After Effects Weekly

- [Eran] Hey, everyone, Eran Stern here with another After Effects weekly tip. And in this video, I'll show you how to create this bouncy animation using, mainly, the Graph Editor inside After Effects. So, we are going to start here inside Photoshop. This is the design that I've prepared. And I want to take this, simplify it a bit, and import it into After Effects. So, because I want to keep all those multiple FX or layer styles inside this document, I'm just going to select this layer, which only has two, and I'm going to delete it.

And because I don't want to mess, this time, with any of the mask qualities, like I've showed you in the previous tip, I'm going to right-click on this layer and convert it here inside Photoshop to a smart object. And this is going to manifest inside After Effects as a plain, pixel-based layer. And I'm going to save on top of my original design. Then let's switch back to After Effects. And then, I'm going to use, actually, one of the two big buttons that we are seeing over here for creating a composition from this footage.

So in this case, the right button. I'm going to navigate to the document that I've just saved. And the next step is very important if you don't want After Effects to duplicate and create a comp within a comp, you must tell it how you want to import this file over here in this menu. So I'm going to change it from Footage to Composition, Retain Layer Sizes. And this way, each one of the layers is going to be cropped to the minimum dimensions inside After Effects.

I'm going to say Open over here and this is already being set for me in this dialog. And in this case, since I've dismissed the layer-styles option inside the Photoshop document, it doesn't really matter which one of the radio buttons I'm going to choose. So I'm going to say OK and After Effects generously created a comp for me using the same dimensions from the footage. If I'm going to double-click on it, we can see that everything looks exactly like it was inside Photoshop. In order to do some house cleaning, as before, I'm going to go to the View menu and clear the Photoshop guides.

I can always call those grids from After Effects. And a shortcut for this, if you're going to hold down the Alt key on Windows, Option on Mac, and click once, it's actually going to enable or disable those guides. In any case, I want to start animating this guy, but remember that I do need to check my comp settings. After Effects remembered the last time that I worked on this document and it decided that the Delta here, the duration, is five seconds and the pace is 30 frames per second.

I want to override this. So I'm going to go to the Composition menu and under Composition Settings, I'm going to change it to 25 frames per second for this instance and I'm also going to change the duration to 6., which is going to yield six seconds and zero frames. Now I'm going to say OK and I'm going to zoom out so we can see that we need to extend the duration of all the layers here. And since those are just still layers, I can go to the end of my comp, select everything by going to the Edit menu and choosing Select All, or you can press Command A, of course, and then hold down the Alt key on Windows, Option on Mac and press on the closing right bracket in order to extend those layers until the end of the comp.

Okay, now let's go to the beginning. I'm going to press F2 or Command Shift A. This is going to deselect all the layers, which is going to be Control Shift A, of course, on the Windows side. Anyhow, now we are ready to start the animation. So I'm going to select this Panic Guy figure and before I'm going to start to animate it, I want to change the anchor Point, where the animation is going to take place. So I'm going to switch to the Anchor Point tool or the Pan-Behind tool, and then I'm going to start to drag it.

Now, I want to make sure that it will snap to the edge of the comp. So while dragging, I'm going to add the Control P on the PC or Command on the Mac, and this is going to snap to the edge of the comp in this case. Alright, now I'm going to select this guy, press P in order to show the position properties, and I'm going to move 10 frames forward by pressing Shift Page Down and then create a keyframe at this place. Now let's go to the beginning and only modify the y-axis so this character will be outside of the frame.

Now, if you want to move this value more quickly, you can also add the Shift key and this will multiply your mouse movement by a factor of ten. Anyhow, this looks quite nice. I'm going to select the Word Position, which is going to highlight both keyframes. I'm also going to switch back to the Selection tool and then I'm going to copy those keyframes to memory by pressing Command or Control C. And then I'm going to move 20 frames into the future. Then I'm going to paste those two keyframes.

And then I'm going to repeat this step four times more. So at the end, I should have five copies of this movement. I'm going to return to the beginning once again. Select the Word Position and press F9 on the keyboard in order to Easy Ease the animation. And if I'm going to press Space Bar, this is what we have. So this is the beginning of the bounciness. Our problem here is that this Biohazard logo, which should stick to this guy's shirt, is not going to follow this movement.

So one way to work is to copy and paste the same set of keyframes, although this is going to present some problems in the future because we'll need to cope with those two values when we want to animate them. So, a better solution is to right-click over here, assuming you can't see the Parent & Link column, like in my case. Make sure to select it and then, I'm going to make sure my cursor is in the correct frame. In my case, ten frames, where they should be married.

And then I'm going to take this Pick Whip and just point it from the Biohazard logo to the Panic Guy. And this should take this layer to the journey and everything should be automatically treated for us. Alright, I'm going to hide a couple of the Piles over here, since I need more room to work. So I'm going to click over here and this will hide my Blending Mode, which I can always return to by toggling this button. But for now, what I like to do is manipulate those keyframes.

And the easiest way to achieve that inside After Effects is by using the Graph Editor. So assuming you have something selected, if I'm going to click on this Graph Editor, it's actually going to show us a representative graph for these keyframes. Now, this can be a little bit intimidating, especially if you are looking at it for the first time. One of the reason is because After Effects usually tend to auto-select the graph type. So in this case, it's actually showing us the Speed Graph, which is not something that I like to modify, at least not at this stage.

So I'm going to switch it to the Value Graph. And now I can see, in green, the y-position and in red, the x-position. Meaning that if I'm going to click on the word Position, once again, I'll get the bounding box, which will allow me to modify both of them. So, if I'm going to just continue working like this, anything that I'm going to do to this graph will effect both axis. So I'm just going to undo the last modification. I'm going to click somewhere outside and then I'm going to right-click on the word Position and I'm going to ask After Effects to separate the dimensions.

This way, I will have two separate graphs. One for the x and one for the y-position. Since I don't want any movement on the x-position, I'm going to select it and then remove the keyframes. I haven't modified anything, so nothing is going to change on screen. And you can see that this is exactly what I'm getting. Now, if I'm going to select, once again, the y-position, since we did this manipulation after we've converted the keyframes to Easy Ease, we lost this interpolation. But it is an easy fix.

All you need to do is click, once again, on the words Y-Position and then from the Graph Editor over here, you can just basically click on the Easy Ease button in order to restore what we have so far. And I want to remind you what we have so far, so I'm just going to play it once again. Now I want to ease the animation over time. So I'm going to drag this last point over here, holding down the Alt key, and this will allow me to actually work on the graph and distort it as much as I want.

I'm also going to add to the mix the Shift key, which is going to constrain it only to the vertical axis in this case. Then I'm just going to move it all the way until I'm basically snapping the last point to the previous one over here, to the top one. And if I'm going to review the animation so far, we can see that we've created a very nice bounce that settles into place. Now I want to actually scale this animation so the bounciness will start from the beginning and end in the end of the composition.

So in order to achieve it, I'm going to deselect everything just by clicking in the gray area over here and reselect the y-position. And I need to actually click it again in order to activate this bounding box. Now, every time you reactivate the bounding box, it is going to start from a new 100%. So this is a relative distortion. Meaning that if I want to add additional distortion, I can once again hold down the Alt key or Option and this will allow me to manipulate it even farther.

Now in this case, I don't want to change the bounciness. I'm going to undo. What I would like to do is just stretch those keyframes so it will settle down at the end of the composition. So, just grab one of the handles. In this case, this middle one, and stretch it all the way until the end of the comp. Now, once again, if I'm going to preview the result, you can see how it is working for us. Now let's say that if you want to also introduce some sort of rotation to this guy.

Remember that we've changed the Anchor Point so we should be able to rotate it, if I'm going to select it and press R. And I'm just going to move it to somewhere over here so I can actually see it in the frame. And since we've moved the Anchor Point, I can also introduce some sort of a rotation animation. So I'm going to start with a positive value of five degrees. I'm going to create a keyframe over here and over the course of one second, I want to change it to a negative value of the same number.

Now, since I wanted to show you how it's going to behave, I'm starting at 18 frames. I'm going to switch back to the regular keyframe view and then take this diamond keyframe and just drag it to the beginning of the comp. And this is just going to make it easier to animate. So I'm going to go to one second and then just type down negative five. And I want to repeat those two keyframes with the maximum flexibility that I can. So, the first step, as you probably guessed, is to select, once again, the word Rotation.

Press on F9 in order to Easy Ease the animation. The second step is to create a very basic expression which will help us to loop the keyframes. So, holding down the Alt on the PC, Option on the Mac and click on the stopwatch will allow you to type in this expression, so loopOut. The O should be a capital letter. And then inside parenthesis and double quotation, write down the word pingpong and close it the same way. So, double quotation and parenthesis and then just click outside.

And if I'm going to review what I've created, we will see that on top of the bounciness, we have some very, very light rotation movement. Now, you can control the pace by just changing the last keyframe here. So if I want these rotations to be a little bit milder and easier, I can stretch it. If I want it to be more tight, I can do this number which, in this case, doesn't really work so nice. So I might as well bring it back to one second.

Now, let's say that we want to copy the animation to the ropes and the sign here, the Oopsy Daisy sign. So, in order to do so, I'm just going to go to the Animation menu and Reveal the Properties with Keyframes, or you can press U on the keyboard. This will show me the y-position. This is what I'm after. This is the thing that I like to copy. So, I'm going to highlight the word Y-Position, copy this information to the clipboard, and then, before I'm going to paste it, I need to create, once again, some sort of a relationship between rope number one, rope number two, and the sign itself because currently, each one of them is a different layer.

So what I'm going to do is basically parent both the sign and rope number one to rope number two. Now, you can go your own way here, it doesn't really matter, but the thing that you want to pay attention to is the Anchor Point. Once you are doing the parenting stuff, you are basically telling those layers to use the Anchor Point of the father, or the parent. So in this case, I want to zoom out. Go back and select the Pan-Behind tool.

And then, just make sure that I'm relocating this Anchor Point to the border of the comp. And once again, I'm holding down the Command or Control key in order to get the snapping option. Now, I can fold down the rope. Also, fold down the transformation for it. And then, I remind you to right-click on the word Position, separate the dimensions, this time, I'm going to do it before pasting the keyframes. Then I'm going to select only the y-position and I'm going to paste the data that I've just copied.

Now, I don't want it to jump or bounce the same way. So this is how it looks currently. Let's just zoom in so you can get a closer look. So in this case, what I'm going to do is just select the last two keyframes and delete them and then, I'm going to go to the beginning and I'm going to stretch this group by selecting everything. And then in order to create the stretch, you can revisit the Graph Editor and repeat the steps that I showed you or you can leave your view like this, hold down the Alt or Option, and then select either the first or last keyframe and just move it to the desired location, which is going to yield the same effect.

Now if I'm going to press, once again, Space Bar in order to preview the result, we can see that they are jumping up and down and then there is some sort of a decay until they are both settling in place. So you can modify this animation anytime you like. If you like, you can also enable Motion Blur for those moving layers. So, in this case, I'm just going to click and hold and then scroll up in order to activate Motion Blur for all of those layers. And then, obviously, I need to turn on the Master Motion Blur switch for the composition itself.

So, this is it. Next time, we'll finish this animation and reveal the text layers that you are seeing here as well as create some melting color effects to the background. So stay tuned for that. But until then, thank you very much for watching this tip and I hope you learn something new. I'll see you again next time.