Transcripts
1. Introduction: Welcome everyone to the step by step motion graphics
after effects course. I am host alias Er Tapolus
inside After Effects. We will start this off importing an illustrator
vector file. Convert that to a shape layer. Extudes both the field and
stroke into three D space. Add spot lights with bouncing shadows and
specular highlights. And animate the composition with a two node three D camera. Upon completing the motion
graphics after effects course, he will have a firm
knowledge and vision of how to extute and animate your vector files and create stunning three D animations for your projects and clients.
2. Observing Illustrator Shape: Extruding shape layers
inside After effects is all about our work
inside adobustrator. How well the layers
are organized before we import them into
after effects in this case. And looking inside
the layer spanel, every single path is on its own layer and not inside
a group or a sublayer. Each layer has been
named and have separated the field paths
from the stroke paths, which will help me with
the extrusion process inside after effects.
3. Importing & Creating Vector Shapes: Now inside after effects
I will go ahead and import the motif
illustrated document. I'm inside the project pan on going to relic
import import file. Here's the illustrated
document inside my folder. But what is important
is to import this not as footage but rather than as composition layer sizes
and then click to import. What that means is
that After Effects recognizes the top level layers, we set it up inside Adobe Illustrator as
After Effects layers. So let's go ahead and double
click on this composition. Here are all these
paths that are imported from a
double illustrator. And you can see all the naming
was kept, which is great. But what we need to
do now is we need to convert those paths
into shape layers, Something that
after effects will recognize and be able
to animate them. I will shift select all of
these under the layer menu. Continue, create and create shapes from vector layer after effects does
the conversion. What I need to do is now I
need to clean up my work here. Basically remove all of these
paths and at the same time, every time the somes outlines. I'm just going to
rename this to be able to clean all the work and
keep things organized.
4. Extruding Shape Layers: I cleaned up all these layers and rename them. So what's next? I will go ahead inside
the project plan, I'm just going to
click and bring up just imports a JP file here which I'm going
to click and drag this and bring this at the
very bottom of the time line. Basically, this will serve as a flat surface where all the
lights will hit and bounce, affecting all three
D shape layers. And let me go ahead and lock
this layer temporarily. Talking about three D layers. Let's go ahead and shift select
all of these shapes here. Then we're going to
convert this two from two de layers, 23 delayers. I'm just going to click
once all of these inside, all of these are selected, that will be converted
into three layers. All right, now for this to work and be able
to extrude those, we need to switch
the three render. Right now we are inside
the Classic Three D, just going to click
on the drop down and choose the Cinema
Four D Render. The Cinema Four D Composition
Render basically is the tool for the extrusion
of text and shapes. Let's also look inside the renderer options for
the quality I'm using, the draft mode, because that would take less time to
draw the three delayers. But at the very end
of the project, I will drag this
slider all the way to the extreme to have a
very clean funnel render. I'm going to cancel this out. I'm very kate with that, what we need to do next
basically is we need to select each of these paths
one by one. Go inside that. And then inside the
geometry options, we're going to change
the extrusion depth. And I'm going to set for all of them for now,
240. All right. I'm going to go ahead
and spend some time and do this for the
rest of these paths.
5. Positioning Shapes Onto 3D Plane: After spending a bit of a time I have for all of
these shape layers, I've set the extrusion
depth to 40. So I'm going to shift select. Then I'm going to press
the letter you twice on the keyboard to only show the modified
properties. Here we go. The extrusion level
is set to 40, 40, 40. So the question is, why can we see
anything changing? The reason is that when we, we extrude down, it
extrudes into z space. Right now, the reason we
cannot see anything is because everything sits at zero. The extrusion has gone through the background sticking
out the other side. First of all, let's go ahead and instead of one view going to switch to two views for
this view right here. I personally recommend
you to instead of acto camera is to
use the left view. This is one thing
for this JP here. Let me also make
sure that this is also converted to a three
D layer. There you go. Now we can see that
as you can see, all the extrusion has gone through the background sticking
out on the other side. Other things, I'm
going to change the resolution preview
here from full to half, that will be easier
on the system. Then I will shift
select all of these. Zoom here a bit. I'm just going to
bring those out. I'm going to bring
them right here, so this sits right on
top of these background. All right, this flat surface. If I was to change
this from left to, let's say to the custom view
one, this is what I get. We already can see the
changes taking place, having two composition
views side by side. Either the left view or the right view will help you
understand the position of the shape layers and
be able to move them into Z space so you
can see the extrusion.
6. Adding Spotlights: Things are looking great in Sara composition were extruded. All of these shape layers. Go ahead and continue and add a couple of spot
lights into a scene. I just going to
select this path one, go under the menu, new lights in this case, spotlight number
one, flight type. Go ahead and spot and we've got the color of
the light, the intensity. How intense is this?
We have the con angle. The cone angle is the angle of the cone surrounding
the source of light, which determines the width
of the beam at a distance. And we're going to
see this very soon after cone feather is set, 50% That's okay, that's fine. But what is important is to
have the cast shadows on. That specifies whether
the light source causes a layer to cast a shadow. We need that. I'm going
to click on on that. Let me go ahead and use one view here because I need
a real estate here. I want this spot light to come
from the top right corner. I'm going to bring
this up on the y axis, x and then take this
point of interest and point it right on
top of the shape layers. And then just put this on
the z and perhaps on the Y. Now let's look at
this con angle here. If I double click again,
here's the con angle, see the degrees, so you can play around with that
depending your liking. And just going to bring
this a bit as well. So far so good. Again, none of this is final, but
it's a good beginning. Let's go ahead and add
another Spot Light. Back on the layer
menu, New Light. That second spot light, I will leave everything as is, make sure the cast are
a zone and click okay. Here's a second spot light. In this case, I
want the spot light to beam from the
bottom left here. I'm going to move this on the X, on the Y, take the point of interest and point
it right here. I can bring this
out on the Z again, I can go back to
the light settings here and then perhaps
change the angle and so on. All right, again, as I
mentioned, this is not final. It's a good beginning.
But what we need to do now is we need to
make sure that all of these shape layers accept the light sources.
Right now they are not. What we need to do is shift select all of these paths here. Then I'm going to open them up and inside the material options, I'm going to turn
the cast shadows on. Once I do that, you will be able to see a huge difference. Now all of these
layer pass except the two spot lights and now we have a nice
shadow fall off.
7. Increasing Extrusion of Strokes: The main reason
that I've separated these stroke paths from the rest of the paths
coming from users. Because I want these
stroke shape layers to have a higher
extrusion depth. In this case, I will
shift select these, then I'm going to press
the letter you twice on the keyboard to be able to see only the
modified properties. Since all of these
have been selected, I will change for all of these, the extrusion depth from 40. I'm going to up this 250, I'm going to press
the letter again. Once again we're not
able to see the change. And that's because the
extrusion is taking place onto a space,
it extrudes down. Let's go back to have,
instead of one view, two views on this view. Here I am, inside
the custom view. One, go ahead and switch to the left
view, and here it is. This is what I'm referring to. It went into the z space. I will shift, select
the zoom bit, then I'm just going to click
and drag this on the z axis. There we go. All right,
here's the difference. Now let's go ahead and change from the left to the custom one. And change the
preview to full view. See that now we'll be able
to see a better view on the extruded shape
layer path strokes. That's the reason
that I preplan this inside Adbustraer for
this specific reason.
8. Improving Spotlights, Settings: All right, so things are looking fantastic inside a composition. The next thing I
want to go back and return is the spot lights. But you can see there's a lot of illumination coming from
both of these spotlights. In this case, go ahead and
switch back to one of view. I'm going to go
inside the spotlight. On under the light options, I would change the color of the spotlight to an
orange color Click. Okay. Now you're going
to see a nice transition coming from the top here. I would do the same on the spotlight to under
the light options. I would change the
color instead of white. Usually lights are
never completely white. I'm going to use of
white yellowish color. Going to click. Okay.
You're going to see a nice transition. Again, a nice fall off. Great. Now the next
I want to talk about is the shadow diffusion. This one right here, that refers to how soft is the shadow. Here's the one shadow
for the spotlight. One, here's the other
shadow for the spot. Light two, what I
can do here for the shadow diffusion for
this spot light one again, the light comes
from the top right. Here's the shadow.
I can improve this. Let's say perhaps 30. It's going to be less
of a shadow here. This is going to be more soft. Let's also increase the softness for this light right
here. See that? Now, if I was to move
this away on the Z, actually on this
light right here, that will affect the
diffusion again, you see that it's all about where you're positing
the lights and so on. So there's no set rule rather than whatever
goes to your liking. Maybe I can bring this to, let's say this one to 20. There we go. I like that. I'm going to leave this as is. But there's one thing I would
like to do is have a bit of extra reflectivity on all
of these shape layers here. I'm talking about
the specularity, that is again, the reflection
of all of the shape layers. I'm going to shift
the leg of the, then press the letter you twice and then open up the
material options. Here's the specular
intensity set to 50% I'm going to set this
to 70% For all of these, I can only see the
change already. Let me go ahead and zoom a bit and I'm going to
undo this control. Zero commands.
Here's before, then, here is after a welcome change, at least on my end.
9. 3D Camera Null and Animation: All right, everything
looks fantastic inside our composition score ahead
creates our animation. In this case, I will go
up to the learned menu and creates a new three
D camera for the type. I'm going to use a two no
camera for the presets. While you have a lot of
different presets here, in this case I'm going to go for the 24 millimeter wide
angle lens preset. Then click Okay. All right,
so this is one thing. Another thing I'm
going to do is go to the learned menu and
create a new null object. Now a null object, basically,
as you can see here, is an invisible layer that has all the properties
of a visible layer. But it can be parented to any
layer in the composition. That's exactly what
we're going to do here. We're going to parent the
camera to the null object because it's just easier to control the camera
through a null object. Says I'm going to
have one null object. Going to press Enter
Return on my keyboard. Rename this Toll the camera. Press Enter Return, and
rename this to just Camera. I'm going to parent
camera to null. And I'm going to do this by
using the parent pick whip. This case I'm just going to
click and drag the par pick whip right on top
of the null object. Now the camera has been
paraded to the null, great. Now this null object
right now it's a two layer but because we're working on a three
D environment, we're also going to convert
this to a three layer. Looking inside those properties, this is exactly the
same properties as of a three D layer. All right, now in this case, let me go ahead and
bring the curd time dedicated to the very beginning. I'm going to animate
the position property and the orientation. I will click on the
position stopwatch to create the first key frame. Then I will click on the stop
parts on the orientation to create the second key
frame for the position. Let me go ahead and change the properties for
all the x, y, and z. For example, for the x, I'm just going to push this
on the side a bit, all right? Say summer around
here for the Y, I'm going to push this up, might be a little bit
out of the way here. For the Z, I'm
going to push this back into space. All right? Say summer around
here. All right? So that is the first
on the position. Go ahead and work
on the orientation. I'm going to change
the orientation to let's say 36 degrees. But I will do this for
all the same values here. For the y as well. 36.36 All right, now I'm going to move the
current time decator, let's say 4 seconds. All right, right here. And then I'm going
to actually reset the null object by clicking on the reset
button, right here. There you go. I will get this, which is correct for
now, The animation. If I was describe the
current time decator, it will be something like that. All right, On this keyframe,
specifically, Chad. And press the letter K on the keyboard to make
sure that we go to the next visible keyframe
on Z. I want to have this, let's say I'm going to
zoom in quite a bit. Just as many A bits,
some around here. All right, when we scrub the current time decator, we'll get something like this. All right, perfect.
Now I'm going to scrub the current time decator
to 5 seconds right here. I'm going to add another key
frame only on the position. Scrub the current time
decator around here. And then add another key
frame and then do the same, let's see around here. And I add another key frame. Now I'm going to go back
to two visible key frames. Which means I'm going to use the letter G on the keyboard. And this keyframe right now
has a linear interpolation. I'm going to re click, change this to a toggle hold keyframe. Which means when
the time reaches to 5 seconds is going to
hold for 1 second. And then it's going
to do something is going to animate again. I'm going to press the letter
K on the keyboard to go to the next visible keyframe
for this one on the Z score. Zoom out here quite
a bit to be able to see the rest of the motif. Say something around
here. That's not bad. I just want to change
the interpolation from linear to as is. I'm going to do this
inside the graph editor. Here's the selected keyframe. Just going to change to easy is then I will just double
click on the key frame. Inside the keyframe velocity, I'm going to change the influence
to let's say 75% or so. And then click okay and
then exit the graph editor. Let's to a quick scrub
the current indicator. And we're going to have
something along those lines. See, this is going to actually
animate really nice here. See, looking inside
the graph editor and looking at this motion
here is going to peak, then it's going to
slowly decelerate. That's why we did this with
the key frame velocity. All right, this is the follow animation and
all I'm going to do is just under this out to be able
to see the final results.
10. Final Animation Settings: After rendering out
the animations, go ahead and press the space bar and look at the final result. As you can see,
things look great, everything looks pretty crisp. And of course, there's a lot you can do with the camera movement, but this is just an idea here. All right, I'm going to move the current time indicated to, let's say the 8 seconds here. I'm going to press the letter N on the keyboard
to set the end of the work area to
the current time Relic and trim
composition to work area. All right, this is the whole
length of the animation thing you can do is before
you render this out, you can go back to
the render options and move the slider all the way to the extreme if you want to have a very crisp animation.
11. Thank: Thank you so very much for
spending time with me. Understanding how to combine illustrated together with after effects and create stunning
three D animations. Reach out if you
have any questions or feedback about the course. It will be great
to hear from you.