In this session we will cover:
- Additional key framing techniques
- Simplifying compositions / effectively grouping layers together
- How to work with audio
1. Easy Ease
- To reveal all animated properties press 'u'
- Realistic animation movement would include the different elements starting and ending at different times
- Applying different acceleration - variable speed - to the different squares in the preset animation
- Ease out of a keyframe and gradually reach constant speed
- Presets: Animation -> Keyframe Assistant -> Easy ease in or easy ease out (Have to have position property selected to be able to click)
- Shape of the key frame changes to give you a visual clue of what you have applied
- Easy ease out
- Easy ease out
- The dots along the motion path (which represent frames) are now closer together at the start and then gradually spread out
- To decelerate, we are going to ease in to the last keyframe, and so the changes to the motion path are the opposite to with easing out
- To apply to both key frames, select easy ease
- Timeline
2. Graph Editor
- The button on the right hand side is the graph editor
- Click on position property layer and then click graph editor to be able to use this
- This graph shows the speed on the layer. e.g. This is the speed line for the square that is easing out
- This speed graph is a visual representation of the options we have applied and allows us to make changes to our acceleration and deceleration, for example, we may want it to go quicker.
- Can select keyframes to edit, they become yellow and have handles on them to alter speed and change shape. For example, I have changed the speed of the easy ease effect to look like this, meaning that in the middle, the speed is very fast.
- An alternative to using the easy ease effects is just to use the graph editor straight away
- The red solid has a constant speed so I am going to edit this.
3. Pendulum
- To quickly turn the square into a circle, click the square, and double click the ellipse tool
- The first thing we need to consider is the anchor point (y) because at the moment the anchor point is in the middle of the layer
- Reposition the anchor point and set an appropriate centre of rotation. Press 'r' to activate rotation.
- Drag the yellow numbers to edit the rotation of the circle to its correct position, and then create a key frame. So, to create the movement of a pendulum you would just need three key frames.
- When you view the graph editor you can view it in two ways. Press the second button from the left and choose edit speed graph. Can edit it in the same way as with position, to decide where the pendulum will be the fastest.
- I was playing around with the speed, and then tried to make it look realistic, and this is the final speed graph:
4. Multiple Layers
- How to animate a number of layers by using one set of key frames
- Establishing parent/child relationships
- Set one layer to be the parent of what the other layers, so whatever one layer does the others will do too
- To set this up, use the parent tool
- For example, I have made the red solid the parent layer, then if I move it, the other layers will move too.
- When you have a parent/child relationships, the child layer can move independently, but it will always be bound the parent layer, and have the same centre of rotation
- If you change the opacity of the parent layer, that doesn't effect the child layers
- Good for animating the solar system - can have multiple parent/child relationships going on at the same time - such as the earth is parent to the moon but the sun is parent to the earth
- Before you set up a parent/child relationship you need to make sure everything is in the right position
Car example:
- Made the red car the parent of the square wheels so when I move the car the wheels move with it, and if I wanted to scale down the car the wheels would scale down too
- Making the car move along the hill, by making a key frame at the start, and then moving the red indicator line to a new place along the time line and then making a new key frame and dragging the car. Then using the handles to make the movement into a curve.
- Layer -> transform -> auto orient: makes it move along the path at an angle to make it more realistic than if it was straight on.
- Use the speed graph to edit the speed in which the car travels
- Set the un-needed keyframes to rove across time (right click then select), and this makes the speed graph easier to work with
5. Alternative Way - Nesting Compositions
- This involves us placing one composition in to another
- Select all layers -> Layer menu -> Pre-compose - This takes all the layers and replaces them with a new composition
- E.g. This turns into this:
- Can make changes to the composition and the changes will automatically take place in the composition it is nested in
- Can start with this in mind, when making from scratch, so can start with an appropriately sized composition. Then when it is used in the main composition, it is much easier to work with.
- Can add this composition as many times as you like into the main composition
- Layer switch ignores the original composition boundary, so if you have something that is animating beyond this boundary, when you drag it somewhere else you get the whole animation
6. Audio
- Types of audio: sound effects, speech, music...
- Sound library in user work
- Can convert audio files when opening with quicktime player 7. File -> export -> sound to AIFF or sound to Wave
- In after effects -> file -> import -> then drag and drop into composition
- You can only hear the audio if you use the ram preview, not with the space bar
- Can see waveform of audio, makes it better to know where to position audio
- When adding to the render queue, in the output module option, down at the bottom there is a check box for audio out put, which you have to check but don't need to make any alterations to.
