The animation you have created so far is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. In addition to animating the native properties of layers, you can add additional properties and complexity to any animation by adding and animating effects, and when you want even more control of your animation, you can use tools such as Smoother, Wiggler, and the Graph Editor to enhance your work.
What you’ll learn in this lesson:
• Animating with Effects
• Applying and Modifying Effects Presets
• Saving your own Presets
Starting up
You will work with several files from the ae09lessons folder in this lesson. Make sure that you have loaded the aelessons folder onto your hard drive fromwww.digitalclassroombooks.com/epub/aftereffectscs6. See “Loading lesson files” in the Starting up section of this book.
Setting up
As you work in After Effects you will inevitably open and close many panels, depending on the type of project you are creating. However, when working through the projects in this book, it is important to have an interface that matches the lessons. To this end, you should always reset your workspace to the preset Standard configuration.
1 Choose Window > Workspace > Standard to set your current workspace configuration.
2 Choose Window > Workspace > Reset “Standard” to reset the standard workspace in case you have modified it at some point.
Animating with effects
There is a reason this program is called After Effects. In fact, the number of built-in effects that can be animated is something that new users often find surprising and perhaps a little intimidating. Unlike other programs you may be familiar with, this is not a heavily tool-based application, but it is very reliant on manipulating the properties of these effects. In order to create compelling motion graphics, you need to become comfortable working with the wide range of built-in effects plug-ins that are available to you.
In this lesson, you will animate a layer so that it explodes and blows away like stardust. The project contains a text layer that has been converted to shapes using the Layer > Create Shapes from Text command. This converts a text layer into a vector shape layer; it isn’t necessary to do this for the effects to work but it is useful in a situation like this when you must give a file to someone who may not have the same fonts installed on their computer as you do.
Applying effects to layers
The Effects & Presets panel is a library of accessible effects in the application. Effects are similar to filters in Adobe Photoshop because they allow you to apply special effects such as glows and blurs or add noise or color-correct a layer.
In this section of the lesson, you will apply an effect to an existing layer and edit some of the default properties of the effect.
Depending on the speed of your computer, previews of the Shatter effect can take a considerable amount of time. If you experience a delay while waiting for individual frames to preview when moving the playhead around the Timeline, you may want to change the Resolution/Down Sample factor to Half or Quarter speed. This will accelerate the previewing process.
1 Choose File > Open Project and navigate to the ae09lessons folder. Locate the project named Animating with Effects.aep and double-click it to open the file.
2 In the Effects & Presets panel, type shatter into the search field. When the Shatter effect appears, drag it onto the layer named Up Next in the Timeline. The Shatter effect is a great one to use when you want to explode a layer. It can simulate a wide range of common shatter patterns such as glass or bricks, and with a few adjustments it can produce a variety of different looks.
As a result of applying the effect, the Effect Controls panel appears and the entire layer enters a wireframe display mode. The rendered Shatter effect requires a great deal of processing power to preview on the Timeline, and as a result, it is set to use the wireframe display mode as a default view setting.
In order to speed up the preview, the Shatter effect has a default display mode that only displays a wireframe view of the layer.
3 Move the playhead to the 5 frame (0;00;00;05) mark on the Timeline and in the Effect Controls panel, change the view property pull-down menu to Rendered; this returns the layer’s appearance to normal.
4 The default settings of the Shatter effect resemble bricks that fall toward the bottom of the screen. The first thing you must do is to modify the effect’s properties so that the layer will look more like particles of dust or sand and fly off the side of the screen.
In the Effect Controls panel, click on the reveal triangle to the left of the Shape property group and adjust the settings as follows:
PROPERTY
|
VALUE
|
Pattern
|
Eggs
|
Repetitions
|
200
|
Direction
|
0x+0.0°
|
Extrusion Depth
|
0.0
|
The Shatter effect will automatically animate, so positioning the playhead at frame 5 allows you to see the effect of your adjustments.
These settings will produce particles that look more like sand.
5 Click on the reveal triangle to the left of the Force 1 and Force 2 property groups and adjust their settings to match those below:
FORCE 1
|
FORCE 2
| |||
PROPERTY
|
VALUE
|
PROPERTY
|
VALUE
| |
Position
|
176, 234
|
Position
|
743, 247
| |
Depth
|
0.0
|
Depth
|
0.0
| |
Radius
|
0.0
|
Radius
|
0.0
| |
Strength
|
3.75
|
Strength
|
0.0
| |
When you select the shape layer, a blue outline appears around the text, but when you deselect the layer, the blue outline vanishes.
These settings, specifically the ones for Force 1, will return the layer to the appearance it had before the effect was applied. Later in the lesson you will animate this property group to blow the text away.
6 Click on the reveal triangle to the left of the Physics property group and adjust its settings to match the ones below:
PROPERTY
|
VALUE
|
Rotation Speed
|
0.20
|
Tumble Axis
|
Free
|
Randomness
|
0.10
|
Viscosity
|
0.00
|
Mass Variance
|
30%
|
Gravity
|
0.00
|
Gravity Direction
|
0 x +90.0º
|
Gravity Inclination
|
0.00
|
The adjustments to the Physics property group do not produce a noticeable change at this time but they are used to control the force of gravity, which will control the direction of movement of the particles created by the effect, once you animate the Force 1 property group.
In the next part of the lesson you will animate the properties of the Effect you have just applied.
7 Choose File > Save As and navigate to the ae09lessons folder. Rename the project Animating with Effects-working.aep and click the Save button. Do not close this file; you will need it in the next part of this lesson.
Animating effect properties
Many novice After Effects users are surprised by the sheer number of animatable effects they have access to. Nearly every property of every effect can be keyframed, even switches and pull-down menus. In this section of the lesson, you will animate the properties of the Shatter effect to blow away the text.
Up until this point, your preview and the speed at which the composition panel refreshes when you move around the timeline have probably been pretty smooth. When animating properties, you may experience longer delays while the application builds a preview for you. This is due to both the speed of your computer and the power needed to build and preview some effects.
1 With the Animating with Effects-working.aep file open, move the playhead to the beginning (0;00;00;00) of the Timeline.
2 In the Effect Controls panel, locate the Force 1 property group and click the time-vary stopwatch for the Radius property. This enables animation for this property and sets the first keyframe at the beginning of the Timeline for the current values.
If the Effect Controls panel is not open already, you can choose Window > Effect Controls to reveal it.
3 Move the playhead to the 3 second (0;00;03;00) mark of the Timeline. With the Up Next layer selected, press the U key on the keyboard to reveal all animated properties on this layer. In the Effect Controls panel, change the Radius property of Force 1 to 5.00.
Because you have revealed the Radius property on the Timeline, you can also change the property value there if you prefer.
4 Move the playhead to the 4 second (0;00;04;00) mark on the Timeline and press the N key on your keyboard. This moves the end of the work area bar to the current position of the playhead. Depending upon the speed of your computer, this could take a moment.
RAM preview the animation. When the last keyframe of the animation is located at 4 seconds (0;00;04;00) on the Timeline, this signals the end of the animation, the point at which the layer has been completely removed from the screen.
You can move the beginning and end of the work area bar either with the cursor by clicking and dragging the end markers or by using the keyboard. Pressing the B key on the keyboard moves the beginning of the work area bar to the current position of the playhead, while pressing the N key on the keyboard moves the end of the bar to the playhead’s current position.
5 The text blows away as the Radius of Force 1 increases, but you can enhance the effect and make it more dynamic by animating the Camera Position property group as well.
From the Resolution/Down Sample Factor Pop-up menu at the bottom of the Composition panel, choose Quarter. This reduces the quality of the panel’s preview by rendering only every fourth pixel, but it also produces faster previews.
Press the J key on the keyboard until the playhead is at the position of the first Radius keyframe.
If you experience a delay while the Composition panel preview renders, you may want to press the Caps Lock key on the keyboard. This disables the preview and prevents it from refreshing, allowing you to move around the Timeline and edit properties. You have to press the Caps Lock key again to turn it off and re-enable screen refreshing.
6 In the Effect Controls panel, locate the Camera Position property group and confirm that the Y Rotation property is set to 0 x 0.0º. Then click this property’s Time-Vary Stopwatch (
) to create a keyframe and enable animation.
) to create a keyframe and enable animation.
7 Press the K key on the keyboard to move the playhead to the position of the second Radius keyframe and change the Y Rotation property to 0 x 80.0º.
Press the U key on the keyboard to hide the layer’s properties, and then press it again to reveal both Radius and Y Rotation. RAM preview the animation.
If properties are visible on the Timeline, pressing the U key on the keyboard hides them, and pressing it again reveals only the currently animated properties.
If you press the U key too quickly it will actually reveal the content of the shape layer rather than the layer’s animated properties.
8 If it is not already there, move the playhead to the beginning (0;00;00;00) of the Timeline and in the Composition panel, change the Resolution/Down Sample Factor Pop-up menu to Auto. In the Effect Controls panel, click the reveal triangle next to Shatter to hide its properties. In the Effects & Presets panel, typeglow into the search field. When it appears, drag the Glow effect onto the Up Next layer in the Timeline panel.
9 You use the Glow effect to make layers appear as if they are illuminated by an internal light, and when you combine it with the Shatter effect used here, it is applied to each shattered piece separately. In the Effect Controls panel, set the Glow effects properties to the following values:
PROPERTY
|
VALUE
|
PROPERTY
|
VALUE
| |
Glow Based On
|
Color Channels
|
Glow Color
|
A & B Colors
| |
Glow Threshold
|
25.0%
|
Color Looping
|
Triangle A>B>A
| |
Glow Radius
|
10.0
|
Color Loops
|
1.0
| |
Glow Intensity
|
2.0
|
Color Phase
|
0 x 0.0º
| |
Composite Original
|
Behind
|
A & B Midpoint
|
50%
| |
Glow Operation
|
Add
|
Glow Dimensions
|
Horizontal and Vertical
|
Click on the color box for the Color A property and in the Color A dialog box that appears, change the hexadecimal value to FFA200 and then Click OK to close the dialog. This changes Color A to a light orange.
You can enter colors numerically in After Effects using HSB, RGB, or hexadecimal values.
Click on the color box for the Color B property and in the Color B dialog box, change the hexadecimal value to FFFF00 and then click OK to close the dialog. This changes Color B to a very bright yellow color.
RAM preview the animation. You may need to change the Resolution/Down Sample Factor Pop-up menu (located at the bottom of the Composition panel) to Half, Third, or Quarter to speed up your rendering time.
As you can see, the Glow effect adds a sparkle to the animation and really makes it appear more vibrant.
If you are not familiar with them, hexadecimal values are a way of describing any RGB color. While very popular for the Web and in programming environments, hex code (as it is often called) can actually be used in a variety of different applications, such as Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, to denote RGB colors.
10 One last effect to add a greater sense of movement and depth to the animation, and it will be complete. Move the playhead to the 15 frame (0;00;00;15) mark on the Timeline. In the Effect Controls panel, click the reveal triangle next to Glow effect to hide its properties. In the Effects & Presets panel, type the wordfast into the search field. When it appears, drag the Fast Blur effect onto the Up Next layer in the Timeline panel.
11 In the Effect Controls panel, click the Time-Vary Stopwatch (
) next to the Blurriness property of the Fast Blur effect to create a keyframe for this property.
) next to the Blurriness property of the Fast Blur effect to create a keyframe for this property.
12 With the Up Next layer in the timeline highlighted, press the letter K on the keyboard to move the playhead to the next visible keyframe at 3 seconds (00;00;03;00) on the Timeline. Again in the Effects Controls panel, change the value of the Blurriness property to 10.0. RAM preview the animation. As you can see, the text now starts the animation completely sharp and becomes progressively more blurry over time.
13 Choose File > Save to save these changes to your After Effects project. Do not close the file, as you will need it again in the next part of the lesson.
Saving animation presets
There are a wide variety of presets that are shipped with the application and are intended to make using and learning effects easier. Originally called favorite effects, presets are stored groupings of effects with their settings and keyframes intact. They are fully editable, and you can apply them to a layer and customize them to fit the needs of your animation. You aren’t limited to just using the animation presets that ship with After Effects. You can, of course, also create your own. This makes it very easy to reuse favorite effects that you have taken the time and effort to develop. In addition to the effects and their properties, the preset also includes any keyframes and expressions that you may have created.
1 With the Animating with Effects-working.aep file open, move the playhead to the beginning (0;00;00;00) of the Timeline.
2 In the Effect Controls panel, click on the Shatter effect to select it. Press and hold the Shift key on your keyboard and click on the Glow and Fast Blur effects to select them as well.
3 With all three effects selected, choose Animation > Save Animation Preset.
4 In the Save Animation Preset As dialog box, change the default name to Exploding Stardust. Confirm that the Save As location is set to the default User Presets folder and click the Save button. You can now access this new animation preset at anytime in the Effects & Presets panel. It will be located in the User Presets group, which can be found inside the Animation Presets group (Animation Presets > User Presets).
5 Choose File > Save to save these changes to your After Effects project. You may now close this project, as you are finished with it.
Applying and modifying effects presets
Presets themselves are a great feature of the After Effects application,. They provide you with a place to start your animations, but the weakness of relying too much on presets is that everyone else who buys the program has access to the exact same ones that you do. In order to create greater variety in your animation, you will inevitably want to customize the existing presets by editing the Effects properties. This is where the true strength of the preset model lies. Since none of the effects used to create your presets are pre-rendered, they are completely editable and animatable. While you may start with a preset from the library or one you created, you can quickly change it by adding additional effects or modifying property values.
In this part of the lesson, you will apply the Exploding Stardust preset that you just created to a composition in another project and modify its settings. In this project you will work with an animated logo; the goal is to have the logo materialize from a hail of stardust.
Depending on the speed of your computer, rendering even single–frame previews of the Shatter effect can take considerable time. If you experience a delay while waiting for individual frames to preview when moving the playhead around the Timeline, you may want to change the Resolution/Down Sample factor to Half or Quarter to speed up the process.
1 Choose File > Open Project and navigate to the ae09lessons folder. Locate the project named Bad Robot Animated Logo.aep and double-click it to open the file. Scrub the playhead to preview the Animated Logo composition.
This project contains two compositions: Bad Robot and Animated Logo. The Bad Robot comp contains the animation of the two halves of the robot head separating and revealing the logo; it is nested inside the Animated Logo composition.
In Animated Logo, there is a marker on the Bad Robot Comp layer at the 4 second (0;00;04;00) mark that reads “Animation Starts Here.” Markers that are placed inside compositions are visible when they are nested and are helpful tools for synchronizing animations.
2 Hold down the Shift key on your keyboard and drag the playhead to the marker on the Bad Robot Composition layer until it snaps into position at the 4 second (0;00;04;00) mark on the Timeline.
The easiest way to apply an effect or preset to only part of the duration of a layer is to split it to produce two separate layers and then apply different effects to each layer.
3 With the Bad Robot composition layer selected, choose Edit > Split Layer. The top layer is still selected after you split the layer. Press the Return (Mac OS) or Enter (Windows) key on the keyboard to make the layer name editable and rename it Bad Robot-Animation.
Click on the lower layer, the one still named [Bad Robot], press the Return (Mac OS) or Enter (Windows) key on the keyboard to make the layer name editable, and rename it Bad Robot-Stardust Effect.
The Split Layer command actually creates two exact copies of the layer and trims the in and out points of each copy to adjust their lengths.
4 Move the playhead to the beginning (0;00;00;00) of the Timeline and in the Effects & Presets panel, type stardust into the search field.
When it appears, drag the Exploding Stardust preset onto the Bad Robot-Stardust Effect layer in the Timeline panel.
It is very important that you know where the playhead is before you apply any saved animation presets. Any keyframes that are saved with the animation preset are added to the Timeline; the first keyframe in the preset is placed at the current position of the playhead, and any others are placed relative to that keyframe to maintain the timing of the overall animation.
RAM preview the animation. Notice that the glow effect isn’t working; this is because the effect’s settings need to be adjusted for the fact that this layer’s artwork is black while the original one that it was created for was white.
5 Make sure the Bad Robot-Stardust Effect layer is selected and in the Effect Controls panel, locate the Glow effect. Change the Glow Based On property to Alpha Channel. This will allow it to create a glow around the opaque areas of the layer. The problem now is that the effect is very overpowering; to correct this, change the Glow Operation property to Normal.
The first image is from the beginning (0;00;00;00) of the Timeline; the second is from 1 second (0;00;01;00).
6 RAM preview the animation.
Choose File > Save As and navigate to the ae09lessons folder. Rename the project Bad Robot Animated Logo-working.aep and click Save.
Do not close this file. You will need it in the next part of this lesson where you will change the layer’s property so that it plays from the end to the beginning and gives the impression that the layer is being created from stardust.
Time-reversing a layer
In real life, time flows in a straight line from beginning to end, but with After Effects you are not constrained to this linear approach. Using the variety of advanced time remapping features built into the program, you can reverse, speed up, slow down, and pause video footage to fit your project’s needs.
Depending on the speed of your computer rendering even single frames, previews of the Shatter effect can take considerable time. If you experience a delay while waiting for individual frames to preview when moving the playhead around the Timeline, you may want to change the Resolution/Down Sample factor to Half or Quarter to speed up the process.
1 With the Bad Robot Animated Logo-working.aep file still open, click on the Bad Robot-Stardust Effect layer to select it.
2 Choose Layer > Time > Time-Reverse Layer. This swaps the layer’s In and Out points and allows it to play from beginning to end.
You can achieve the same effect from the In/Out/Duration/Stretch pane by setting the layer’s Stretch percentage to -100 percent.
3 You may not have noticed it before you time-reversed the layer, but the position of the robot graphic changes from one layer to the next. This distortion is caused by the application of the Shatter effect. You can easily compensate for this by changing the position of the Bad Robot-Stardust Effect layer.
With the Bad Robot-Stardust Effect layer selected, press the P key on the keyboard to reveal the Position property. Change the value for Position to 396.0, 240.0. This corrects the distortion.
4 Because the Bad Robot-Animation layer does not have a glow effect on it, there is a slight disorienting jump when the layers switch. Animating the Glow property will correct this and help to create a more seamless changeover. With the Bad Robot-Stardust Effect selected, press the letter E on your keyboard. This reveals the layer’s effects in the Timeline panel.
5 Move the playhead to the 3 second (0;00;03;00) mark on the Timeline and click the reveal triangle for the Glow effect in the Timeline panel to show all its properties.
Click the time-vary stopwatch for the Glow Intensity property to enable animation and create a keyframe for the current value of 2.0.
6 Move the playhead to the 4 second (0;00;04;00) mark on the Timeline and change the value of the Glow Intensity property to 0.0.
7 RAM preview the animation; it should now appear to have a more seamless blend from one layer to the next.
Choose File > Save to save these changes to your After Effects project. You may now close this project, as you are finished with it.
Using the Motion Sketch panel to capture motion
Some artists find working with positional keyframes in After Effects to be tedious and non-intuitive. And truthfully, dragging objects around the screen or changing property values in the Timeline panel is a foreign concept to most people. To offer another and perhaps more intuitive solution to animation, After Effects has the Motion Sketch feature. Motion Sketch allows the animator to draw motion paths onscreen and apply them to objects in the Timeline. It can be a quick and easy way to create organic, free-flowing movement.
In this part of the lesson, you will work with a pre-assembled project that contains footage created in Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. You will use the Smoother and Wiggler panels to add animation to the layers and create both smooth and frenetic movements that complement one another.
1 Choose File > Open Project and navigate to the ae09lessons folder. Locate the project named Empire of the Ants.aep and double-click it to open the file.
2 Move the playhead to the beginning (0;00;00;00) of the Timeline and click on the first layer, the one named ant. This layer is a nested composition; the ant graphic was created in Illustrator and the legs have been animated here in After Effects.
Press the P key on the keyboard to reveal the Position property of the layer and change its values to -95.0, 530. This places the layer outside of the lower-left corner of the composition.
When you move a layer outside the composition’s border, it displays in wireframe mode and remains editable.
3 Choose Window > Motion Sketch to reveal the Motion Sketch panel. It opens in the lower-right corner of the Standard workspace.
Motion Sketch: Allows you to draw motion onscreen; the panel contains options to make this easier as well as to begin the capture process. There are five properties in the panel:
Capture Speed At: Sets the ratio of the speed that motion is recorded at (effectively the speed the cursor is moving on the screen) to the speed that it plays back at. A value of 100 percent means that the motion plays back at the same speed it was recorded at; a value lower than 100 percent plays back faster; and values above 100 percent play back more slowly.
Smoothing: Smoothes the path of motion by removing extraneous keyframes. Higher values produce a smoother motion path.
Show: The Wireframe switch shows a wireframe view of the layer onscreen as you are capturing motion, while the Background switch shows a static image of the frame where you started capturing motion.
Start: Displays the timecode where the Motion Sketch operation will begin capturing. The Start value corresponds to the start marker of the work area bar.
Duration: Specifies the overall duration of the capture operation.
4 If necessary, adjust the settings of the Motion Sketch dialog box to match the properties below:
PROPERTY
|
VALUE
|
PROPERTY
|
VALUE
| |
Capture speed at
|
100.00%
|
Show Background
|
Checked
| |
Smoothing
|
1
|
Start
|
0;00;00;00
| |
Show Wireframe
|
Unchecked
|
Duration
|
0;00;10;00
|
Click the Start Capture button at the bottom of the panel.
5 Place your cursor, which now resembles a cross-hair, near the anchor point of the ant layer. Click and drag the cursor across the screen toward the upper-right corner, and then loop around as if making a large figure eight. When finished, you should have a path similar to the one in the figure below.
Motion Sketch is intended to create unique motion paths so there is no way to capture the exact same path twice.
6 As you draw the layer’s motion path onscreen, Motion Sketch adds keyframes to the Position property. You may have a very different total number of keyframes and different animation duration than the figure below. The number of keyframes and duration of the animation are dependent on how long it took you to draw the motion path.
Drawing motion paths with the Motion Sketch feature creates unique paths that are nearly impossible to replicate.
RAM preview the animation. The two factors that are taken into account when motion is captured are the position of the mouse and the speed at which it moves. You will notice that the ant moves more slowly in certain points than in others; this is due to how quickly you may have moved the mouse onscreen. The motion is a little jagged and rough, and the ant doesn’t actually look like it is following the motion path; you will correct this later in the lesson.
7 Choose File > Save As and navigate to the ae09lessons folder. Rename the project Empire of the Ants-working.aep and click the Save button. Do not close this file, as you will need it in the next part of this lesson.
Controlling layer orientation
As you preview the animation created in the previous exercise, you will notice that while the ant layer moves across the screen, it continues to face toward the top of the screen. This makes the movement seem unnatural. In reality, an ant, or an airplane, or any moving object must face the direction it is traveling.
All layers have a property named Auto-Orient but by default, footage layers are set to auto-orient toward nothing. This is usually a benefit as it allows the animator to freely rotate the layer as needed, but here this same setting makes the animation seem strange. To correct this, you will change the layer’s Auto-Orient setting so that it follows its motion path.
1 With the Empire of the Ants-working project still open, move the playhead until you can see the ant graphic appear on your screen. Notice that the ant layer is pointing straight up toward the top of the composition. You must adjust this to add a sense of realistic movement to the animation.
2 With the ant layer highlighted, hold down the Shift key and press the R key on your keyboard so that the Rotation property displays along with the Position property.
Place your cursor over the property value and use the text slider to change the layer’s rotation until the ant faces toward the motion path. In the image below, the value used is 0x +96.0 but your specific value will differ, as your direction path may vary.
Positive values produce clockwise rotation, while negative values produce counter-clockwise rotation.
3 With the ant layer still selected, choose Layer > Transform > Auto-Orient to open the Auto Orient dialog box. Click the radio button next to Orient Along Path to enable this option, and click the OK button.
4 RAM preview the animation. Notice that the ant now seems to be following the motion path. Choose File > Save to save these changes to your After Effects project. Do not close this file, as you will need it in the next part of this lesson.
Using the Smoother panel to soften movement
The Smoother panel is used to modify the keyframes in an animation to make it appear smoother and more flowing. It does this by removing extraneous keyframes based on values that you set. When combined with the Motion Sketch feature, it can help produce a less jagged motion path. In this part of the lesson, you will use the Smoother panel to soften the ant’s motion path.
1 With the Empire of the Ants-working project still open, scrub the playhead back and forth. Pay attention to the movement of the ant; notice that the movement seems jagged and perhaps a little wobbly. You can correct the motion path by using the Smoother panel to reduce the number of keyframes.
2 Choose Window > Workspace > Animation to switch to a workspace designed to aid in animation tasks. If you have amended the default animation workspace, choose Window > Workspace > Reset “Animation” to return it to its default appearance. Notice that in this workspace the Smoother panel is to the right of the Composition panel.
When resetting a workspace to its default configuration, a dialog box appears, asking if you are sure that you want to reset. You have to confirm that you are by clicking the Yes button to proceed.
The Smoother panel only has two options: Apply To and Tolerance. The Apply To pull-down menu allows you to choose between applying the smoothing result to either a spatial or temporal path. Because you are dealing with the Position property in this lesson, you can only affect the spatial path.
You can use the Tolerance property to control the strength of the effect. Higher values produce a more noticeable smoothing result but may remove more detail than you want.
3 In the Timeline panel, click on the ant layer’s Position property. If this property is not visible, you can press the P key on your keyboard while the layer is highlighted to reveal it. Clicking any property name selects all the keyframes belonging to that property. In order to use the Smoother panel, you must select a minimum of three keyframes.
Clicking any property name selects all its keyframes simultaneously.
4 In the Smoother panel, set the Tolerance property to 8 and click the Apply button to produce a smoother path.
The specific path that you create will vary, depending on your smooth settings and the initial path you start with.
5 RAM preview the animation. Choose File > Save to save these changes to your After Effects project. Do not close this file, as you will need it in the next part of this lesson.
Using the Wiggler panel to add frantic motion
The Wiggler panel is the mirror opposite of Smoother. They both operate on the keyframes of an animation but instead of reducing keyframes, the Wiggler effect adds them. Wiggler is a great tool when you want to add random, frenetic movement to an animation without having to manually add extra keyframes.
In this exercise, you will use the Wiggler panel to add randomness to the Position property and apply a more frenetic sense of movement to the logo animation of Empire of the Ants. The logo animation that you have seen while previewing this project is inside of the Empire of the Ants comp. It is caused by keyframes and an expression on the layers named EMPIRE and ANTS. The up-and-down movement is caused by a series of three keyframes each: one at the beginning of the Timeline (0;00;00;00), another at 15 frames (0;00;00;15), and the final one at 1 second (0;00;01;00).
1 With the Empire of the Ants-working project still open and the Empire Promo composition active, double-click on the Empire of the Ants composition in the Project panel to open it.
2 Now in the Empire of the Ants comp, scrub the playhead to preview the animation. Notice that the words Empire and Ants repeat an animation where they move up and down.
Press and hold the Control (Windows) or Cmd (Mac OS) key on your keyboard and then click on layer 1 (EMPIRE) and layer 4 (ANTS) to select them both. Once both layers are selected, you can release the Control (Windows) or Cmd (Mac OS) key and then press the U key to reveal the keyframes and expressions on them. The animation on these layers is regular and even, but you can create a greater sense of frantic movement by adding randomness to the position keyframes with the Wiggler panel.
3 Move the playhead to the beginning (0;00;00;00) of the Timeline and if you are not currently in the Animation workspace, choose Window > Workspace > Animation to switch. If you have amended the default animation workspace, choose Window > Workspace > Reset “Animation” to return it to its default appearance. In this workspace, the Wiggler panel is located right below the Smoother panel on the right. The Wiggler panel contains the following options:
Apply To: Specifies whether the Wiggler will change the spatial graph to add randomness to the motion of a layer, or the temporal graph to Add deviations to the velocity of a layer.
Noise Type: Smooth Noise produces a gradual change that is free from sudden variations in the property, while Jagged Noise produces sudden, quick variations.
Dimensions: Specifies whether to add deviations to a single dimension (x,y,z) or all dimensions simultaneously. If you use one of the all dimensions settings, you can specify whether to apply the same deviations to all the dimensions or to calculate individual values for each one.
Frequency: Sets the number of deviations per second.
Magnitude: Sets the maximum size of the deviation using the unit of measure of the selected property.
4 Click on the Position property of the EMPIRE layer to highlight all its keyframes; this also activates the Wiggler panel. Set the Wiggler as follows:
PROPERTY
|
VALUE
|
Apply To
|
Spatial Path
|
Noise Type
|
Jagged
|
Dimensions
|
Y
|
Frequency
|
10
|
Magnitude
|
10
|
Click the Apply button. The Wiggler adds a series of keyframes to the property. Preview the animation; notice that the word EMPIRE seems to jump up-and-down randomly.
The Wiggler can randomize values between existing keyframes.
5 Click on the Position property of the ANTS layer to highlight all its keyframes. The Wiggler panel maintains the previously used settings. Click Apply.
6 Double-click on the Empire Promo composition in the Project panel to make it active in the Timeline and Composition panels. RAM preview the composition.
7 Choose File > Save to commit these changes to your After Effects project. You may now close this project, as you are finished with it.
Create acceleration and deceleration using Easy Easing
The different types of keyframe interpolation are important because they give you a choice of how your animations look. Linear is the default interpolation type for temporal keyframes; this is what gives your animation a consistent change in the value of a property over time. Spatial keyframes, on the other hand, default to the Auto Bézier interpolation. This interpolation is what produces the curved or Bézier motion paths, what you have become used to seeing when animating the Position properties of objects. These different interpolation methods create different types of motion, both when animating onscreen movement such as that created by a motion path and when controlling the timing of animation to simulate acceleration or deceleration.
You are not limited to using the default interpolation method; you can change both spatial and temporal interpolation at any time to fit the specific needs of any project. In this part of the lesson, you will be working with an existing project that contains an animation of a bouncing ball. While the animation has already been built, it requires some modification to both the spatial and temporal keyframe interpolation to look more realistic.
Changing spatial interpolation
Spatial interpolation is the easiest one to adjust for most users because it is very similar to the way that you work in programs such as Photoshop and Illustrator. You can directly manipulate vertices and direction handles in the Composition panel in much the same fashion that you change mask shapes.
1 Choose File > Open Project and navigate to the ae09lessons folder. Locate the project named Using Easy Easing.aep and double-click it to open this file. If necessary, choose Window > Workspace > Standard to return to the default After Effects workspace and then again, if necessary, choose Window > Workspace > Reset “Standard.”
RAM preview the file to view the animation. As you can see, the project consists of a graphic of a ball bouncing up and down and there is also a shadow that follows the ball as it connects with the floor.
2 Move the playhead to the 2 second 15 frame (0;00;02;15) mark on the Timeline (this places you in the middle of the animation) and click on the Ball layer to highlight it. Then press the U key on your keyboard to reveal the layer’s animated keyframes.
When you previewed the animation you may have noticed that the ball seems to float or slide as it makes contact with the table. This is due to the fact that the second keyframe is set to use Continuous Bézier for its spatial interpolation; however you can easily correct this by changing it so that is uses Linear interpolation.
Changing spatial interpolation in After Effects is much like editing anchor points in graphics programs such as Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop.
3 In the Composition panel, right-click on the second keyframe; this is the one at which the ball connects with the floor graphic. In the menu that appears, choose Keyframe Interpolation to open a dialog box that allows you to control both temporal and spatial interpolation.
You can use the Keyframe Interpolation dialog box to set temporal and spatial interpolation simultaneously.
If you want to change the shape of the motion path now, you can do so by editing the handles of the first or last keyframes.
4 In the Keyframe Interpolation dialog box, change the Spatial Interpolation pull-down menu to Linear and click OK. The shape of the motion path changes to resemble two upward-facing curves.
Motion paths in After Effects are similar to Bézier paths in other graphics programs.
5 Choose File > Save As and navigate to the ae09lessons folder. Rename the project Using Easy Easing-working.aep and click the Save button. Do not close this file, as you will need it in the next part of this lesson, where you will change the easing to the keyframes to simulate acceleration and deceleration.
Adding easing to keyframes
Easing is a technique that changes the rate of change or speed of an animated property to create the impression of acceleration or deceleration. If you are familiar with the principles of traditional cell animation, you may know this concept as slow-in and slow-out. After Effects makes it very simple to create this effect using Easy Ease In, Easy Ease Out, and Easy Ease, which you can use to quickly add easing with a simple right-click.
In this animation, the ball should gradually accelerate as it falls, attain its greatest speed just before it makes contact with the floor, and then decelerate as it approaches the top of its movement arc as it bounces away from the floor.
1 With the Using Easy Easing-working project still open, move the playhead to the beginning (0;00;00;00) of the Timeline. If the Position property of the ball layer is not visible, select the layer and press the P key on your keyboard to reveal it.
2 To create the sense that the ball is accelerating as it approaches contact with the floor, you will add Easy Ease Out to the first keyframe. In the Timeline panel, right-click on the first keyframe of the Position property and choose Keyframe Assistant > Easy Ease Out from the menu that appears.
Adding easing to any keyframe means that it is no longer a simple linear keyframe.
You can also access the Easy Easing functions from the Animation menu by choosing Animation > Keyframe Assistant.
3 Right-click on the last keyframe and choose Keyframe Assistant > Easy Ease In from the menu. This creates the deceleration effect as the ball bounces away from the point of contact with the floor.
You can use Easy Easing to create quick acceleration and deceleration effects.
4 RAM preview the animation and you see that the speed at which the ball moves from keyframe to keyframe is no longer constant. Choose File > Save to save these changes to your After Effects project. Do not close this file, as you will need it in the next part of this lesson where you will add a few finishing touches to the animation to make it seem more realistic and engaging.
Using squash and stretch to enhance the animation
The Easy Easing you applied in the previous section of this lesson can enhance the sense of realistic movement in animations by creating acceleration or deceleration where you need it. Another principle of animation that you can also use to improve the visual appeal and sense of realism in an animated work is squash and stretch. Many animators consider it to be the most important element of an animation project and also one that is often overlooked in computer-based animation. You can use squash and stretch to convey a sense of weight and flexibility to objects by showing how they react to making contact with other objects.
In this animation, the ball should react to hitting the floor object. At its point of contact, the ball will squash vertically as it reacts to the force with which it hits the ground and also stretch horizontally to maintain its overall volume. Adding a motion blur to the animation should also help to establish the impression of a realistic movement through space.
1 With the Using Easy Easing-working project still open, move the playhead to the 2 second 15 frame (0;00;02;15) mark on the Timeline. Notice that the ball is still a perfect sphere at the point where it makes contact with the floor. This is actually the point at which it should squash and stretch.
2 With the ball layer selected, hold down the Shift key on your keyboard and press the letter S on the keyboard to add Scale to the currently displayed properties in the Timeline panel.
Then press the Page Up key on your keyboard (this moves the playhead back one frame to 0;00;02;14) and click the Time-Vary Stopwatch (
) for the Scale property. After Effects creates a keyframe at this point to preserve the ball’s current scale value.
) for the Scale property. After Effects creates a keyframe at this point to preserve the ball’s current scale value.
The Page Up and Page Down keys are very helpful when you must navigate the Timeline frame by frame.
3 Press the Page Down key on your keyboard to return to 0;00;02;15 or just press the letter K on the keyboard to move the playhead to the next visible keyframe, which is the one for the contact position of the ball.
4 Disable the Constrain Proportions switch (
) to the left of the Scale property’s values. Change the property values to 120.0%, 90.0%. This gives the spherical ball a more elliptical appearance.
) to the left of the Scale property’s values. Change the property values to 120.0%, 90.0%. This gives the spherical ball a more elliptical appearance.
When adding squash and stretch, it is important to maintain the overall volume of the object.
5 Press the Page Down key on your keyboard five times to move to the 2 second 20 frame (0;00;02;20) mark on the Timeline. Change the Scale property values to 100.0%, 100.0% to restore the original appearance of the ball.
6 Enable the ball layer’s Motion Blur switch and then click the Enable Motion Blur switch at the top of the Timeline panel to preview the motion blur effect in the composition.
7 Choose Edit > Deselect All and then RAM preview the animation. The overall effect is much more realistic than when you started.
Choose File > Save to commit these changes to your After Effects project. You may now close this project, as you are finished with it.
Animating with the Graph Editor
Throughout this book you have created your animations either by manipulating property values in what is called the layer bar mode of the Timeline panel, or by directly moving your layers around in the Composition panel. While both of these methods can be very successful, there is another tool available to you called the Graph Editor that is intended to give you additional control over your animations. The Graph Editor represents property values along a two-dimensional graph, where composition time is represented horizontally while speed or value is represented vertically.
While you can use the Graph Editor to adjust the values of animated properties or to add additional keyframes, its primary function for most users is to control the speed of animations to create acceleration and deceleration. Like the Easy Easing you applied previously, you can use the Graph Editor to control the rate of change or speed of an animated property to create the impression of acceleration or deceleration. The difference is that the Graph Editor allows for much greater control and fine-tuning of the effect.
In this exercise, you will work with a pre-built After Effects project and use the Graph Editor to create a more realistic motion by adding acceleration to an animation.
1 Choose File > Open Project and navigate to the ae09lessons folder. Locate the project named Creating Acceleration with the Graph Editor.aep and double-click it to open this file.
RAM preview the Rocket composition. As you can see, it contains an animation of a rocket ship blasting off into space. The rocket moves up at a constant rate but this is unrealistic; it should start off slower and then accelerate upward.
2 Click on layer 2, the one named Rocket, to select it and press the U key on your keyboard to reveal its animated properties.
Pressing the U key with any number of layers selected reveals only the properties that have animation enabled on those layers.
As you can see, this animation consists of two keyframes for the position of the rocket. The first keyframe at the 1 second (0;00;01;00) mark establishes the resting position and corresponds with the In points of the four layers that give you the rocket exhaust and flame trail. The second keyframe at the 5 second (0;00;05;00) mark places the rocket beyond the top border of the composition.
3 Click the switch (
) that looks like a little graph to the right of the Position property’s Time-Vary stopwatch (
) to include the Position property in the Graph Editor display.
) that looks like a little graph to the right of the Position property’s Time-Vary stopwatch () to include the Position property in the Graph Editor display.
Properties can be added or removed from the Graph Editor display by enabling or disabling this switch.
You must first add properties to the Graph Editor display before you can work with them. You can add and manipulate them individually, or in groups, depending on your needs.
4 Click the Graph Editor switch at the top of the Timeline panel to change the panel’s default layer bar mode to the Graph Editor view.
The Graph Editor displays composition time horizontally along the top of the Timeline and property values vertically along the right.
A. Composition time ruler. B. Property values. C. Choose which properties are shown in the Graph Editor. D. Choose graph type and options. E. Show transform box. F.Snap. G. Auto-zoom graph height. H. Fit selection to view. I. Fit all graphs to view. J. Separate dimensions. K. Edit selected keyframe. L. Convert selected keyframe to hold. M. Convert selected keyframe to linear. N. Convert selected keyframe to Auto Bézier. O. Easy Ease. P. Easy Ease In. Q. Easy Ease Out.
5 The white graph line represents the speed at which the property values change. It is currently a straight line, meaning that the property’s change in value is constant. Notice that the keyframes on this speed graph correspond with the Position property’s value keyframes in the layer bar display.
The keyframes (represented by the white anchor points on the graph line) in this graph use linear interpolation, and each possesses one direction handle (to control the curvature of the graph line) each.
Linear keyframes produce a constant change in speed and may appear to create stiff animation.
Click on the first keyframe, hold the Shift key on your keyboard, and drag the keyframe to the zero px/sec position on the value graph.
As you move keyframes vertically in the Graph Editor, the Timeline display automatically adjusts to make them all visible.
6 RAM preview the animation. The rocket now seems to accelerate suddenly and then the speed tapers off and remains relatively constant; this is due to the shape of the graph. The first keyframe on the speed graph has a value of zero px/sec. The graph rapidly increases in value toward the beginning of the animation and then levels off approximately halfway through. You can adjust this by moving the second keyframe up. Click on the second keyframe, hold the Shift key on your keyboard, and drag the keyframe to the 600 px/sec position on the value graph.
The Graph Editor automatically scrolls as you move a keyframe vertically and then adjusts to keep all your keyframes in view after you complete the movement because the Auto-zoom graph height button is enabled.
7 The keyframes are now in the proper position for the type of acceleration that you want, but you need to adjust the curvature of the graph line so that the rocket is picking up speed as it rises into the air. Click on the direction handle of the second keyframe and drag it to the left until the graph line resembles the one below.
The direction handles adjust a property of the speed graph’s keyframes called Influence.
8 RAM preview the animation. The rocket should now pick up speed as it rises. If you want a greater acceleration, you can always adjust the vertical position of the second keyframe so that the rocket is traveling at a speed greater than 600 px/sec when the animation completes.
Choose File > Save As and navigate to the ae09lessons folder. Rename the project Creating Acceleration with the Graph Editor-complete.aep and click the Save button. You may now close this project, as you are finished with it.
If you prefer, you can set the speed and influence values for a keyframe numerically in a dialog box by double-clicking on that keyframe.
Create a strobing effect using hold interpolation
Whether using the linear method to create uniform changes or the Bézier method to vary the speed and create the impression of acceleration, the animation must still progress through every single value between the two keyframes. But what if an animation calls for a property to immediately change from one value to another? This is a time to use the hold interpolation method.
In this section of the lesson, you will change keyframe interpolation to produce an effect in which a light bulb blinks on and off.
1 Choose File > Open Project and navigate to the ae09lessons folder. Locate the project named Using Hold Interpolation.aep and double-click it to open this file.
RAM preview the lightBulb composition. As you can see, the light bulb fades up and then fades down again, but in this case a better animation would have the light simply blink on and off.
2 The animation in this project is due to the opacity keyframes on the Filament-Dark, Bulb Color-White, and Flare Effect layers. Converting them all to hold keyframes will produce the desired effect. In the Timeline panel, click on the layer named Filament-Dark to highlight it. Press and hold the Ctrl (Windows) or Command (MacOS) key on your keyboard and click the Bulb Color-White and Flare Effects layers to highlight them as well. With the three layers still selected, press the T key on your keyboard to reveal the Opacity property of all three layers.
3 Deselect all the layers by choosing Edit > Deselect All and then click the Opacity property for the Filament-Dark layer to select all this property’s keyframes.
Clicking on any property selects all keyframes for that property; you can then move or edit them simultaneously.
4 Hold the Shift key on your keyboard and click on the Opacity property for the Bulb Color-White and Flare Effect layers to select these keyframes as well.
5 Right-click on any one of the selected keyframes and choose Keyframe Interpolation from the menu that appears.
6 In the Keyframe Interpolation dialog box, change the Temporal Interpolation to Hold. This converts all the linear keyframes that you selected to hold keyframes. Click OK to close the dialog box.
The Opacity property only has temporal keyframes.
7 RAM preview the animation. The light bulb now blinks on and off.
Choose File > Save As and navigate to the ae09lessons folder. Rename the project Using Hold Interpolation-complete.aep and click the Save button. You may now close this project, as you are finished with it.
Congratulations! You have finished this lesson.
Self study
Now that you have learned some of the more advanced concepts and tools for creating animation in After Effects, you can try them out on your own. You should experiment with adding some of the expressions you have learned here to enhance the animations you have created in earlier lessons in this book.
Review
Questions
1 What is the advantage of creating your own animation presets?
2 Why would you want to use Motion Sketch?
3 What can you use the Wiggler panel for?
Answers
1 Animation presets allow you to quickly reuse animations you have created, and because their properties are editable once you apply them, you can adjust settings to match the specific needs of each project.
2 Motion Sketch offers a more intuitive solution to animating positional changes in After Effects. It allows an artist to draw motion paths onscreen and apply them to objects in the Timeline.
3 The Wiggler panel allows you to apply frantic, frenetic motion to keyframes on your timeline.
