Learning After Effects

Already I have discovered using After Effects is not going to be as easy as I first thought. I know my animation will be simple, and so I thought the basics I learnt in second year would be enough, but in my attempts at making a very short animation this morning proved I need to re learn the basics as well as some other effects like parenting.

I made some very quick, rough images on photoshop of my toy theatre setting and imported these images into After Effects. I had remembered all the basic transform tools such as position and scale and managed to create this.

This is very poor, but I have learned that I just need to manage my timing better, and this has taught me that I will need to give myself plenty of time to put the animation together
There are many things I would still need to play around with, such as the timing and smoothness of the transitions, but this was just a quick exercise to see what I had remembered.

After recapping the basics on Lynda (a software training and tutorial video library) I am confident in my capability to use After Effects for what I need, which will mainly the basics. These include the transform tools: Anchor Point, Position, Scale, Rotation, and Opacity. These are all I will need to create my motion graphic, although I am using After Effects, the animation is not my main focus, instead I am using simple animations to portray my artwork in a more visually interesting way. I have created a basic tutorial for myself with all the information I will need to know:

Setting up:
First we must set up a new project, we do this by opening After Effects and select File > New Project.

Once we have our new project, we need to create a Composition, a Composition is the framework for a movie, each has its own timeline and sources (such as images, videos, and audio). Simple projects may have just one composition, more complex projects may have hundreds. My project will have a number of different compositions, each one for a different image. To start a new compostion we can selecet New Composition from the Composition bar, or select New Composition from the Welcome Screen when opening After Effects.

Here we have the option to set up our new composition (also reffered to as "comp"), most importantly is to name our composition, and it is a good idea to name this with version1,or 001 for example at the end, so we can save multiple versions and revert back to an older stage if necessary. There are a lot of things we can change about the composition at this stage, but I am just focusing on the Basics. Next we can change the video format, named here as "Preset". I will use a 720p resolution size because this is the standard resolution for most monitors.

http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/hdtv2.htm

This image shows how resolution sizes have changed and we now have that "extra image", yet I will keep this in mind when creating my motion graphic, that anything important stays inside that original resolution area incase it is seen on a screen with a different resolution. I will use the guide lines in Adobe Photoshop (which is where I will be creating my illustrations) to ensure everything important is seen within those guidelines. 

The Preset I will use is will be HDV/HDTV 720 29.97 because 720x1280 is the standard. However, it is possible to change the width and heigh if necessary. In this window we can also change the frame rate, I will use 29.97 because it is becoming the norm, as all blue rays use this frame rate, yet 25fps (frames per second) used to be the norm. The final thing I will need to change on this composition will be its timescale, here, 0;00:10;00 is equal to ten seconds.

Next I import the photoshop file that has my first scene. When I created this image in photoshop, I made sure the keep everything that will be animated on a separate layer so I can animate each image individually. When importing the photoshop file, it is important to change the "Import as:" to Composition - Retain Layer Size, to ensure that all my work remains the same scale as I intended. Also make sure Photoshop Sequence is not ticked.  

Once imported, a file containing all of my layers from this photoshop file will appear in the left frame in the project panel. Then it is a simple matter of bringing each image into the composition (the main middle frame). I can rearrange the order and layers of each image in the bottom frame by clicking and dragging. Now I can begin animating. 

Anchor Point

The anchor point is used to determine from where the image will scale up/down from or what point the image will rotate around. The move the Anchor Point, select the Pan Behind Tool and the anchor point will move, instead of the position of the image which will move if you have the select tool in use. I will use this transformation effect in my motion graphic to...

Position

This is probably the main transformation technique I will use in my motion graphic, it is used to create a motion path for the image to follow in the animation, (Anchor points and some other effects use motion paths too, but it is easier to explain with Position). I will use this to create movement, bring images in and exit each scene. To use the position tool, I will place the individual image when I want it to start in the scene and set its key frame, I then change the time indicator and move the image to where I want it to end up. Once this is done, I can then edit the path, making the image move quicker or slower at different points by moving the dots, which show the position of the anchor point at each key frame, spreading these dots will give the appearance of the image moving slower, closer together, and moves faster. Moving dots that look like they are on the ends of sticks, are used to move the angle of and smooth the motion path between two keyframes, with the square representing the keyframe. This will be useful to smooth out positions and make them look less, "jolty" but in this example, it will move the curtain downwards and up again which I do not want.

Scale

Scale is used to resize objects, making them larger or smaller can be used to make things look like they're moving closer or further away from the viewer. The position of the anchor point is important when scaling an object because it effects from which point it scales up or down from.

As you can see by this example, the anchor point is set towards the bottom of the tree and so this point always stays in the same place, this would be good if I was drawing focus onto the tree hollow. I can show the importance of the anchor point positioning by comparing this to the image below. Here I have changed the anchor point towards the top of the tree, and so when I enlarge the tree, it focuses on this area and we lose the hollow as it begins to disappear off screen. These are factors I will carefully think about when creating my motion graphic.

Rotation

Similar to scale, the position of the anchor point is also important when rotating objects as it distinguishes the point it rotates around. A good example would be, if I were to animate a hand waving, I would want the anchor point to be at the wrist, and at the elbow for an arm, I will use rotation in my motion graphic to indicate things such as branches waving in the wind.

Opacity

The Opacity transformation tool changes the visibility of an object through its transparency. I will use this in my project to fade in different objects to look like they are appearing or leaving a scene. I will also use it  the make things look like they are moving without having to animate every movement. This animation by loish shows examples  of this technique:

In this animation, the team have used the opacity tool to move between two static images to give the impression of movement. This is a very good example of how I will create my motion graphic.

http://loish.net/animation/mahaba-love-story/

I have also researched how to manipulate and transform layers in the three dimensional layer in order to create the illusion of perspective change and zooming in or out of different scenes. To do this, I watched video tutorials on Lynda that covered this topic.

To create a 3D layer, select the 3D layer tool for each layer you wish to use, this means it is possible to have both 2D and 3D layers in the same composition. 

Once the 3d tool is on, you are given more options to manipulate the object:

Position now has an extra scale that can be used to manipulate how far back the object is, known as Z position. Positive values makes the object further away, negative values brings them closer. The scale appears to change, but this is actually perspective. Depending on the z position, the layers can go behind or in front of other layers, which gives the illusion of 3D, so stacking is less important and has less control over order, unless two layers have the same z axis position. You can manually input the values for each transformation tool, or you can use the axis arrows (similar to the ones I have seen using 3D programmes such as Maya) to move the position. The blue arrow is the z axis, this changes the depth making the object appear closer and further away. Green is the y axis, moving the object up and down and the red is the x. axis, moving the object left and right. A way to remember which is which is RGB = XYZ.

Orientation is a second take of the below axis, this changes the position of the objects orientation and is better for posing, but not for animating because you cannot manipulate them separatley like you can with the rotation tools.

X rotation, rotates the object around the x horizontal axis

Y rotation, rotates the object around the y vertical axis

Z rotation, this is similar to the 2D rotation tool, and rotates the object around the z axis.

If the object overlaps with another layer behind it when it rotates, it will intersect through the layer, giving the illusion of 3D, however the objects will disappear when rotated to the point of  the exact side or top view because they have no depth. This is why this illusion of 3D is actually referred to Two and a half Dimensional.

Using these new tools I have learned I managed to create this very simple animation that shows the use of z position, \

It is important to have high resolution images if I am going to use them with perspective scaling close to the screen to create a high quality final motion graphic.