Advanced Keyframing in Aftereffects

1. Trailer: everyone. My name is furrows, quasi. I'm a motion graphics artist and photographer. I work with clients like Snoop Dog, Marvel TV, architecture, gaming and also times a trailer work. In my journey, I've learned so many things and in this class specifically, I want to teach you how to key frame on an advanced level so you can get the most smoothest animations in a short amount of time. So not only do I teach you how to do something, I will teach you how to do it in an efficient manner that will save you. Talk. So I hope you enjoy it. Let's get started. 2. 1. Your Assignment - The Journey of the Ball: everybody, What's going on? So first things first, let's go over the assignment. So when you go into the left hand side into the project panel under four underscore assignment, you're gonna find your assignment. This is the composition you'll be working with. The bowl is not moving this composition. The structure is laid out and the cameras laid out for you as well. So if you want to see what it really looks like, go under the main comp and final animation and you can compare it with your work and see how your progress is going. So download this file and I look forward to see what you guys make up this and feel for you to be creative. It doesn't have to follow the structure. I want to see what you guys do and, yeah, let's get started. 3. 2. Bouncing the Ball: All right. What's going on, guys? So first things first, we're gonna open the aftereffects file. We're gonna open the your assignment tab or a composition in this aftereffects fall. You open this up and you gonna see that nothing is really animating here. So we're gonna open. We're gonna click on later. Number 10. You choose the ball. We're gonna hit P to reveal key friends for position key. Frame it, move down a couple of frames and we're going to drag this ball down up to the point of impact Right over there. We're gonna highlight these two key frames, right? Click key from assistant. He's choose a key frame editor over here. And what we're gonna do is we're going to adjust this graph so that it picks up speed up to the point of impact right there. Okay, extend this Larra bit hit command ship deed is split. This layer press you to reveal the key frames. Highlight the first key fame deleted. You'll see this something. You'll see something like this over and over that I dio I always split the layer in until it the key frames from before. Because these previous key frames don't need to interfere with the ones that are ahead. So what I do is now we need this to bounce. So that's this is where the entire meat of this lesson is gonna be. So I'm going to help you guys focus on this as much as possible. Gonna right click on position. Hits separate dimensions removed the X NZ. Just keep the key frames on the white. Now that this has hit the point of impact, we're gonna raise this up because it's bouncing. Moved a key frame. Move the timeline forward, bring it down up to the point of impact again. Have to keep moved a timeline a bit. Head bring it back up because now it's bouncing a little bit lower because it's losing energy. Go back again. Were just bouncing this thing. Go back up and finally back down. Now, as you could see, what we're gonna do is we're gonna highlight all these key frames, right Click key frame assistant. Easy's go into the graph editor and you'll see a Sinus total. Kate Uh uh. This is not what a bounce wave looks like. A bounce wave is gonna look like this at the point of impact has a lot of energy. So we're gonna drag this forward like this. So it's gonna peak early, just like that. And then over here, it's losing a bunch of energy as it moves forward and then falls back down. So we need this to peek over here as it reaches a point of impact. And then just repeat that again and again and you'll see the bouncing curve looks somewhat like like this. It's hard to describe, but the physics of it is pretty accurate. And basically, this is what your graph is gonna end up looking like. Okay, now, it's not gonna be perfect the first time you do it. So as you can see, it's gonna balance, bounce, bounce, bounce. It looks fine. It's not bad, but that's not realistic, because here's the thing. It needs to bounce right, left and then down. So we're gonna do is we're gonna keep from the exposition. We're going to move it right now. This is where this is the apex. This is when it has zero potential energy. So we're gonna move forward and we're going to move this this way, right, because it's gonna go up here a bit. Now what we're gonna do, we're gonna raise the why position up? Because we want to bring it back to the point of impact, right? I'm not gonna easy use these X position key frames right now. Just the wise fine. Who forward again? The point of impact will make sure it's appear. Bring the X value all the way to the left. And bring this down again, back to the point of impact. You're gonna see these curves look a little bit, you know, they don't look quite perfect. And and this trajectory doesn't seem realistic, and then we'll go outside. You can bring this down because we don't want to hit that area above. So this is roughly what we wanted to look like. But as you could see, the waves don't look quite right. So we're gonna highlight the Y position key frames, going to the graph editor, and we're just gonna just he's a bit because we adjusted the X values. These are These need to be perfectly set as well. So what you can do? It's play around with it just so you can get it. Get your bounce, Fracked. But this curve over here if you highlight This is the bounce key frame wave and what it looks like. So that is basically the mutable lesson. And I encourage you to stick around just a bit more. And what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna fix all of this and show you how we can do a squash and stretch to make it even mawr realistic. 4. 3. Perfecting the Bounce: So right over here, you could see that the timing needs to be just right too. So the spacing of these key frames need to be just right. So it bounces, comes back down and you'll see that it bounces a little faster as it as time moves forward just to make a little more realistic. So we're going to do, grab these key frames, go into the graphic or go a little bit more in detail. You're gonna notice that. Oh, you know what? Like Aiken, I can in just a few things here. Just few things there. This bounce over here, for example. This needs to be a little more energetic. You can bring that here. This over here doesn't look quite rights. You can bring that here. And a lot of this is just going to be adjusting the details just right. Bone boom, boom. So, as you can see, this balance needs to be a little bit faster. So I'm gonna bring the key frame a little closer. And a lot of this is just kind of getting it right. With your instinct as well and understanding the physics of the world. You wanted to be in. Okay. Well, now, as you could see, this trajectory didn't really make sense because it looks like it lost some height. So we're gonna do it. Didn't move this a bit forward. Bring this up and make this curve a little bit more realistic. Okay, you go. So now you can see that is looking somewhat decent. 5. 4. Squash and Stretch : Okay, so now we're gonna apply the squash in stretch press s on this layer key frame the scale unlinked the chain. And as it hits the point of impact, nothing happens on Lee at the point of impact. We want it to squash. So you gonna hit the why? And we're gonna cut dad down. But it has hit or for the rotation and just keep from dizzy axes. And what we're gonna do is we're just gonna rotate it this way. No, to rotate a little bit this way, because that's where we wanted to, uh, to turn. Okay. So as you could see on the point of impact over here, we wanted to squash. So we can do that. And as a squashes, we can rotate it this way. And you can actually bring this key frame down over here. Okay? And you can bring it back up a nscaa shit and stretch it. And then when it hits the point of impact again, stretch it out again. And on the second Sorry. Third point of impact hit the key frame. Squash it again, bring the key frame down. So that's more realistic. Bring it back up it supplies up. You can actually extend this stretch a bit and then falls down. Take a look at it. Okay, so I think you get an idea of what this looks like. And that's that was basically my whole point. And you can adjust it however you feel and this is basically the exercise is try to make it look as realistic as possible to your best of your ability. 6. 5. Falling with Gravity: last part where we're gonna do is we're gonna again command ship D, split this layer, you, and to lead all these key frames. We're just gonna keep this we want to do is if you go to the note here. This is my camera, and you can pull it down. You can see OK, this things falling down. So let's move this guy just a bit over here and Allah. Gist of why? So that it follows the shape of this thing here and we're not gonna easy use this. We're gonna keep it constant. So as you could see, it falls down and just kind of does, Um yeah, and this is the end of the first lesson. Let's move on to the second part, and we're going to talk about the swinging motion. 7. 6. Falling with Gravity pt. 2: take this hit command and hit the key frames. And now you've got a constant motion there. You can make it faster by bringing closer boom A little more realistic. Now it starts to curve. So I'm gonna bring this camera down. You can control the camera using this. No object, by the way, that's later. Number 14. Now that we've gotten this far, take this layer and split it again. Command shifty. Hit you to reveal the key frames and let's delete the previous keeping. Now we're going to go on this u u shape. So let's move this ball hit command Plus to zoom in and I'm using space to move around Ah, holding space to move around. So we're gonna come out. We're gonna come from where you're going to Sorry. Instead of, uh, right click on these position, it's separate dimensions. So now these are not separate dimensions anymore. So we wanted to come here, go up here into the pen to convert Vertex Tool, and we're going to adjust the shape of this curve and then hit it over here to. So now we've got this. If you don't get this option right click over here. Key frame interpolation and choose spatial interpolation as busy or continues busy. Okay, so now we've got this and we want this. We wanted to kind of do this motion right Where is, like, coming in, and it's like, and then it slows down up here. So we're going to take this layer command ship. Do you split it again? Delete the first key frame, go up in the timeline and move up. Now you'll see this curvature here. We're just gonna straighten that up. And now we need this thing to slow down, you know? I mean cause you know, gravity. Good old grabbed. So you take this to Key Frames, right? Click a key frame assistant. Easy's going to this graph editor. Now we know it slows down, so we know it's fast. The beginning. So that's what we were gonna need. So right now you could see like, Oh, this is strange. Like this. Two different speeds going on here so you could just bring this closer and make it fast. Okay, bring these in closer, and as you could see right now, we just need this thing to feel more authentic. So again, we're gonna need this to be super fast in the beginning. And so, as you could tell, that's what happened. So we just need these key frames to be spaced out a little bit better. So it goes in now we're gonna split this layer. Okay? So, a to this point in the animation, what I did was I just removed this shape because it's gonna fall into a pool into water. So hit Select this layer. That's layer number 16. Go into the the options of here. Contents go into ad in trim pats. Okay, You already have a trim pats here, So I'm gonna go down, and I'm going to hit end, select a key from of end, and I'm just going to trim it out by moving that back to zero highlights. Two key frames, right. Click Easy's and just gonna make sure it smooths out. Okay, so we're at this moment over here where we really want us to feel a little more realistic. So what we're gonna do? Okay, so right now we could sell it slowing down, and now it's gonna start falling. So here we are, and that's it. So we created this motion up here and now we're gonna make it fall before the end of this lesson. So we're gonna take this later. Split it with command ship deep, hit you to reveal the key frames. Do eat this. And now we're going to make it fall down. So have the why. Value Go down. Select a key frame highlighted. Now it speeds up as it falls down. Remember? Because it's picking up so much gravitational energy. So come here and falls. Cool. Okay, that's the end of this lesson. I'll see and listen three. 8. 7. Underwater Physics: Okay, guys, welcome to the next lesson. So we're following the journey of this ball. It balances, it swings around and it falls. So right now, what we're gonna do is we're gonna have a drop into a pool of water. So we're gonna head command. Why? When she's a dark, solid and press enter, enter, we're gonna make a three d, and we're gonna bring it down. And we had command. Why? To zoom out. And where we're gonna do is we're gonna bring this layer just above, uh, we're a shapely So right here, we're gonna have command bracket and we trim this layer. So we're gonna take this camera on layer 13 and we'll bring it down so we can actually see where this ball has fallen down into. We take this later, we're gonna make it big, and we can have it fall into this pool of water. So right there. And that's kind of the edge, and we see that happen. So give the to give the illusion that it's actually like falling. We're gonna do it, falls into the ball of water, becomes a white ellipse, So don't select any of these layers on Lee, select the Ellipse tool here, Drag it hit command shift and make a circle here. Hit command or hold command and hit the pan behind. Tool to center. This anchor point so we're gonna do is we're gonna take this, uh, layer, you bring it up here, we're gonna make it the same color. By choosing this Phil and this eyedropper, we're gonna choose this color. I'm gonna make it the same color as our previous background. So go ahead, command bracket. Make it to trim this layer. Bring it down here and we're gonna make it three d. So because this three d will have to bring it all the way down again because, you know, when you make something three D, it goes back to its default position. 9 65 40 So here, this is where we want to have this fall into the pool water. And when something falls into water that fast, it initially has a lot of energy, so it's gonna move fast. We're gonna pee for the a key frame. We're gonna hit p, keeping the position, bring it in the beginning, and we're going to have it fall down Just a bit like right around there. Highlight both key frames. Right click. Kiefer, Miss isn't easy's. Okay, choose the graph Editor in the very beginning, it's super fast. So that's what we're gonna do. We're just going to have it fall right in there. So as you could see, it looks pretty decent, but doesn't quite sell the effect. So we're gonna have the camera dilates movement just a bit like that. So just a just a camera, But just the movement of this thing. And now you've got this motion like that right over here. You could see that it hit the pool of water, and that's great. So now what we want to do is because it's in this pool of water. We kind of want to make it wiggle a bit because, you know, it's floating. They're gonna come hold option command, click, hold, option and click the position keeping. And we're gonna type, wiggle and bracket two comma. 79 two comma seven. They're so right now, it's just gonna fall in and you'll see that it kind of disappears every now and then. That's because it's kind of going into that pool lay, or so we're going to highlight both key frames and bring it into a negative Z space. So that it you know, he's just doing that. So hit you twice to reveal key frames and expressions together. Now you'll see that it's kind of moving too much, so we'll make it to comma 59. So now it's in there. And if you want, you can make it one This so you know, it's not being too much and still kind of controllable. Now, this is what we're gonna do. We're gonna create this environment into which it falls into. So you take this camera, I'm gonna bring it down just a bit, and we're actually going to bring this a little bit further down into the water. We're going to create a new environment here. So what we need, we need to show that, Okay, Does it pull water and is a bunch of balls I got stuck in here. We're gonna take this layer, were duplicated command. He hit you, You know, get rid of all the key frames and hit V to get Bring your mouse back and let's make one over heroes make the small and I'm not apply a fast blur onto this guy. I'm not gonna do anything with that fastball. Okay? I'm gonna take this layer duplicated going around here. Okay? So we're gonna do I'm gonna put a fast blur on top. Now, what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna hit command option ships. Why? Command options wind. That gives you a no object, especially an empty object. And I'm gonna trim it with Ault square bracket, front and back. And what I'm gonna do them, We're gonna go into effect. Expression controls, slider control. If this is gonna be my blurred control, I'm gonna control the blur greenness of all of these other balls inside the port using only one blur control. So how are we going to do that? Interestingly, you can do that by making a bunch of these balls and controlling the blurry on each one of these, or I'm gonna teach you this new way of doing it. Take this one layer applied the fast, fast blur on it. Duplicated, uh, do you get the layer commanding and let's bring it here. Let's duplicate this layers. Well, spring it over here. Bring this guy over here. Let's make this a little bit big. Let's bring this guy over here really, really small, okay? And let's bring this guy over here and let's let's just make this really, really big. Okay? So right now, all of these have a blur on them. So I'm gonna take the fast blur of this guy, and I'm hit all I'm an option. Click on the Blur of Radius. Now, what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna take this blow radius. I'm gonna pick Whip it onto the slider control right here. Okay? So what you'll notice is if you go into the slider control here, which is my blur control? No. You can control the blurriness of that one layer just by this one girl object. Cool. But you can't do it with all of these, right? So let's go back a few steps and see. Okay. How can I do this? So I purposely made this mistake. So to get you guys to thinking Oh, this is the way to do it efficiently. So let's click. Move all these layers. We already know that I've picked quipped the blur radius onto my blur control slider control here. So let's take this if you go into your broke blur Control. You can control the blurriness of all of these objects just using one slider control. How cool is that? That is gonna make your life really easy. But clients and anything you're doing anything you wanna do really quickly and you want to control a property just using one layer. So now you've got all these. And another thing you can do is just to sell. The effect is take this pool layer and put a mask on it by double clicking on the elliptical tool and just kind of make it a little bit, you know, shorter like that. But then extended up. And what? You'll notice it's by Press em here. You can kind of right at the point of impact. Like, right there. What you can do is kind of pinch this pool down here just like that. And this kind of gives you that affect that. Whoa. You know what? I just distended this environment. You know what I mean? And then and then it just kind of it. It has this property like water where it needs to. It needs to recover back to its original shape because water always retains the shape of its container, and that's basically what I'm doing. I kind of went back and forth until it just became normal. And then you take these key frames, disease them. And next thing you know, you kind of created this effect that it's fallen into the this, uh, darkness. Now you're in this whole new world now, Where we going to do is this is the final part of this animation, and let's go into the next lesson, and we're gonna wrap up this whole thing by pre comping this entire part, and I'm gonna show you what we're gonna do. 9. 8. Bringing it all together: What's going on, guys, Welcome back. So now we are continuing our journey, this bowl, and it's dropped into the abyss of darkness, and now it's just kind of floating in there. So what we're gonna do is going to take this, um, black background. We're gonna take all of these elements along with it Is these little balls and, um, this no object, which is the blur Control gonna take all this? We're gonna hit command shift, see? And we're gonna pre compose it. We call this abyss of darkness pre camp. We're gonna move it all into another camp, and we're gonna do is we're gonna make this three d and then we're going to We're gonna hit this star. But in which you gonna rast arise it. That means it retains its coordinates within this three d space so won't appear over here in the other calm, but it will appear here. So now we've got all of this. The abyss of darkness is all in one layer. And what we're gonna do is we're going to take this tool over here, the Ellipse tool, and then we're going to hold shift and command, and we're gonna make this mask around it and then hit em. And I'm gonna search for a moment when this thing is somewhere in the middle. So it's right over there. That's our mean. That's the hero object here. So I'm gonna choose this mask path, and I'm going to move this key frame of the mask path outside. So a couple of friends earlier, and I'm going to double click on this mask and hit command shift and bring it all in. Two words are a hero object, which is right here. So I'm gonna bring it all in here. Now I'm going to squish it completely. Okay? I'm gonna grab these two key frames. I'm gonna highlight them. Hit right click key Frame assistant. Easy's now. What I'm gonna do is I'm gonna easy use It's here that it starts off slow and then becomes fast. So now we've got this animation where we've got this abyss of darkness in one layer. And but so now we are at all most of the last part of this animation where we're going to take in a new ellipse tool. We're not gonna highlight any layer. I'm not gonna highlight anything. Otherwise, it becomes a mask, and I'm gonna choose another object here. Let's make it dark, dark. Great. And what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna hit all bracket and bring it here, and I'm gonna position, key, frame this guy so that as soon as as soon as it goes in there, um, you know what? I'm gonna make this three d as well. So once you make it three d, it's gonna move back up. So we're gonna bring it all the way down holding the why, Okay, we'll move any key frames from here, and what I'm gonna do is bring it in here and now got this object sitting right over there . But I'm gonna make sure the anchors in the center by double clicking on the pan behind Tool , hit the position key frame key, frame that. And now we're gonna bounce this because just smash right into it. And, uh, yeah, we're gonna create this cool looking motion just like we practiced earlier around here. So we're gonna do is we're gonna do the same principles again. Separate dimensions. Okay, move the X and we cannot remove the X. Bring it back to where it was for you. Okay? And what we're gonna do is we're gonna make it bounce. Okay? So first things first, it goes up, okay? It goes up, then falls back down, okay? And then goes back up and falls back down. And this is always fun to do. And we gonna highlight all these key frames and you'll see the sign in. So it'll cave curb again. I'm gonna hit the plus sign Zoom in. And what we Well, let's just do what we first practice, which waas that when it first hits it, it bounces with a lot of energy. So we first need a lot of energy. So it goes who and then the energy goes down slowly and then retains some of that and then retain some of the energy boom boom. And you can do this. Okay. And last but not least, it bounces. It bounces right? By the way, when you do this mask and then hits this thing, it's better to just cut off the slayer. My held it by holding the option and closed activity. And now, boom. You can adjust the speed by moving these key frames however you like. And that balances once bounces again, comes back down. And like that, so does how I did it. And you guys, this is basically the meat of this lesson is how to create, uh, this balance animation and then make it fun. Now, this is the bounce curve. It kind of looks like a bunch of blades coming up and down. Now, what we're gonna do is again keeping the X and moves a bit, you know, to the side, if you want moves, maybe moves back a little bit, and this will allow you to No, it just It just creates some fun animations and create its own personality. Now, this is a tiny little touch that I added into this animation Where, um, I had it change shapes once it bounced. So let's do that. Oh, real quick. Upon the upon impact, split the layer command shift. D delete these key friends from before and come back here. We're gonna make a triangle. Cool. I remember, uh, when you're using shapes, make sure nothing is selected when you're clicking up here. Okay. So because it hits it on the point of impact. So let's just choose this part of the triangle as a point of impact and then come back here in the context and move the ellipse. So now we're gonna do you hit r and rotated. So once it bounces up, you can have it rotate and then come back, maybe here like that. And then right click on this, easiest this guy and smooth it out. So now or actually, this is a very good moment to teach this upon impact. A lot of energy. So we're gonna have it turn or rotate in the Z axes once it hits the ground. Boom. And then upon the second impact, split the layer to lead the first wiki frames. And, uh, I guess we'll make a rectangle or something, you know, because we went from a circle to a triangle. Now I am going to shake this. Okay, Now we're gonna go back into contents, and we're gonna delete that triangle layer, and then the Z axes and then, you know you want to rotate, so that's cool. And then I guess we'll rotate like this. Hi, ladies. Keeping weaken. Delete these future key frames to in this layer. His key frames, remember, has a lot of energy upon impact or however you like it. It's your world Boom, boom, boom. So, yeah, this is really fun to do as you can see And then once it hits gonna hit s a key frame The skill hit you to reveal all to keep rings And then ageist We can have it, um, increase in size And that's basically the end of this assignment. Um, here we go. I'm gonna choose this, and I'm gonna pull all please. So now we've got this bouncing animation boom. 12 and cool. And, uh, Mina right here. Thank you for watching I'm gonna do is all brings up here and skills up just a bit. It s a key frame. This guy here I was here. Easy's This guy's. Well, I'm really trying to teach you guys things that those little subtle things that make a huge difference, you know? And this is what makes it all worth it. You know, it's just tiny little tiny little things that psych Whoa. Like what? Like what did I just see? Because it was so smooth. And now what we'll do is we'll we'll watch this as it please and then goes inside the darkness and the darkness becomes light again. And yeah, that's that. I hope you enjoyed this lesson. 10. 9. Congrats - You made it through: I'm going to share this file this entire file with you guys. Minute collected, all store it and zip it for you guys. Do your assignment to the best of your abilities and let me know how how it goes. And remember, the meat of this entire lesson is basically in this bounce curve. I have enjoyed it and have fun and let me know how how it goes.