Make Stunning Animations to Stand Out on Instagram Reels & TikToks Using Adobe After Effects

1. Course Intro : This is how to create this stunning animation in After Effects as a beginner without complicated techniques to tell stunning stories, wa your audience, and hopefully lend clients. Pay attention because it really is easy to create stunning animations, but how exactly do you make stunning animations as quickly as possible? And what would a top animator do if they had a slow laptop? Now, I asked myself these questions after realizing that my laptop is an AGB laptop and it's really, really slow. And on the other hand, I am broke and I needed clients as soon as possible. In this desperation, I analyzed hundreds of tutorials to find a system that will not only make my animation look stunning, but it will also be quick and easy to make. After several failed attempts, I finally found a seven step system that works easily and efficiently, even on a slow laptop. And I was able to lend clients that paid me enough to buy a computer system. Now, I want to share that seven step system with you. It's easy to learn, and once you master it, you can create professional quality animation in a short amount of time, and you can turn one simple technique into multiple creative projects. This course is perfect for beginners who have little to no experience in after effects but want to create professional looking animations quickly. This course is perfect for graphic designers who are looking to add animation to their skills to attract more clients and enhance their portfolio. This course is perfect for content creators and editors who want to elevate their storytelling with visually captivating animations without spending hours on complicated techniques. This course is perfect for entrepreneurs or marketeers seeking a quick and effective way to create engaging animations for their businesses or personal projects. 2. Class Project : The class project, you can either follow along with the course example, you can download every resources, or you can create your own unique theme or story, simply import your assets, apply the principles and techniques taught in the course and bring your animation to life. And once you are done, upload your finished project to share your creativity. 3. Class Requirements: For this class, you will need Adobe After Effects, and I'm using Adobe After Effects versions 2023 and 2024. But since this is a principle and a technique based course, the version you use doesn't matter much. The core principles can be applied even if you are working with the older versions of the software. 4. Principle, Seven Step System & Philosophy: In this course, we will create animations using a technique called the parallax effect. Now the parallax effect is an animation technique used to create an illusion of depth and three D space within a two D environment. This effect is achieved by making foreground elements move faster than the background elements. It basically simulates how objects in real life appear to shift at different speeds when viewed from a moving perspective. In animation, the parallax effect is commonly applied by layering objects or images in a composition where foreground elements move faster to appear closer to the viewer, and the background elements move slower to give the illusion of distance. Now, why is parallax effect so powerful and so easy? First of all, it adds depth, even in a flat to the animation. The parallax effect makes it look more realistic and engaging. The second reason why parallax effect is powerful is because it is versatile. It can be applied to a variety of projects starting from an explainer video to social media posts to anything to even movies and animation. The third reason why parallax effect is so powerful is because it is so easy to implement. Okay, with tools like Ado After Effects, you can apply the by simply animating the camera and layers at different speeds, it's really easy. Okay? Now to create parallax effect in after effects, we will follow the seven simple steps in this course. Okay? So the step one is to create or find assets. Here, you gather the visual elements you need for your animation, such as images, illustrations or text. You can create them yourself or you can use Internet. Step two is to import your assets into after effects. Here, you bring your assets into after effects and organize them in your project panel for easy access. Step three is to create a three D camera and a null object. So we basically use three D camera and null object to drive the animation. Step four is to place assets in three D space. So once the camera and null has been created, what we do is we position our assets in three D space, and so this positioning allows this parallax animation to take place. And then step five is to animate the camera and the null object. Okay. Step six is to compose it and add elements. Here we enhance our animation by adding some finishing touches like we add lights, we add shadows, we add textures to make the effect look more realistic and to sell the effect. And step seven is final step, which is to render your animation. Here we export our animation in our desired format and ready to share with the audience. Okay, so these are the seven steps that we will be using in this course. Now, the most important part of this course is the philosophy of this class. Okay? So the philosophy of this class is simple. Not everyone has access to all the resources they need, but that doesn't mean you should give up or you should settle. I've designed this course to be accessible to anyone, even complete beginners. By accessible, I mean, it can be understood by everyone, okay? So you can start learning and applying these skills to attract clients right away. These techniques are easy to master, and it delivers high quality results, making them perfect for those walking with limited resources because at the end of the day, it is what you do with what you have that matters. 5. Chap1: Setting Up Workspace: Okay, so now we are in after effects, and as you can see, this is my workspace right now, but I don't want that. I want it to align with what we are trying to create here. The video is going to be vertical. I want to see the composition in its full glory, okay? So these are all called panels, okay? See, panels. Now, what we do is when we click on the panel and then we like start dragging it with our mouses. What happens is we see this blue part here, and blue means that it's going to be aligned in the already existing panels, and it's going to create a group of panels, ok? But I don't want composition to be in some other group. I want it to stand alone. And so what I'm going to do is I'm going to drag this. So look at the green part here. So the green part suggests that it's going to have its own space here, okay? And so I'm going to just let go of the mouse. And then it creates its own space and so that we can see the composition more clearly and we have more control over effects and controls. And I'm going to keep this as it is because it's not going to we are not going to use it that much. The only thing that we are concerned is effects controls, project panel, and all this. Okay. So make sure that your workspace looks like this so that we are in alignment, and then it's easy to follow. And now the next thing that we are going to do is we are going to save this workspace. I'm going to click here. Then save as new workspace, or you could just save changes to this workspace, and that's how it's done. Let's say if you want to save, what you do is just go to save as New Workspace, here, rename your workspace and hit Okay, and then your workspace will be created here and you will be able to select it. And whenever you change it, it will be applied to the workspace. 6. Chap2: Folder Structure: Lecture, I'm going to walk you through this folder structure that you see. So it's really simple. These are all the folders that I create in after effects. Okay, let me walk you through. So 00 PC is where I store all the precoms, 01 AI is where I store Illustrator files, 02 footage is where I store video footage. If I have any 03 images is where I store all the images, here I store the audio files, and here I store the random stuff that after effects will create after ex is going to create another layer, and all that layer will also be visible in the project panel. Okay? And so I store all that stuff in the random stuff. And let's say if I'm using plug in and that plugin creates something, I'm going to also keep that in the random so that I know where it is. And so, although you don't have to do this because this project is really simple, it doesn't have to. But I use this in every project that I can because it keeps things really clean, and so I will be able to walk more efficiently, okay? And so remember that this is the structure that we are going to use. Now, once that is done, the next thing we do is, of course, we save it, we save the file. Okay. So I'm going to save the file. I'm going to call this butterfly Miners Core Min. 7. Chap3: Importing The Assets: Okay, so now what we are going to do is we are going to start importing the assets that we need for the final animation, okay? And so I have already prepared the assets and let me walk you through them. So I got every one of them from Google. They are free, okay? And you can get them by just searching for it, okay. But there is one thing that I need to tell you. So this is butterfly underscore transparent. Now, this is basically a green screen, okay? So when they had when I found this green screen, which was free, when I found it, what happened was this file was not that great. As you can tell that this file has some issues, you can see the grain effect and it's not that great. But I added this glue that you see, okay? It wasn't as good as it looks right now. So I added that effects, which some of them were paid effects, and so I can't share that effect or some of you might not have that effect. Okay? And so let's say when I'm teaching in the class and you don't have the effect, you won't have the same look that I'm going for. And so you might be disappointed that you don't have the same look. And to avoid that problem, what I have done is I've already exported the transparent file. This is a transparent file with the effects already applied, and so you can use this. And the next thing that we do is we import, like I said, the import, you can do three things. First of all, you could just double click here, and then or you could just go to file port, file, or you could use my favorite part, which is using shortcuts, which is Control I. Okay? Now I'm going to select all of them, and then hit Import. Okay? And so we have everything here, and now I'm going to move this to images. I'm going to move the footage to footage. Now, one more thing. Now I normally don't like to use two software at once. So to remove the background from images, you can use many free tools online. That's how I got rid of the background on this image. Have created this image from this, and so it can be done within seconds now, okay? You don't have to open up Photoshop for that. So make sure that you save time whenever it's necessary. You don't have to open up two softwares, you don't have to be perfect at every damn thing that you do so make sure that you are using these tools that are available to you so that you adapt with it. Okay? You don't get stuck in the same processes that you used to do years ago. Okay? You have to adapt and you have to change as the time passes or you may get left out. 8. Chap4A: Creating Composition: Previous lecture, what we did is we imported this footage and images, and I told you how to do that. And in this lecture, what we are going to do is we are going to start creating the animation. Okay? So the first thing that we need to create an animation is a Canvas. In this case, we call it composition, okay? And so to create a new composition, all you have to do is just click here, or you could also click here, and I'm going to click on this. And so this one is really important. So make sure that you pay attention. So this is composition name. First of all, I'm going to call this butterfly underscore Main. After effet has this preset now. And so when you click on this, the drop down menu opens up and then select this one. Okay? We are going to make it portray HD 1080 by 1920, 30 FPS, which is frames per second. Then keep everything as it is, but I'm going to change the duration. Okay, so I'm going to turn the duration from 40 seconds to 10 seconds. You can also make it 5 seconds if you want. But in this case, I'm going to go with 10 seconds, and then I'm going to hit Okay. Also, this is background color. So the background color is not going to get rendered out. Okay. And then I'm going to hit Okay. So this is our composition. And since we haven't added anything, this part is empty. So this is a layer panel, and all the layers that are in the used in composition will be visible here. Okay? So I'm going to drag this just a little bit so that you can see more clearly. Okay? And so I made a spelling mistake. So this file is going to be our main composition that will be rendered out, okay? And so whenever you do that, make sure that it is outside of folder so that you can access it everywhere. 9. Chap4B: Creating Precomps: So the next thing that we do once decomposition is created is we create background, and the background in after effects is called solid. And now to create solid, or you have to either right click New solid or Control Y, which is a shortcut for solid, okay? And so these are all these solid settings. Make sure that you pay attention to this. I don't think it's that important, but just make sure that make it com size and change it to black for now and then done. So we have our solid ready, and then I'm going to rename this. To rename layers in after effects, double click doesn't work. It basically opens up layers in a separate panel, okay? And so in this panel, you could do rotoscoping, but we are not going that advanced. So whenever you double click, it won't rename. Okay? Double click doesn't work for renaming. So what you do is you press Enter. See, I made that mistake. And so when you hit Enter and then I'm going to call this BG for background. This is how you create the force background. Now what we are going to do is whenever we are working on a project like this that can be used or reused in any other project. What we do is we always precompose every little thing, and why we do that. And I'm going to show you why we do that. Just give me a minute. Okay? So first of all, I'm going to open up these images. Now, what we do is we precompose them. And so how we precompose them. What we do is, for example, let's say barbed wire. I'm going to grab this and then I'm going to place it here on this composition menu, and then it has its own composition. Okay. And so this is its own composition. This is the first pre comp. Now, I'm going to rename this to rename a composition, what you do is you go to here Hamburger menu. You click on that, and then you click on composition settings, or you could press Control K, which opens up composition settings. And then I'm going to call this Bbed wire. I'm going to get rid of the underscore, and then I'm going to call this PC, and then I'm going to keep everything as it is. I don't need to make any changes here. Okay? Then what we do. The next thing that we do is we recompose the and we follow the same process for the smaller barbed wire. I'm going to drag this over this and then I'm going to press Control K or I'm going to right click composition settings, and then I'm going to get rid of this, and then I'm going to rename this to ndscorePC now I'm going to do the same thing for butterfly. Okay. And so I'm going to bring that here, and then I'm going to hit Control K and then I'm going to call this butterfly in the score PC. Now the thing that I don't like here is I don't like the branch. And so what we do is we also make changes as we are moving forward. Okay? And so I'm going to just mask this out and to mask out, all you have to do is just zoom in and then select this. Okay, let me do that again. Zoom in, click on make sure that the layer is selected, and then you go to here, which is Pentool Pentool is used to create mask. Of course, you can use Shape layer tool as well. But for this, I'm going to use Pentool, and then I'm going to go here and then simply select it like this, then zoom out. And to zoom out, all you have to do is press Z and then hit Alt like this. And then I'm going to select the pentulaGame. Then I'm going to click on this and then I'm going to just randomly do that until I can see that this cocoon or whatever it is called isn't getting cut off, okay? And so next thing that you do is you click on this and then you go to masks and then invert it. Okay? Now we have the butterfly y. Now, make sure that you pay attention to every little detail because it could see. Okay, so I'm going to change this just like this and then it's done. Okay. Now the next thing that I'm going to do is I want it at the center of the composition, I'm going to just bring that here. And by the way, this is called proportional grid, and to open up proportional grid, all you have to do is just go here, and then you choose title action safe. It's not called proportional grid. I don't know why I always do that. I always call that proportional grid. Proportional grid is different, by the way. It's this one. This one is proportional grid. This one is title action safe. Now I'm going to press keep it at the center. You could also align it, but it won't work since we are working with a mask. And so it doesn't have to be accurate. And then the next thing is really important, so make sure that you pay attention. Okay? And so the next thing is that you see this little button, which is region of interest. Okay? And so I'm going to select this, and then I'm going to just drag it like this and it creates a box like this with an bounding box that isn't like the shape layers. That isn't like the normal layers, okay? And so I'll tell you that in a minute. Then I'm going to go to composition, and then I'm going to go to crop comp to region of interest. Okay? And so what I did is basically I don't want that region that we saw, and I only want this cocoon part to be here in the composition. Okay? That's how you do it. I basically cropped the composition, and that's how you crop the composition in after effects, but make sure that you are cropping the composition at the beginning. Okay? So let's say if you animate it and later you decide to change the composition, what is going to happen is that it's not only going to ruin your composition, but it will also ruin your animation. Okay, so make sure that you pay attention. Now the next thing that we are going to do is we are going to pre compose the footage, okay? And it's not that tough. So what I'm going to do is just going to bring that here. And it's already pre composed, but see, there is a problem here. So at the first frame, the butterfly isn't present, but at the second frame, the butterfly is present. And so what I'm going to do is just I'm going to come here, and then I'm going to click on the walk area start part, which is this blue little part that you see, and then I'm going to drag that here. Then I'm going to go and I'm going to go to composition and then trim com to walk area. Okay? So what I basically did is I get rid of that second where the butterfly wasn't present in the frame, and so I just trim work area. So this is basically work area start. This is work area end, okay? And this part is this part that you see from the work area start to work area end is called work area. Now I'm going to press control as always. And the next thing that we want to do is we want to bring every pre comp into the PC. Okay? Now, I made a little mistake. I haven't renamed this, so I'm going to just rename this and then hit Okay. So we have all the pre coms in one folder. We have all the footage is in one folder and we have the main composition outside. Now, can you see something different with this? Okay? I don't know if you can, but after effet has created one folder on its own, which is called solid. So this folder basically stores all the solids that it will create, okay, solids adjustment layers and sometimes null. I'm not sure about null. And so what I'm going to do is I'm going to move this to randoms, okay? And then I'm going to hit as we have the precoms ready, and now what we are going to do is we are going to start importing them and then we are going to start anime. Okay? But setting up pcs is really important, so make sure that you do that. 10. Chap5A: Motion Tile, Camera & Action!: Okay, so in the previous lectures, what we did is we basically created these precoms and now I'm going to start by bringing this precoms into the main composition and we will start the animation. Okay? So first of all, I'm going to drag this and drop it like this. And now I'm going to bring up the scale property. So first of all, let me explain the transform properties really quick so that you understand. So these are all the transform properties. First of all, we have anchor point. The anchor point is basically a point from which everything moves. Okay? So if I change it, it will move from this point, or it will rotate it rotate from this point. Okay? So this anchor point is the most important part of the layer, and you have to set it up before you start working on a project. So that's the anchor point. The shortcut for anchor point is A, Okay. Then we have position property. Position property is basically a position. We have X axis, and we have Y axis. If it's three D, we are going to have X, Y, and Z axis. Okay? I'll explain that in a minute. And then bring up the position property, all you have to do is press P or you could just go down here. Then we have scale. Scale is basically the scale of layer, then we have R, which is the rotation. Okay? This is measured in degrees. This is degrees, and this is the number of rotations. Then we have opacity for opacity, you might think the shortcut is O, but it's not O, it's T. Okay? So the opacity is basically the transparency of the layer. These are all the transform properties that are extremely important. They are really basic but really crucial. Okay? Now I'm going to bring this here so that you can see both of them. Now, I'm just going to scale it down. So I pressed s and then I'm just going to scale it down. Now, the problem that I'm running into right now is that the edges are being cut off here. Okay? But I don't want that. What we can do is you can just duplicate it and then place it here, then parent. But that would be complicated. So to solve the issues, after effects provides us with multiple solutions. And the first solution is, okay, first of all, let me get rid of this. So the first solution is using effects and presets. So I'm going to go to effects and presets, and then I'm going to search for Motion tile. Okay? So this is motion tile. So basically, you search for effect here in effects preset window, and then what you can do is double click on it, or you could just drag it and drop it on a layer like this. The effect that you apply on the layer will be visible in motion in Effects Control panel. So make sure that the workspace is adjusted, like I said, What is motion tile? So Motion tile is basically what allows us to repeat layers around the composition without duplicating it. Okay? So let me show you. I want to expand this. Okay? So what I'm going to do is I'm going to just expand the output height. Don't touch anything. This is tile width, tile height. Don't touch them. All you have to do is just you have to play with the two properties and this. I'm going to tell you that in a minute. Okay? So just like that, we have expanded the layer. Now I'm going to click on this, which is mirror edge, which will basically mirrors the edges, okay? See? So it looks as if it's being repeated uniformly, okay? And so that's how we have set up our force layer. Now I'm going to duplicate this. So to duplicate, all you have to do is just go to edit or duplicate, or you could just press Control D, and then I'm going to bring this down. So I don't want to do the same process for every layer that I want. So what I'm going to do? I'm going to replace the layer, ok? And so to replace the layer, all you have to do is press Alt or option, and then you click on it, click on the layer. This is a source layer, okay? So I'm going to click on it, and then I'm going to drag it and drop it. And just like that, we have both the barbed wires ready. Okay? I'm going to adjust this and let me see. Okay, everything looks nice. Now I'm going to turn them into a three D layer. Okay? So to turn them into a three D layer, just click here, and this is basically a three D layer. These are now three D layer. Okay. Now the next thing that we do is we create new camera, okay? And so to create a new camera, you can right click New camera. Or you could press Control Alt Shift C to create a new camera. This is the shortcut. Okay? And so let's see the camera setting. So it's going to be two naught camera, don't change anything. It's going to the preset is going to be 50 Mmm. I'm going to keep everything as it is. I'm not going to enable depth or feel if you want, you can do that, but we are going to create manual because I think it gives more realistic approach, although it takes longer, but it will give us more realistic effect. Okay? So I'm not going to enable it, and I'm going to keep everything as it is and then hit Okay. Now we have the camera. Okay. So once we have the camera, you can not only operate with camera, you need something to control that camera. Okay? So what I'm going to do is I'm going to create a null. To create a null, all you have to do is right click New Null Object, or Control Shift Y creates new null. Okay? Now I want it to be at the center of the composition. But as you can see, the anchor point is not at the center. The anchor point is at the edge, okay? And so it will rotate from the edge. I don't want that. And then I'm going to go to Pen behind Anchor tool, or I could press Y. Then I'm going to drag the anchor point to the center while holding Control and it snaps to the center. You don't have to do that, but I think it should be Anchor point should be at the center. Or if you don't want to do that, and if you want to know the shortcut, it is Control Ault home. Now, I'm going to rename this. I'm going to call this Camera controller. So this is going to be basically the main control of the camera. Now I'm going to turn this into a three D. Don't worry about what is null. I'm going to explain that in a minute. Just give me a minute. Okay? Now, I'm going to parent camera one to Cam Control. Okay? I'm going to explain that as well. Don't worry. Okay, so I just parented it. Now, let me explain what is happening here. So camera controller is basically a null. Null are like, God, okay? It doesn't exist for some. For some, it exists and it plays a huge role. In the same way, camera control or nulls are the same. They don't they are not going to get rounded out. This layer won't be rendered out. But if you parent it to, for example, when I have parented camera to Tull, what is going to happen is that it's going to play significant role see. Now the next thing that after that is parenting. So this is parent PiquipTol, okay? So when I drag it like this, and then I go to the layer that I want to parent to, okay? So this is basically a parent, and this is a child, okay? And what happens in real life? When a child is young, what happens is they follow the parent. So null three is basically a parent camera is a child, okay? So wherever the null goes, the camera follows. So basically, this is a camera controller. So we have basic rig of the composition ready. 11. Chap5B: Position & Views: The next thing that we need to do is we need to place the objects in the three D space so that we can create the parallax effect that we want to create. To do that, I'm going to drag this like this. And then, can you see this here? So this is view layout. Okay? So I want two views. I'm going to select two views, and we have two views of decomposition. This is basically active camera, which is camera one. And this is top view, meaning we are looking at the composition from the top level, okay? And so you might be thinking, What is this? So this is the camera. Okay, and these are the layers. So what is happening here is the reason why we can't see parallax occurring is because they are at the same position. Okay? But what we need to do is we need to place them in different positions so that we can just have the parallax effect. So these are all the basic This is Z position. This is position. This is Z position, or what I'm going to do is I'm going to just press P to bring up the position property, and then I'm going to bring this in the front. But now it's too big. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to press S to bring up the scale, and then I'm going to scale it down just a little bit. Okay? Now I'm going to get rid of this and I'm going to show you what's happening here and see the power of this basic rig that we have created. Okay. But before that, let me add in another object so that it makes more sense. Okay? So I'm going to add in a text. To add in a text, you go to horizontal type tool or you press Control T, then you type the text. For example, change is constant. Now, I'm going to scale this and then I'm going to bring it like this, and then I'm going to use something like Akira. Okay? These are the fonts. And then I'm going to align it to the center, and then I'm going to bring the anchor point to the center. Okay? So I just selected this, which is pen behind tool or I'm going to crash shortcut, which is Control Alt home. And so we have the anchor point at the bot at the center. Now, not to go to character, and then I'm going to turn this into red, okay? And then I'm going to turn this into three D as well. Now, I'm just going to randomly push this back and then scale it up. Okay. And now see the magic. See. Okay. So we have the basic regradi In the next lecture, what we are going to do is we are going to start adjusting this and we are going to start animating it. 12. Chap6A: Keyframing: So in the last lecture, I showed you this rig that we have prepared so far. And in this lecture, I'm going to show you an easy way to animate it, and then we are going to fill the gaps. Don't get confused. I'm going to walk you through everything. Don't worry about that, okay? And so first of all, what we are going to do is we are going to start by setting up the keyframes. Okay? What you have to do is you always start by setting up keyframes first, okay? So I'm going to press P to bring up the position property. And then I'm going to click here. Okay? This is a stopwatch, which is called time Very stopwatch, as you can read. So this basically shows the property change over time, okay? And I'm pretty sure you may be aware of that. And so I'm going to set up the keyframe at the first frame. Then I'm going to set up the keyframe at 2 seconds, and then I'm going to set up the keyframe at ten second mark, okay? And so what do I want? So let's get there. So first of all, what I want is the 2 seconds is for the rotation animation. So I don't want it to be a steady cam animation, okay? The first thing that I want is I want a rotation and zoom in simultaneously. Okay? And so we also would need key frames on the rotation property as well. Okay? So I'm going to press R and so R brings up the rotation property. So if you rotate X, it would change something like this. If you rotate Y, it would change something like this, and if you rotate Z, it would change at something like this. So I want property z rotation to be animated. And once I have set up keyframe here, I'm going to press U. So basically brings up the keyframes, okay? It's the shortcut to bring up the keyframes. You don't have to go through and look at everything that you don't need. When you press U, all you could see is the keyframed properties, ok? And then I'm going to change it do something like this. Okay? And also, I don't want it to be here. I want zoom in to happen, okay? So I'm going to push it away like this. And also, I want it to be present at the center. I want this changes constant at the center. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to go to choose grid and guide options, and then I'm going to click on it, and then I'm going to choose Title Xen safe. And so you cannot align three D. So this tool is basically useless when it comes to three D. So I'm going to do that manually, and so I'm going to what I'm going to do is I'm basically going to just manually foot it there. Okay. And it goes something like this. Okay? So here is the animation, and it looks something like this. Now, the animation is a bit cranky. I don't like this. And this barbed wire is too close, so I'm going to push it up. Just a little bit. And don't worry about the cut. We are going to solve that. Okay. And so I'm going to select this bab wire, which is getting cut here, if you can see. And then I'm going to select this effect, and then I'm going to expand it like this. Okay? And so we have the basic animation. Okay? Now, once that is done, I want to move up, okay? Like this. S. So I'm going to move up until everything is out of screen. Okay. And then I'm going to go to the fort frame. Then I'm going to duplicate this, which is change is constant by pressing Control plus D to duplicate. And then I'm going to get rid of it as a three D, so the camera won't affect it. And then I'm going to go here, and then I'm going to press P, and then I'm going to turn it into three D. And then I'm going to place it to the center. Okay? Now I'm going to give it a blue color. Something like this. Okay. Now, this might be too big, but so I'm going to resize it. I'm going to press S, and then I'm going to just scale it down just a little bit. Now I'm going to add in the text. Okay, I'm going to bring as like that. And so I'm going to make this bigger. And then I'm going to align everything to the center. I'm going to press Control Alt home to basically align the anchor point to the center and then I'm going to resize this. Okay Now, look what happens. Okay? So we have this. And then this really simple animation. Now, what we did in this lecture, you may think that we haven't accomplished anything, but the rig is already done, okay? The animation is finished. I know you might be thinking it's not, but it is. See, we have this animation, okay? This might be way to further than I expected. So let's bring it in a way, it appears earlier. Okay? So you might be wondering why this looks too simple. Now our work that is remaining is just to fill up this entire composition with the barbed wires, okay? And I'm going to show that to you in the next lecture. 13. Chap6B: Graph Editor: Now, what I'm going to do is I want it to I want to Esse. Okay? So I'm going to select this and then I'm going to go to Keyframe Assistant and Ess the shortcut is F nine. Then I'm going to open up the graph editor, and then I'm going to press this so that you can see, fit all graph to view, and then I'm going to select this, basically it's a speed graph, by the way. And then I'm going to change it to something like this, and I'm going to change it to something like this. Okay. So let me explain the most important tool of after effects, which is graph editor. These keyframes are basically linear keyframes, o When I'm selecting, when I select them, and then I'm going to go into the graph editor, this is a graph editor. And if you want to be a motion designer, and if you are someone who is watching a course on after effects, you should be familiar with graph editor. Graph Editor is the most important tool for motion designers. If you don't know this, no amount of training, no amount of tools, no amount of plugin will ever give you the results that you want. And if you know this tool, no plug in, no tutorial way, you won't need anything else if you know this, okay? It's really handy. It's not that difficult as the Internet makes it It's really easy. Okay? I don't know why everyone is so afraid of graph. So these are all the keyframes, by the way, okay? See, this is the key frame. So so these are all the keyframes. Now, as the name of the keyframe suggests, that this is a linear keyframe. Nothing in real world moves in a linear way. Everything moves in waves in arcs, okay? And so I don't want that. I don't want it to be boring. Say, it's boring. This animation is boring. Although it's linear, it's boring. We want it to be in arcs in waves, okay? We want it to have easing in and easing out, and that is what After Effects allows us, okay? So I'm going to select them. I'm going to right click. I'm going to go to keyframe assistant, and then I'm going to hit Easy Ease. And now look at the graph. So this is basically what an easy eased keyframe looks like. Okay. So there are basically two graphs, value graph and speed graph in after effects. Okay? Value graph shows you the change in value over time. Okay? This might look a little scary, but let me show you the rotation property graph so that it makes more sense to you, okay? And so this sows the change in value over time, okay? So that is why it's called value graph. Okay? So for example, if I make this curve really, really like an S curve. Okay? This is an S curve, okay? So the steeper the curve, faster the object. So this is going to be the speedier. The value is increasing. So look at this, okay? So the value goes from here to here in really quick succession, okay? And so in the speed graph, it's going to look really different, okay? Say, this is a speed graph, and you can't even look at it because it's blue court. Okay. But basically, what is happening? So we go from here, slow, slow, slow, extremely fast, and then slow slow, slow. Okay? And so these are the two graphs, and the other graph is speed graph. So speed graph shows the speed over time, ok? So this is the speed. It grows it increases it really goes really quick and then back to the zero. Okay. And so these two graphs are really important. The only rule of thumb that you have to remember is that in value graph, steepness equals speed. Steeper the curve, faster the object. In speed graph, higher equals speed. Higher the curve, faster the object. Okay. And so I'm going to just select them, and then I'm going to go keyframe assistant and EZ and I'm going to go back and now let's see the difference. Okay? See. Zoom in is really nice. But we have this little pause here, okay? S. And I'm going to select this and then I'm going to open this and the pause, why do you think the pause is there? The pause is there because the graph comes at zero pixels per second, by the way. There is no movement, okay? How do we solve that? To solve that, what I'm going to do is I'm going to click double click on it, and then this is a key frame velocity dialogue box, basically. And then I'm going to select this, which is continuous lock outgoing and incoming. So if you don't select this, what will happen is that both these keyframes will have a different starting points. Okay, we don't want that. We want them both of them at the same point. We want outgoing and incoming velocity to be the same. So I'm going to select them, and then I'm going to press click on this and so basically, they will be at same speed, okay? And so I'm going to adjust it accordingly, and then I'm going to adjust this graph as well. So that we have a moment. So let's see. See? The pause is still there. And I think we need a little bit of pause. So what is happening? So we go from zero to really quick. Here we go quick, then it slows down, but it doesn't go at zero. Okay? And if you want, you can also go extreme. So if I go here, you can go extreme like this. Okay, C. And this looks better. You can also change the graph like this, but I think this one is much better. Okay. And we have a pause at this point. So in this lecture, what we did is we basically animated our rig. In the next lecture. What we are going to do is we are going to fill up everything. And also, I missed this part as well. So I'm going to just resize this 14. Chap7: Filling The Gap!: So in the previous lecture, what we did is we basically set up this rig and there was this beautiful animation that you can see. Now, what we're going to do is we are going to fill up the spaces with barbed wires and with our butterfly that we have already imported, but it's still waiting to be animated, okay? And so let's start the filling up effect. So first of all, I'm going to, first of all, change the colors of the label. Okay, I'm going to give this purple color. I'm going to give this I think green color, not purple. I want it to be something that is visible. So yellow and purple really looks nice, so that I know, okay? And so first of all, I'm going to start by duplicating this. I'm going to press Control D, and then I'm going to press P to bring up the position property, and then I'm just going to place it there. Then I'm going to press S, and then I'm going to scale it up. Then I'm going to press P and then I'm going to push it back. Okay. And you can also do it manually as well if you want. And if you want to see it, clearly, I'm going to bring out the key frames. So this is basically the still property, still key frames. They are not aligned, so I'm just going to align them. And so I'm going to just step at this key frame, and then I'm going to adjust everything accordingly. And then I'm going to press P again, and then I'm going to send it back, and I'm going to scale it down. And you know what? I'm going to change the rotation on this. Something like this. Then I'm going to select this. Then I'm going to press Control D, and then I'm going to bring it down like this. Okay. And then I'm going to get rid of the title Xn save. We don't need it anymore. And then I'm going to bring it towards the screen. Okay? But it's too close, and this is going to be really nice animation, okay? And so I'm going to scale it down just a little bit. Okay. And I'm going to rotate this as well. Okay. Now, I'm going to select this and duplicate this. Then I'm going to bring this here. Then I'm going to press P and then I'm going to push it back really back. Okay. And then I'm going to rotate it. I don't know, something like this. But you have to be mindful, this process is going to be really personal. It depends on how you see and how you view the world, what design preferences you have. Okay. And since we haven't started lighting, this might look dull at the moment, but be patient. The look and feel part is still remaining, okay? And then I'm going to push it even further back. Okay. So let's look at the animation, okay? So this is see Okay, so we go from here to here really quick. And I don't like this congestion here, okay? But we can always change that, okay? For example, I can move it here. Okay, so I'm going to press P, and then I'm going to change it to something like this. I don't like this because it's really congested there. So I'm going to press P and then I'm going to push it below just a little bit like this. Okay. And then the two are basically merged. I don't like that either, so I'm going to change this. Okay. Now let's look at the results. Okay? So we have something like this. Now, this is just a starting. This is just a beginning of our animation taking place. And as you can see, this part moving is really looks really beautiful. It gives depth, and when we add blur to it, it will give even more depth. And this one is slow is because we have pushed it really back. Okay? Now, let's say if you want to make it faster. Let's say I don't want that. I want it little bit I want it to be a little bit faster. So what you can do is you could just bring it nearer to the camera and it will be faster. Okay? See? It's that simple. Now, I'm going to push this a little bit here. Now what I'm going to do is I'm going to fill up this space with the barbed wires. I'm going to duplicate this, place it here, send it a little bit back, scale it a little bit up. This might be too much, and then I'm going to place it here. I'm going to bring this little bit up. I'm going to bring this little bit up. And then I'm going to duplicate this. I'm going to bring that here. Okay. I'm going to change the Z property to something like this. Then I'm going to duplicate this. I'm going to go further, and then I'm going to place it here. Then I'm going to send this really back. Okay. Now, let's see. Okay. So I'm going to go here, and then I'm going to press Control T, and then I'm going to bring this further, scale it down. Okay. Now, I'm going to duplicate this, bring it up. Send it back, change the rotation property to something like this or whatever if you like. So this process is going to be really personal, ok? It really is personal. It depends on your own taste. It doesn't have to be like mechanical process. Okay, it depends on your taste, okay? Now, I just went to the last keyframe and then I'm going to set everything up here, and then I'm going to press Control D, and then I'm going to go here, and then I'm going to press P, and then I'm going to push it back. Okay. Now, I'm going to push it just like this. Okay. But here we also want barbed wires for the butterfly as well, okay? And so now what we are going to do is we are going to establish the barbed wires for the butterfly, okay? Okay? And so make sure that it is not too far away from the camera. For example, this text is at 00 distance in the Z position. Okay? It's not far away from the camera. It's at perfect position. And so the barbed wire must be at that position as well. Okay? It doesn't have to be because we can change it later, but, you know, it's really easy to establish them. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to duplicate this and then I'm going to bring it up. Then I'm going to press Z. Sorry, then I'm going to press R and bring the d rotation property, and then I'm going to bring it up here. Okay, and then I'm going to press P. And since this is minus one, it's not that big of ordeal. Okay. And so let's see the animation. Okay? So we have something like this. Okay, so this wire is going to be for the butterfly, okay? And for the cocoon, I'm going to set up. I think I'm going to go with this. This would be really nice, and I'm going to change this to one. Okay. And then I'm going to bring it at its place, and then I'm going to basically bring that here, and then I'm going to resize it. So this is going to be one cocoon, and I want this to be the cocoon oriented as well, but it might not look good, so I'm going to duplicate this and then bring it below like this, and then I'm going to rotate it by minus. So I'm going to just add minus value to that. And so we have the first cocoon is going to be here, the second cocoon is going to be here, okay? Now let's look at the final animation. And don't worry if it looks as if everything is too saturated or it's too much on the screen right now. Since we haven't added lights to it, since we haven't color corrected everything because I don't think I like this color. I'm going to keep this as a final color. So I might do something about it, as well. But as far as our basic animation is concerned and our wig is whether it's working or not, you can clearly see that it's really working. You can add even more elements to it if you want, and I'll show that to you in a bit, okay? But for now, our animation is done, and the next thing that we want to do is we want to add butterflies and the cocoon, okay? 15. Chap8: Text Effect & Being A Problem "Solver"!: This lecture, we are going to precompose this text, and then we are going to make it into something that looks real nice. I don't like the swans. I don't like the color, especially this color. I don't like the blue color here. Okay? And so we are going to change that. Okay? So what happens is, when we try to precompose an already existing text layer, ok? So let's try to do so and so that you understand what I'm trying to tell you. So when I try to precompose it, so whenever in after effects, whenever you are precomposing, you get two options. The first one is leave all attributes in butterfly main, meaning in this composition. And the second one is move all attributes into the new composition. And now, as you can see, I'm not able to click on this, this is the problem that you might run into if you don't precompose everything from the beginning. And of course, I did it intentionally, but I want you to make sure that you do it as the first thing before you start animation. If you did it, if you did this for this project, that's completely fine. But next time, make sure that everything that you place under this rig, okay, must be precomposed. And I'm going to show you why it's really important. Okay? So first of all, I'm going to rename this. I'm just going to call this change underscore, change text underscore PC, and then move all attributes into the new composition. Okay. But I'm not going to click on that. I'm just going to leave it as it is, then I'm going to hit Okay. Okay? Now, as you can see, the layer is two D, and we run into the problem of C. This is before and you already saw the after, okay? So this is an issue. And in after effects and in animation, you are going to run into issues, and this is what you get paid for. You get paid to solve the problems, okay? And how do we solve this problem, okay? And so, of course, there are many ways to do so, but a cheap trick, which I call is what I would do is I would duplicate this Okay. Then I would precompose it. The shortcut for precompose is Control Shift C, or you could just right click and then precompose. Okay? So this is basically going to create a comp on its own. Then I'm going to rename this to change text and discord PC, then move all attributes into the new composition. Okay, and it's two delayer all of a sudden. Okay? Now I'm going to go into the composition. I'm going to get rid of the three D layer from this. Okay? So I don't want it to be three D anymore, and then I'm going to resize it. But I'm going to change the composition size, and I'm going to tell you why. Okay? So first of all, to change the composition size, what you can do is you go here, and then you find composition settings, which is here. Okay, or you could just press Control K, and then it opens up composition settings. Okay? Now, what I'm going to do is I'm just going to change this to 1080 by 1080. Then I'm going to lock the aspect ratio, and then I'm just going to expand this, like this. Now the next thing that I'm going to do is I'm going to change the text. Okay? This text is boring. I want something that looks strong. This doesn't look strong. So I'm going to change the fonts to humane, which I think is my current favorite fonts. It is human black, by the way, and then I'm going to just resize it. Rearge it, align it, and then I'm going to make sure that it looks nice, okay? Now, I'm just going to rescale it, and then I'm going to align it to the center. Okay? Now, let's go back to the main composition and see what has happened there. Okay? So as you can see, both of them are different, and if I turn it into a three D, it doesn't make any difference. As you can see, this is at a different place, and this is at different. Just to make sure that you have a better vision, I'm going to change this to white. For now, I'm going to get delete that either way. Okay? Now, what I want is I want this in this position. Okay. So how do we do that? So now, the only difference here is of the Z property or Z position. So I'm going to press P and see both of them. Okay? So, see, 536540, not a huge difference. 437, 848 might be a huge difference, but that doesn't matter because when it comes to camera, the only concern right now is Z position. So I'm going to just copy and then I'm going to paste this here. Okay. And just like that, we have the change is constant at its place, and it looks much better. Okay? I'm going to just delete that now the another thing that is bothering me right now is that the change is constant, looks as if it's hanging in the air. Okay? I don't want that. I want to give reasons to everything in this animation, okay? And make sure that you try to do that, as well. I mean, of course, we are animating, and it's a superficial world that we create with our imagination. But as long as I'm concerned, okay, I wanted to have something that attaches to the entire story that we are telling. And so how do we do that? I'm going to go into the change text, okay? Now, I'm going to bring in Barbed Wire small. Okay. And now the next thing that I'm going to do is I'm going to create an ellipse tool. Okay? So I'm going to go here and then select ellipse or you could just press Q. Okay? So when I press Q, what we do is we basically switch, pay attention here, okay? We switch through the shapes, okay? So we have rounded rectangle, we have ellipse, we have polygon tool, then we have star tool. Okay, so you will be able to create a tool that you have selected, okay? And so I'm going to stop at Q, and now I'm going to just create a circle like this, ellipse like this. Now I'm going to change its now I'm going to zoom in and then I'm just going to scale it down. Okay. Now I'm going to rotate this by pressing R and then I'm going to place it here. I'm going to scale it down. And then I'm going to change the anchor point by choosing this, and then I'm going to place the anchor point near the end, so that everything rotates from that and then I'm going to scale it up Okay, so I'm going to just rename this to I don't know it's called hinge, but let's call it a hinge. Who cares? Okay, so I'm going to call this hinge one. And now, of course, if you are a perfectionist and if you want to make this even better, you can use real ones as well. But I don't think I don't think I want that. Okay? So I'm going to just select the barbed wire, and then I'm going to go to effects and presets. Now you can do two things here that depends on your taste and on your preferences. But what you can do is you could add in a fill effect, okay? So this is a feel effect. Fill effect basically fills whatever layer you apply on, okay? It basically gives the color, okay? And so this is fill. If you don't want that, what you can do is, I'm just going to disable the effect to disable the effect, all you have to do is just click here and it will be disabled. Then I'm going to go here, and then I'm going to choose tint. Okay? So I'm going to apply tint effect, and then I'm going to just choose the red color. And then instead of white, I want it to be black. And so we have something like this. It looks metallic, it looks nice. And so if you want, you can keep that as well. Okay? You can also blend it, but I don't want that. If you want, that's completely fine. You can go with that, but I want it to be subtle. Okay? It doesn't have to. It's not a main character. You have to remember that, okay? It's not the main character. And then I'm just going to change the color to something bit darker. Now the next thing that we are going to do is I'm going to just duplicate this. Then I'm going to place it like this. Okay? I'm going to duplicate this as well. Then I'm going to change the rotation of it. Then I'm going to place it somewhere like this. Okay. And I'm just going to make sure that it looks decent. Now I'm going to select both of them, hinge on and this bobbed wire, then I'm going to press Control D. Then I'm going to bring them up. Okay. Now, first of all, I'm going to just what else you can do is you could just parent pbb wire small PC to hinge, okay? So if you don't know how parenting works in after effects, so this is a child, and I am going to parent the child. So this is basically parent P Wip tool, okay? So whenever I just drag this PhiP and apply it to a layer, parent, this layer will be now acting as a parent, and this is a child. How is the relationship between a child and parent? Okay? So a child always follows their parents footsteps, okay? And so it goes something like that in after effects as well. Okay? So if I move this, I will be moving that as well. And so I don't have to do the double work. Now, I'm just going to place it where it looks decent. And then I'm going to go into this and I'm going to just change the rotation. So it looks decent. Okay. Now, I'm going to select this and then this and then I'm going to press Control D and duplicate both of them. Then I'm going to just parent this to hinge four, then I'm going to move this to here where it looks decent, I don't know why I'm using decent words so much. And then I'm just going to change this and another thing that I want you to remember is that you have to be flexible in the process because what might happen is that this size may not work. Okay? So you might have to expand this as well, or this could be too big, okay? So now, I'm going to press Tab. Tab opens up this flow chart. This is a flow chart, okay? So this is basically a pre comp. Okay? So this is main composition. This is the composition we are in, and these are all barbed wire, small and discord PC. So these are all the precoms. Okay. So this is a flowchart of a composition, and then I'm going to click on this and we are in this. Okay. So as you can see that we have placed it at a decent place, but see it's over. I want this layer to be at the back of everything, okay? So we can do two things. I'm just going to place it at the back, but it doesn't work, as you can see. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to just push it even further. Okay? Then I'm going to rescale it. Okay. Now let's look at the animation. So like I said, you have to be mindful about this. So although we have used really huge size, but it's still not working. Okay? So what we can do is we are going to go back into the composition, and then we are going to press Control K, and then we are going to expand it and make sure that lock aspect ratio one is to one is checked on. If you don't, you won't be able to have this squared composition. Okay? I want it to be squared, so I'm just going to scale it. And then I'm going to apply an effect called motion tile. I'm pretty sure I have explained how motion tile works, and then I'm just going to change the width. Now I'm going to just drag it and then I'm going to place it there. Now I'm going to control C, and then I'm going to control V on all the layers. Okay? Now, one by one, I'm just going to adjust them and no edges are being left out. Now I'm going to go into the composition, and I'm just going to rescale it, resize it like this, and let's see. So by the way, I'm paying attention here and here, okay? So see, here is the point where this is getting cut off. Now, let's say that you don't want to enlarge the composion because it might slow your system down, right? And so what you can do is you could just grab an ellipse tool, o Now pay attention to this. Okay? This is another chip trick that you want to remember, and this is another problem solving skill that you want to have. Okay? So if you don't want to do that, if your system is making it harder for you or you don't have the skills to do so just making assumptions at this point. So what you can do is you can just create a mask like this. Okay. And now, what you do is you feather. So when you feather it out, what happens is it looks as if it is disappearing. Okay? Now I'm going to scale it down. And so, see. How I feathered it, let me break that down to you. Okay? So first of all, I created the mask, then I press F, then I clicked on F, and so F opens up this mask feather, so this is how mask feather works. And so these are the things that is really important, and you have to remember that after effects and using animation and creating animation for the clients, it's all about problem solving issues. I'm going to just darken the red color. And then I'm just going to copy it and paste it. And so we have something like this. 16. Chap9: Masking: Before we move on to the next chapter, there is a minor change that I want to make. And so for that, I'm going to go into this text, which is change is constant, and then I'm going to just change the color of this. Okay? So I don't want it to have this brighter red or darker red, I mean, I'm going to just change it to its native color. Then I'm going to copy this by pressing Control C, I'm going to copy the effect. Okay? And then I'm going to select every babed wire, and then I'm going to just press Control. Okay? And in that way, I have colored everything. Okay, now I'm going to go back to the main composition and we are done. Okay, now, what we're going to do is we are going to create the same kind of text that we have here, okay? But we are going to create this one, okay? So there are two things that we can do. First of all, what we can do is I don't know why I have two copies here, so I'm going to get rid of that. I may have accidentally duplicated it. Anyways. So what we are going to do here is you can also start from the beginning, start from the scratch, and then you could just precompose it and repeat the process. Or what we can do is we go to 00 PC, right, and then I'm going to find the change text PC, which is this. And if you don't want to go there, what you could do is just go right click reveal and then reveal layer source in project. Okay? And so we have this. Okay? Now I'm going to press Control D to duplicate it, and then I'm going to rename this. Okay? So first of all, I'm going to get rid of the two from the first, and then I'm going to type in here, progress. Okay. And it should have been in capital, but that's completely fine. And then I'm going to just double click here, right, and I'm going to go into that first composition. I'm going to copy this by pressing Control C, and so if you see this, okay, I between recording this class, what happened is there was this new after effects update. And so these properties might pop up and it's a new feature. Okay, I have been using the older version forever, forever. And so I just update it. And so if you look at this, it's because of this. But I'm not going to use this. I'm mostly going to use this because some people may have older version, so I'm going to just you see that, don't worry, I'm going to use panels that I showed you in the beginning. Okay? So now I'm going to go into the progress PC and then I'm going to press Control V. Okay. So we have a text like this. Of course, it doesn't make any sense. It doesn't look nice. Okay. So now I'm going to type in I'm going to choose the humane font. But before that, I'm going to recenter the anchor point by pressing that shortcut, and then I'm going to align it to the center. Then I'm going to just change its size. Okay? So I'm going to just change its size until it matches or reaches that ring. Okay. Now let's look at the ring. Now, one more thing that I want to remind you is that you don't have to change the colors here as well, ok? You can always change the colors in the main composition as well, okay? And so I think the only change that I'm going to make is I'm going to change this hinge and this. Okay, so I'm just going to move them a little bit like this. Okay. I'm also going to make this look nice. Okay. I'm going to go here, and then I'm going to select this. This one looks decent. I'm going to select this, and then I'm going to select this, and then I'm going to place it where it looks nice. Okay? So we have the text ready. Now, like I said, you don't have to change the colors here, and after that, I'm going to go into the main composition, then I'm going to bring this here. Okay? Now I'm going to turn that into three D. Okay. Now, I'm going to copy this position. So I'm going to control C, and then control. Okay. Then I'm going to reduce the size then I'm going to hide this for now. I don't know if it's going to work, right? And then I'm going to go to effects and presets and then I'm going to add in and fill effect, drop it on it like this. Then I'm going to hide this. So this basically enables and disables the effect. So I'm going to disable the effect. I'm going to select this and then boom. Okay? So we have something like this. We need to see whether this layer is on the position that we want or not. But before that, I'm going to just mask it like this. Then so basically I selected this, which is an ellipse tool, I draw an ellipse, and then I'm going to feather it by pressing F, and then I'm going to just increase the feather like this. Okay. Now I'm going to just expand this so that it looks nice. And then I'm going to preview the animation, okay, so that I know whether this is working or not. Okay? Although I think it's working, but here it's getting tangled, right? And I don't like that. What I also don't like is this barbed wire being visible here, okay? So what I'm going to do is I'm going to open up this, right, and I'm going to change the position of it. Okay? So I'm going to bring this up like this, okay? And then I'm going to just move this composition a bit up, okay? So I'm going to change the Y value of it, which is the middle one. So now this getting it getting tangled in is looking really decent, okay? I'm not going to lie, okay? And so I'm going to keep it at that way. And I'm also going to go at the first, okay? And I think this one is too bright. See, compared to this one, this one looks as if it's part of the environment. But this one, it looks too bright. It looks as if it's alien to the environment, okay? So I'm going to select the mask. I'm going to press M and then I'm going to delete the mask because I'm going to redo that. And then I'm going to make the mask shorter. So I'm going to place it here, and then I'm going to press F, press F, and then I'm going to just feather the mask. Now look at the difference, before and after, it looks really nice. This one looks as if it's the part of the environment, okay? And the reason why I'm saying that is because the red and black are blending here, okay? 17. Chap10: Time Remapping & Intuition!: This lecture, we are going to start by importing the butterflies, okay? So I'm going to go to PC, okay. And now I'm just looking, where should I keep my butterflies and my cocoons, right? And so when there is change is constant, is going to be this cocoon that we have, right? I don't know if it's called cocoon or not, but for now we are going to call this cocoon, right? And I'm going to bring that in, okay? So I'm going to go into images, and I have already here, C, this is why renaming is important, and I have messed that up. It should be called butterfly cocoon, so I'm going to rename this and don't chug my spelling, okay? Cocoon. Okay, so I'm going to bring that in so I'm going to turn the layer into three D, right, and then I'm going to place it here at this side. Like this. I'm going to just see this, and for now, I'm going to remember, I'm going to change its color to something brighter and then I'm going to place it here. Okay? Now, I'm going to bring this below. Then I'm going to open up the position of this. Then I'm going to copy the position, and then I'm going to paste this, okay? So we have a cocoon like this. Now I'm going to preview it and look at it, okay? And I'm going to make this. Before that, I'm going to change the anchor point. So I'm going to select the pen behind tool and then I'm going to just move the anchor point to this portion, okay? And so I can scale from that. I'm going to scale it down because this is too big and I don't like that. Okay. Now I'm going to duplicate this. Okay. I'm going to bring that here. Now I'm going to select this barbed wire. Okay. I'm going to open up the position property by pressing P. Then I'm going to copy the position, okay? Then I'm going to select this. I'm going to press P, and then I'm going to fast it. Okay? Now I'm going to place it where it looks good. Okay? And so let's look at the animation, okay? So it looks nice. Now, the next thing that I'm going to do is I'm going to just rescale this. I'm going to make this a little bigger. I'm going to bring this a little bit below. Okay, like this. Okay? So we have the cocoons set up, and now we are going to set up the butterflies, which I think is going to be much easier. Okay, we are going to use the same principle. So I'm going to open up the project panel. Okay. Now I'm going to grab this, okay? And then I'm going to just bring that in like this. Okay? So there are going to be two points. So this one is going to be the one point where I want the butterfly to be there. And I think I'm going to go with this, but it's not set in stones, okay? So even if you make mistake, you are free to change it, okay? So I'm going to bring this here. Okay. Now, can you see this issue? Okay? I want to expand it, but I cannot. And I'm going to show you what is happening. Okay? So I'm going to get rid of the butterfly transparent. Okay. Now, how do we solve that? So you can do two things. First of all, you could just duplicate this. But when you do this, you have whatever change you make to this layer won't be applied to this layer, okay? That's not a great way to solve that issue, okay? So After Effects allows us to create or time remapping. Okay? So I'm going to right click. I'm going to go to time and enable time remapping. So time remapping basically allows us to loop the layers without duplicating them. Okay? So it does it directly. It basically loops, for example, so this is the first second of the composition, and this is the last second of the composition. And so after the time remapping, what it does is that it allows us to extend the composition, but not only extend it in a way that only in layers, but it will be extended visually as well. So it's basically going to loop the composion. But to loop this composition from this point, you have to use expression. See, it disappears. I'm going to just solo it so that you can see it. So it disappears. But I want it to remain. And to do that, we are going to use the looping expression. I'm going to press Alt and then I'm going to click. Then I'm going to add in Loop out. Okay? So I'm going to just select this, press Enter. And if this appears, just press Caps lock, and we have this. But as you can see, this disappears, but it reappears. I don't know why, but aftereffects has this glitch and the glitch is still here. So I have found this solution. The solution is to go back to one frame, drop a keyframe, delete this keyframe, and that problem is gone. Okay? So now there is no glitch. So I'm going to unsolo this. I'm going to turn this into three D. Okay. Now I'm going to go at the point. Okay. Now I'm going to select this barbed wire, not this one. So I'm going to lock this because this happens a lot, o. Whenever you are walking in three D space, this happens a lot, especially when we are working with composion that has many layers. So I'm going to press P. Okay. Now I'm going to copy. I'm going to go to butterfly transparent and discore PC, and then I'm going to paste this. Okay. Now, I'm just going to place it where it looks nice. Now I'm going to press S to bring up the scale, and then I'm going to just increase the size of it. Now I'm going to spread butterflies around, okay? So I'm going to first of all, resize it. But before that, I'm going to place the anchor point at this point. Okay? So I'm going to select this tool, which is pen behind tool, then I'm going to bring it here, and then I'm going to scale it up. Okay. Then I'm going to press V. This tool appears, which is a hand tool. So you hold the space bar and you will be able to basically, navigate the composition with more efficiency. Now, I'm going to duplicate this. I'm going to select this. Then I'm going to press P. Okay? Now I'm going to copy the position. Then I'm going to select this. Then I'm going to open up the position by pressing P, then I'm going to control. Okay? Now I'm going to rescale it, so I'm going to just make it smaller. Okay. But I don't want it to face this side. I want it to face another side. I want to flip it. So to flip a layer, all you have to do is right click Transform, and then flip horizontal. Okay? Now I'm going to just place it, and then I'm going to press R to bring up the rotation property. Then I'm going to change the rotation to something like this. Okay, so we have two butterflies in place. So I'm going to just rescale it. I'm going to make this a bit smaller. I don't want it to touch this barbed wire. Okay. The next thing that I want to put it on is this, but this wire clearly goes behind this, and I don't want that. I want this wire in front. Okay. But let's try. What would happen if we place it there? And let's make it smaller. Okay? So I'm going to use this one, okay? Because I don't want to flip that. So I'm going to just press Control D. I'm going to bring it below. Then I'm going to just resize it Okay, you know what? I think this layer would look much decent than this layer. So I'm going to place it there. And that's completely fine. See, I animation, sometimes you have to walk with your intuition, okay? Animation is not a job about technicality. Animation is a job about intuition. Animation is just your intuition. If you can just listen to what's going on and you navigate from that, okay? Like, your career will be really good. But if you are someone who is stuck on methods, okay? For example, if this has to be this way and you are stuck in that, you are going to get stuck, and this is this. And I'm going to be really honest. That animation isn't for you, okay? Animation isn't for you if you are someone like that, you are really I don't know how to describe that, but if you are someone like, I want it this way and it should be this way. Okay? This is the only way. And if you are someone like that, animation is clearly not for you because in animation, you have to be flexible. If you are not flexible, you are not going to change the way you work, then you are going to have a hard time and you are going to quit, so it's better to quit, okay? And that's completely fine. People are different people have different preferences. But in animation, you have to stay flexible, okay? There are no options for that. And so make sure that you remember that that animation Equals intuition. It's just that. It's nothing more than that. I don't know how I got here, okay? But I'm here and I'm here because of my intuition. I just know what to do when I want to do something. And I just follow it. And if it doesn't work out, which happens, which is part of life. And so what happens is I stay flexible in my process. Okay I'm not. I don't get stuck. Of course, I do I feel stuck like all of you, but I don't stay stuck in there. I change my moves instantly. And that's the thing about success. That if you want to be successful, you have to make decisions quick. And if you want to succeed in animation, you have to make your decisions even quickly, ok. And so I'm going to that was a huge lecture, by the way. So I'm going to copy this position. I'm going to select this. I'm going to press P, I'm going to paste it. Okay? And then I'm going to just resize it. I'm going to place it where it looks decent. Okay. And although the quality of this isn't really great. Okay. But it looks nice as a whole. So I'm going to just rotate. Okay, this looks much better than I expected. And that's the thing about intuition as well. If you follow your intuition, things will look much better than you expect, right? And of course, there are two cocoons, okay? And we have three butterflies here, okay? So I think we should change that because one thing is that you have to remember is in animation, there is a principle called continuity, not in just animation, but it applies to movies. It applies to graphic design. This applies to editing as well, okay? So the principle of continuity is simple. If there is two cocoons, okay, you have to, there should be two butterflies here, but three doesn't look nice. It means that the animator didn't pay attention to the craft, okay? So I'm going to make it three. So I'm going to just duplicate this Okay. I'm going to bring that here. I'm going to select this barbed wire. Then I'm going to press P, and then I'm going to copy its position. I'm going to select this. I'm going to press P, then I'm going to paste it. Okay? Now I'm going to zoom in and then I'm going to just lace it, and then I'm going to just drag this layer below below. And this one looks nice. Okay. So let's preview it. And so this is the end of the chapter. In this chapter, we learned a lot of things, okay? Especially about intuition that how animation is more about intuition than technicalities. Okay? You don't have to know everything in order to learn animation. And in the next lecture, we are going to start by compositing, okay? So we are going to composite the layers, and we are going to make many changes to this, okay? 18. Chap11: Compositing & Unity: Now to begin the compositing, what we need to do is we need to pay attention to colors, okay? So what we need is we need to unite this entire piece into one piece, okay? And so, for example, the brightest color here is red, okay? So I need to paint all this red so it looks as if it's united. Of course, it's not united in real life. We know that. But in design, what we do is we have some tools that helps us unite, okay? And so we are going to use these tools to help us unite and make it even more impactful, okay? And so how do we do that? So to begin, what we do is we use something called layer styles, okay? So so layer styles in after effects are the effects that are like they are like effects in the Photoshop, okay? This allows us to add stylistic effects to the layers, okay? And you will see how powerful these layer styles are, okay? Layer styles are basically something that is borrowed from Photoshop. At least, that's how I see it, okay? And they are non destructive and can be applied to any shape layer, text layer, or it can be anything, okay? Now, the problem that we might run into is quite difficult to solve, okay? And so let me show you with one example. So I'm going to just select this barbed wire. Okay? So this is a bobbed wire small. I'm going to open it up, okay? And so we don't see anything here that resembles layer styles. Okay? So how do we apply layer stats? To apply layer styles, all you have to do is right click Layer Styles, and then in this case, we are going to apply inner shadow. Okay? And as you can see, we have this shadow. Okay? Now let's open up the inner shadow. So we have now new panel or new property that is being added, which is called layer stars. It has blending options. I don't use this much, but this is about light angle, okay? And it should be global so you don't have to mess anything. You don't have to mess with anything here, keep it as it is. The other option is the inner shadow, okay? So inner shadow has many properties. So inner shadows are the shadows that creates a shadow within a layer's boundary, okay? So it helps us give this edge to the layers. Okay? So it's key setting. The first one is blend mode. As you can see here, the first one is blend mode. It determines how the shadow blend with the already existing layer, right? Okay, then we have color. So I'm going to change this color to red just to show you the power of it, okay? See? It already looks as if it's one, right? Then we have opacity. Opacity is basically the transparency. Then we have the global light. I'm going to keep it off here and you should keep it as off as well. Okay, so the angle sets the direction of the light source which affects the shadow's placement. So if I change it, see, everything changes. The angle changes angle of the light changes, then there is distance. This distance basically moves the shadow inward from the edge, like this. Okay. Then we have choke. So choke basically adjusts the shadows edges sharpness. Okay? So, for example, if I'm going to increase this is going to increase the sharpness of the edges C, okay? Then we have size. Okay? So size basically determines the size of the shadow, okay? So you should keep it as it is. Now, let's say that you have messed up everything and you want to go back to the original setting. How do you do that? You just click Reset, and everything will be reset to what it was default, okay? We are going to use the inner shadows to light up this entire scene, okay? But you might not see that right now, but in future, you might run into an issue. And that issue is that, let's say you have applied this layer styles to every layer, okay? Now, the problem is that you don't like this color. You don't like the red color, and you want to change it. Right? So how do you change it, okay? So for example, if it's if the color of the color of the font is green, for example, and you want to change everything here to green, okay? That would like you have to go here, and then you have to copy it and you have to paste it, okay? And so it might be like, really tiring and it could, like, take a lot of time, okay? So what we want to do is we want to create systems that will help us working more efficiently, okay? And so how do we solve this problem with one shot? For example, what I want is I want to I want so much control, okay? So in this case, I want control that if I change the color on this panel, okay? I want every layer style to change with it directly. Okay? I want that. So how do we achieve that? Okay? And I'm going to show you the easiest way to achieve this. This will be applicable to any video you create. This can be applied to explainer video. This can be applied to animation. For example, if you are working with an explainer video, let's say your color palette has six colors, okay? And if you use this technique, you will have way more freedom over color. For example, if you don't like any color, you can change it with single click in an entire project, okay? And that's how efficient this technique that I'm going to show you is, okay? And so let's start. So this technique it's really simple. What we do is we start by using the most important tool in after effects, which is nulls. Okay? So I'm going to create a null, so I'm going to just click New Null Object. Okay? Now, we're not going to adjust the anchor point or anything, but I'm going to call this Color Color control. Okay. So this is our main component for controlling the colors. Okay? Now you might be wondering, how do we do that? Okay? And so don't worry, we are going to solve that. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to select the change is constant layer, okay? Now, I'm going to apply an effect called fill, okay? So I'm going to go to effects and presets. Then I'm going to apply an effect called fill effect, okay? Now I'm going to just drag it and drop it like this. And it's already red the color doesn't change much, so I'm going to keep it as the default color. Okay? So we have something like this. Now, I'm going to drag this down, at least for now. Okay. Now I'm going to apply an effect called color. Control. Okay? So this is so we are going to use some expressions as you can see here, but don't worry, it's not complicated. I'm going to try to make things as easier as possible, okay? And now, what we are going to do is we are going to parent this color, okay to this. And so when we change anything here, it will be applied directly to everything. Okay? Now, I know it sounds like really fancy and really complicated, but don't worry. It's really easy, okay? So now we are going to parent this, which is basically fill effects color to color controllers, this, okay? So first of all, I'm going to rename this, which is not hanage, it's change. Okay, so I'm going to rename this to change. And then I'm going to just duplicate this by pressing Control D. Then I'm going to rename this by pressing Enter, and then I'm going to call this progress. This is going to be change color, this color, and this one is going to be the blue color. So I'm going to pick the blue color from here. Okay. So we have this two ready. Now, what we do is I'm going to just select this, and now, what happens is I want them both of the panels to be present. For example, I want to parent this color to this. But as you can see, whenever I select it, it changes because this effects control panel shows the effect on the already existing here, on the selected layer. So how do we solve that? So I'm going to select this and then I'm going to lock this. Okay? So this basically helps us in locking. Basically, it's called toggle viewer lock, Okay then I'm going to open this up. Okay? So you get effects here as well, ok? It's not just on effects control. So I'm going to open up this. Okay? Then we have applied an effect called fill, then I'm going to just drag this and I'm going to just go here just like that. Expression has been applied, okay? See? It is applied directly. Now I'm not going to show you the magic right now because I want to adjust the layer styles, at least around it first. Okay? So I'm going to just lock this for now and I'm going to unlock this. Okay, I'm going to keep it locked. Then I'm going to select this now. I'm going to parent this to this. Okay. Now the next thing that I want is like this doesn't look authentic, okay? It looks cheap. So I want to make it look better and much nicer, so I'm going to just play around until I get what I want. Okay? So don't pay attention here. Whenever you are making changes to any properties, don't pay attention to the properties or the values. Pay attention on here. Okay? This is the result this is the effect. Pay attention to the result and the effect will take place on its own, okay? And so I think I like this, and I'm going to change few things here. For example, I might change distance. Okay. And you might have to play a little bit here, okay? It doesn't come off as it doesn't work directly. Sometimes you have to go through some trial and error, okay? And so I think this one is nice. I'm going to decrease the opacity just a little bit. Okay. All right. So now we have something like this. Okay, so I'm going to just click here. I think I still want to make it better. So I'm going to keep the opacity as 75 as it was. Okay. Now, I'm going to select this. I'm going to press Control C. Okay. Then I'm going to select every visible barbed wire here. Then I'm going to press Control V. Okay. And this is an auto save panel, by the way, okay? And so we might have to make changes to the angles, but look at the magic. Okay? So I'm going to change this color to something like green. See? Everything changes and everything unites. Okay? Now, of course, we have some work to do. I'm going to press Control to undo. And now now the only thing that needs to be done is to change in the angle because like this looks too much, o? Of course, it's united, but it's, like, too united, okay? It's basically blending in, as you can see here. Okay. So I'm going to select this barbed wire. Now I'm going to go into layers stars. I'm going to go into inner shadow. Now I'm going to decrease the opacity and then I'm going to increase the value of angle. Now, you have to be mindful and be practical here and use some common sense. Okay? So this is basically, I want to show that this is emitting light, okay? And so if the light is being emitted from here, of course, this angle won't work here. Okay? So it has to be at the bottom part. Okay, so make sure that you are mindful whenever you are doing that, okay? And so this one is nice and if you want, you can also change the opacity. Okay, now I'm going to copy this and I'm going to paste it on this one because I want it to be present at the bottom, and this one are fine. Okay. Now, we are going to apply the same thing here. So I'm going to press Control V. Okay. And the light is coming from here, this part, right? And so you have to be really mindful and zoom in to see a little bit, so I'm going to open up the layer styles. Okay. I'm going to increase the opacity because I want the red to be there. Then I'm going to play with the value like this. Now, the opacity could be too much, so make sure that you are mindful about it as well. I'm going to just reduce it. And if you want to go wild, you can increase the size. Or you could increase the distance. And then you could increase the size. Size basically feathers everything. Okay. So this one looks nice. I'm going to copy this. Okay. I'm going to paste it here. Then I'm going to paste it here. Now I'm going to go into layer stars, and then we are going to do the same adjustments, but the only adjustment here is that of angle. I'm going to just change the angle until I get what I want. I'm going to increase the opacity here because it's closer compared to this, okay? So I'm going to increase the opacity like this. Right now, I'm going to select this, then I'm going to go into inner shadow, and then I'm going to so I want the shadow to be here, not here, okay? Since the light is coming from the top. And so this might be like, not an easy thing to do. And so you might have to, for example, I'm going to change this to Phi for now. Now I'm going to increase the opacity to 100 so that I can see clearly, and then I'm going to just play with the angle. Okay. And then I'm going to increase the distance, o. And now I'm going to increase the size so that it blends. Then I'm going to decrease the distance and decrease the opacity. Okay? So it blends in really well. Now I'm going to press my favorite shortcut, which is this. Okay. And so if you think this is too much, for example, if you think like, Oh, this is too much. Okay. So what you can do is you could just go in there and change the opacity. Now, if you want to change, for example, if you want to parent opacity to this effects control, you can do that as well, but I don't think that's needed. You could just play around here. For example, I think 57 or 60 is nice, but if you think it's too much, you can always decrease or increase it. Okay, so this one is, it's too wild, okay? It's too out of the box. I don't like this. So I'm going to reduce that to 60 as well. It should be shuttle. Okay? So for example, if it's away, the light should be more subtle, okay? And you have to be mindful and use common sense here. But unfortunately, common sense isn't that common so I'm going to just reduce the opacity, since it's far. Okay. But you have to remember that there are no rules in animation. Accidentally, I want to change on this, not on this. I'm going to find that layer. And as you can see, there are so many layers. Now I'm going to decrease the opacity Okay, so this one looks really stunning, right? So I'm going to. Now let's see the animation. Okay. So now, of course, these are all the barbed wires that needs to be animated. But at least for now, let's look at how it looks. Okay, so it really looks nice. And what you can do is you can always just preview this. Okay. So for example, I'm going to press you to bring up the key frame. And what you can do is you can just preview it and you can just move along the step by step, right? So what I'm going to do is I'm going to select this, then I'm going to copy this inner shadow. I'm going to taste this inner shadow. Now, I'm going to just decrease the opacity by two, and I'm going to just add in minus two. You can do math in after effects as well. I added minus and then two, and then it's going to be 58. Okay. Then I'm going to move further. Okay? Now, since this layer is going to be closer to this, it doesn't have to be like a this subtle. Okay. But there is one thing that is left, and we are going to do that next. Okay? So I'm going to pick, I think, this one. I'm going to press Control C, then I'm going to press Control V. As you can see, the effect is starting to be visible. Now I'm going to move ahead. And I'm going to press Control V as well. But as you can see, this is too much. So I'm going to find that layer, and you have to find the layers, okay? You have to do that manually. Okay? So I'm going to just decrease the opacity here. I'm going to decrease it even further. Okay? So now, what we're going to do is we are going to add in the layer styles for this, okay? So how do we do that? So first of all, I'm going to just press Control A, then I'm going to do this, which is click on this towel button. Then I'm going to hit F two. F two basically this selects the layers. Okay? Now, I'm going to just go back and select the most strongest layer styles. Then I'm going to press go into layer styles, and then I'm going to select inner shadow, then I'm going to press Control C, right? And then I'm going to go here. Okay, I'm going to press I'm going to select the layer, then I'm going to press Control V. Okay. Now, this one is an important step so make sure that you don't mess this up. Okay? So we already have an expression that is attached to this color. I don't want that. I want this color. So I'm going to select this, which is Pickup tool and then I'm going to parent it to this. And just like that, the color changes, okay? Now, I'm going to select this as well, okay? Now I'm going to apply an effect called fill effect. Okay, so I'm going to just type in fill, then I'm going to double click. Okay. But it was already applied, my bad, I forget it, and it happens, it's completely fine. So if you do that, don't worry. To Effects Control panel will open up after effects is more flexible than you would expect. Okay? So I'm going to just get rid of this for now, I don't need that, then I'm going to open up this up. Okay. Then I'm going to go to effet, fill, and then I'm going to just pickup this, do this. Okay. And then I'm going to lock that again. Okay, so this looks really cold. I don't know why. And it looks like cold in the sense of feeling. Okay? Is it should be warm, right, because we are giving a positive message, so it should be warm. And this is what I was talking about. Like your preferences will change as you move over time, okay? So I'm going to just change it like this. Now, I'm going to just select this. Then I'm going to select both of them by pressing Shift, then I'm going to press Control V. Okay. Now I'm going to select this, then I'm going to press Control V. Then I'm going to select this, then I'm going to press Control V. Okay, so I accidentally applied it to the butterfly transparent. I don't want that. Okay, I want to apply it. So I'm going to just move ahead further. And then I'm going to just select this layer. I don't know why I'm not able to select this. It's because of these butterflies. Then I'm going to select this, then I'm going to. Okay. Okay, so now the next thing that we need to do is to adjust the colors, not colors, adjust the angles, okay? So, like, I'm pretty sure you can feel how cold this looks, right? So so this one needs to have the red color, which should feel as if it's dangerous. Okay? The message that I'm trying to tell audience is if you don't change, if you don't want to change, it doesn't matter. As time passes, you are going to change. Okay? So this basically shows fear, and that's completely fine with the message that we are trying to tell. But when it comes to blue, what happens is that it looks cold, okay? It's as if the progress is a choice is cold. I sends this cold message. It looks cold, okay? And I don't want that. So for now, I'm going to keep it as it is. Okay. And I'm going to change the angles, okay? So I'm going to zoom in. Then I'm going to open this up, and then I'm going to increase the opacity. Then I'm going do the same thing here as well. Okay, I'm going to go to ayerls and then I'm going to increase the opacity. Now, I do it randomly, okay? Then I'm going to select this, find the layer. Increase the opacity as much as you like because this is the closest. But don't make it blue. Don't don't turn entire barbed wire into a blue color. Okay? Now I'm going to find this. Now angle in this one is really crucial, so I'm going to make sure that it's at the bottom. Okay, I'm going to change this to 75. Then I'm going to play with distance. I'm going to keep it at five for now. I'm going to play around with the value of the angle. See, it's visible at the edges. Now I'm going to increase the distance, but it's too much. So I'm going to just reduce it. I'm going to change it to seven I guess. Okay? Now I'm going to blend it and to blend, I'm going to just increase the choke Okay. No choke. I think size blends in just a little bit, so I'm going to change it to six. Okay? Now, I don't want to work on that as well, what I'm going to do is I'm going to just copy this. I'm going to select this, then I'm going to paste it, okay? Now I'm going to collapse everything. Then I'm going to press F two. Okay. And so we have something like this. Now the compositing is done, but it looks dull, it looks bad. So let's play with some colors. Okay? So I'm going to go with this. Okay, this one looks nice. Okay, this one looks really nice. This is classic red versus green thing. Okay. Okay. So first of all, let's play it. Let's review it because the compositing is not done. There is an important thing, which is adding blurs and adding textures and adding some more elements, that's remaining and then that we are going to do that in the next lecture. Okay? But before that, let's look at it and see how it looks, okay? And of course, the animation is there are some animations that needs to be done. 19. Chap12: Blur & Shadows: So now that we are done with the making everything united, what we do, what we need is we need to create more depth, okay? And how do we do that? So we need more depth, and we can easily create it by using an effect called camera lens blur. Okay? It basically does what the effect suggests. Okay, so I'm going to bring this on the top Okay. Then I'm going to just randomly select the layers. For example, I'm going to select this layer, then I'm going to go to effects and presets, then I'm going to search for camera lens blur. Okay? So this effect could be like it's not an easy effect to render four computer, especially if you are low on space. So I'm going to show you the way on how to deal with that. So I'm going to just drag this and then I'm going to drop this, okay? And so I don't think we need to change anything here, the only most important part at least in this project is the radius. And keep it at Pi if you want, you can go more, for example, ten, and it blurs even further, but I don't think that's going to look right. I'm going to just keep it as the default settings, okay? Then I'm going to select this effect, then I'm going to press Control C. Okay. And then I'm going to select any random layer that you want. Okay, for example, you could just select this and you could just blur it as well. Okay. Then I'm going to go further, okay? So I'm going to blur this one because or I'm going to blur this one B, C, you have to be mindful, use common sense, use your own preference, use your own taste as you like. There are no limits, so I'm going to just press Control, because C, they both were blending in. Okay. Then I think I'm going to paste here. Okay. Or this one might look much better. Okay. Then I'm going to blur this as well. Be since it's farther, it should be blurred, okay? Then I'm going to go further. Okay. And so, of course, don't blur the barbed wires on which butterflies are sitting on. Okay? So I'm going to press Control V on the one that is behind. Then I'm going to press Control V here as well. Okay. Then I'm going to move further. Okay, and then I don't think I'm going to blur this one out. Okay. Now, one thing that I don't like is this. First of all, I'm going to get rid of this random layer that is so I don't like this. I don't know why, but I'm just paying attention to it right now, and I don't like this. So what we can do here? Is nothing. We accept it. We don't have to be perfect here. We are making this for Instagram or okay. But if you still want to make changes to it, what you can do is you have to make some huge changes to it, it might mess up it might create some issues, okay? So the best thing that you can do is to scale it up, I'm going to lock this so I don't accidentally select them. So I'm going to just place it behind, you know? See? I'm going to place it even further and further. Okay. So I'm going to find first of all, I'm going to log this for now, then I'm going to find this layer. Okay. And then I'm going to place it on the back. Okay? See? Looks nice. Now, there is this edge that I don't like, see. It's blending in. But that's completely fine. Okay? You don't have to be a perfectionist at everything. But if you want, you can just drag these handles in, even further. See? Okay. Now we are done with, I think, blurring things out. Okay. Now I'm going to just randomly select this. Okay, this is a random decision, by the way. So I'm going to just select this, press Control D. Okay. Then I'm going to press P and then I'm going to just bring it towards the camera, like this. Then I'm going to rotate it. Sorry, I'm going to rotate the Z property. I'm going to scale it up like humongous. Then I'm going to press Control D. Then I'm going to place it here at the bottom. Okay. Now I'm going to select this and this. I'm going to select both of them, then I'm going to place it at the top. Okay. Now I'm going to press Control V so that they both are blurred. Okay. Now, this was a random decision, by the way, and you have to make random decisions. Like I said, the game of animation is the game of intuition. Okay? You have to remember that. Okay? So I don't like this placement here, so I'm going to just select this. I'm going to change this to something like this. Then I'm going to press S to bring up the scale. I'm going to zoom in. I'm going to go gigantic. Then I'm going to place it here, then I'm going to select this. I'm going to rotate it. Then I'm going to press S to bring up the scale, then I'm going to zoom it in. And then I'm going to preview. So basically, what I want is I want both of them to go out of the site, okay? And it does not always work out like that, but it might work here and it might look nice, see? It looks nice, it looks better than what I expected. So you could also add any effect that you want, for example, if you want to add butterfly, you can add butterfly here as well, but I suggest you don't. Okay? Now, if you think that there are two layers that are blending in, for example, this layer and this layer is blending in. You could just increase the blur or just decrease the layer style on it. For example, the layer style on this one. This layer is too much, okay? So what I'm going to do is I'm just going to pause the preview. I'm going to lock this one so I don't accidentally select this, then I'm going to go into this layer style. Then I'm going to change this to 40. Okay. Now the reason why it looks as if it's too much is because of the blur. Okay? So blur, basically what it does, it basically spreads or it feathers. Okay? So in this lecture, we added blur. Now, in the next lecture, what we are going to do is we are going to animate, okay, and animate this both the texts, okay. But before that, let's make a change to something, okay? So this, I'm going to go back here. Okay. Then I'm going to find this, which is change text. Then I'm going to open this up. Okay. So now the issue that I'm running into is that or at least I feel like that this barbed wire is too gigantic. It should be small. So I'm going to just reduce the size of it by pressing, then I'm going to zoom in and then place it here. Okay? Then I'm going to copy this value, so I'm going to just select the scale. I'm going to copy. Then I'm going to select this then paste. Then I'm going to move it and adjust it so that it looks nice, then I'm going to increase the value on the motion tile, but it creates some issues here. I'm going to just add it like this. Now I'm going to select this one, then I'm going to press S and then control. This might be too small. I don't know why that happened. Now, do you know why that happened? It happened because of the parenting, okay? So I'm going to press Control Z. I'm going to get rid of the parenting for now, then I'm going to press Control V. Okay. So the reason why that issue occurred is because it was parented to this hinge. And it was like borrowing the value from that, okay? And so that's why it was way smaller than it should have been. Then I'm going to move this Up like this. Now I'm going to select this one, then I'm going to unparent it, then I'm going to press S, then I'm going to press Control V. Then I'm going to bring it here, but we are running into shame issues, so I'm going to just increase the value like this. Okay? Now I'm going to go back and see how it looks. See, this one looks much better than it was. Okay. So the reason why I didn't like it that much is because it was like it was grabbing more attention than the text, okay? So the text should be the priority. Okay? So I'm going to follow the same process in the other texts as well. If you want, you can follow along or you could just skip to the next lecture. So I'm going to select S, then I press S, then I'm going to press Control V. Okay. Now I'm going to increase the Mhentile and I'm going to select this. I'm going to get rid of this, then I'm going to press S, not on anchor point, and then I'm going to press Control V. Then I'm going to increase This, I'm going to select this press S, get rid of the parenting, press Control V. Okay. Then I'm going to increase the motion tile carefully. Okay. Then I'm going to select this, press S, press Control V, and I'm going to increase the value carefully by pressing Control. Okay. This looks nice. I'm going to go back And now that issue has been solved as well, okay? And here, it looks really nice, okay. Now, before we animate, there is one last thing that I want to do as well, okay? So I'm going to that, then I'm going to add in an effect called drop shadow. Okay? So drop shadow is basically allows us to give the shadow to the object shadow color. So shadow color, the opacity is the transparency of the shadow. Direction is the angle of the shadow, not shadow. Distance is the distance of the shadow, and softness basically softens the shadow, and shadow only allows you to have the shadowy part only. Okay? So I'm going to increase the distance to something like this. Okay, then I'm going to change the angle I'm going to increase the distance, then I'm going to soften it up. Okay. Then I'm going to increase the opacity just a little bit. Then I'm going to press Control C. Okay. I'm going to go back and I'm going to select this, then I'm going to press Control. Okay. Then I'm going to change the distance. Okay. If you want, you can also add in different layers as well, but I think these two are fine, okay? 20. Chap13: Texturing & Flicker Animation: So in the previous lecture, what we did is we basically created this blurs and then we added shadows to sell the effect. Okay. Now, in this lecture, I'm going to add in some texture before we start the final animation. Okay? So the animation is going to be at the end. You can add textures at the end, but I'm going to add textures right now. So the only thing that I have to worry about at the end is the final animation, okay? And so I'm going to select this. Then I'm going to press Control I, which is import. Then I'm going to find the texture, I have this entire texture element folder where I store all the effects, then I'm going to go to half tone, and then I'm going to select one of my favorite texture, which is half tone. Then I'm going to bring it on top. Now I'm going to resize this, and then I'm going to add in an effect called fill effect. By the way, if you don't see so I unlocked that property, Okay that's why I'm I'm not able to see this o T one. Now I'm going to go to effects and presets, then I'm going to type in fill. Now I'm going to add in fill effect. Okay. Now, this might be too much. It's scary, but I'm going to go with something like this or something like this. Okay. Now I'm going to click here, which is toggle switches, then this is blending mode. Okay. Now you can try different things here, okay? But I think I'm going to go with multiply. Or color bond. Okay, Color bond looks really nice. S. Look at the edges here. See, it looks really nice. Okay? But if you think the size is, it's too much, and I'm going to just increase the size. As you can see, the texture is humongous. So I'm going to press S and reduce the size of it until it fits. Okay. See this one looks really nice. But if you want, we could increase the size as well. Okay? So we added the texture, and as you can tell, this texture is adding some amazing value to this project. Okay? So let me show you the difference. Okay? So see this now look at this. It not only gives this half tone effect to the shadows, okay. But it also gives this metallic look to the barbed wire as well, see? See? The barbed wire looks really like It looks nice. It looks really nice, okay? And so we are done with the adding of the texture as well, okay? And so now we are going to move towards the final animation, which is we are going to animate this, okay? So change is constant. So let's find it. So I'm going to go at the first frame. Okay. Then what we are going to do is we are going to animate the opacity. It's really simple, okay? This animation is really simple, although it looks complicated, but it's really, really simple. So I'm going to select this. Then I'm going to press T, which brings up the opacity. Okay? Now I'm going to drop the key frames one. Then I'm going to go one, two, three key frames, three frames by pressing Page Down. Okay, page down is basically it moves one frame ahead, one frame forward, and page up is basically one frame backward. Then I'm going to drop the keyframe. Then I'm going to go to one, two, three, drop the keyframe, one, two, three, drop the keyframe, one, two, three, drop the keyframe, one, two, three, drop the keyframe. Okay. Now I'm going to start with zero, so I'm going to go to the first keyframe, change it to zero. Then I'm going to go to the third keyframe, change it to zero. Then I'm going to go to this keyframe and change it to zero. Okay? So we have an animation like this. Okay. Really subtle, really, it's not that big of a deal. The next thing that I'm going to do is I'm going to the last keyframe is going to be five frames. Okay, I don't want to make it robotic, okay? I want to give it as much as handmade movement as possible. I want to make it imperfect, is what I'm trying to tell, okay? So I'm going to press page down, pay down, pay down. We have three frames. I'm going to add in three more frames. Okay, one, two, three. And then I'm going to grab this keyframe, bring it back, okay? And so the last one, okay? Now, the next thing that I'm going to do is I'm going to open this up. Okay. Now look at the magic. Okay? So I'm going to just drop the keyframes on both of them right now. Then I'm going to press you Okay. So I'm going to for now, we are going to focus on the red part as well, only, okay? So here we have the opacity. So let me bring that below so that you can see properly. Okay. Let me bring this up. Okay. So when the opacity is at zero, I'm going to change this to black. But before that, I'm going to drop the keyframe. Now the reason why we drop the key frames at in the beginning and then we start, you might be thinking, Oh, we are doing the double work. But the reason why we do that is we follow the principle called begin with the end. Okay. So whenever you are animating, you should begin with the end. Okay? So this is basically the end the end properties. But if you lose this, you might have a hard time going back. Okay? Now, of course, this is not that serious project, so it's completely fine, but it makes things easier. So I'm going to change this to black. Okay, it's red. Then I'm going to change this to black. Then I'm going to change this to black. Okay. And so let's look at this simple animation. And then I'm going to explain what we are doing. See? Like the effects on the light is really nice. Now we can try different things here. So I'm going to try in the toggle hold keyframe. So this is basically toggle hold keyframe. Okay? So the difference between a normal keyframe and the toggle keyframe is that the normal keyframe, the value in the normal linear keyframe changes over time, okay? But the value on the toggle keyframe changes on the exact keyframe, okay? So for so when it was linear, the value of the opacity goes from zero, 75, one, two, three, 200, right? Okay. No one, two, three, but you get the but when it comes to toggle keyframe, there is no gradual change in value. The value changes at the keyframe itself. I hope you get the point. So this one is going to look much better, okay, see? It's like this. Now, of course, if you want, you can add more like this flash and you can add it randomly as well, okay? So what I'm going to do is I'm going to zoom in to the only thing that you have to remember is that the end color should be red. So I'm going to just copy this by pressing Control C, Control V. Okay. C, the end color is black, but it should be red. So I'm going to just get rid of this. Okay. Now I'm going to grab the key frames. Then I'm going to press Control V Okay, I made a mistake. I shouldn't have done that. I'm going to press Control C, then Control V. Now I'm going to just match this. I'm going to go to this frame and then I'm going to get rid of this. Okay? Now I'm going to expand this and I'm going to just look at this see how authentic it looks. Okay, now we are going to follow the same process for this. Okay? So when we are here, right think here. And since this is opacity, you can change, you can copy the keyframes easily and all you have to do is just paste it. So I'm going to just unlock this, press T, then I'm going to press Control V. Okay. Now I'm going to press this, use this, or I'm going to just zoom in and then I'm going to start key framing from here. Okay? So the first one is going to be black. But I'm going to follow the same system, so I'm going to start with black. But if you start from the black, you know what I mean, right. So I'm going to drop the keyframe here, which is the end. Okay? Now I'm going to start with black. Then I'm going to go here. Then I'm going to pick this color. Then I'm going to change this to blue. I don't think it's blue, it's green. And I'm going to who at the end. And I'm going to Oh, I think I made a mistake. Here, it's going to be black, and here it's going to be green, right? And just like this, you can randomly add in the animation as well, but now you know you get the point, right? And so let's see. 21. Chap14: Self Study Examples: Okay, so in this lecture, I'm going to walk you through two examples. So these examples are going to prove that how this one rig can give you multiple results. Okay? So this rig is basically what we created in the main lectures. Okay? So we worked on this rig, and don't worry about all this. I'm going to explain everything. Okay. But for now, focus only on this too. Okay? So this is camera and this is null, which we used, and I'm going to press you to bring up the key frames, okay? And so, first of all, let me show you the animation so that you understand. Okay, so this is the basic animation, okay? So this is what is going on here. Now, let's understand how I made what I made. So first of all, the basic principle is going to be the same, okay? I created the camera, then I parented the camera to null. Okay, then I imported this e ships, okay? So by the way, these are all the different shapes, by the way, okay. See? So let me walk you through one by one, okay? So we have this image, which is basically background, and we have background image, which is this. So this is a random image that I got from Unsplash. I used it because I liked it is three, okay? Then we have this. So this is basically a bunch of sheps that I got from the Internet. Then we have this flock of sheep. Then I have lion. Okay. Then I have more sheeps. Okay. Then I have this note to self, okay? Composition, and I'm going to walk you through that. Don't worry. Okay? Then I have this word lion written over it, which flows like this, okay? Then this one is important, okay? So blur. So what is happening here? So basically, what I did is, I wanted to give the authentic more authentic vibes, okay? So what I did is I basically just started from blur, okay? So I basically created this is an adjustment layer, by the way. And then I applied an effect called camera lens blur then instead of just applying the keyframe to the blur radius, I applied keyframe to the opacity of the adjustment. That's really cheap way to do that. But that works for me. Okay? And then what happens is it goes from ten to basically zero to reveal. Okay. Then we have this, then we have this. Then we have this. Now the reason why this is called main is because I want to use this to hide the distortions that has been created. Okay? And then we have this. So this is basically a bird video. Okay. So as you can see, see, this is a green screen, basically. And it's a bord video. It's not that important. Then we have a snow. Okay? This is also a green screen video. The particle is not three D. Okay, let me name this so that you understand. And this is snow. And if you want to get rid of the green screen, by the way, all you have to do is just like, let me show you. Done. Okay? Just apply this effect and then choose this color. So that's how you get rid of that. Now, this is the same rig that we used. Okay? And this is how I created this. Okay? So I basically use these different ships. Now, of course, there are so many issues, if you look here, okay? And I'm noticing the issues right now as well. So the first issue that I'm looking at right now is the indifference of the colors of the ship, okay? So these are black and white, and this one isn't black and white. So they should be united, right? This was the principle that I taught you in the previous lecture that scenes should be united and I did not follow that and I can look at that. Okay. And so I don't like this. Now, if you want to change it, you can change that. All you have to do is just apply an effect called tint. All you have to do is just find the sheeps. Okay? So I'm going to just look for them. Okay, so these are the sheeps. Now I'm going to just copy this and then I'm going to paste this. Okay? See? Now if you want, you can also now the text animation. Let's look at that. So I have what I want is I want. So first of all, this text is not that readable. And it's there only because I want it to be there, okay? It doesn't serve any purpose. I think that it looks like, really stylish and it looks good. That's why it's there, okay? It doesn't serve any purpose. Okay? You could write anything but see. It really gives this nice vibe to it, okay? So there is this position animation. Okay. So basically what happens is that it basically flies out of the screen towards the camera. Okay. And then we have this. Okay. And so I'm going to give you these two project files. You can study them whenever you want. Then I have. So these are four blowers. Okay. So let me walk you through. So first of all, let's see this. So here, I want to create this really this camera type of vibe, okay? So how do I do that? So I have basically created an adjustment layer. Okay? Then I have keyframe the blur radius where I go from zero, to Phi, and it stays Phi, and then it goes back to zero. And so I have duplicated it and placed it at random places. Okay? That's how I do it, and this is why this method is so important. See, I know you might think, Oh, this sounds too complicated or there are so many moving elements. I don't know how ever am I going to reach to this level? You might be thinking that, or you might not be. I don't know. But I'm just projecting right now, okay? But the thing is, all these ideas were spontaneous. The only idea that I wanted to convey is that there be align among sheeps. Okay? That's the only basic idea that I had. I went to the Internet. I found some images. I found some references, and then what I did is I found all the images. I brought them in, and then I created this too, okay? And then I started playing around. Okay? This wasn't it wasn't made in the first try. If you think I made it in the first try, don't flatter me, okay? It took me several tries as well. And it is completely fine. It is completely normal to have that trial and error process, you have to go through that. That's completely normal. That's completely fine. So don't worry. I'm not perfect at this either. Okay? And it's really easy, but all you have to do is remember two. These two are the most important part. Now my voice may sound different because I have I have cuff. Okay, so if my voice sounds different, it's because of that. Okay? So anyways, this was the example number one. Now I'm going to show you an example number two, which is really simple. Okay. Okay, so this one is really simple, and I really like this. Okay? So this is how the animation goes. So I wanted to convey a message of trust the process, okay? I wanted to say that. I wanted to tell that. So how do we tell that? And so I always had this skateboard guy image in my computer for some reason. And I like this image, okay? So this was a PNG that I found from the Internet, okay? So I don't know where it is. I haven't renamed it properly. So this is so I'm going to just rename this to I'm going to call this skateboard. Okay. So let's go and look. So this one is basically a shadow. Okay? I have applied two effects. One is fill to fill up the space with the color, and then fast box blur allows me to give this shadowy look, okay? Because see, look. Okay. So this one this effect is used to create the shadow on the ground. Okay? Now, what I did is I basically separated this guy from the skateboard. Okay. Now I'm going to just less control than you. Then I turned both of them into three D, okay? Now, I added random animations, okay? For example, this. Okay? So this is a guy let me rename guy. And board. Okay? So this is just a random animation that I did, okay? So the guy is basically going from here to here. The skateboard is going from it's basically the z rotation and the position property is being animated here, okay? So there is a subtle movement to it, and that's how I animated that. See how beautiful it looks. Now the reason why it looks also beautiful is because of this particle effect, okay? So I'm going to give it to you for you can find it in the resources. Okay, so don't worry about that. And the reason why it looks really nice is because of these particles coming in. Okay. Now the next thing is the adjustment layer, okay? So as you can see here, look at the edges. See, his hands are getting blurred, and this is intensional, okay? The reason why I did that is because I wanted audience to focus more on this part only. Okay? It's totally spontaneous choice. Okay? There are no reasons behind it. I do mostly, like I said, in the course, I mostly make decisions based on my intuition and based on my preferences in the moment, ok? So not everything has to have a reason. And that is what I've been trying to explain, okay? So first of all, we have this background. Okay. Then this grid part is the most beautiful part and it's the most important part, and you are going to love this how I made this, okay? So I'm going to just open up this up which is Comp two. I should have renamed everything, but I haven't. But when you get the project file, everything will be renamed properly, okay? So don't worry about that. So I'm going to open this up, okay? So what's happening here? So we have two things here. First is grid comp, so I'm going to open this up, and this is just a basic solid. So what I did is I basically created a solid and then I pre comped it. Then I applied an effect called grid. So the effect, this grid that you see is this grid, okay? Then what happened is I applied motion tile to expand the grid. Okay. Obviously, it was this, and then I applied it. Okay. So Okay. Now, the next thing that I wanted was I wanted this text to be on the same plane as that of the floor. So basically, this is a floor. Okay? And this text is aligned to the floor. Okay? So how do we do that? And so I'm going to show that to you. Okay? So I'm going to just type in some random text. So I'm going to just type in random. Okay. Now I'm going to hide this for now. Okay, I'm going to just now, as you can see and as you can tell that this is not a three D text, so I'm going to turn this into three D, okay? So what I want is I want this text on the same plane as that of the floor. Okay? So how do we do that? So let me try parenting it. Okay, it doesn't work, right? So I'm going to press Shift and then I'm going to just parent this. See? And just like that, I just got there. And so when you apply parenting by pressing shift. Every property will be applied to the child. Okay? So this is child. And now I hold shift, then I parent it. Every property of this went to this, okay? So now, if I make any change to this, and look at the angles, okay? See how beautiful it looks. Okay. Now you can do wonders with this thing. If you are like if you know what you are doing, right? So that's how I made this. Then let's look at this animation. This is See, I haven't even eased this, okay? So this is basically a position animation. Then there is this Z property animation. I don't know why I have keyframed this. They don't even have a slight animation in them as well. So I'm going to get rid of them. Okay? S, only two animations. But look how beautiful it looks, and that's the power of this rig. That's the power of this technique that I have taught you in this course. Okay. But the thing about this is that, and now I'm going to give you the core principle, okay? So the core principle of coming up with ideas for this is that you have to start with an idea of your own, okay? For example, the idea in this real or in this video was that I wanted to tell people that you should be a lion among sheeps. Okay? That's the core idea. I had no clue on how I'm going to do that. I had no references at first, as well, okay? So you always begin with an idea. Okay. And then once you get an idea, you go to references, you find the reference, and then you don't copy the references, okay? I hate it when people do that. I don't like to do that. I don't like to copy. Of course, I take inspirations, you should take inspiration as well. Everyone of us get inspired from something because this one was basically inspired by wallpaper that I had, ok? So that's completely fine. But it's not entirely a copy, okay? And the entire video is like the video and the wallpaper are completely, completely different, okay? And so that's the thing, right? And so you have to add in your own taste, okay? So once you find the references, you have to start creating. But when you start creating, what you do is you start by adding your own taste, your own preferences to it. Okay? You don't say. The thing is people want to see you, okay? Now, let's take an example. For example, let's say this sheep right here is a great director, okay? But this lion is also a great director, but nobody knows about him, right? Nobody knows that this lion is a great director because he hasn't he has been busy all his life copying all the sheeps around him, okay? And so this lion failed to become himself. And that's the thing about art and about animation as well. I know I'm going really deep here, but what you should do is you should aspire to be yourself whenever you are creating anything, okay? So this is my taste. This is my preference. All you see is my preference. This is me, right? And so whenever you are at the end of the animation and whenever you look at the animation at the end, you should be able to tell that this is me, right? And by me, what I mean is that you are being authentic to your own taste or authentic to your own voice, okay? And that's the most important thing. If you take away one thing from this course, it is that should you should always inspire to be yourself and not to be others, okay? And that's why you should be align among sheep, okay? It's really crucial that you be yourself. You add your own taste to your own art. It's completely fine if you fail at first, we all do. But you should always aspire to be lion among sheep. And that's the reason why this course in this course, we go from like cocoons to butterflies, and then at the end, we have a lion and a sheep is because I want to inspire you to become more of yourself. I want to tell you that your voice is important and you should put it out in any way that you want, okay? If you like animation, that's completely fine. Just tell your story in any way. See, is this? This is a story, okay? Like, it's an eight second video, but it's a story. It's my story. It's my movie. I don't care if you don't feel like it's a movie, but it's my movie. Yes, I am a director of my movie. This is a movie, okay? I am telling something to the world, and you should aspire to do that. And I'm not telling you to become this prideful, egoistic person that, oh, I'm amazing. No one is better than me. And I'm not asking you to do that. I'm asking you to be your own self and give your own taste to things that you are making so that you don't have to be original. You have to be you, okay? And that's the most important thing that I think you should remember as an animator, because see, there is going to be a huge competition. I don't know if in next ten years we will be using After Effects or not. Because the AI is getting too powerful, right? And it's scary. Of course, it's scary. It's uncomfortable for all of us. And that's fine. But that doesn't mean that you shouldn't train yourself. That doesn't mean that you shouldn't believe in your voice, okay? Your voice matters. You voice is important, who you are is important. So make sure that you share your stories, and whenever you are making this parallel, always start with story because storytelling is the key to this, okay? And so I hope you enjoyed this course, and if you did, make sure that you review, okay? I'll see you in the next class. Bye.