
| | 00:19 |
Effects or if you have a full version of
Cinema 4D you can now import those
| | 00:23 |
projects directly into After Effects
without the need to render.
| | 00:26 |
With Cinema 4D layers you have access to
the Cinema 4D interface where you can
| | 00:31 |
create true 3D models.
Access seen presets for lights and cameras
| | 00:35 |
and generate 3D materials like glass, wood
and of course, a whole host of other
| | 00:41 |
materials that would just be too
complicated to create inside of a 2D
| | 00:44 |
application.
Once you've created your scene inside
| | 00:47 |
Cinema, you can insert markers to create
placeholders for any more elements you'd
| | 00:52 |
like to add back into that scene once
inside of After Effects.
| | 00:56 |
Once back inside of After Effects, you can
extract the 3D data created from Cinema to
| | 01:01 |
harness the full power of compositing
inside of After Effects.
| | 01:04 |
And, of course, the pipeline can go both ways.
| | 01:07 |
If you track footage inside of After
Effects to solve for a camera, you can
| | 01:11 |
then send that information directly to
Cinema, where you can generate any 3D
| | 01:15 |
elements you'd like to integrate back into
the scene.
| | 01:18 |
The integration between these two powerful
applications is all made possible by the
| | 01:22 |
Cineware plug-in.
This is where you can manage the
| | 01:25 |
transmission of data between both worlds,
Adobe After Effects and Maxon's Cinema 4D.
| | 01:32 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| 3D foundations| 00:00 |
I've found the best way to learn 3D is to
dive right in.
| | 00:04 |
In this video, we'll create a Cinema 4D
file, but we're not going to get hung up
| | 00:09 |
on a lot of the technical stuff just yet.
The over arching goal of this video is to
| | 00:13 |
get comfortable with just how simple it
can be to create 3D from inside of After
| | 00:18 |
Effects.
In that process, we'll learn how to
| | 00:21 |
create, view, and position 3D objects in
the scene.
| | 00:24 |
All the while, learning some of the key
terms most commonly used in the 3D
| | 00:29 |
production process.
If we look a our project, you can see I
| | 00:32 |
have a composition, 3D Foundations and it
has no layers.
| | 00:36 |
So let's get started by creating a Cinema
4D layer.
| | 00:40 |
Go up under Layer > New > MAXON CINEMA 4D File.
| | 00:45 |
Now we need to specify where we need to
save the file.
| | 00:47 |
I recommend saving it somewhere next to
your After Effects project.
| | 00:51 |
I'm going to save mine in the Exercise
Files, next to Chapter 8, in the Cinema
| | 00:55 |
Projects folder.
I'll call it Foundation.
| | 00:58 |
Now you'll probably see a file already
saved with the same name, you can go ahead
| | 01:02 |
and save over the file.
With Cinema open, I know you have the urge
| | 01:07 |
to click through all the different parts
of the interface.
| | 01:10 |
But in order to get a quick start, I'm
going to go ahead and just start you
| | 01:13 |
through certain parts of the interface.
Since we're all coming from the Adobe
| | 01:18 |
world, I'm going to start creating our 3D
models with a tool that's similar to the
| | 01:23 |
Pen tool.
You can create splines inside of Cinema 4D
| | 01:28 |
using some of these different tools.
So let's come up to the top corner area
| | 01:32 |
here.
This toolbar is the creation toolbar, and
| | 01:37 |
in here is where we go to create any new
objects in our scene.
| | 01:41 |
So if we click on the second button and
hold, You'll see I have six different
| | 01:46 |
kinds of path tools.
These are all different spline tools.
| | 01:51 |
But the one we'll probably be most
familiar with is the bezier tool.
| | 01:55 |
So let's go ahead and choose that option.
Now with the bezier tool active, you'll
| | 02:00 |
notice its name popped up here in the
attributes panel.
| | 02:04 |
And before I just start clicking willy
nilly in 3-D Let's go ahead and click in
| | 02:08 |
the upper right corner to bring up our
fore view.
| | 02:11 |
These other views are orthogonal views.
They'll make sure that I stay in the true,
| | 02:18 |
2D plane.
Let's choose the front view by clicking
| | 02:20 |
the same box in the upper corner.
To create a shape all we have to do is
| | 02:25 |
click and move and click and move.
If you click and drag, you can draw out
| | 02:31 |
handles just like with the pen tool in
After Effects.
| | 02:35 |
So I'm going to create a basic shape.
Now, unlike in After Effects, I'm not
| | 02:39 |
going to click right back on the first point.
| | 02:41 |
After we started clicking on the splines,
the attributes panel down here on the
| | 02:45 |
right updated.
And now we have some of these options
| | 02:48 |
under the object section for our spline.
You want to select close line so that they
| | 02:54 |
way the path stays closed.
If we go ahead and switch our views by
| | 02:58 |
clicking the corners again, lets orbit
around what we've created.
| | 03:03 |
The next tool over in our port is the
Orbit tool.
| | 03:06 |
So you can see I've created a perfectly
flat line.
| | 03:10 |
Now I can create 3D geometry from this
relatively easily using a nerves
| | 03:15 |
extrusion.
So the term nerves stands for non uniform
| | 03:19 |
rational baselines.
Don't worry there's not a quiz later just
| | 03:23 |
remember that with nerves objects you can
take paths like this and create 3D.
| | 03:30 |
So I'm going to go to this third button
here and click and hold.
| | 03:34 |
Let's choose extrude NURBS.
With Extrude NURBS active in the Object
| | 03:38 |
panel, now I can click on the spline and
drag it up on top of the name for extrude
| | 03:43 |
NURBS, making sure that I have an arrow
pointing down.
| | 03:46 |
When I let go, now I've created my first
3D shape.
| | 03:49 |
If you click on the extrude nerves object
in the object manager, notice now I have
| | 03:55 |
options down here in the attributes manager.
| | 03:58 |
If we look at the movement section, go the
third area over, and just click and drag
| | 04:02 |
on the double arrows.
Let's drag up.
| | 04:05 |
Now, if I go and orbit around my scene,
you can see I've created a rather thick
| | 04:10 |
3-D object.
It's very abstract, but it's there.
| | 04:14 |
Now a centrist things in the scene,you can
go ahead and click the pen behind tool,
| | 04:18 |
which is the third one over, and if I want
to zoom in and out I can click The zoom
| | 04:24 |
tool.
We've seen how to create splines/g.
| | 04:26 |
We've seen how to create extrude nodes
from those splines.
| | 04:31 |
There's another way to create geometry
inside of Cinema 4D and that's using
| | 04:35 |
primitive objects.
Now since we're in a 3D space, if I want
| | 04:39 |
to create a primitive object it's going to
appear right here in the center of the
| | 04:43 |
scene.
This area is called the origin.
| | 04:46 |
So, anytime you go to create a new object,
it's probably wise to move the old one out
| | 04:51 |
of the way.
I'm going to go to the upper left corner
| | 04:54 |
of our interface, and here we have 4 tools
that will help you position and select any
| | 04:59 |
objects in your projects.
So this tool with the 4 arrows, let's
| | 05:04 |
click on it, and it's our move tool.
So I can click and drag directly on the
| | 05:09 |
control handles for the objects.
Or if I click on the object I can freely
| | 05:13 |
move around the scene.
If I click on these angles here, see these
| | 05:17 |
corners, they'll allow me to move on a plane.
| | 05:21 |
Now to more clearly see how I'm moving I'm
going to go to the four up view and now
| | 05:25 |
I'll click back on that plane and move
around and here you can see in the top
| | 05:28 |
view.
I'm not moving anywhere along the Z axis,
| | 05:32 |
I'm just moving up and down and around.
I want to move this out of the way so I'm
| | 05:37 |
going to click on the Z axis this time,
and just move this down out of the view of
| | 05:42 |
our camera.
Well, relatively, it'll still peek out in
| | 05:45 |
the corner though.
To create a nerves object, we'll go back
| | 05:48 |
up to our creation tools and click and
hold on the Q.
| | 05:52 |
Notice these are a bunch of different
nerve objects we can create.
| | 05:55 |
Let's start with a cube.
When we add a cube to the scene, let's go
| | 05:59 |
ahead and change back to Perspective.
Now, with the Move tool, I can quickly and
| | 06:04 |
easily just move the cube.
Now, if I go back and grab my Selection
| | 06:08 |
tool, there are some extra handles I can
grab with my primitive object.
| | 06:13 |
I can do that while I'm in Object Mode.
So over here in the left, these are
| | 06:17 |
different selection modes for your interface.
| | 06:20 |
So if we click the top one, I get Object
Mode or Model Mode.
| | 06:25 |
This will allow me to click on my model as
a whole.
| | 06:28 |
Now, if I click and drag on anyone of
these golden axes, this little golden box
| | 06:32 |
here, it'll allow me to change the size or
the dimensions of.
| | 06:37 |
Of my primitive objects.
If we go back under 4 view, here you can
| | 06:41 |
clearly see I've created this kind of
skinny box.
| | 06:44 |
Now if I want to make more changes I can
select the cube in the objects panel and
| | 06:49 |
the attribute panel will update.
And I can do something like fill it.
| | 06:53 |
This will round the edges of my cube box
so I have a little bit more of an organic
| | 06:57 |
shape kind of like a bar of soap.
Now, the third form of modelling you'd
| | 07:02 |
probably be familiar with inside of
Cinema, is polygon modelling.
| | 07:08 |
Now, most objects we can create either
with splines or cubes, and along the
| | 07:12 |
spline option, we can even extrude
illustrator splines.
| | 07:17 |
I'll show you how to do that late in the chapter.
| | 07:20 |
If we go to the cube object right here,
when I go ahead and click around, I'm just
| | 07:24 |
positioning in the scene, but notice it's
one smooth object.
| | 07:29 |
If we go to the display options here in
our viewer, I could switch it to
| | 07:33 |
(INAUDIBLE) shading lines, and it shows me
the actual lines required to create this
| | 07:38 |
geometry.
But what if I just wanted to select only
| | 07:41 |
one small part of the geometry?
Well, I could covert this to editable,
| | 07:47 |
that's the name of the process.
If we click this button in the upper left
| | 07:50 |
corner, it'll change our object from a
primitive object into a polygon object.
| | 07:56 |
Now if we look in the upper right corner
of our interface, under objects.
| | 08:00 |
You can see the triangle, that's letting
me know it's a polygon object.
| | 08:04 |
So now if we come back over here to our
selection tools, I can click here, on the
| | 08:08 |
polygon tool and any polgygon face that I
roll over with my selection tool, it will
| | 08:13 |
allow me to select.
If I'd rather select edges, I could do
| | 08:18 |
that and roll over the edges.
Or points wherever the edges intersect.
| | 08:23 |
I'm going to go back to polygons and just
click on this first big polygon and pull
| | 08:28 |
it out.
Notice when I pull it out I've changed my
| | 08:30 |
geometry but everything is sort of still
stuck together.
| | 08:34 |
Once you have different polygons or NURBS,
you can actually smooth things out using a
| | 08:40 |
thing called hyperNURBS.
I'm going to hold down the Option key and
| | 08:44 |
then click on this third button.
When I click on that it's going to smooth
| | 08:49 |
out the shape that I created using a
hyperNURBS object.
| | 08:53 |
This is kind of a blend between both
worlds but it actually gives me.
| | 08:58 |
Beautiful amount of control.
If I want to view the scene as though it
| | 09:02 |
were rendering, I would click the render
button in the top center of the scene.
| | 09:06 |
Now the last thing about 3D are textures
and since we've already covered a lot of
| | 09:11 |
ground up to this point, I'm going to
click create and just load a material
| | 09:15 |
preset.
If we go to light under materials, we
| | 09:19 |
could choose ice and snow, and I'm
going to choose this ice cracked option.
| | 09:24 |
Now if I want to apply that to my object,
I can just click it and drag it, and then
| | 09:29 |
go ahead and render it, and you can see
I've created a very interesting 3D shape.
| | 09:35 |
When you first get started in 3D, there
are three modes of modeling.
| | 09:40 |
We have, the splines/g, and then we
extrude those with nerves, and then we can
| | 09:46 |
convert those into polygons, though we
don't have to.
| | 09:48 |
And we could also smooth any of those out
using hyper nerves.
| | 09:54 |
So, now we've had a quick whirlwind tour I
think you're ready to move on and actually
| | 09:59 |
worry about some of the nuts and bolts.
If you want to see your project inside of
| | 10:04 |
After Effects all you have to do is click
save in CINEMA, then when you jump back
| | 10:09 |
into After Effects it will go ahead and
update and show you the scene.
| | 10:13 |
And since 3D is slightly more render
intensive than a standard After Effects
| | 10:18 |
project by default, our 3D object is
going to be shown to us in kind of a
| | 10:24 |
wireframe mode.
If you want to see the full resolution,
| | 10:27 |
you need to go to your CINEWARE Effect
Control panel, and change the Renderer
| | 10:31 |
from Software to Standard Final.
It'll take a second to render, but once it
| | 10:36 |
does, now you can see we've successfully
brought our 3D object back into After
| | 10:41 |
Effects.
| | 10:41 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Matching CINEMA 4D Lite and After Effects projects| 00:00 |
Creating Cinema 4D files inside of After
Effects is a great way to open up your
| | 00:05 |
workflow to a true 3D application.
After Effects supports Cinema 4D files in
| | 00:11 |
two different ways.
If you currently have a license of Cinema
| | 00:14 |
4D, you can import your C4D projects
directly into After Effects and render out
| | 00:20 |
of After Effects.
If you're a new user of After Effects you
| | 00:23 |
have Cinema 4D as part of the build.
And you can create Cinema 4D files from
| | 00:29 |
within After Effects.
That's the work flow that we're going to
| | 00:32 |
explore today.
If you look in the project panel you can
| | 00:35 |
select the Create Composition.
I want you to make note of the project
| | 00:40 |
settings.
Here where are project is set at 1280 by
| | 00:43 |
720 square pixels.
It's 10 seconds long at 24 frames a
| | 00:47 |
second.
It's important to understand this because
| | 00:50 |
when we launch cinema 4D we're going to
have to make some adjustments to make sure
| | 00:54 |
that the C4D project matches what we're
doing inside of After Effects.
| | 00:59 |
So to create your first C4D layer make
sure you've selected the composition panel
| | 01:03 |
then go up under the layer menu and
choosie new, maxon cinema 4D file.
| | 01:10 |
Now if you don't have access to the
exercise files you can save this file
| | 01:14 |
anywhere i just recommend saving it to
somewhere next to your After Effects
| | 01:18 |
project.
If you have access to the exercise files
| | 01:21 |
you can navigate to the Chapter 8 folder.
In there, I'm going to create a new folder
| | 01:26 |
and just coll it Cinema projects.
You probably already have this folder.
| | 01:30 |
So you can just choose that folder when
you save your project.
| | 01:34 |
I'll name our file explore and then go
ahead and click Save.
| | 01:40 |
You probably already have a file with this
name, so you can go ahead and save right
| | 01:44 |
over that old file.
If this is the first time you've launched
| | 01:47 |
Cinema, you may get a popup menu asking
you to register the software.
| | 01:51 |
I definitely recommend registering.
And when you've finished with that
| | 01:54 |
process, go ahead and come join me here
inside of Cinema 4D Lite.
| | 01:59 |
I realize the first time you open Cinema
4D Lite the interface may look a little
| | 02:03 |
intimidating because it's so different
from After Effects.
| | 02:06 |
But believe it or not, a lot of the
features function in a very similar
| | 02:10 |
fashion.
If you look to the right side of the
| | 02:12 |
interface you'll notice that we have panels.
| | 02:15 |
And these panels are very similar to After
Effects in that they have the little grips
| | 02:19 |
on the left side.
And you can move them around the
| | 02:21 |
interface.
Let's focus on this panel in the lower
| | 02:24 |
right corner.
I'm going to click on the top of it and
| | 02:26 |
just drag up so we can see all the information.
| | 02:28 |
In your normal Cinema 4D workflow, this
panel is contextual, and it'll change
| | 02:34 |
based on what you have selected in your project.
| | 02:36 |
By default, it's opening to the project settings.
| | 02:39 |
So let's look at our project settings and
remember what our After Effects
| | 02:43 |
composition settings were.
So if we look at our project, the first
| | 02:47 |
thing we should notice right here is this
FPS setting.
| | 02:51 |
This is the frames per second, and it
controls our view of the timeline down
| | 02:54 |
here in our project.
So let's change our frames per second from
| | 02:59 |
30 to 24.
Now come over to the Maximum Time area.
| | 03:04 |
This will allow us to change the length of
the project.
| | 03:07 |
Now since our composition settings in
After Effects were 10 seconds at 24 frames
| | 03:12 |
a second, we need to choose a maxiumum
time of 240 frames.
| | 03:18 |
See the settings inside of Cinema go off
of frames.
| | 03:21 |
Typically in a 3D applicatoin you would be
rendering still iamge files, and each
| | 03:26 |
image file would represent one frame in
your animation.
| | 03:29 |
Now with this integration we don't have to
render frames out of cinema, we have
| | 03:33 |
rendered them directly out of After
Effects but its important that we match
| | 03:37 |
all the sentences, so lets continue on and
go down to the bottom of the project
| | 03:41 |
settings panel down here you will notice
linear workflow is selected This is color
| | 03:46 |
management and linear workflow is going to
give you the highest quality renders
| | 03:50 |
outside of After Effects.
I did talk a little bit about the
| | 03:53 |
specifics of linear workflow earlier in
the course, but to summarize Linear work
| | 03:59 |
flow gives you an expanded range of colors
and luminance values.
| | 04:02 |
This will allow you to create some really
realistic renders straight out of your
| | 04:07 |
cinema 4D projects.
You don't have to use linear workflow.
| | 04:11 |
I just generally recommend using it.
So we'll leave linear work flow selected.
| | 04:16 |
And then we can leave our color profile
set to RGB.
| | 04:20 |
Before we jump back to After Effects, we
need to make one more adjustment in our
| | 04:24 |
Render Settings.
Even though we're not creating files
| | 04:27 |
straight out of Cinema, After Effects will
reference the Render Settings when it goes
| | 04:32 |
to create the render.
So let's go up to the top center portion
| | 04:35 |
of the interface.
In this tool bar here,you'll see three
| | 04:39 |
buttons that have clapboards on the front
of them.
| | 04:42 |
The rightmost button are your Render Settings.
| | 04:44 |
It's the one that has the cog in the background.
| | 04:47 |
Go ahead and click on that button and open
the Render Settings.
| | 04:51 |
Now even though our comp settings in After
Effects are 1280 by 720 Cinema 4D will
| | 04:56 |
only render a maximum 800 by 600 out of
these Render Settings if you tried to
| | 05:01 |
render just a frame.
Since we're using this round trip work
| | 05:05 |
flow, we can change our output sentence.
Go ahead and click on this button
| | 05:09 |
underneath the word output.
This is very similar to the preset options
| | 05:13 |
you have inside of your comp settings in
After Effects.
| | 05:16 |
If we go to the film and video group.
In here let's go down and change our
| | 05:21 |
project to HDV HDTV 29.97.
Once we choose that, we need to change the
| | 05:29 |
frame rate to 24.
Now you'll see this message that says
| | 05:34 |
image resolution applications license
limit of 800 x 600.
| | 05:38 |
This is just a function of Cinema 4D Lite.
And like I said, as long as you're going
| | 05:43 |
to render this project directly out of
After Effects, you don't have to worry
| | 05:47 |
about this issue.
Now if we come down to the bottom, we have
| | 05:50 |
an option for frame range here.
You can render still frames out of Cinema
| | 05:54 |
and, by the default settings here, it's
just going to render 1 frame.
| | 05:58 |
just because I like everything to have the
same settings I'm going to click on the
| | 06:02 |
frame range and change it from current
frame to all frames.
| | 06:06 |
Now notice our project goes from 0 frames
to 240.
| | 06:10 |
If you're working with interlaced footage
you can change the fields settings here.
| | 06:15 |
Since we're working with progressive
footage I'm just going to leave that alone
| | 06:18 |
and close my Render Settings.
Now that we've set up our Project
| | 06:22 |
Settings, our Render Settings, and our
Color Profile, we're ready to go to our
| | 06:27 |
project settings and press Save.
After Effects won't load any of these
| | 06:31 |
settings until you save the project file.
Now, let's jump back into After Effects
| | 06:35 |
and make sure that everything's lined up.
I'm going to press Cmd+Tab on the Mac, on
| | 06:40 |
Windows you can press Ctrl+Tab to jump
over to your C4D application.
| | 06:45 |
On the left side we have Effects Control
panel, and this is the Cineware Control
| | 06:49 |
panel.
We'll definitely continue exploring this,
| | 06:51 |
but I want you to go down here to the timeline.
| | 06:54 |
If you select a layer 1, notice it ends at
three seconds.
| | 06:58 |
I can click on the right side of this
layer and drag it all the way out to make
| | 07:02 |
sure that it's going to last the full 10
seconds of our project.
| | 07:06 |
Now the last thing we need to do is set
the color settings of our After Effects
| | 07:10 |
project.
Since we did turn on linear workflow, we
| | 07:13 |
have to increase the color settings in
After Effects.
| | 07:17 |
So, let's go over to the project panel.
If you look in the bottom of the project
| | 07:21 |
panel, see how it says eight BPC?
That setting is too low for a linear
| | 07:26 |
workflow.
So what we need to do is go up to the file
| | 07:29 |
menu, and go to our project settings.
In the project settings, you want to go to
| | 07:34 |
the color setting section and change the
depth from 8 bits per channel to 16 or 32.
| | 07:41 |
I generally recommend 32.
Now for the work space, this is where we
| | 07:46 |
want to make sure we match the SRGB setting.
| | 07:48 |
So click on that pull-down and choose sRGB.
| | 07:52 |
Last thing we need to do is confirm that
we are linearizing the work space.
| | 07:57 |
Once we've done that, we can go ahead and
click OK.
| | 08:01 |
Now we can save our After Effects project
and the workflow between Cinema and After
| | 08:06 |
Effects is going to work perfectly.
| | 08:08 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Understanding the CINEMA 4D Lite interface| 00:00 |
In order to get comfortable working in the
Cinema 4D environment, we need to
| | 00:04 |
definitely learn about the interface.
Now I'm starting in After Effects just so
| | 00:08 |
you can see the interoperability between
the two applications.
| | 00:11 |
If you look in the project panel, the top
file is an imported C4D project.
| | 00:16 |
Make sure that project is sleeted, and
then go up in the Edit menu and choose
| | 00:20 |
Edit Original.
This'll cause C4D Lite to launch, and then
| | 00:25 |
we'll be inside of Cinema 4D.
To get started, let's create an object,
| | 00:30 |
and then I'll go through the different
parts of the interface.
| | 00:34 |
In the upper right portion of the
interface, we have the Create tools.
| | 00:37 |
Click and hold on this first tool here
that looks like a box.
| | 00:42 |
That are cube tool, and these are
different tools that we can use to create
| | 00:45 |
basic shapes for the start of our model.
Let's choose the cube, when we hover over
| | 00:51 |
and let go, we've now created a cube in
our scene.
| | 00:54 |
So this view here is like our view in
After Effects.
| | 00:59 |
Now, in order to enable more than one view
inside of Cinema, You need to go to the
| | 01:04 |
upper right corner, you'll see this box
that looks like a box in a box,and if you
| | 01:09 |
click on this, battle enabled for views.
You can easily switch to a different view
| | 01:14 |
by clicking back up in the upper right corner.
| | 01:16 |
You'll always know what you you're in
because the label will be in the upper
| | 01:20 |
left corner.
Now let's jump back to the previous window
| | 01:24 |
by clicking back on that button again and
then clicking back on our perspective
| | 01:28 |
view.
If you look to the right side of the
| | 01:30 |
interface, this is the object manager.
The cube that we created is a cube object,
| | 01:36 |
since that's currently selected in my
object manager, my contextural menu down
| | 01:41 |
here in the lower right hand corner has
updated to show me the properties of that
| | 01:45 |
cube object.
Now if we go to the lower left portion of
| | 01:49 |
the interface, this is our material manager.
| | 01:51 |
This is where we can create the properties
that we're going to wrap around these
| | 01:55 |
shapes.
Let's just apply a quick material to our
| | 01:58 |
cube.
Go to the Create menu and choose New
| | 02:01 |
Material.
Notice now that the material's selected
| | 02:06 |
our contextual menu has updated over here
in the lower right corner.
| | 02:09 |
I can resize this menu by clicking and
dragging on the top part of the interface.
| | 02:14 |
I want to choose a different color.
Notice, within the interface, we have
| | 02:18 |
submenus.
These are organized according to these
| | 02:21 |
little boxes.
These boxes control the different channels
| | 02:25 |
that make up the material.
So let's make sure we're on the Color
| | 02:28 |
section And I'm going to go to my RGB
sliders and just click and drag my red
| | 02:32 |
over to the right.
That's going to give it a slight red tint.
| | 02:36 |
Now I could click in the color well here,
and then just click a different color, and
| | 02:41 |
then click OK.
Or I could click on the button just below
| | 02:44 |
that color and switch to a different color picker.
| | 02:47 |
So let's choose HSV.
Now I can click and drag on the top slider
| | 02:51 |
and choose a slightly different hue.
I'll choose this light blue.
| | 02:55 |
Now I can drag and drop this directly onto
my cube to apply that material.
| | 03:01 |
When I let go, the material is now applied
to my cube.
| | 03:05 |
Now that the material has been applied, my
contextual menu has updated again.
| | 03:10 |
As we continue working through different
projects, you'll notice that we're
| | 03:13 |
bouncing back and forth through this
contextual menu quite often.
| | 03:17 |
The interface of Cinema 4D makes it
relatively easy to move from task to ask
| | 03:22 |
and understand exactly where you are in
the process of creating your 3D elements.
| | 03:26 |
Now let's continue our tour of the interface.
| | 03:29 |
This slider here, with the numbers, is our
timeline and this shows us exactly what
| | 03:34 |
frame we're on in the scene.
I can click on this green box and drag
| | 03:39 |
down the scene and that'll control what
frame I'm looking at in my animation.
| | 03:43 |
I've transport controls here.
If I click the play button, it's
| | 03:47 |
automatically going to play through the frames.
| | 03:50 |
By default, Cinema will go ahead and loop
your scene.
| | 03:52 |
I'm going to go ahead and stop playback
just by clicking on that button again.
| | 03:57 |
If we move over to the right, we have
these red circle buttons.
| | 04:00 |
These are keyframe controls.
There are different methods for adding
| | 04:04 |
keyframes in Cinema, just like there are
different methods for adding keyframes
| | 04:08 |
inside of After Effects.
Notice the different Material options in
| | 04:12 |
my contextual menu over here.
Next to the different options we have
| | 04:16 |
circles, and these circles are very
similar to the stopwatches that you have
| | 04:20 |
inside of After Effects.
This is where you can add keyframes to the
| | 04:24 |
different parameters.
Also, like After Effects, if you go to the
| | 04:28 |
upper-right corner of the interface, there
is a Layout option.
| | 04:32 |
If you click on that layout, it'll change
to different workspaces.
| | 04:36 |
Workspaces in cinema are known as layouts.
Let's choose the Animation Workspace.
| | 04:42 |
In here, notice I get a layout that's
completely different and in the bottom of
| | 04:47 |
the interface I have more controls over
the timeline.
| | 04:50 |
If we had more elements in our project.
We would be able to make adjustments in
| | 04:54 |
the timeline.
But we'll definitely get to that as we
| | 04:57 |
keep moving through the chapter.
Let's go back out to our Layout options
| | 05:01 |
and change it back to the Standard layout.
Rounding out our tour, over here on the
| | 05:06 |
left side are our selection tools.
Now there are different ways to select 3D
| | 05:11 |
objects.
Right now, I have a simple 3D object that
| | 05:15 |
I've added to my scene.
The way 3D objects work, I can change the
| | 05:19 |
different parameters of that object
relatively quickly and visually inside the
| | 05:23 |
composition window.
If I click on this orange square on the
| | 05:27 |
x-axis, when I click and drag, I'm now
changing the size of that cube on its
| | 05:33 |
x-axis.
Notice that updates down here with this
| | 05:36 |
controller.
This is the coordinate manager.
| | 05:40 |
I can type other parameters in here.
Like, let's say I want to adjust the H
| | 05:44 |
setting, the heading.
Let's type in thirty and click A pply.
| | 05:48 |
Now our rectangular box has rotated 30 degrees.
| | 05:52 |
In the modeling process, we can convert
our shapes into polygons.
| | 05:56 |
And to do that, it's this last button that
we're going to look at, here in the
| | 06:01 |
upper-left corner.
When I click on that, it's going to make
| | 06:04 |
this object editable.
Now I can use these different selection
| | 06:08 |
methods to select different parts of the object.
| | 06:11 |
For example, if we click on edges, when I
hover over top of the shape, notice here
| | 06:16 |
now I can click on this top edge and that
gives me a control that I can go ahead and
| | 06:20 |
click on the control handles.
and change the shape.
| | 06:23 |
And of course as you're working through
your scene you're going to have to change
| | 06:27 |
the angle of your view.
If you go back up to the right corner of
| | 06:31 |
your view port.
We can go ahead and click on this rotation
| | 06:34 |
area.
Now when I click and drag I'm rotating
| | 06:37 |
around the scene.
I can zoom in and out of the scene and I
| | 06:40 |
can pan around the scene.
These options are very similar to using
| | 06:44 |
the unified camera tool inside of After Effects.
| | 06:47 |
I can also use keyboard shortcuts to
rotate around the scene as well.
| | 06:51 |
If you hold down the Opt key on the Mac or
Alt on Windows, as you left click you can
| | 06:57 |
rotate around the scene.
When you middle click you can pan around
| | 07:01 |
the scene and when you right click you can
zoom in and out of the scene.
| | 07:05 |
Notice, if I right click directly over a
specific area, I get cross hairs letting
| | 07:10 |
me know what area I'm zooming in and out of.
| | 07:14 |
So when it comes to making adjustments and
getting familiar with the Cinema 4D
| | 07:18 |
interface, I hope you can see that they
are very similar aspects to the After
| | 07:22 |
Effects work space.
I know the interface appears slightly
| | 07:26 |
different, but underneath the hood, it's
more similar than you think.
| | 07:30 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating 3D projects from Illustrator files| 00:00 |
I can remember when I first started
learning Cinema 4D that I was pretty
| | 00:04 |
excited about the fact that I could create
my models using Illustrator files.
| | 00:09 |
Now I'm going to share that workflow with
you right now.
| | 00:12 |
You just need to bare with me because
we're going to bounce between three
| | 00:16 |
applications in a matter of a couple minutes.
| | 00:18 |
So I want to make sure we're starting in
After Effects.
| | 00:22 |
If you look in the project panel, I have a
composition named Illustrator, and I also
| | 00:27 |
have a C4D file named Illustrator.
Now I did the project settings for my C4D
| | 00:33 |
file, and my Illustrator file.
If you're unfamiliar how to match these
| | 00:37 |
two settings, definitely check out the
matching video earlier in this chapter.
| | 00:43 |
Now before we go to import in illistrator
files into our C4D project we actually
| | 00:49 |
need to optimize our illitrator file.
So I'm going to jump to my file browser
| | 00:53 |
and navigate in my exercise files to the
footage folder.
| | 00:56 |
In there you'll find O2Ai folder and I
want to edit the H Plus Sport Ai file.
| | 01:03 |
So let's go ahead and double click to open
that file in Illustrator.
| | 01:06 |
If your interface doesn't look like this,
make sure you're actually set to the
| | 01:11 |
essentials workspace.
If it still doesn't look like this, make
| | 01:14 |
sure you reset your essentials workspace.
Now if you go all the way to the right
| | 01:18 |
side of the interface, the second button
from the bottom will open up our layers
| | 01:22 |
panel.
Here you can see I have three layers.
| | 01:26 |
Now we don't need to do anything with
these layers so I'll just go ahead and
| | 01:29 |
close that panel.
What we should do is click and draw a
| | 01:32 |
lasso around the entire logo so we can see
exactly what we're dealing with.
| | 01:37 |
If you look closely at the text Notice
that the paths are actually creating the
| | 01:42 |
letters themselves.
This is because this text was made
| | 01:45 |
editable or was turned into outlines.
Any text inside of an Illustrator file,
| | 01:51 |
you should generally turn it into outlines
before you bring it into Cinema 4D.
| | 01:56 |
This way you can assure that any text will
be extruded properly and match the style
| | 02:01 |
of the typeface.
If you're unfamiliar with how to create
| | 02:04 |
outlines, select any of your type layers
and go to the Type Menu and choose create
| | 02:10 |
outlines.
Now once you've done that you're almost
| | 02:13 |
ready to save the file and import it into
cinema, but not twice.
| | 02:17 |
You need to press command r on the Mac or
control r on Windows.
| | 02:21 |
This way will reset the zero value, so
when we go to place our logo it'll
| | 02:26 |
actually end up in the middle of the scene
in Cinema.
| | 02:28 |
By default, the zero value file for AI
files is in the upper left hand corner.
| | 02:33 |
So if you go all the way up in the upper
left corner of your rulers.
| | 02:37 |
Go ahead and click and drag and as you
drag down notice we have crossairs that
| | 02:42 |
have appaered.
The crossairs signify the zero poitns so
| | 02:46 |
lets set our zero points here in the
middle of the letter h and on top of the
| | 02:51 |
letter 'o'.
Now the second I let go, if you look at
| | 02:56 |
the rulers, our zero point matches
vertically and horizontally in our file.
| | 03:02 |
Now we're actually ready to save this for
import in the Cinema.
| | 03:05 |
Now we're going to make sure that not to
save over this file.
| | 03:08 |
So I'm going to go up under File and
choose Save As and we'll add dash eight to
| | 03:14 |
the end of the name.
I'll go ahead and save my file into the
| | 03:17 |
02_AI file of the footage folders.
If you don't have access to these files,
| | 03:23 |
go ahead and just save your file wherever.
I'm going to go ahead and click Save, and
| | 03:27 |
then under the Version pull-down, you
want to make sure to change it from
| | 03:32 |
Illustrator CS6 Down to Illustrator 8.
Once we've done that we can go ahead and
| | 03:38 |
click ok.
If you get a warning dialog box, don't
| | 03:42 |
worry, you can go ahead and click OK.This
is part of the reason why I saved it as a
| | 03:46 |
different name.
If we ever need to go back and edit, we
| | 03:49 |
can just go back to the original
Illustrator file.
| | 03:51 |
So let's go ahead and close this
Illustrator file and now, we're ready to
| | 03:56 |
jump into Cinema to create our 3D model.
I like watching Cinema from After Effects
| | 04:02 |
so I'm going to go to the Project panel
and click on our Illustrator.c4d layer.
| | 04:07 |
Now, we can go up on our Edit and choose
Edit Original.
| | 04:10 |
With Cinema open, we can go to File and
choose the Merge command to import our
| | 04:15 |
Illustrator file.
Navigate in your exercise files to the
| | 04:19 |
02_Ai folder.
In there we'll see the H plus sport eight
| | 04:24 |
AI file.
Go ahead and click open to import.
| | 04:27 |
Now you'll probably see this extra
Illustrator dialog box.
| | 04:32 |
Go ahead and click Ok.
Notice the logo is imported right into the
| | 04:36 |
centre of our scene.
Now as a general rule I like to delete any
| | 04:41 |
extemporaneous has that have been brought in.
| | 04:43 |
This is not a 3-D element yet, all that's
been brought in is spline data.
| | 04:49 |
Think of it like outlines inside of
Illustrator in your Object Manager, go
| | 04:54 |
ahead and click on the H plus support null object.
| | 04:57 |
With the null selected, let's go over the
Viewport and under View, let's choose
| | 05:03 |
Frame All.
This will zoom out and show me any paths
| | 05:07 |
that have been imported into that last
import.If you look to the left of the
| | 05:11 |
knoll in the Object Manager, there's a
plus sign.
| | 05:13 |
Go ahead and click on that.
Now the large path on the outside is path
| | 05:18 |
two.
If you go ahead and click on it, that path
| | 05:21 |
will become selected in the Object Manager.
| | 05:23 |
Go ahead and press delete on your keyboard
to delete that path.
| | 05:27 |
We can repeat the same process for the
smaller rectangle.
| | 05:30 |
That's path one, so lets go ahead and
press Delete.
| | 05:33 |
Now to quickly zoom into our object, lets
click on our H plus sport null in the
| | 05:38 |
Object Manager.
And then go up under View and choose frame
| | 05:42 |
all again.
Now with all our splines in the center of
| | 05:46 |
the scene were actually ready to extrude a
3D shape.
| | 05:50 |
We're going to use the Extrude NURBS
command, and that can be found in the
| | 05:54 |
Toolbar up here, the third button from the right.
| | 05:58 |
Go ahead and click and hold, and then you
can navigate to the Extrude NURBS option.
| | 06:02 |
Make sure you hold down Opt of the Mac or
Alt on Windows, so when you let go, our
| | 06:08 |
paths will automatically be made the child
of the Extrude NURBS.
| | 06:11 |
If you didn't hold down Alt or Option,
you're seeing what probably look like
| | 06:16 |
this.
I'm going to collapse my null object and
| | 06:18 |
just move it to the side.
In order to create geometry, you always
| | 06:22 |
want to make sure that your splines are
the children of the Extrude NURBS object.
| | 06:28 |
This way, when you click on the Extrude
NURBS object, you can specify that all of
| | 06:33 |
these splines should be extruded.
So if you go down to the bottom of your
| | 06:37 |
Attribute Manager we can click on Hierarchical.
| | 06:41 |
That'll make all the splines extruded.
So now, if we want to see this file inside
| | 06:46 |
of our After Effects project, all we have
to do is press Save.
| | 06:49 |
Now, as a general practice, when I'm
finished working inside of Cinema, I like
| | 06:55 |
to quit Cinema.
This way, every time I launch the project
| | 06:58 |
from After Effects, it doesn't
accidentally open the same project twice.
| | 07:02 |
So I'm going to click on Cinema 4D Light,
and just choose Quit Cinema 4D Light.
| | 07:08 |
Now, notice back in our After Effects
projects, our Illustrator file that's been
| | 07:12 |
extruded has been imported into the project.
| | 07:16 |
So you've successfully extruded the
Illustrator paths.
| | 07:19 |
The next things to learn about are
texturing and animation.
| | 07:23 |
We'll definitely continue to explore as we
move through the rest of the chapter.
| | 07:27 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Exploring modeling in CINEMA 4D Lite| 00:00 |
In addition to being able to extrude
Illustrator shapes, you can also create
| | 00:04 |
models in Cinema 4D by using primitive objects.
| | 00:07 |
That's what we'll go ahead and do in this video.
| | 00:10 |
Obviously to start we want to make sure
we're into Cinema 4D.
| | 00:13 |
So let's go to the project panel and make
sure you have Modelling.c4d selected.
| | 00:18 |
Then press Cmd+E or Ctrl+E Windows to edit
the original file.
| | 00:23 |
Once inside Cinema 4D, you'll notice we
have our four panel view up.
| | 00:28 |
I'm going to change it to one panel, just
by clicking this box in the upper right
| | 00:31 |
corner of my Perspective view.
Let's go to our Objects Manager and you
| | 00:36 |
can see we have an extrude nerves object.
This is our H+ Sport Logo, and it was
| | 00:40 |
created by extruding an Illustrator file.
Let's go ahead and rename that.
| | 00:45 |
Double-click on the name.
And let's call this H plus logo.
| | 00:50 |
With the extrude nerves objects selected,
if you go down to the Attributes panel,
| | 00:54 |
you can see I have a number of different
things that I can change.
| | 00:57 |
Anytime you see boxes like this in the
interface, it means you have different
| | 01:00 |
channels you can apply changes to.
So you can see we have Basic, and
| | 01:05 |
Coordinates, Object, Caps, and Font.
If you look in the Coordinates section,
| | 01:11 |
this is what controls where the object
appears in the scene.
| | 01:14 |
So if I click and drag on these arrows I
can reposition the object along the x, y
| | 01:18 |
and z-axis accordingly.
Now, I'll just undo the last couple of
| | 01:23 |
transformations.
The middle column controls your scale and
| | 01:26 |
the right column controls your rotation.
If HPB doesn't make sense to you, you can
| | 01:31 |
go ahead and click on the pull-down and
change it to say xyz.
| | 01:36 |
That way when you are clicking and
dragging you know hey I'm going to rotate
| | 01:38 |
around the y-axis, the x-axis or the z-axis.
| | 01:42 |
Alright, let's go ahead and undo those
last few things.
| | 01:46 |
And let's jump to the Object Channel.
In here, we can actually control the shape
| | 01:51 |
of our objects.
If I click and drag on the x parameter for
| | 01:54 |
movement here, notice it's actually
sliding the back part of our model along
| | 01:59 |
the x-axis.
That's not what I want to do, so I'll
| | 02:02 |
undo.
Let's click and drag on the z parameter.
| | 02:06 |
This is controlling the depth of our extrusion.
| | 02:09 |
Now, just so I can see things a little
more clearly, I'm going to press S on my
| | 02:12 |
keyboard to reframe the model that's been selected.
| | 02:15 |
With our model being extruded, I generally
like to have a little more control over
| | 02:19 |
seeing the detail in the model.
So to do that, let's go to the Display
| | 02:24 |
options in the Viewport.
Click on that and let's change the shading
| | 02:27 |
to the root shading with lines.
Now, I can actually see some of the
| | 02:32 |
different changes being applied to the
model as we make these different
| | 02:35 |
adjustments.
Let's increase the number of subdivisions.
| | 02:38 |
Notice each time I click a number up, it's
giving me more lines.
| | 02:42 |
Down the extrusion.
These lines add extra geometry to the
| | 02:46 |
model, and they come in really handy when
you're working with polygon modeling.
| | 02:51 |
Now, we're not going to convert this
object to polygon models in this specific
| | 02:55 |
case, but I just want you to understand
that that is a normal process in cinema.
| | 03:00 |
You can convert your objects to polygons.
Now, let's go to the Caps section.
| | 03:05 |
And here we can control the transition
from the extrusion to the face of our
| | 03:09 |
model.
If we go to the Start area under Cap,
| | 03:13 |
let's click on that and choose Fillet Cap.
This'll add a bevel to the edge of our
| | 03:17 |
model.
If you increase the number of steps,
| | 03:21 |
you'll smooth out that transition.
If you increase the radius, you'll make
| | 03:25 |
that rounding a little bit larger.
This happens to be distorting the model in
| | 03:29 |
addition to making it larger.
So if you go down to the bottom here and
| | 03:33 |
check Constrain, you'll make the model
actually constrain to the original
| | 03:37 |
boundaries of the logo.
Now, obviously, when I did that, I want to
| | 03:40 |
go ahead and decrease the radius here
again, so I don't have that strange
| | 03:43 |
distortion.
Now, since, I have the Shader active with
| | 03:46 |
the lines, I'm having a hard time seeing
the edges of my model.
| | 03:49 |
So I'll go back up under Display and just
change it back to Gerund Shading.
| | 03:54 |
This way I can see a little more clearly
what's happening.
| | 03:57 |
Let's create a Primitive Objects.
Let's go up to the Create tools in the
| | 04:00 |
upper right size of the interface.
The leftmost Creation tool is the
| | 04:04 |
Primitive Objects tool.
If you click and hold, it'll open up the
| | 04:07 |
menu for the Primitive Objects.
If you move your mouse over top of these
| | 04:11 |
little grippy lines, it'll rip that
interface piece right out.
| | 04:14 |
Now, I can click on those lines and dock
them in between my Attributes panel and my
| | 04:18 |
Objects panel.
When I let go, they'll always be in this
| | 04:22 |
position.
Let's go ahead and add two different
| | 04:24 |
primitive objects.
We'll add a Cube, and we'll add an Oil
| | 04:28 |
Tank.
Now, in order to see these a little more
| | 04:30 |
clearly, I'm going to go ahead and click
on their control handles and drag on the
| | 04:34 |
x-axis, and then, here, we can go ahead
and select our cube and we can drag on
| | 04:38 |
that one as well.
Lets start by zooming into our cube.
| | 04:41 |
I'm going to hold down Opt on the Mac and
then right-click to zoom into the cube,
| | 04:46 |
and then still holding Opt, I'll
middle-click and drag to reframe.
| | 04:50 |
Now, with our Cube object we have the same
kind of Fillet options that we had with
| | 04:54 |
our extrude nerves.
They're in the Object panel, and if we
| | 04:57 |
select Fillet.
Notice, we get the same rounding.
| | 05:00 |
Now, with Primitive Objects, we have these
orange control handles.
| | 05:04 |
If I click and drag on these handles,
they'll allow me to make adjustments
| | 05:08 |
visually in the scene.
So, if I wanted to make this kind of
| | 05:11 |
skinny and long like a wall, I could do that.
| | 05:15 |
If we look back in Attributes Manager and
click and drag on the fill it radius, we
| | 05:19 |
can smooth out the corners or make them
really tight and refined.
| | 05:24 |
So most primitive objects work in this manner.
| | 05:26 |
Let's go ahead and select our Oil Tank in
the Objects panel.
| | 05:30 |
And then press S on our keyboard to
quickly reframe to that selected object.
| | 05:35 |
Notice I have the same control handles.
Visually, I can click and drag and make
| | 05:39 |
adjustments just by clicking on those
individual shapes.
| | 05:43 |
I definitely encourage you to click
through some of the different primitive
| | 05:46 |
objects to see if you can create something
unique that's all your own.
| | 05:50 |
Now, I'm sure in certain instances you'll
want to combine more than one primitive
| | 05:54 |
object to create a model.
So to do that, I'm just going to go ahead
| | 05:58 |
and click on my cube here and click on its
x-axis to slide it back over in the scene.
| | 06:03 |
Notice, I accidentally clicked on that
control parameter to change the model.
| | 06:08 |
Sometimes, it's hard to see exactly what
you're clicking on, so if you make a
| | 06:11 |
change just go ahead and press Cmd+Z to undo.
| | 06:15 |
Now, when I click and drag, notice I've
repositioned my model in the scene.
| | 06:19 |
I can click on my other primitive object
and just go ahead and position it up in
| | 06:23 |
the scene.
Now, since I'm working visually and I have
| | 06:26 |
no idea exactly how far this is going
through the object.
| | 06:30 |
I'm going to open up Multiple Viewports by
clicking in the corner.
| | 06:33 |
This way, for example, if I click on the
top area here, I can see exactly how far
| | 06:38 |
into the cube my oil tank has gone.
So I'll go ahead and just click and drag
| | 06:43 |
on the size of the oil tank.
And notice, I'm having an issue doing that
| | 06:47 |
on the Viewports.
Sometimes it just makes more sense to
| | 06:50 |
click and drag on the parameters in the
Attributes Panel.
| | 06:52 |
So that's what I'll do.
Let's decrease the size of the radius
| | 06:56 |
here.
And now, if we deselect our model, it
| | 07:00 |
looks sort of like I have an antenna
popping up out of the top of the box.
| | 07:05 |
I'm going to zoom out for a second.
If I want to move this as one object.
| | 07:09 |
I'll click on the cube and hold down Shift
and click on the oil tank.
| | 07:12 |
And then, if we go to the objects
pull-down in the Objects Attribute
| | 07:15 |
Manager, we can group these objects.
Once we do that, it'll automatically place
| | 07:20 |
those objects in a null object.
So here, I can just call this Wall Pipe.
| | 07:26 |
With that object created, I can go ahead
and reposition it in the scene as one
| | 07:30 |
individual element.
If I click on my Rotation tool, I can go
| | 07:34 |
ahead and rotate the object If I click on
the scale tool, I can click and drag and
| | 07:38 |
adjust the scale.
Notice when I'm adjusting the scale, I
| | 07:41 |
don't have to click directly on the object.
| | 07:44 |
As long as it's selected, I can just click
and drag.
| | 07:47 |
So that was your whirlwind tour of
modeling different objects in Cinema 4D.
| | 07:51 |
As you can tell, the process just involves
selecting the objects in objects manager
| | 07:56 |
and then making sure that you can adjust
the attributes using the different
| | 07:59 |
channels in the Attributes panel.
When I go ahead and save this project,
| | 08:03 |
it'll be updated back into my After
Effects file.
| | 08:06 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Applying deformers| 00:00 |
Using deformers in Cinema 4d allow you to
create curved and twisted elements out of
| | 00:05 |
your primitive objects.
So in this project we're going to distort
| | 00:10 |
these lines that have been extruded along
the edge of our logo.
| | 00:14 |
To get started, obviously, we have to be
in Cinema 4D, so I'm going to select the
| | 00:18 |
deformers c 4D project, and press Cmd+e on
my Mac, Ctrl+e on Windows, to edit the
| | 00:24 |
original file.
If we look in our objects manager, you can
| | 00:27 |
see we have our h+ logo, that's an
extruded Illustrator shape.
| | 00:31 |
And we have this Null object named bars etc.
| | 00:34 |
Just so we can focus solely on the bars,
I'm going to turn off the visibility of
| | 00:38 |
the h+ logo in our viewer.
Let's go ahead and just Double Click on
| | 00:42 |
the top circle here.
Now just to remind you, if you hadn't seen
| | 00:46 |
this before, this just turns off the
visibility of the object in the scene.
| | 00:50 |
If I click on the Render button here...
I'll be able to see that and the model is
| | 00:54 |
still there, it's just disappeared out of
our viewer for the time being.
| | 00:58 |
Let's open up our null object bars, et cetera.
| | 01:01 |
I want to focus on just bending one object
for right now.
| | 01:04 |
So let's click on this cube.
I want to drag it up out of the null
| | 01:08 |
object just by clicking and dragging.
Now we can collapse that null object.
| | 01:13 |
Since we have the cube out of the null
object let's go ahead and turn off the
| | 01:17 |
visibility for the bars etc.
Now we can focus solely on our cube.
| | 01:22 |
If you press S on your keyboard that will
reframe the selected object.
| | 01:26 |
Now when you're bending objects it's
important to pay attention to the actual
| | 01:29 |
geometry of the model.
So we need to go to the Display options in
| | 01:33 |
our Viewport.
Let's change it to Gouraud shading lines.
| | 01:38 |
I can see I have some lines on the edge of
my geometry.
| | 01:41 |
But it's really not that detailed.
I'm just repositioning the scene by
| | 01:45 |
clicking all my different navigation tools
in the upper right corner of the Viewport.
| | 01:49 |
With the cube selected, I want you to go
down to the object section.
| | 01:53 |
In here, we can increase the number of segments.
| | 01:56 |
This was extruded along the Z axis.
I know this because it's the kind of
| | 02:01 |
bluish-purple option here, and you can see
the z is moving through the scene.
| | 02:05 |
Let's increase the number of segments
along the z axis.
| | 02:09 |
Notice each time I click, I'm getting a
new line in my primitative object.
| | 02:14 |
Lets leave it set at a setting around five.
| | 02:16 |
Now we can go ahead and add a Bend deformer.
| | 02:19 |
If you go up to our creation tools.
The fourth one from the right are the
| | 02:23 |
deformers.
There's several different deformers we can
| | 02:26 |
apply.
I'll start with the Bend deformer.
| | 02:29 |
Now when you're working with deformers.
I generally like to have the deformer
| | 02:33 |
centered up on the object I'm working with.
| | 02:35 |
And since the object is in the middle of
the scene, we need to move deformer.
| | 02:39 |
I'm going to click on the four of view
just by clicking on the button in the
| | 02:42 |
upper right corner and here we can
re-position the deformer just by clicking
| | 02:46 |
and dragging through the scene.
So let's put it right in the middle of our
| | 02:50 |
object.
Now, notice the deformer has a control
| | 02:52 |
handle very much like our primitive
objects do.
| | 02:56 |
Let's make the perspective view the
dominant view, an then just click an drag.
| | 02:59 |
Well, nothing's happening.
This is because we haven't actually
| | 03:03 |
applied the bend to the cube.
So in order to apply a deformer, you need
| | 03:08 |
to click on the name an then drag down in
the objects manager.
| | 03:11 |
You want to hover over the name of the
model you'd like to apply the deform to,
| | 03:14 |
making sure that the arrow is pointing down.
| | 03:16 |
This will make the bend deformer the child
of that object.
| | 03:20 |
Now notice I've changed the overall
position, but it doesn't look like its
| | 03:25 |
bending.
So I'll just Cmd + Z to undo that.
| | 03:27 |
What we need to do is rotate our bend deformer.
| | 03:31 |
So Im going to go back over to my floor up
view here, and just reset the strength of
| | 03:36 |
our bend right down to zero in the
attribute panel.
| | 03:40 |
Now we can grab our rotation tool.
The shortcut for rotation in Cinema is R.
| | 03:45 |
As long as we only have the bend deformer
selected, we can go ahead and click on
| | 03:49 |
this red control band and rotate our
deformer around.
| | 03:53 |
Now if I hold Shift as I'm rotating, it'll
snap in ten degree increments.
| | 03:58 |
Now that it's rotated on 90 degrees, we
can go ahead and make the bend the child
| | 04:03 |
of the cue object.
So, let's click on the band object and
| | 04:07 |
drag it down onto the cube.
Again, making sure you have that down
| | 04:11 |
arrow.
Now, when we go ahead and click on this
| | 04:14 |
control handle, we can bend the object
through the scene however we like.
| | 04:18 |
Let's bend it over to the right.
Notice when I zoom in and reposition, the
| | 04:23 |
bend isn't very smooth, that gets back to
our geometry.
| | 04:27 |
So let's go ahead and select the cube here
and increase the number of segments on the
| | 04:30 |
z axis by clicking and dragging on the
double arrows.
| | 04:33 |
Now it's nice and smooth in its deformation.
| | 04:37 |
We can also make adjustments to how much
of the object is bent.
| | 04:40 |
If you look in the top view here, I'm just
going to maximize that view, notice.
| | 04:45 |
it's only bent in the section where it's
going through the deformer.
| | 04:49 |
And when you have the deformer selected in
the attributes panel, noticed that the
| | 04:54 |
mode is defaulted to limited I can change
that to exactly Within Box, and it'll
| | 04:59 |
literally only deform whatever's in the
box, and whatever's outside of the box,
| | 05:03 |
it'll just snap off to the side.
That's not what we want.
| | 05:07 |
Let's choose Unlimited.
Hey, check it out; when you do Unlimited,
| | 05:11 |
you can make curved shapes.
So to give you a better idea as to what
| | 05:15 |
this looks like, let's jump back into our
Perspective view.
| | 05:19 |
Now I'll just zoom out.
So you can see creating curved objects is
| | 05:22 |
an awful lot of fun.
When you're clicking and dragging in the
| | 05:25 |
perspective view, notice I can rotate all
the way around.
| | 05:30 |
Now any of these perimeters are key
frame-able if you have this circle to the
| | 05:33 |
left of the name.
So you can see with primitive objects.
| | 05:37 |
you can have all kinds of fun when it
comes to animation.
| | 05:40 |
Now, I know we only went over the Bend
deformer, but applying primitive objects
| | 05:44 |
works in the same function for all the
other primitives and all the other
| | 05:48 |
geometry that you're going to be working with.
| | 05:50 |
All you have to do is make sure you apply
the deformer as the child, and make sure
| | 05:55 |
you have enough geometry for your
adjustments.
| | 05:58 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Understanding materials| 00:00 |
When you want to add color and detail to
your models, you need to explore
| | 00:03 |
Materials.
And in order to apply materials, we need
| | 00:07 |
to be in Cinema 4D.
So let's go to the Project panel, and make
| | 00:10 |
sure we have Materials.c4d selected.
Then press Cmd+E or Ctrl+E on Windows to
| | 00:16 |
edit the original file.
Once in Cinema, go to the upper right
| | 00:20 |
corner in the Objects panel.
At the top, you'll see we have bars et
| | 00:24 |
cetera, which is a null object.
If we expand that null, you can see I have
| | 00:28 |
a couple primitive objects that make up
these different models, and they're bent
| | 00:33 |
with the bend former.
Let's go ahead and collapse that.
| | 00:36 |
Our H+ logo is an extruded Illustrator file.
| | 00:39 |
If we open that up, you'll see we have a
null object that contains different
| | 00:43 |
splines.
This is always a dead give away that this
| | 00:46 |
was an extrude nerves object created from
an illustrator file.
| | 00:50 |
I bring this up because we can apply
textures differently based on the type of
| | 00:54 |
model that's in the scene.
Let's go ahead and collapse our h plus
| | 00:58 |
logo.
And to create our first material, we need
| | 01:01 |
to go down to the material manager in the
lower left corner of the interface.
| | 01:05 |
If you click on the create option, we have
an option to create a new material.
| | 01:09 |
Let's do that for now.
When you create your first material, you
| | 01:13 |
can rename that material just by double
clicking on the name.
| | 01:17 |
Let's call this Base.
This'll be our base material for our
| | 01:20 |
object.
Now, if we double-click on the material,
| | 01:24 |
we'll have the Material Editor.
This is where I want you to look when
| | 01:27 |
you're first getting comfortable creating
different materials.
| | 01:31 |
Notice, on the left-hand side, we have channels.
| | 01:33 |
These channels will offer different levels
of control to create that material.
| | 01:37 |
For now let's make sure we have color
selected and change the color.
| | 01:42 |
I want to change it to the blues, so let's
go ahead and click in the color well and
| | 01:46 |
crank through the hues until we get to the
blue and then we'll just click in the blue
| | 01:49 |
area and click OK.
To be looked back at our channels the only
| | 01:53 |
other channel the selected is Specular,
this controls this highlight on our model.
| | 02:00 |
Now by default the mode is plastic and the
Specular highlight is kind of wide.
| | 02:04 |
Let's increase the height, and that's
going to give a little bit more pop to the
| | 02:08 |
dimensionality of this material.
When you apply materials to objects, it's
| | 02:12 |
these setting that help actually define
that object in a 3D environment.
| | 02:17 |
Now I want to change the width down a
little bit for our Specular highlight, and
| | 02:21 |
that's going to give it a little bit more
of that polished shine look.
| | 02:24 |
There's another channel we should check
out, and that's Transparency.
| | 02:28 |
If you select Transparency, it's
automatically going to make it completely
| | 02:32 |
transparent.
I don't want that.
| | 02:34 |
So I'll bring the brightness down just by
clicking and dragging on the slider.
| | 02:38 |
Now this makes it semitransparent.
Let's leave it set around 50%.
| | 02:44 |
Now, let's go ahead and close our material editor.
| | 02:46 |
We have a base layer that we can apply
onto our model.
| | 02:49 |
In order to apply it, we can click and
drag on the material and drop it right in
| | 02:54 |
the viewer.
Or I can drag directly in the Objects
| | 02:57 |
Manager.
Lets go ahead and, and let go.
| | 03:00 |
And you'll notice the materials been
applied, and i can see it in the Objects
| | 03:04 |
Manager.
If we want to see what the material looks
| | 03:06 |
like, we'll go ahead and load up our
preview just by clicking the Render View
| | 03:09 |
button.
Now I can see that it's transparent.
| | 03:12 |
And I can see some of the Specular
highlights on our model.
| | 03:15 |
Now, even though we have Specular
highlights on the model, this is our
| | 03:19 |
default light inside of Cinema.
Obviously, when you go to export your
| | 03:23 |
models, or finish your textures, you want
to make sure to light the scene.
| | 03:28 |
Lighting will drastically change the
quality and appearance of your materials.
| | 03:32 |
Now, just so we can focus solely on
materials, we're not going to jump into
| | 03:36 |
working with any other light right now
except the default light.
| | 03:39 |
Now, we've created one base material, but
what if you want to create some other
| | 03:43 |
materials?
Well, there are a number of presets that
| | 03:46 |
are excellent and they're built into
Cinema 4D Lite.
| | 03:49 |
Let's go up under the Window menu, and
choose content browser.
| | 03:52 |
In here, I have a bunch of presets.
Let's look in the Light presets just by
| | 03:57 |
clicking on them.
Let's open up the options for the Light
| | 04:00 |
and then go to the Material section.
Materials are divided up according to
| | 04:04 |
classifications.
Let's close the content browser and see
| | 04:29 |
what's going on.
Down here, our material manager we have
| | 04:33 |
our base material.
Let's click and drag on that and drop it
| | 04:38 |
directly onto our model.
When we let go, it doesn't look like much
| | 04:42 |
has changed, but if we go ahead and load
up a preview here, you can see, it looks
| | 04:46 |
different.
What's happening, we're blending two
| | 04:48 |
textures.
And there's an order to the way the
| | 04:51 |
textures are applied.
Should you decide you want to delete a
| | 04:54 |
texture, go ahead and click on the texture
in the object manager, and then press
| | 04:58 |
delete.
Now when I go ahead and render the view,
| | 05:01 |
you can definitely see this looks a lot
more like glass.
| | 05:04 |
Now what if I want to add a little bit of
a highlight to the edge of my model?
| | 05:08 |
There's some hidden selection tools.
Where you can select individual areas of
| | 05:12 |
your model to apply the texture.
Lets rename our base texture by double
| | 05:16 |
clicking on the name.
Lets call this highlight.
| | 05:20 |
Now let's click and drag the highlit
material and apply it to our model.
| | 05:24 |
With it applied, notice there's a
selection area in the attributes manager.
| | 05:29 |
When you click in the selection area, I
want you to type r1.
| | 05:34 |
Let's click out of the selection area to
apply that selection.
| | 05:38 |
Now when we load up a preview, you can see
I have a highlight around the edge, and
| | 05:42 |
it's only applied to the rounded part of
the model.
| | 05:45 |
You can add all kinds of different
textures to your models this way.
| | 05:48 |
Let's model the face.
I'm going to hold down the Cmd key and
| | 05:52 |
click and drag on my glass texture.
If you drag to the right, when we let go
| | 05:57 |
it will be all the way to the right.
I'm going to double-click on this, and
| | 06:00 |
we'll call this face.
Now just so the texture's a little
| | 06:03 |
different than the one that's applied to
the body of the model, let's make a change
| | 06:07 |
to the materials section in the attribute editor.
| | 06:09 |
Let's change the color.
By default, it's set to this white color.
| | 06:15 |
We click on it, let's go ahead and choose
this kind of teal light green blue color.
| | 06:20 |
You won't notice much of a difference
because the brightness is at 20% so let's
| | 06:24 |
go ahead and increase the brightness of
our color texture.
| | 06:28 |
Okay, now it's started to blend in and
we've got a little bit of a change.
| | 06:32 |
So let's click and drag and go to apply
the face to our logo in the objects
| | 06:36 |
manager.
When I let go, again we have the selection
| | 06:39 |
tag.
This time instead of tying R one I want
| | 06:43 |
you to type C one.
I know you're probably thinking to
| | 06:47 |
yourself, how am I going to remember these
different selection tags?
| | 06:50 |
Well I've included some of the basic
selection codes with my downloadable PDF,
| | 06:54 |
with some other different shortcuts for
After Effects.
| | 06:56 |
So you can definitely use that as a reference.
| | 06:59 |
Now let's preview what our model looks
like, by clicking our Render View.
| | 07:04 |
If we rotate around the scene, we can get
a slightly different angle and as you see
| | 07:08 |
that we have a different face from the
body and a different highlight.
| | 07:12 |
Obviously it's not pretty, but I hope you
have a quick understanding as to how you
| | 07:16 |
can create materials and apply those
materials to your new objects.
| | 07:21 |
I leave you by encouraging you to go back
to the content browser and browse through
| | 07:25 |
all the different materials, because
different materials have different setting
| | 07:29 |
options and they're all there for you to
explore.
| | 07:31 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Lighting your scene| 00:00 |
Adding lights to your Cinema 4D project
will certainly add more dimensions to your
| | 00:04 |
models.
Now they tend to work hand in hand with
| | 00:07 |
texture, so a lot of times when I light
scenes I end up going back and making
| | 00:11 |
adjustments to my texture.
Now in this video, we're going to focus
| | 00:14 |
specifically on lighting this glassy H
plus logo.
| | 00:18 |
And to do that, we need to be in Cinema.
So let's make sure we have the
| | 00:22 |
Lighting.c4d file selected in the Project
panel and press Cmd + E or Ctrl + E on
| | 00:28 |
Windows to edit the original file.
Once in Cinema, you'll notice that we have
| | 00:32 |
two models.
We have our bars et cetera and then we
| | 00:36 |
have our h+ logo.
I'm going to focus specifically on the h+
| | 00:40 |
logo for now.
If you look at the materials that are
| | 00:43 |
applied in the scene, let's double-click
on the middle material.
| | 00:46 |
With our Material Editor open, notice we
have a color channel, transparency,
| | 00:51 |
reflection and specular.
All of those things are going to be
| | 00:54 |
affected by the lights that we add to our scene.
| | 00:57 |
Let's go ahead and close the Material
Editor and to create a light in the scene,
| | 01:01 |
let's go up to our Creation tools at the
top of the interface and the rightmost
| | 01:05 |
tool here is the Light tool.
Go ahead and click and hold on that and
| | 01:09 |
you can see the different kinds of lights
that we can create.
| | 01:12 |
Now in this video, we're going to use the
spotlight and a traditional omnilight.
| | 01:16 |
So let's start with a spotlight.
Once we've added the spotlight to the
| | 01:20 |
scene, let's move our mouse over the
Perspective window and then middle click
| | 01:24 |
to open up all four views.
I can already tell that I want to make the
| | 01:28 |
angle of my spotlight larger.
So I'm just going to go ahead and click
| | 01:31 |
and drag out just to make it a little wider.
| | 01:34 |
Click and drag on the Z axis handle to
reposition this out of the scene a little
| | 01:38 |
bit more.
You'll see me reposition myself in the
| | 01:42 |
different viewers.
Just watch the different tools that I'm
| | 01:45 |
clicking in the upper right corners to
understand where I'm heading.
| | 01:48 |
Now I'm going to right click on the red
access handle to move this kind of offset
| | 01:53 |
because I don't like lights to generally
be perfectly perpendicular to the models.
| | 01:58 |
Now let's move our light up higher a
little bit since most people are used to
| | 02:02 |
seeing things lit from above.
Like, I don't know, lit by the sun or a
| | 02:06 |
streetlight.
Let's go ahead and rotate our light.
| | 02:09 |
I'm going to grab my rotation tool.
You can press R on your keyboard.
| | 02:13 |
Once you see the control bands, let's go
ahead and hover over this red axis handle
| | 02:17 |
and click and drag.
This'll allow us to rotate just on the X
| | 02:22 |
axis.
Just so the light's highlighting the
| | 02:24 |
bottle in the right way, let's click and
drag on the other axis ban, the Y axis
| | 02:31 |
band.
Now we have our spotlight pointed at our
| | 02:33 |
scene.
If we click in the middle portion of our
| | 02:36 |
spotlight, we can control Exactly how far
that light is being thrown.
| | 02:41 |
Now we'll just go and leave it the way
it's set right now, and go back to our
| | 02:45 |
perspective view.
As you're working, you'll probably want to
| | 02:48 |
render your scene.
So you'll see me come up and click this
| | 02:50 |
Render button.
That will go ahead and show me that even
| | 02:53 |
with one light I've drastically changed
the look of model.
| | 02:57 |
Now, most of the time, when you're
lighting an object.
| | 02:59 |
You'll want to use a traditional three
point light setup.
| | 03:02 |
And the way that works, the light that we
just set up here is our main light.
| | 03:06 |
That's going to light the overall scene.
Then we want to have a back light that's
| | 03:10 |
behind the model.
And then we want to have another light, or
| | 03:13 |
the rim light, that's going to be off at
the side, and slightly more dim.
| | 03:17 |
So lets create a backlight.
We'll go back up to our light creation
| | 03:21 |
tools and just choose the normal one named Light.
| | 03:25 |
This is also known as an omni light.
If we look at the light options in the
| | 03:28 |
attribute panel, you can see it's called
omni light.
| | 03:31 |
Each set of lights has different parameters.
| | 03:34 |
We could make adjustments to the shadows.
We can have them be soft or hard edge
| | 03:39 |
lights or area lights where they simulate
the real world.
| | 03:43 |
You can decide whether or not you want the
light to actually render in the scene.
| | 03:47 |
For example, if I chose Volumetric Light
and then went ahead and rendered the
| | 03:51 |
scene.
Now you can that light actually rendering
| | 03:55 |
in the scene.
Inverse volumetric gives you another look.
| | 03:58 |
If we go ahead and click on that you can
see inverse volumetric creates these kind
| | 04:02 |
of cool shadows, so that's neat and
drastic, but not quite what I'm looking
| | 04:07 |
for.
So, let's go ahead and just change that
| | 04:09 |
back to none, and re-position our light
back towards the back of our scene.
| | 04:13 |
With Light 1 selected in the Objects
panel, let's make sure we have the Move
| | 04:18 |
tool selected.
You can press E on your keyboard to grab
| | 04:21 |
the Move tool.
Now, just so I can see where I'm moving
| | 04:25 |
it, I'm going to middle Mouse click again
to bring up all four windows.
| | 04:28 |
I'll just click and drag in the top view here.
| | 04:32 |
On the control handle to position our
light towards the back of the scene.
| | 04:36 |
Notice I'm not positioning it directly
behind the model.
| | 04:40 |
This is by design because it'll tend to
catch more of the geometry if it's not
| | 04:45 |
directly perpendicular to what's going on.
Now, typically, a back light is a little
| | 04:50 |
more dim than a traditional front light,
so let's go ahead and click right here on
| | 04:54 |
the main light and decrease the intensity
by clicking and dragging.
| | 04:59 |
Now, just to see what we're looking at,
let's go to our perspective view and
| | 05:02 |
render the scene one more time.
Now, it's definitely got a lot more gloss
| | 05:06 |
to the look.
If you want to compare the two looks, you
| | 05:09 |
can just disable the light by clicking the
green check box and then going ahead and
| | 05:14 |
rendering the scene again.
So I like it with the back light.
| | 05:17 |
So we'll enable that and re-render one
more time.
| | 05:21 |
Now we have to add our third light.
And for that we'll create a rim light.
| | 05:25 |
Now rather than having to go create yet
another light, all we need to do is hold
| | 05:29 |
down the command key on the Mac, control
on Windows, and then click and drag on our
| | 05:33 |
light one.
Let's drag up, making sure that we have an
| | 05:37 |
arrow that points to the left.
This'll create yet another light.
| | 05:40 |
Now since everything is named light, let's
go ahead and rename everything.
| | 05:43 |
Let's call light two our rim light, and
light one will be called our back light.
| | 05:50 |
I'm just double clicking and then pressing
enter and for this one, we'll just go
| | 05:54 |
ahead and call this main for main light.
Alright, so the rim light, let's go ahead
| | 05:59 |
and click on the rim light and re-position
it in the scene in front of our logo.
| | 06:04 |
Now I'm repositioning in the perspective
view, because I'm a little used to working
| | 06:08 |
in perspective view.
But it's always wise to just jump up into
| | 06:12 |
four up view just to make sure that your
light is exactly where you're expecting it
| | 06:18 |
to be.
Now I want to make sure this light is a
| | 06:19 |
little low in the scene, and I'm just
trying to get it relatively close to the
| | 06:23 |
object so that it catches Just the edge.
So let's go back to our Perspective view.
| | 06:29 |
And before we render this scene, let's
change the color of our rim light.
| | 06:33 |
I'm going to click in the white option for
the color in the attribute manager, and
| | 06:37 |
crank the colors around to this blue-teal color.
| | 06:41 |
Then when I click OK that's going to add a
slight tint to the scene.
| | 06:45 |
Now the intensity is set at 59, I think
that's okay, but let's render this scene
| | 06:49 |
and double check.
Now you can see with the rim light I've
| | 06:53 |
got these kind of cool colored highlights
that are popping up on the left side of
| | 06:57 |
the word sport.
I think this color is a little intense so
| | 07:00 |
I'm just going to go ahead and change it a
little more towards light and make it not
| | 07:04 |
quite as saturated.
Then when we click OK.
| | 07:07 |
We can go ahead and re-render the scene
and, yeah.
| | 07:09 |
Now, I'm getting those same highlights.
But they're not quite as electric blue.
| | 07:13 |
So when it comes to adding lights into
your scene.
| | 07:16 |
You can see that it's definitely creating
a lot more dimension.
| | 07:19 |
.And changing how the materials look for
your models.
| | 07:23 |
Just remember to take your time, and go
through the different options.
| | 07:26 |
Making sure to re-render the scene.
Last little tip.
| | 07:29 |
If you ever want to go ahead and adjust
lights as you're seeing changes being
| | 07:34 |
made.
Click on this middle button for the render
| | 07:37 |
region.
With Render Region, you can draw a box
| | 07:41 |
over the canvas, and it'll just render
that one specific area.
| | 07:45 |
To show you what I mean, I'll go ahead and
just click in my Object panel and then go
| | 07:49 |
back up under Render Region, and click and drag.
| | 07:53 |
Now if I make adjustments to these
different lights, those adjustments will
| | 07:57 |
update in the scene.
And we don't always have to come back and
| | 08:00 |
click the re render button, or the render
view button.
| | 08:03 |
I generally like using Render View, just
so I can see the entire scene.
| | 08:07 |
But obviously, if you've got a large
model, using render region can definitely
| | 08:11 |
help speed up your workflow.
| | 08:14 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Looking at detailed materials| 00:00 |
The process for creating detailed
materials in Cinema 4D can get rather
| | 00:04 |
deep.
So when you're first starting, I recommend
| | 00:07 |
that you use some of the presets.
That way you can look at the presets and
| | 00:11 |
try and reverse engineer how they were built.
| | 00:13 |
Let's open C4D by selecting the
Detailed.c4d file in our Project panel.
| | 00:19 |
Then you can press Command+E or Control+E
to edit the original.
| | 00:24 |
Once you're in C4D, let's look at some of
the material presets that we could apply
| | 00:28 |
to our logo.
I'm going to go up under the window menu
| | 00:31 |
and choose content browser.
Now there are all kinds of presets in here
| | 00:36 |
and it'll always remember exactly the last
folder that you were in every time you
| | 00:40 |
open it.
So I'm just going to back out, and start
| | 00:42 |
from the preset section.
In the light folder, we have many
| | 00:46 |
different kinds of presets.
So lets look at materials.
| | 00:49 |
Materials of course are divided up into
more subsections.
| | 00:53 |
So if you click through some of the
different folders, you'll see different
| | 00:58 |
materials.
Now if you want to see the materials in
| | 01:01 |
more detail, click and drag on the slider
to make the materials a little larger in
| | 01:06 |
your view.
Now I want to go to the Ice and Snow
| | 01:09 |
section.
As we scroll through here, notice we have
| | 01:12 |
a couple different detail textures.
I want to choose the snow and ice texture.
| | 01:17 |
So any of these presets, you can easily
add to your projects by double-clicking.
| | 01:22 |
So lets double-click on snow and ice.
Now I can just close the content browser.
| | 01:27 |
To apply a preset, just drag it and drop
it to whatever model you'd like to apply
| | 01:31 |
it to.
Now, most materials typically look better
| | 01:34 |
when there are lights in the scene, so I'm
just going to add one light by clicking
| | 01:38 |
the add light button here.
I'll move the light up and then back
| | 01:42 |
slightly.
Now if we render the scene here you can
| | 01:46 |
see I've got a ton of cool texture.
Let's zoom in by holding down Alt on
| | 01:51 |
Windows or Option on the Mac, and then
right-clicking and dragging to get a
| | 01:55 |
closer view of our material.
If I got to render this, see how I'm
| | 01:59 |
getting all these bumps in the material?
That was created by using some different
| | 02:04 |
effects generated from inside the material.
| | 02:07 |
I'm going to go down to my material
manager and double-click.
| | 02:12 |
This will open the material editor.
Whenever I'm reverse engineering the
| | 02:16 |
material I first look at the different
channels used to create that material so
| | 02:21 |
we can see we have a color channel and a
bump channel and environment and specular.
| | 02:28 |
Now, there's something constant between
all of these.
| | 02:31 |
And it's this kind of textured thumbnail.
Any time you're in any specific channel,
| | 02:38 |
inside of the material editor, you'll see
this texture area with a button.
| | 02:43 |
Now, I want to go to the color section and
see the texture area that we have defined
| | 02:48 |
here.
If you click on the Flyout, we can choose
| | 02:52 |
different things to load.
Now, I'm going to click off that pullout,
| | 02:55 |
because I already know that something's loaded.
| | 02:58 |
It's the Layer option.
So if we go ahead and click on Layer,
| | 03:01 |
notice I've got a bunch of layers that
were used to create detail in this
| | 03:05 |
texture.
Now, I'm not expecting you to know how to
| | 03:08 |
add all of these different elements.
I just want to explore some of the
| | 03:12 |
different settings.
And then we'll build our own texture with
| | 03:15 |
another material.
So if you go to the noise section here,
| | 03:18 |
click once on the little thumbnail next to
the hard light pulldown.
| | 03:22 |
That'll open up your shader.
Now, this shader was used to create the
| | 03:26 |
noise.
If you go to the noise section here, I can
| | 03:29 |
click on the pulldown.
And all these different options are
| | 03:33 |
different kinds of noise.
They create different patterns.
| | 03:37 |
In order to go back in the material
editor, we'll go up the upper right corner
| | 03:41 |
and click this back arrow.
That'll take me back to my layers.
| | 03:44 |
The easiest way to think of layers is
think of them like a Photoshop document.
| | 03:49 |
We've got multiple layers that created
this texture.
| | 03:52 |
And we have different blend modes, just
like the ones you're familiar with in
| | 03:56 |
Photoshop and the Transparency options.
Again, just like the ones you're familiar
| | 04:01 |
with in Photoshop.
The difference is each of these different
| | 04:05 |
things like the noise section, these were
all generated locally inside the materials
| | 04:10 |
editor.
So enough talking.
| | 04:12 |
Let's go ahead and create our own material.
| | 04:14 |
I'm going to close this material editor
and go to Create > New Material.
| | 04:19 |
Now let's double-click our material to
load our Material Editor.
| | 04:24 |
Now, in the Color section here, I'm
going to click on my texture flyout and go
| | 04:28 |
right down to Layer.
By default, there's nothing in the layers,
| | 04:33 |
so let's click on the layer to open up our
Layer Editor.
| | 04:37 |
Now, in here we have different buttons we
can use to load different things.
| | 04:42 |
The first button will allow you to load
external files, like JPEGs or Photoshop
| | 04:47 |
documents or what have you.
The next button here, is the one that
| | 04:50 |
we're going to use.
The Shader button.
| | 04:52 |
Go ahead and click on that.
We have a number of different affects we
| | 04:55 |
can choose.
I want to go to the Noise affect.
| | 04:59 |
So, when we choose Noise, it's
automatically going to get loaded as my
| | 05:02 |
top layer.
And the default noise has been applied.
| | 05:05 |
Let's click on the thumbnail once to load
the different options.
| | 05:10 |
Now just like in the preset material,
we'll click on the pull-down for the
| | 05:14 |
noise.
Let's choose a different setting.
| | 05:17 |
I'm going to choose this gaseous setting.
See how it creates a different texture?
| | 05:21 |
Now obviously, there are a number of
different options to change in this
| | 05:24 |
texture.
I'm not going in to each individual one,
| | 05:27 |
let's just look at a couple.
Let's start with the global scale.
| | 05:31 |
If I click and drag up here, I can create
the scale at a much higher level.
| | 05:37 |
This generally has kind of smooth out my texture.
| | 05:39 |
Now some of these other options like speed
will allow you to animate this texture, so
| | 05:45 |
when it's applied It'll look like it's
flowing over top of the object it's been
| | 05:49 |
applied to.
Let's jump back to our layer options here
| | 05:52 |
by clicking the back arrow.
I want to add another shader over top of
| | 05:57 |
my noise.
So let's click under Shader and this time
| | 06:00 |
we'll add a color.
So if we click on the thumbnail to open up
| | 06:03 |
the colors, let's go ahead and click on it
and add a red color.
| | 06:07 |
Now when I click okay it doesn't look like
anything's happened.
| | 06:12 |
Well we need to go back to our layer
options here and blend it in.
| | 06:16 |
So let's change our blend mode from normal
to soft light.
| | 06:19 |
And then we can change the transparency
down just to blend it a little bit less.
| | 06:25 |
Okay.
I'm going to leave it at about 50%.
| | 06:28 |
The color is one way of creating detailed texture.
| | 06:31 |
But our other texture had a bump map.
Let's take what we just created and apply
| | 06:37 |
it to the bump map.
Inside of the material editor, you can
| | 06:41 |
click on any of these thumbnails.
And if you start to drag to the different
| | 06:45 |
channels, it'll move that texture to that channel.
| | 06:49 |
So once the bump options have opened, I'm
still holding my mouse down.
| | 06:52 |
I can hover over top of this section in
the texture area.
| | 06:56 |
And when I let go, it's automatically
going to add that layer into the texture.
| | 07:00 |
Now the bump channel hasn't been activated
to we need to go ahead and select that to
| | 07:05 |
activate it.
Now the bump channel on black and white
| | 07:09 |
data, so I'm going to edit the layers just
for this channel.
| | 07:12 |
I'm going to click on edit and turn off
the color, lets turn the opacity all the
| | 07:17 |
way down and click the eyeball there.
So now that its black and white I'm
| | 07:21 |
getting a little more detail in my bumps.
To see our results, let's close our
| | 07:26 |
Material Editor.
I'm going to click and drag my material
| | 07:29 |
and place it onto my model.
Now, I'll go over to my object panel and
| | 07:35 |
select the original preset, and just
delete it.
| | 07:38 |
So now we can go ahead and render the scene.
| | 07:40 |
And as you can see we've create our own
rather detailed texture.
| | 07:44 |
And all that was made possible by starting
with a preset and just doing a little bit
| | 07:49 |
of detective work.
| | 07:50 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Animating in CINEMA 4D Lite| 00:00 |
Now, of course, as an After Effects
artist, I'm sure you'll want to go ahead
| | 00:03 |
and create some animations inside of
Cinema 4D.
| | 00:07 |
Well, you're in luck, we're definitely
going to do that in this video.
| | 00:10 |
So to get started, let's make sure we have
the Animation.c4d project selected in the
| | 00:15 |
Project panel.
Then press Cmd+E or Ctrl+E on Windows to
| | 00:19 |
Edit the original file.
Let's start by looking at the Objects
| | 00:23 |
panel.
We have a bars object and our h + logo.
| | 00:28 |
We'll animate both of these.
To start, let's select the bar object.
| | 00:34 |
Now, just like in After Effects, the
anchor point of any Layer is very
| | 00:37 |
important, so I'd like these bars to
actually swoop into the scene.
| | 00:43 |
So, I'm going to switch views, and middle
mouse click over to my top view.
| | 00:47 |
Now, in my top view, what I want to do is
change the anchor point of these curved
| | 00:53 |
lines.
In order to do that, I need to Enable the
| | 00:56 |
Access Modification, by Clicking this tool
on the left side of the interface.
| | 01:00 |
Once that's Enabled, I can Click on the
axis and move the axis, so we can start
| | 01:07 |
creating animation with these lines.
As I position this, I'm trying to position
| | 01:12 |
it as though I was in the center of the
circle, as if the curved lines were
| | 01:16 |
continuing to create a full circle.
So I'm going to position it kind of far
| | 01:20 |
over here.
There we go.
| | 01:24 |
When you're finished placing your axis, go
ahead and just toggle that button one more
| | 01:28 |
time, to deactivate the placement.
Now we can switch to the Rotation tool.
| | 01:33 |
With the Rotation tool selected, now I can
Click on one of these bands for the
| | 01:37 |
rotation, and notice I'm rotating our
object into the scene.
| | 01:42 |
Now, I didn't quite position myself out
far enough, but I think you can see how
| | 01:47 |
adjusting the anchor point, gives you this
extra level of control for the animation.
| | 01:51 |
So let's go ahead and animate the rotation
of these lines.
| | 01:56 |
Make sure you have the Bars, et cetera,
Null Object selected, then go to the
| | 02:01 |
coordinates.
Notice as I'm Clicking and Dragging on
| | 02:04 |
this axis handle, I'm adjusting the
Heading Setting.
| | 02:06 |
So let's add a key frame for that setting.
If you hold down the Cmd key on Mac, Ctrl
| | 02:13 |
on Windows, and then Click on the little
circle here, that'll create our first key
| | 02:19 |
frame.
Think of this like the stopwatch, in After
| | 02:22 |
Effects.
Now let's move down the Timeline.
| | 02:25 |
We can move to frame 24.
Let's adjust our rotation so our lines
| | 02:29 |
rotate out of the scene.
I just Click and Drag on the up and down
| | 02:33 |
arrows for the heading.
Now this orange circle's letting me know
| | 02:36 |
that I have a key frame somewhere in the
Timeline, but I'm not currently on that.
| | 02:41 |
And the value that I've just changed the
setting to, is different from that key
| | 02:44 |
frame.
But I haven't set a keyframe yet, so go
| | 02:47 |
ahead and hold down Cmd, or Ctrl on
Windows, to create a second keyframe.
| | 02:53 |
Now that we have more than one keyframe, I
can scrub the Timeline and you can see
| | 02:57 |
we've created our first part of our animation.
| | 03:01 |
If you want to preview the animation,
let's middle mouse click back over into
| | 03:04 |
our Perspective View, and just push the
Play button.
| | 03:08 |
So there we go.
It's just flipped right out of the scene.
| | 03:11 |
I think that looks good for now, so I'm
going to Stop playback.
| | 03:14 |
If I wanted to speed this up or slow it
down, I can click here in the Midi
| | 03:18 |
Timeline and move my key frame closer or
further away from my previous one.
| | 03:24 |
Now let's animate our h + logo.
With h + logo selected, lets go to the
| | 03:30 |
Object section.
In here, I have an option for movement.
| | 03:34 |
So lets extrude this by Clicking and
Dragging on the double arrows.
| | 03:39 |
Lets Drag it up so the extrusion is
extraordinarily large.
| | 03:43 |
Now, I'll go ahead and add a keyframe by
pressing Cmd and Clicking.
| | 03:48 |
Move your current Time Indicator down the Timeline.
| | 03:50 |
I'm going to move mine to around frame 40.
And we can go ahead and change this
| | 03:55 |
Extrusion Value, way, way down.
Let's bring it down to something
| | 03:59 |
relatively short, like 24.
Now we can go ahead and keyframe that by
| | 04:04 |
pressing the Cmd key.
Let's Preview, what we've created.
| | 04:09 |
We've got our lines that come in, and then
our logo that slides across.
| | 04:13 |
Now I want to change the timing of these
animations, so I'll go ahead and Stop
| | 04:18 |
playback here.
Now as I Preview this, I want to make some
| | 04:21 |
changes to the animation.
Let's go up under the Window menu.
| | 04:25 |
In here, we can go under our Customization
Section, and go to the Layouts, and choose
| | 04:29 |
Animation.
Notice, under Customization, I could Save
| | 04:32 |
Custom Layouts as well.
If I'd moved the interface around, I could
| | 04:36 |
do that.
Now I'm going to go ahead and Click on the
| | 04:39 |
Animation.
Just so you know, we can make adjustments
| | 04:42 |
to the Layouts by Clicking the pull down
here in the upper-right corner, just like
| | 04:46 |
the workspaces in the Adobe applications.
All right.
| | 04:49 |
Now we have a full fledged Timeline in our
scene, and we can move our current Time
| | 04:54 |
Indicator just by scrubbing.
So let's say I want to change when these
| | 05:00 |
bars move, and I want the logo to actually
start sliding in sooner.
| | 05:04 |
Well, let's Click on the first keyframe
for the logo animation, and just Drag it
| | 05:08 |
towards the left.
Now the extrusion is going to start
| | 05:13 |
closing, as soon as the animation starts.
Now I want to offset the keyframes for the
| | 05:19 |
bars.
So if you click directly on the word, much
| | 05:23 |
like in After Effects, it'll automatically
select all the automated parameters for
| | 05:27 |
those keyframes.
Now I can click in this yellow area, and
| | 05:31 |
Click and Drag and move both of those
keyframes together.
| | 05:34 |
So let's scrub through the Timeline by
grabbing our current Time Indicator, and
| | 05:38 |
as you can see, I've got my lines moving
and my extrusion happening.
| | 05:42 |
Just to time this a little better, I'm
going to Deselect both of those keyframes
| | 05:46 |
by clicking at the bottom of the Timeline,
and I'll just Drag my second keyframe out.
| | 05:51 |
Now we can scrub through the scene.
Now I know I activated that Sliding
| | 05:56 |
feature with the key frames just by
clicking on one parameter, but if you hold
| | 06:01 |
down Shift and click on two, you'll be
able to select both.
| | 06:05 |
Now what's great about this, is I can
slide this down the Timeline and have the
| | 06:09 |
animation start later.
But also I could click on the ends, and
| | 06:14 |
notice I get this four square icon that
pops up.
| | 06:17 |
That's letting me know that I can actually
stretch this animation.
| | 06:21 |
So now, I've stretched the overall
duration to take a little bit longer.
| | 06:26 |
So now it's going to be a slower move.
Let's Preview our animation by pressing
| | 06:30 |
the Play button.
And as you can see, we've definitely
| | 06:33 |
created some animation in Cinema.
So remember, when ever you need to animate
| | 06:38 |
something in Cinema, you want to look for
the little circle icons next to that
| | 06:41 |
parameter, then when you're ready to
animate go ahead and change your Layout to
| | 06:45 |
Animation, and access all the different
ways you can slide your keyframes around
| | 06:50 |
the scene.
| | 06:50 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Animating cameras in CINEMA 4D Lite| 00:00 |
There are a lot of similarities between
animating cameras in After Effects and
| | 00:04 |
animating cameras in Cinema 4D.
And we'll definitely uncover a lot of
| | 00:09 |
those similarities as we go through the
rest of this video.
| | 00:11 |
So to get started let's select our
Cameras.c4d file in our Project panel and
| | 00:16 |
press Cmd+E or Ctrl+E on Windows to edit
the original file.
| | 00:20 |
If we look in the original timeline Cinema
4D, we can click and drag through and
| | 00:25 |
notice that we have some animation in the scene.
| | 00:27 |
Our 3D log has been animated, so now I
just want to add a camera move rotating
| | 00:34 |
around the logo.
If you go to the creation tools in the
| | 00:36 |
upper right corner, notice we have the
light bulb and just to the left is the
| | 00:40 |
camera.
If you click and hold, there are 3
| | 00:42 |
different types of cameras.
We'll focus on the first two.
| | 00:46 |
To draw a parallel to After Effects, the
first camera is the same as a single node
| | 00:51 |
camera and a Target Camera is like a
two-node camera.
| | 00:55 |
Let's go ahead and choose the Target Camera.
| | 00:57 |
Now once you add a Target Camera to the
scene, you're still not looking through
| | 01:01 |
the view of that camera.
If I orbit around in my scene here, you'll
| | 01:05 |
notice that I see this box and a couple of lines.
| | 01:09 |
So let me zoom out and here you can
clearly see my camera.
| | 01:13 |
Now I could easily reposition the camera
in the scene by clicking on the different
| | 01:17 |
control handles and moving it around.
Notice it's always going to be pointed at
| | 01:21 |
the origin because that's where my camera
target is set up.
| | 01:26 |
If we select the camera target, I can
click on that and drag it to different
| | 01:30 |
places.
And then of course that changes what the
| | 01:32 |
camera's looking at.
So let's make sure we position the camera
| | 01:36 |
target towards the middle of our logo.
Now in order to be able to see what the
| | 01:40 |
camera is seeing, we need to activate the camera.
| | 01:43 |
If you go up in your objects panel, right
next to this target, to the left, there is
| | 01:48 |
a little square.
Go ahead and click on that, and that'll
| | 01:52 |
active the view of this camera.
Now the easiest way I find for moving
| | 01:57 |
cameras around in cinema is to just turn
on automatic key framing and then start
| | 02:01 |
flying around the scene.
To show you what I mean, let's select the
| | 02:05 |
camera layer by clicking it in top of the
objects panel.
| | 02:08 |
Then make sure that you are on the
coordinates channel.
| | 02:11 |
In here, you can see the XYZ values of the position.
| | 02:14 |
So if we go up to our navigation tools in
the upper right corner of our viewer, we
| | 02:18 |
can zoom out and zoom in and preposition
ourselves around the scene and notice all
| | 02:24 |
of this information has been updating.
So I want to do a relatively easy move, so
| | 02:29 |
let's start in the lower corner and zoomed
in on our logo.
| | 02:34 |
There we go.
In order to create animation, we can turn
| | 02:38 |
on our automatic key framing.
Now, before I turn that on, I want to just
| | 02:42 |
move my current time indicator back to the
start frame.
| | 02:46 |
Now we can turn on automatic key frame by
clicking this button with the two arrows
| | 02:50 |
that kind of travel around the outside.
Notice the second automatic key framing is
| | 02:54 |
enabled, we have a red line around our viewer.
| | 02:58 |
Also, the labels for the parameter values
have changed to yellow.
| | 03:01 |
Let's reposition our camera a little bit
in the scene just by zooming out and then
| | 03:06 |
clicking on the Pan Around tool.
This way, I've assured that I've created
| | 03:11 |
some key frames for my first frame.
Now if we move the current time indicator
| | 03:15 |
down the timeline here let's move it to
around frame 130.
| | 03:20 |
Now we can reposition our camera, and once
we reposition the camera, we've then
| | 03:25 |
created an animation with two keyframes.
You can see those keyframes in the
| | 03:30 |
timeline they're very tiny, but it's these
little white check marks.
| | 03:34 |
Now, before we preview the animation, I'm
going to make sure to turn off automatic
| | 03:38 |
keyframing, so I don't accidentally add
any more keyframes.
| | 03:42 |
Let's move the playhead back to the start,
and then click the play button to preview
| | 03:47 |
our animation.
So this is exactly what I was looking for.
| | 03:53 |
I'm pretty much done with the animation
phase of cameras.
| | 03:56 |
Let's just stop playback here for a second.
| | 03:58 |
There are some other similarities with
After Effects cameras.
| | 04:02 |
Make sure you have the camera selected in
the top of your object panel.
| | 04:06 |
And then go down to the objects channel.
In the object section, here if I make this
| | 04:10 |
panel a little larger you'll notice I have
an option for the focal length and there's
| | 04:15 |
a preset.
If I click on this pull down I have a lot
| | 04:18 |
of similar presets to what we had inside
of After Effects.
| | 04:22 |
Now obviously if I wanted to choose a
different camera I should have chosen this
| | 04:26 |
before we started our animation.
But I wanted you to see exaclty where the
| | 04:30 |
similarities lie with the cameras.
Notice at the bottom we even have options
| | 04:35 |
to set the focus distance for the camera.
Now there's one more channel in the
| | 04:39 |
cameras that we should explore, and that's
the target.
| | 04:43 |
When you click on the Target notice
there's the target object specified and
| | 04:47 |
that's the camera target one.
If we go up to our object panel you can
| | 04:51 |
see that we have a null object with that name.
| | 04:54 |
Now when we click on the camera, just to
activate the camera options again.
| | 04:58 |
I could change this target to look at
anything in the scene.
| | 05:02 |
Now since I have one thing in the scene,
I'll go ahead and just click and drag on
| | 05:06 |
that logo and bring it down into this
target object area.
| | 05:10 |
The second I let go.
The scene will refrain based on this one
| | 05:14 |
object.
Now obviously I don't necessarily want to
| | 05:17 |
do that but I wanted you to see that the
camera target with the two node camera can
| | 05:21 |
be changed to any object in the scene.
Now I'll just press Cmd+Z on my Mac to
| | 05:26 |
undo that latest command.
Now to bring the camera move and the model
| | 05:30 |
and everything back into After Effects all
we have to do is save our projects.
| | 05:34 |
And of course in After Effects side
there's some other little things we can do
| | 05:38 |
to extract information from the Cinema projects.
| | 05:40 |
But we're going to do that a little bit
later in the chapter.
| | 05:43 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Working with CINEWARE| 00:00 |
Cineware controls the pipeline of data
between Cinema 4D Lite and After Effects.
| | 00:06 |
Now there are a number of settings within
Cineware that you can adjust to control
| | 00:11 |
just how much data or how little data
you'd like to bring back and forth.
| | 00:15 |
Let's select layer one and go to our
effects controls and look at some of these
| | 00:20 |
different options.
The first thing you should not are the
| | 00:23 |
render settings.
Notice there's a renderer.
| | 00:26 |
By default, it's set to software.
This is the lowest resolution
| | 00:30 |
representation as to what's going on in
the scene within cinema, so if you scrub
| | 00:35 |
through your timeline, notice we do have
some animation.
| | 00:40 |
And, that animation is being represented
by a software rendering of the actual
| | 00:46 |
model.
If we want to go ahead and render this,
| | 00:48 |
this wouldn't be very high quality at all.
So, there are two other options, there's
| | 00:54 |
standard draft and then there's standard final.
| | 00:56 |
Let's choose standard final.
Standard Final is going to give me my
| | 01:01 |
final high-resolution output quality.
Now, I'm still not quite seeing the full
| | 01:06 |
resolution because I'm at 50%
magnification, so let's change that up to
| | 01:10 |
100.
Now you can see the edges and everything
| | 01:14 |
that is going to be output for my model.
This renderer does tie directly to the
| | 01:19 |
render settings inside of Cinema.
So, these are the default settings from a
| | 01:24 |
typical Cinema 4D project.
To speed up your workflow you can turn on
| | 01:30 |
keep textures in RAM.
Just understand when you do that, any
| | 01:33 |
textures that you had added in Cinema are
going to get processed, and then added
| | 01:39 |
into your cache.
So every once in a while, if things aren't
| | 01:43 |
refreshing the way that you're expecting
You may need to go up under the Edit menu
| | 01:47 |
and go to Purge and just purge your image
cache memory or sometimes all memory in
| | 01:53 |
this cache.
Now let's go ahead and skip down all the
| | 01:56 |
way to the bottom of our Cineware options.
Notice there's a button called Extract.
| |
|
|
