Using Lights and cameras, points of interest in after effects
animating with the puppet tool in after effects
ANIMATING TEXT ON A PATH:
I USED THE text on a path technique TO DO THIS OP-ART STYLE ANIMATION. I created 1 layer and then COPIED, PASTED AND MIRRORED that layer many times.
THE WIGGLER :
1. PLACE 2 OR MORE POSITION KEYFRAMES ON THE LAYER YOU WANT TO WIGGLE
2. GO TO MENUS ON TOP OF SCREEN AND SELECT — WINDOW>THE WIGGLER
3. SELECT SPATIAL PATH FOR POSITION KEYFRAME WIGGLING. (TEMPORAL COULD BE USED FOR PROPERTIES LIKE OPACITY)
4. CHOOSE SMOOTH NOISE OR JAGGED.
5. ELECT ALL DIMENSIONS INDEPENDENTLY. FOR POSITION PROPERTY, THERE ARE X AND Y COMPONENTS. IF YOU WANT TO WIGGLE BOTH X AND Y AXIS, CHOOSE X,Y. YOU CAN ALSO CHOOSE TO DO X OR Y INDEPENDENTLY.
6. SET YOUR FREQUENCY. (THIS IS HOW MANY KEYFRAMES ARE SET PER SECOND. ) THE HIGHER THIS NUMBER, THE MORE CHAOTIC THE WIGGLE IS.
7. SET MAGNITUDE. (THIS IS HOW HIGH THE WIGGLE WILL WIGGLE)
8. CLICK APPLY.
BUILDING GIFS IN PHOTOSHOP CC:
-COLLECT, CREATE A GROUP OF IMAGES (DRAWINGS, PHOTOS, ORIGINAL ART, ETC.) THAT YOU WISH TO ANIMATE. PUT THEM ALL IN ONE FOLDER.
-OPEN A NEW PHOTOSHOP PROJECT. CLICK ON THE PULL DOWN MENU AT TOP OF THE SCREEN …FILE>SCRIPTS>LOAD FILES INTO STACK. A “LOAD LAYERS” WINDOW WILL POP UP…. NOW CLICK BROWSE TO OPEN YOUR IMAGE FILES. CLICK OK. THIS WILL IMPORT YOUR FILES AS INDIVIDUAL LAYERS IN YOUR PHOTOSHOP PROJECT. YOU CAN NOW ARRANGE THE LAYERS IN THE ORDER THAT YOU WANT THEM TO PLAY BY DRAGGING THEM UP AND DOWN IN THE LAYERS WINDOW.
-OPEN THE TIMELINE WINDOW. WINDOW>TIMELINE. YOU WILL NOW SEE A BUTTON IN THE MIDDLE OF THE SCREEN WITH A BUTTON THAT CONTAINS A DROP DOWN MENU. HERE YOU CAN CHOOSE EITHER “CREATE VIDEO TIMELINE” OR “CREATE FRAME ANIMATION.” CHOOSE AND THEN CLICK THE CREATE FRAME ANIMATION BUTTON.
-IN THE ANIMATION/TIMELINE MENU (TOP RIGHT CORNER PULLDOWN IN THIS WINDOW), SELECT MAKE FRAMES FROM LAYERS. THIS MAKES EACH LAYER IN YOUR DOCUMENT AN INDIVIDUAL FRAME IN THE ANIMATION TIMELINE.
-YOU CAN NOW CHANGE THE DURATION OF THE FRAMES IN THE ANIMATION. GET INTO FRAME VIEW (NOT TIMELINE VIEW)
TIP*** IF YOU CAN’T SEE THUMBNAILS OF YOUR LAYERS IN THE ANIMATION/TIMELINE, CLICK THE LOWER RIGHT CORNER OF THE WINDOW TO “CONVERT TO FRAME ANIMATION”
-SELECT ALL FRAMES IN THE ANIMATION. THERE IS A DROP DOWN MENU UNDER EACH FRAME. YOU CAN PULL THIS DOWN TO SELECT THE DURATION OF EACH FRAME. IF ALL FRAMES ARE SELECTED THE DURATION WILL CHANGE FOR ALL OF THEM. IF YOU WANT EACH FRAME TO HAVE A DIFFERENT DURATION, YOU CAN INDIVIDUALLY SELECT THE FRAME AND ADJUST THE DURATION.
-THE OTHER DROP DOWN MENU IN THE BOTTOM LEFT HAND CORNER DETERMINES HOW MANY TIMES THE ANIMATION WILL LOOP.
-CLICK FILE>SAVE FOR WEB & DEVICES. CHOSE GIF FOR FILE FORMAT. SAVE.
LOOPING A COMPOSITON IN AFTER EFFECTS
—SET YOUR WORK AREA BEGINNING AND END POINT TO THE SECTION OF THE ORIGINAL COMPOSTION YOU WISH TO LOOP. THEN FROM THE MENU BAR, SELECT COMPOSITON >TRIM COMPOSTITON TO WORK AREA. —CREATE A NEW COMPOSITION BY DRAGGING THE ORIGINAL COMPOSTION INTO THE NEW COMP ICON IN THE BOTTOM LEFT CORNER OF THE PROJECT WINDOW. (THIS APPROACH WILL CREATE A NEW COMPOSITON THAT MATCHES THE SETTINGS OF YOUR ORIGINAL COMPOSITION) See example below:
(click to enlarge)
—IN THE NEW COMP, GO TO THE MENU AND SELECT LAYER>TIME>ENABLE TIME REMAPPING (this will create 1 keyframe at the beginning of your comp and 1 at the end.) —MOVE TO THE VERY LAST KEYFRAME IN YOUR NEW COMP. THEN GO BACK ONE FRAME AND CREATE A NEW KEYFRAME IN THE TIME REMAP LAYER. —NOW SELECT THE VERY LAST KEYFRAME AND DELETE IT. —SELECT THE TIME REMAPPING EFFECT FROM THE LAYER COMP PANEL TO ACTIVATE IT, AND FROM THE MENU BAR SELECT ANIMATION>ADD EXPRESSION —TIME REMAPPING WILL NOW HAVE AN EXPRESSION BOX IN THE COMP. CLICK ON THE EXPRESSIONS LANGUAGE MENU ICON IN THE COMP PANEL. AND SELECT Property>LoopOut(Type=”Cycle”, NumKeyframes=0) —NOW YOU CAN EXTEND THE LOOPING COMP by going into comp settings and changing the duration of your comp. Then –CLICKING AND DRAGGING your layer in the composition timeline to be LONGER. IT WILL LOOP OVER AND OVER AGAIN for the duration of the layer in the composition.
AUDIO AMPLITUDE EFFECTING LAYER PROPERTIES in After Effects
The below instructions were used to effect the yellow octagon object’s scale with audio amplitude. An expression was used to map the audio amplitude of a sound file to the scale of the octagon. You can use this technique on any layer and transform various properties of that layer. Example: Scale, Opacity, Rotation, Position, Anchor Point.
1. File >project Settings (choose the audio sample rate setting that matches the audio file you plan to import ex. 44.1 kHz or 48 kHz)
2. put audio file into composition
3. Animation>keyframe assistant>convert audio to keyframes
4. delete left and right channels in composition under audio amplitude- effects. twirl down both channels to expose slider property. (here you will see the keyframes created from the audio amplitude)
5. Menu>create new solid (mask —-or you can use any layer that you want to be affected by the audio amplitude)
6. select a property for example scale or position etc.
7. Animation>add expression
8. drag pick whip from expression to slider under the audio layer.
9. Composition>preview>ram preview.
This was also created with the same technique:
STOP MOTION ANIMATION TIPS:
-Test your camera, lights and props before starting the shoot
-Bring your SD cards
-Setting up the surface-Curved surface at the end of a table prevents harsh shadows(us non reflective materials if possible)
-Canned air comes in handy
-Diffusion filters for lights are good. You can also use paper lanterns to light scenes.
-Use dynamic storytelling. Angles of Camera give more energy to the shot.
-Move the camera closer instead of zooming in.
-Use a tripod
-Be careful that you don’t change the focus on the camera once you have started shooting
-Don’t use auto focus or auto exposure
-Be careful not to disrupt the set or the subject matter’s position unintentionally
-Always try to shoot the entire scene in one session
-Don’t unintentionally change the lighting once you have begun shooting
-Be careful that you don’t change the exposure on the camera once you have started shooting
-Capture your material with the best look possible “in camera”. Don’t rely on post to fix color etc.
-Shoot at high resolution=jpegs 2496 x 1664, color space SRGB
-Don’t use auto white balance. Choose a white balance setting that matches the color temperature of the light you are using.
-Be careful not to bump the camera
-use nuances to create atmosphere so that characters don’t come to a halt (follow through)
-shoot extra time at beginning and end of shots to use for editing
-shoot at 24 frames a second. decide the amount of seconds there should be in the action you are animating. Take that desired amount of time and multiply it by 24. That is how many frames you should shoot. (example: to get 10 seconds of animation at 24fps you must shoot 240 frames.
-keep camera dope sheet to list each scene shot and amount of frames shot
-don’t wear reflective clothing.
-use a lower ISO (100 -400) with fast exposures. (use adequate lighting to achieve this)
TIMING, TIMING, TIMING
the closer the keyframes are together in time- the faster the motion of the object that is being animated.
EXAMPLES (YOUR PHOTOSHOP LAYERED FRAMES SPREAD OUT AS SEQUENCED LAYERS ON THE AE TIMELINE) EXERCISE #1.
I created a Photoshop project with many layers of this piano drawing. I then imported the .psd into After Effects and used the sequence layers technique show below to skew out the pictures into frames.
a quick video below to show you how to sequence your photoshop layers in After Effects timeline. use this technique for exercise #1.
screen shot of step by step details:
NOW TRY (IMPORTING THE SKELETON PROJECT INTO AFTER EFFECTS THEN PUTTING IT DOWN INTO THE TIMELINE WITH ALL ITS PARTS (LAYERS) SHOWING AT ONCE) EXERCISE #2
the import of the .psd is the same as the above demo. The only difference is when you put the layers down into the timeline.
deselect sequence layers in the pop up box.