Un-tick show window screen in startup to keep the opening box from popping up at opening.
AE Screen is made up of panels. Which ever panel is clicked (highlighted with a blue edge) means that specific panel is active.
Can adjust panel size by "clicking and dragging" the edge of the panel
Uni temp files
after effects>preferences>media and disk cache
"choose folder" area. Click this and change folder location to "temp work"
Any temp files will now be saved in there.
Do this for Conformed media cache areas (database and cache).
After effects is used for special effects and CGI when working with video files. Works alongside video premier. It also really great for animation.
Project Panel
Whenever you save your file it is called a "project".
Think of this "project" panel as a "library of assets".
Whatever file/artwork we are going to use - we need to import it into this panel to create our animation: file> import to get these files.
The way this works is we will be creating files in photoshop and importing them into this panel to be used.
The bottom long panel is called "timeline" and is split into two parts.
- The left hand side of this is very similar to photoshops "layers" palette.
-The right hand side is the time "ruler". This is where we arrange our "assets" (imported files) and where we arrange them and decide what is going to happen and when throughout the animation.
The third central panel is called the "composition" panel. This is where you can see the results of whatever you arrange in the timeline. Where you see the animation - the final product.
1: import photoshop files into project panel
2: arrange files in timeline panel
3: See final animation in composition panel
The first thing we need to do is click the "project panel" (so it is active with blue outline) click composition at the top of the screen and click "new composition". This is effectively setting up a new page. follow settings:
-name file.
-preset drop down: work within a standard definition format (NTSC or PAL). Not HD because of the file size for this brief (About the Author).
**NTSC is the american video standard. **PAL is the UK video standard.
Use Pal D1/DV Widescreen Square Pixel this then resets and completes the rest of the presets on this window including our width and height.
When working with video/animation we work in pixels. These pixels are not always square, they can be aspect ratios which can be rectangular etc. Photoshop is square pixels though and that is what we are working with.
Frame rate: 25 frames p/s. Digital video is like a flick book. Each page is a frame and depending how fast you flick the pages - that is how many pages "frames" per second.
Note: in After effects when the text is highlighted blue - it means you can change those numbers/text. When you click on the text - the blue text/numbers turn into a field which can be edited. If you hover over the text, the curser turns into an adjustable dragger which can be dragged left to right increasing/decreasing the values.
-leave resolution.
-leave start time code (used in video)
-duration: 15 seconds. (as the brief states)
(see screen shot of this box for final set up values)
-click ok.
We now have a composition in our projects panel and the timeline has a lot more info (units of time up until our end point of the animation (15 secs)).
In the time line we have a little blue "current time indicator" and whatever the red line hits - will be played in our composition panel.
To adjust any parts of the composition got to composition at the top of the screen>composition settings (just like editing document sizes etc)
So after the composition file has been completed - we would then go file>import to import our photoshop files for use.
Layers
If you look in the top layer menu drop down and nothing is available (everything is greyed out) it means you are in the wrong panel for that menu. In this case if the project panel is selected it wont work because layer options exist when in the "timeline" panel.
Select the timeline panel> layer drop down> new layer> solid
By default the size of this layer comes up as the whole size of our composition.
Set a colour (in this case red and make the size 100px by 100px). Click ok and this creates this solid layer.
**"Temporally" is to do with time.
In the timeline panel we can make changes to this new red solid layer over time. (when it is there and when it is not)
**"Spacially" is where the solid layer exists within the composition. We can edit this in the composition panel.
In the timeline panel the long red bar represents our solid red layer.
You can click on either end of this bar and adjust/drag. By doing this you can change how long this layer lasts for and when it starts/finishes. You can also click the middle of the red bar in the timeline panel and move it left to right, changing its overall placement as a whole within the animation.
In the left of the timeline panel is the composition part of the layer. If you double click the little red square it opens this layer in its own new tab window in the "composition panel".
Within the composition panel you can adjust the layers and the composition "spacially". In this case you can move the red box layer around the composition window.
Create a new layer: layer>new>solid. 200px by 200px and yellow.
The layer that is on top in the timeline panel means the layer that is in front.
You can change the order in the layers panel by dragging them above and below each other.
You can copy and paste layers to repeat the same layer in your time line and adjust their times accordingly.
Drag and drop layers to change their order etc.
Preview tab on the right hand side is all about playing back your animation, play etc.
First button (rewind icon) takes you back to the first frame of your animation. In order to play back in real time it is best practice to use the end button in this preview palette (3 lines and a play icon) which is called ram preview. This is best practice because AE needs to adjust and finalise elements for the animation to be created properly and in real time to our specifications. Using ram preview means that AE does everything it needs to and it is more accurate in terms of playing your animation in its most finished preview.
When creating a new composition at the start you can change the resolution of your composition screen. In the composition panel you can change your resolution and what is being shown in the composition panel by clicking on the bottom drop down menu in the composition panel. If play back of the animation isn't full when editing, an option is to lower the resolution. This doesn't change the quality of the final product - it is just what resolution is being previewed to you in AE. Ram preview is to see the pace of your animation. Its to do with interaction and time change - not the resolution. So temporarily changing this is fine.
On the time line panel you can adjust blue sliders where the time is displayed (near the top of the panel just underneath the time ruler). This is to select the exact part for preview when using ram preview. (When exporting the final product you can also export just this selected area or the whole animation depending on what you want.) This is the only part of your animation that will be played during editing when selected.
Use ram preview. not the play button!
To delete a layer - select it and press backspace
Before your layer "source name" is a triangle. That drop down reveals layer properties. This is similar to photoshop edit>transform. This enables us to change scale, opacity etc etc...
All of these blue numbers on the transform dropdown means we can edit them.
The "position" is where your solid layer is within the composition frame. You can edit these in this drop down and the layer will move within the frame. Just hover over the blue values and drag. This is instead of physically dragging the layer within the composition panel itself.
"Rotation": first set of numbers in the amount of times the layer rotates. The second set is the degree in which the layer rotates. e.g 5x90 degrees
All of these layer properties can be edited and can be different at different points in time.
Key frames
A "key frame" is a moment in time when a significant change occurs in a particular layer property, e.g the start and the end of a significant movement.
Using keyframes is how we animate our layers within the composition.
To the right of the transform "position" element (well all of them actually) is a stopwatch. Clicking this stop watch fixes the start time of the layer.
To the right of your stopwatch (which the the symbol to enable keyframes) is 2 arrows.these arrows let you jump between your key frames exactly. the circle in the middle lets you get rid of that keyframe. you can also select the key frame in the time line and press backspace to get rid of it.
You can also move your keyframe points on the time line. So the closer the keyframe points are the less time it takes to do the same change/motion as it is occurring over less frames. If they are far apart the same changes are happening over more frames so it takes longer.
To export this as a video go to "vimeo" and set up an account. Get an "embed" code and put this on your blog.
Exporting
Composition drop down at the top of the screen> add to render queue
Render settings and click best settings blue text amd go custom. Adjust time span depending
Output module click "lossless" blue text. Only thing we need to do is adjust format options.
Adjust video codec to H.264
Output to is where the animation is going to export to, rename and save.
Now it is all set up click "render" on the right hand side of bottom render panel
The file is now exported and you can upload to vimeo then embed on to blog.
My quick animation from this workshop session:
After Effects Session 1 from Jessica Dawson on Vimeo.
No comments:
Post a Comment