Basics of Motion Design: Start Animating in Adobe After Effects

1. Introduction: Welcome to basics of motion design. I'm going to walk you through how to create this animation using basic techniques. Techniques such as the write on effect, an introduction to the graph editor, an introduction to text animators and more. Your class project will be to take any of the techniques you learned in this class and apply it to your own animation. Can't wait to see what you create. 2. Getting Started: For this class, you're going to need Adobe after effects, Adobe Media encoder to export. Here's a list of fonts I used in the project. Here's some ideas for your class project. Follow along with my animation, or you can animate your name. Create a lower third, make your own advertisement or anything you would like. Be sure to post your project to the project gallery so everybody can see what you created. 3. Intro to Adobe After Effects(optional lesson): To get your after effect screen looking like mine, go to Window Workspace and select Default. If you're ever missing a panel, always remember that you can find any panel you need under the Window tab. Let's say you're missing the composition panel. Go to Window. Scroll down the list until you find Composition. Go to File, Project Settings, Time, Display Style, and select Frames. Click on New Composition. You can change the name of the composition. You can change the size. You can change the frame rate, change the duration of the composition, choose a background color. Up here at the top of the screen, you can find your rectangle tool. To create the rectangle, you can just simply drag with your mouse, you can change the fill color, change the stroke color. Or you can get rid of the stroke by changing this value to zero. Here is the pan behind tool, this little thing. Here is the anchor point. An anchor point is where the layer will animate from. This will make sense later in the class. With the layer selected press to bring up the position property. By changing these two values, you can move the rectangle. Click on the Stopwatch button. Beside position, it puts a keyframe on the timeline to move across the time line. Just drag the playhead, change the value again. This places another key frame on the timeline. Press space bar to preview your animation. You can see how the rectangle moves between these two key frames. You can move your key frame just by dragging it across the timeline. What this does is it changes the speed of the animation. I almost forgot to mention that if you want to trim your preview area, press N, you can select both key frames and press nine to easy as it makes the animation a little smoother. And we're going to go inside the graph editor to just show you what it does. This here is the graph editor button. Once inside the graph editor, click this button at the bottom and choose Edit Speed Graph. For this class, we're going to be using the speed graph because I find it's a lot easier for beginners to follow along with. By dragging the handles here, you can change the speed of the animation. You see how it affects the speed of the rectangle. The shape of this curve indicates that the animation starts fast and finishes slow. You can locate it up here beside the pen tool. Click anywhere. Type your text. Over here in the character panel is where you can change just about anything you would like. You can change the font, change the size, change the color, dis, center the text in the middle of the composition. Go to the aligned panel Text animators can be found by opening up the layer. Clicking this button beside Animate. Let's select, go to ten frames on the timeline. Click the stopwatch, head back to the beginning of the time line type, a value of zero. Now let's add a position. Go to ten frames on the time line. Click the stopwatch button, head back to the beginning of the time line. Type in a value of 50 in the y position. Now select the key frames. Click nine to easy ease. Another thing I want to show you how to do is use the pen tool. You can find the pen tool up here beside the rectangle tool. By clicking points and dragging these handles, you can create a shape just like the rectangle tool. You can change the fill color. You can get rid of the fill by clicking here and clicking none. Change the size of the stroke, change the color of the stroke. You can edit your line. Clicking on these points and dragging these handles to draw a straight line, you can hold the shift key. One more thing I'd like to show you is how to parent two layers together. By clicking on this Pick Whip button and dragging it to the other layer. It is now parented. Now when you move one layer, the other layer should move with it. That's essentially what I wanted to show you. Now we can start animating. 4. Animate the Can: To start animating, you're going to have to open the project file. Go to file, Open Project. Locate the project file, make sure you're inside the right composition. If you're not inside the right composition, you can locate it under Main Composition Skill Share, Class Animated. I'm also going to include a finished version of the class. Feel free to look at that as well. In this first lesson, we're going to animate the can. With the can layer selected press P, Click on the stopwatch button to place a key frame on the time line. Drag the key frame over about 15 frames. Now to move the can to the left at the beginning of the timeline, drag the X position, move the can all the way to the left until it's off the screen. This places another key frame on the timeline. We can make it better by selecting both keyframes, Pressing nine, this makes the animation a little more smooth. But we can make it even better by entering the graph editor with your keyframe selected, click the graph editor button. Once inside the graph editor, click this button at the bottom and choose Edit, Speed Graph. Drag this handle all the way to the left. Now preview your animation again. 5. Animate the Line: To animate the line, we're going to use a trim Path Toggle down the line layer beside, Add. Click on this icon and locate Trim Path toggle down the trim path layer. Move to around 12 frames on the time line, put a start value of 50% and the value of 50% Click on the stopwatch aside. To start end, move over around ten frames, put a start value of zero and an N value of 100. Select all the key frames and click nine. 6. Slide In Text: Now we're going to animate the slide in text. Go to around 35 frames on the time line. Click on the bottom text layer and press P. Click on the stopwatch to place a key frame on the timeline. Go back to around 20 frames on the timeline. Now drag the text until it is just above the line. Select both key frames and click nine Head inside the graph editor and drag this handle to the left. To make the text invisible above the line, we're going to use a matt. Create a new rectangle layer just above the line. Move the new rectangle layer just above the text layer using the track mat, Pick whip. Drag it to the mat layer. Click on Invert Mat. Now the text animates out of the line. 7. Text Animator: To animate the middle text, we're going to use a text animator toggle down the text layer beside Animate. Click on this icon and choose position from the list type in a value of 85 into the y position. Toggle down the range selector layer type a value of negative 100 into the offset and click on the stopwatch. Move over 30 frames on the timeline and put a value of 100 into the offset. You now have two key frames on the time line under the advanced layer. Change the shape to ramp up and type in a value of 90% in the ease low using the track. Matt, pick whip, drag it to the mad layer. 8. Animate the Arm: Now we're going to animate the arm parent, the thumb layer to the hand layer using the pick whip. Select the hand layer and make sure your anchor point is in the right spot with the hand layer selected press. To bring up the rotation, click on the stopwatch icon at 20 frames on the time line. Move over 25 frames on the time line type in a value of 75 into the rotation. Move over 15 frames on the time line type in a value of zero. Select all three key frames. Press F nine, now head into the graph editor. Drag this handle all the way to the left. Do the same with this handle. Now drag this handle all the way to the right. And do the same for the last handle at 20 frames on the time line parent, the can layer to the hand layer using the pickwick. 9. An Easy Write On Technique: Now we're going to do the right on effect. Select the text layer. Select your pen tool. We're now going to draw a series of lines over our text. To create a new line, simply click outside the layers and then re click on the layer. Make sure to draw the lines in the order you want it to animate in effects and presets. Search for stroke. This is going to be the effect that drives our animation. Choose reveal original image in the paint style. Change the brush size to ten, brush hardness to 100% Make sure to click on all masks at around 1 second, five frames, click on the end Stopwatch, move to 15 frames on the timeline, type in 0% In the end, select both key frames, click nine and go into the graph editor, drag this handle to the left. 10. Background: Enter the background layer by double clicking. Select one of the leaf layers. Press R to bring up the rotation property at the beginning of the time line. Press to stopwatch, Move forward ten frames on the time line. Change the rotation value, however much you would like. Move forward another ten frames on the time line. Copy and paste the first key frame by selecting the key frame, pressing control and control V. Now select all three key frames. Control C, control V. Now repeat this process until key frames cover the whole time line. Select all key frames, right click, select toggle, hold keyframe. Repeat this process until all layers are animated. 11. Export: Here's a quick tutorial on how to export your animation on the time line. Click to trim your comp. This is how long your animation will be when you export. Go to file Export Add to Adobe Median Coder. Once Adobe Median Coder is open, click any of these links to bring out the properties. Beside Format Choose 0.264 Beside preset, you can choose any of these presets that Adobe has created. I'm going to choose Youtube, ten Ep, full HD. Beside output name, you can type your name and where you're going to export. Then click Okay. Click the green arrow to export. 12. Outro: And that's just about it. Be sure to post your project to the project gallery so everybody can see what you created.