Tuesday, 24 January 2012

Adobe After Effects Workshop V.



ADOBE AFTER EFFECTS WORKSHOP V
Notes from today's session


Three things to look at in today's session:


- Additional keyfram techniques
- Possibilities of effectively (grouping) layers today to simplify designs
- AUDIO & sound


ADDITIONAL KEYFRAME TECHNIQUES



- To reveal all animated properties on layers- highlight all and press 'U'.
- 'Acceleration and deceleration' speed is added to give a more natural flow and path to objects within motion graphics- known as 'ease in' and 'ease out'.




- Animation > Key Frame Assistant > Easy ease in/out/easy ease (applies to both keyframes at the same time/decreases/increases the speed- the dots representing the frames gradually become wider apart, and the keyframe changes into an arrow head).


GRAPH EDITOR



- Changing how our timeline is represented.
- White squares represent key frames- this is a speed graph (axis on the left are pixels per second- speed units).



- Easing out graph (directly above).


- You can edit handle of key frames in the graph editor- can click and move horizontally to edit time within your motion design.



- Can also automatically change the speed and acceleration directly in the graph editor tool for a manual speed adjustment.


- With layer selected, double click ellipse tool to make a circle (from a square).



- Press 'Y' for pan behind tool- set appropriate anchor point- press 'R' for rotation tool- look at graph editor with rotation anchor points to add acceleration and deceleration. 



- Right hand click for edit speed graph- shows you the seconds that you are editing in graph editor.


- (With help from Mike!) Looking at how to effectively animate a sequence considering time and motion- reflecting how gravity would effect an object with a rapid speed increase as the pendulum falls to the middle (bottom) key frame- with additional motion blur. '0' speed is no motion- neutral.




"GROUPING" WITHIN AFTER EFFECTS


- Select multiple layers and change position/opacity, etc together.


OR (more effectively...)


ESTABLISHING PARENT/CHILD RELATIONSHIPS


- A way to link/group layers together.
- Set one layer as the parent to the others- what this layer does, all the other will do (parent/child analogy).
- Select 'parent' drop down- all the other layers used in composition will be in the drop down menu- highlight all to select all of the layers (aside from the parent) as the "children".
- The child layer can move independently- but will always be bound to the parent layer.
- Can have multiple child/parent links at the same time- solar system example (Earth, moo, sun).


- The relative positions of the layers are fixed when a parent/child relationship is linked.





- Establishing parent/child links in the different layers- re-scaling, creating a position path with bezier curves and auto- orientation (so that the object follows along the path).


ALTERATE OPTIONS (FOR GROUPING- NESTING COMPOSITIONS)


- If you change the opacity of a parent layer, this does not affect the child layers. All properties EXCEPT opacity are linked in a parent/child relationship.




- SELECT LAYERS > LAYER> PRE COMPOSE (puts all the layers in a new composition, replaces them- nests). Now just working with one layer for the editing tools. The car composition is now linked- it will update throughout all the composition(s) it is nested in. Any attribute can be changed (linked)- including opacity. Options are increased.



- You can also make designs from scratch before applying them to the full widescreen composition. Drag and drop into main composition for it to be applied correctly. This becomes a lot more workable.

- When you're working with nested items click on the rasterising illustrator art work box to display the items which are outside the animation boundaries (collapse transformations switch).


- Sound effects library available in User Work.
- TO CONVERT MP3: Right click on audio file- Quick Time Player 7, file > export, sound to AIFF/WAV.
- AUDIO IN AE: FILE > IMPORT FILE, drag and drop into composition.
- Can only hear audio if you use the RAM PREVIEW.
- When exporting to render que, output module option you need to check the box for audio output (as default this isn't checked).

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