Transcripts
1. Intro: Hi, I'm Hongshu and
welcome to this beginner After Effects class on
minimal-style animation. I've been in the
motion design industry for almost 10 years and I've been using
Adobe After Effects for almost 10 years. The clients I've worked
for include Adidas, PayPal, Walmart, and many more. In this class, I'll take you
through how to animate and minimal style animation
you After Effects. This style has been really popular in recent years
and many companies are using this animation style to promote their
products or services. It's clean, simple, effective, and
visually appealing. In this class, I'll show you how to animate
a short piece of minimal-style animation
that you can put inside your demo reel or share
it on social media. This class is simple,
fun, and fast-paced. If you're someone
who is interested in getting into motion
design and want to learn how After
Effects works and get a taste of a
real-world project, this class is for you. I won't go through the basics
of how the program works, we'll jump onto the project right away and start animating. I would recommend you to take the project file and
work with me to animate your own minimal style animation in order to get the most
out of this course. Some of the key features
we'll cover in this class are how to animate lines
with trim paths effects. How to use simple ways to make your animation look
complex and polished. How to use graph editors to bring energy to our animation. Create depth in your scene, object moving along the path. How to make motion trails. How to take full control
of your animation. How to create impact
using match cuts. Animate lines, and path. Some special effects we use to improve the overall
visual appeal. Plus tons of keyboard
shortcuts, workflow, tips, and tricks that you
can start using right away. This class is short
and fun to work with. By the end of the course, you will have a basic
understanding of how After Effects works and how to make your own
minimal-style animation. Once you're done
with this course, you can check out
my other courses and start diving deep into motion design and After
Effects animation on various topics. This class is for
total beginners, so you don't need to have any previous experience with After Effects or
Adobe softwares. If you have any questions
going through the class, don't hesitate to reach out and I'll be there to help you. Are you pumped up and
excited to get started with the awesome-looking
minimal-style animation? I can't wait to
see you in class.
2. Project: Welcome to the class. Before we get started and even
open Adobe After Effects, I want to talk about
the class project. We will be creating an awesome-looking
minimal-style animation so you can use it as a part of your
demo reel or portfolio. You can download
the project file in the resource section
to follow along. I'll show you how to build the entire project from scratch. We don't have any artwork that we need to use
in this project. Everything is made
out of lines and circles inside After Effects. That's the general direction of minimal-style animations
going right now. We don't have to worry
about the design part of the process and we can
focus on the animation. I'll be using a lot of keyboard
shortcuts and it'll be reflected on my screen
once I hit the keyboard, but I'll also say the mouse so that you know what
keys are pressed. Keyboard shortcuts
are great ways to improve your efficiency
and workflow. It separates the
average animators from the professional ones. If you want to do it
the professional way, make sure you use keyboard
shortcuts the way I do, and with practice, they'll
become second nature to you. That said with the
class project. Let's get to the
fun part and start animating in the next video.
3. Animate Speed Line: Now, after effects with a dark
blue gradient background. Let's go into the main
composition here. First, we can create the
animation of the speed line. Let's go to this Pen tool here, we can draw a line over here, just a straight line, and the stroke color
can be in white, points is going to be 10 pixels. Now let's go to animate
this line here, add a trim path effect. Let's go to the trim path
effect, at zero second, let's make sure the start and end percentage
is going to be zero. Hit the stopwatch for two key
frames and then go forward 10 frames and then make
these value to 100%. Now we can select
all the key frames right-click "Keyframe
Assistant", "Easy Ease". Let's go to the graph
editor and adjust the curves a little bit
to give it more energy. Let's go back and then we can select the two key on
the Start property. Drag it forward a few frames to delay the start of
this animation, and now we're going
to have a effect like this that's going to
be our speed line. That looks good. Now we need to duplicate this
line animation here. Select the layer command
D for duplicates, and I can drag it to
a different position, maybe something over
here, duplicate again. Now we have four lines
and then we can change the length of each one to be a little bit
different from each other, and then for the fourth line, we can make it shorter. For the first one, I think I want the first
one to be the longest, drag this around longer. If we preview the animation, this is what we have. That looks good as
the speed line.
4. Finish Up Speed Line: Now, I just need to change
the color a little bit. We have the color image here. For the first one, I want it to be in
this purple color. Then for this short one, I want it to be in
this green color. Let's delete the color layer. This is going to be
our speed line here. I might want to make them
even a little bit closer. Yeah, that looks good. Now I just want to
stagger the layer a little bit so they don't
start at the same time. Something like that works. Now I can select the four layers Command-Shift C to
pre-compose it. Speed line 1, click "Okay". Now we have a speed line
group. That looks good. Let's just duplicate
this one command D. Let's move it to different position. Command D again, move it
to different position. Now we have five layers
of the same animation. Let's look at this. That looks good, although I do need to stagger these so that they're not
coming in at the same time. Just something random works. That's good. Now I just need to select
the five layers again, Command C and then
speed Line Group. Let's duplicate
this one and then drag it to the right-hand side. Now we've got something
interesting here. Hit "S" on the keyboard, and then I want to flip
this new speed line here, put negative 100 in
the X scale property. We can horizontally
flip the layer. However, I don't want it
to be too symmetrical. I can either stagger
the animation, something like this, or I can create another variation
of the speed line group. I think it looks fine right now. All I need to do is duplicate these two
layers, Command D, and then just
randomly place them again at a different position so the animation is
more continuous. That looks good. Duplicate these four again
Command D. Put it over here. I think that looks good to me. Right now only lasts
for one second so all I need to do it
just keep duplicating, select our loan Command D, drag them above
and then duplicate these and then Command D
again, drag them above. Yeah, that looks good. I think I need
around three second or three-and-a-half second. That's good enough. If we preview the animation, this is what it looks like. The speed line just
keeps animating. That looks good to me. Now I can select all of them. Command-Shift C to pre-compose, call this Speed Line Final.
That looks good to me.
5. Add Depth To The Scene: Now what I need to do is to add a little bit more
depth to the scene, to have a bunch of
CB lines darkened in the center as if it's further away from us just
to increase some depth. Basically what I need to do a Command D to duplicate
the speed line here. Then I want to put this one in the center and then go to Fill, change them into this
darker blue color. I think something like
that works. Click "Okay." I also wanted to make it thinner so it appears as if it's
further away from us. I now click on the
Scale property, and link the scale property
and change the X scale to 50. That's good. Now I want
to duplicate another one, Command D. Two speed lines over here that's
further away from us. That looks pretty good. If we preview, this is
the animation we have.
6. Travel Along Path: Now what I need to do is
to add a circle element to travel from the
bottom to the top. Let's go to this
ellipse tool to draw a circle. Small one like this. I want to reposition the
anchor point to the center. Hit Command and double-click
on the pen behind tool. Now, I want to change
the color of the circle. Let's go down to the ellipse tool and
then go to fill color. Let's change this one
to this blue color. Then I need to turn off the stroke hold "Option"
on the keyboard, click the Stroke three
times to turn it off and then hit on "Fill". Make sure we have this blue
color from our palette. That looks good and now I
need to duplicate this layer. Again, Command D and this time we're going
to have a stroke that's the same color as the fill and then we
can turn off the fill. Make this one a
little bit bigger. Something like that, that works. This is going to be
our main elements. Command Shift C to recompose
it to be the main circle. Hit on "Okay." Now I want the circle to
travel from the bottom, so I need to create
a new composition. Let's go to the project panel. Hit on this new composition. Let's call this circle scene and let's create the height
to be around 3,500 pixels. It's longer than the
main composition. I need to go to the
main composition and then just drag it in here. Now what I need to do is I
need to draw a motion path. Go to the pen tool, draw a motion path. I want the path to be
very subtle motion paths. Doesn't have a lot
of curve in it. I think something like
that should work and then we need to go down to the contents shape paths and then we can click
on this stopwatch. We can apply this path onto the position property
of this main circle, but first we need to make sure the anchor point of this
circle is in the center. Let's go to this
pen behind tool and then drop the anchor point
in the center of the circle. Now we can copy this one keyframe Command C and then go to P on the keyboard, select the position property and then Command V to paste it in. Now we have the circle
travel along this path here.
7. Animate Motion Trail: The next thing I want
to do is I want to make this path a motion path
or a trail of the circle. To do that, I need to
add a trim path effects. We need to hit the stopwatch
of the start and end property and then make sure everything is at zero
at the beginning. Go to the end of the
circle animation, and then change
everything to 100%. Now we can stagger the start key frames a
little bit, couple frames. That way we can have
a motion trail like this, that works. Another thing we could do
is duplicate Command D, and then we can manipulate
the start and end, and also the offset of
the trim path effect over here to get a second trail
after the first trail. If I go to the offset and then change the
offset value here, you can see I got a disconnect
of the trail over here and then all I need to do is to make sure the trail is shorter, something like this, so it just travels along
with the first trail and there's a disconnection
between the two that looks a little
bit more complex. Give it more of a complex look, that feels good to me. Then let's go back to
the main composition. We can now hide this
main circle or we can delete it and we can drop the circle scene inside
the main composition. Now what we can
do is we can move this circle scene above. As the animation starts, we have the circle coming
into the scene and then go to peep for the position property
hit the stopwatch. As it's animating up, I want the composition
to go down like this. What I want to do is at
the end of the scene here, maybe around two second, I might want to drop
down a little bit more and then drop down a little bit more here and
then go up to give it more illusion that the circle is traveling very hard to catch up with the speed
of the background. Something like that. It goes up and then it
comes down a little bit, and then it goes up again, come down a little bit more, and then shoot up. However, I also want
the circle to be in the center of the composition. I'm just changing
and manipulating the position property
of this comp. Something like that.
Then all I need to do is select all the keyframe, right-click, go to the
end keyframe assistant, select Easy Ease, and then go to the graph editor. I want to give the circle
a little bit more energy. I want to manipulate the speed graph to make the
speed a little bit higher. At the end, I want the circle to shoot up like this to
reach the max speed. Let's see what the
animation looks like. I think the wiggle is too much. Maybe I need to tone
it down a little bit. Over here, instead, I want to tone down the speed
graph a little bit more. Drag it back here like this to smooth the
curve a little bit more so the travel is smoother, it doesn't feel like
there's a wiggle to it. Let's see what it looks like. Then at the end I wanted
to shoot up like this. Yeah, that looks good to me. This is our animation
now, that looks good.
8. Animate Circle Ripple: This scene over here, I just want the circle to
trigger something else. Trigger a bunch of other
circles basically. What we need to do is we need to draw a bunch of other circles. Let's try one circle like this, and then draw another
one. Make it larger. We can do the fill
instead of the stroke, and then change the
opacity to maybe 50%. Let's do another one. Make this one smaller like that. Then we can draw another
line, make it larger. Maybe change it to five pixels for the thickness of the circle, and then change another one. Then duplicate another one, make it even larger, and change the thickness
to maybe two pixels. So what I want to do as at
the end of two seconds, I want the circle to
come in the center to trigger this ripple effect. Something like this. That looks good to me. All I need to do
is go over here, make sure I got all
these new circles. Hit left square bracket to
cut it around two seconds, and then I can, first of all, go to the alignment tool, make sure they're all
aligned in the center. I want to zoom in and make sure it's all aligned
in the center. Then I want to animate
the scale property. Let's say for this one here, let's hit a stopwatch for
the keyframes scale and then go forward maybe 20 frames. Hit the scale property again, change the initial
property to zero. Now it's going to
grow from 0-59%. I want to do the same thing. Select all of them,
hit S on the keyboard, add a keyframe at the end, and then at the beginning,
change it to zero. Now we can select
all the keyframe. Right click Keyframe
Assistant, Easy Ease. Go to the Graph Editor. Let's do an extreme easing curve like this and then let's
see what it looks like. What I need to do now is I want the background
to disappear, the speed lines to
disappear around two second to trigger
this ripple effect. So I want to make sure it
disappears around here. I need to go into the speed
line final and then make sure I delete the ones or hide the
layers that we don't need. Maybe this one as well, and this one and this one. Let's try that, see if that works. Travel, travel, travel
and then hit it. I think we need a
little bit more speed line on the
left-hand side. So let's turn on this one, go back, that works. Then let's do something
like this, that works.
9. Animate Curved Line: The last thing I want to add is a waving line around here. To do that, let's
go to the Pen tool, and then let's draw
a line like this. Let's turn off the fill, let's get the stroke. Maybe let's do 10. Then let's draw
another one here. Something like that works. What I need to do is cut
it around the same time, when the second scene starts, and now I want to animate
these two lines here. Just go to the Contents, Shape, Path, and then hit a
key frame on the path. This is going to be the final
state of the animation. Change the key
frame to align with the other circles when you
stop animating around here. Now at the beginning, I wanted to start slower,
something like this. Then I want this one
to start slower. Then maybe around here. I think that works. Subtle, but it's going
to add some interest. Now I need to do
is Command Shift C to pre-compose these two lines. Then make sure we
cut it over here. Command D, hit S
on the keyboard, change the scale x-axis to -100. We have a duplicate to
make a symmetrical. Now I just need to make the line at the
bottom to be longer. First of all is pre-compose it, Command Shift C lines, and then change the
opacity to maybe 50%. Then I want to change the
opacity of these circles as well so that they're
not too dominant. Everything to 50%. The outer is this, the smaller
percentage it can be. Change this one to 20%, 25 and then duplicate again, make this one 50%, and then give it a cut, the layer over
here, so it starts when the ball hits that center. Now I just need to
go inside and change the animation to give
it a little bit energy. The curve is going to be
something like this. That works. Let's go back. Look
at the main thing. Move it down a little bit
so it's not overlapping. I think that looks good. Let's go back to the
main composition. We can cut the animation when this stops around
three second here, hit N on the keyboard. Let's preview this one. I think overall it
looks pretty good.
10. Stylize and Glow: The last thing I want to do
is to add some glow effects. Let's go to layer, add new, let's put in an
adjustment layer. Name this one Glow. We can do a Gaussian blur. Maybe change it 20%, and then let's add in a curve. Drag the curve to give a
more contrast like that, and then change the
adjustment layer transparency to 20% or 40. You can see the before, after. If I turn on this
adjustment layer, it gives a little bit of glow onto these lines
in the whole scene. It also gives a little
bit more vibrance. That's it. That's
your final animation.
11. Congrats!: Congrats on finishing
this course. It's a short one,
and I try my best to make it simple and easy to
understand for beginners. Now you should have a
brief understanding of after effects and how to
animate within the software. This is such a great first step. From here, I hope you can finish your project
and upload it to the project section
of this course to share it with your fellow
students and get some feedback. Hope you had a lot of
fun learning this class. If you'd like to learn more
animation and after effects, please go check out
my other courses. I also have a YouTube
channel where we publish free weekly motion
design content and short animation tutorials. Check out our YouTube
channel under my profile. Again, thank you for
taking this class, and if you can drop me a review I will really appreciate it. If you have any question
going through the class, don't hesitate to ask me, I'm here to help you. Thanks so much for
taking the course. I'll see you in the next one.
Hongshu Guo, Motion Designer
