Transcripts
1. Introduction: Welcome to motion design. Jump. Start my new class
aimed at beginners. You'll learn some essential
techniques such as masks, expressions, the graph
editor and more. Your class project is to create a fun
typography animation. You can't wait to
see what you create.
2. Getting Started: For this class, you're
going to need Adobe after effects, Adobe
Media encoder. To export, you can use any font you would like
for the class project. Your class project is to create your own typography animation. You can download a
completed version of the class on the project
and resources page and feel free to post
your project to the project gallery so everyone can see
what you've created.
3. Intro to Adobe After Effects(optional lesson): To get your after effect
screen looking like mine, go to Window Workspace
and select Default. If you're ever missing a panel, always remember
that you can find any panel you need
under the Window tab. Let's say you're missing the composition
panel. Go to Window. Scroll down the list until
you find Composition. Go to File, Project Settings, Time, Display Style,
and select Frames. Click on New Composition. You can change the name
of the composition. You can change the size. You can change the frame rate, change the duration
of the composition, choose a background color. Up here at the top
of the screen, you can find your
rectangle tool. To create the rectangle, you can just simply
drag with your mouse, you can change the fill color, change the stroke color. Or you can get rid of the stroke by changing this value to zero. This here is the pan behind tool and this little thing
here is the anchor point. An anchor point is where the
layer will animate from. I just wanted to give
you an example of how the animation changes when
you move the anchor point. Using the rotation property, you can see how the animation animates differently
depending on where the anchor point is. With the layer selected, press P to bring up
the position property. By changing the x and y value, you can move the rectangle. Click on the Stopwatch
button, decide position. It puts a key frame on the time line to move
across the timeline. Just drag the playhead. Change the value again. This place is another key
frame on the timeline. Press Space bar to
preview your animation. You can see how the rectangle moves between these
two key frames. You can move your keyframe just by dragging it
across the timeline. What this does is it
changes the speed of the animation to
trim your work area. The B and N keys, you can select both
key frames and press F nine to easy ease it, makes the animation
a little smoother. And we're going to go inside the graph editor to just
show you what it does. This here is the
Graph Editor button. Once inside the graph editor, click this button at the bottom and choose Edit Speed Graph. By dragging the handles here, you can change the
speed of the animation. You see how it affects the
speed of the rectangle. The shape of this
curve indicates that the animation starts
fast and finishes slow. If I drag the handles in
the opposite direction, now the animation will
start slow and finish fast. You can locate it up here
beside the pen tool. Click anywhere, Type your text. Over here in the
character panel is where you can change just about
anything you would like. You can change the
font, change the size, change the color, dissenter, the text in the middle
of the composition. Go to the Align panel. Text animators can be found
by opening up the layer. Clicking this button
beside animate. Let's select Opacity. Go to ten frames
on the time line. Click the stopwatch head back to the beginning
of the timeline type, a value of zero. Now let's add a position. Go to ten frames
on the time line. Click the stopwatch button, head back to the beginning
of the time line. Type in a value of 50
in the Y position. Now select the key frames. Click F nine to easy ease. Another thing I want to show you how to do is use the pen tool. You can find the pen tool up here beside the rectangle tool. By clicking points and
dragging these handles, you can create a shape. Just like the rectangle tool. You can change the fill color. You can get rid of the fill by clicking here and clicking none. Change the size of the stroke, change the color of the stroke. You can edit your line. Clicking on these
points and dragging these handles to draw a straight line, you can hold the shift key. What a mask does is it makes only part
of a layer visible. To create a mask,
select the layer. Select your rectangle tool and draw a rectangle
over the layer. As you can see, there is
now a mask on our layer. You can try out the different modes here to see what they do. You can also draw a mask using the pen tool to create a precomposition
or a pre comp. Select all your layers. Right click, click Precompose. Here you can change the
name of your pre comp. Select, Move all Attributes to New composition, and click Okay. The first thing this does is it combines all our
layers into one layer. The second thing it does is it creates a new composition
with all our layers in it. If you double click
the pre comp, you can go into the new layer. As you can see, our pre comp
is also listed in our panel. Now a very simplified
explanation of an expression is a line of
code that helps us animate. I'm going to give
you an example of an expression that we're
going to use in our project. Let me make a simple
position animation. Here's what the animation looks like without
our expression. Now let's see what happens
if we add an expression. To add an expression, hold the Alt key and click
on the stopwatch. In this field, we can type in our expression loop
out ping pong. Now let's preview
our animation again. Now our animation
loops back and forth.
4. Create a New Composition: Click the New
Composition button. Select the preset
social media landscape, HD White background, 300 frames. We can rename the
composition and click okay.
5. Animate the Position: In this lesson,
we're going to type our text and then animate
using the position property. Select your Type tool. Here's the font settings
I used in the lessons. Click anywhere, Type your text. Go to the Align panel
to center the text. Click this button and
select Title Action Safe. This place is guidelines. In our composition window. Select your layer and press to bring up the
position property. Drag the Y position until the text is just above
the guide layer. Now click on the stopwatch to place a key frame
on the time line. Move over 15 frames. Now drag the y position again, This time to the guide layer
at the top of the screen. This place is another key
frame on the time line. Select both key frames. Click nine to easy, this makes the animation
a little bit smoother. Enter the graph editor by clicking the graph
editor button. Once inside the graph editor, enter the speed graph
by clicking this button at the bottom and clicking
Edit Speed Graph. Drag this handle to the left. The shape of this
curve indicates a fast start and a slow finish.
6. The loopOut Expression: Now we're going to
add our expression. Hold the Alt key, and click on the stopwatch. Here we can type our expression, type the loop out
ping pong expression. Now our animation
loops back and forth.
7. Using Masks to Offset: With the layer selected. Press control D. Do this
until you have three layers. With the first layer selected, select your rectangle tool. Draw a rectangle over the. Now, do the same thing
for the second layer, this time over the U. Finally, to do the third layer, this time over the N. Now each
layer has a mask on them. Make sure each mask is set
to add on the timeline. We're going to offset
each layer by one frame. Drag the layers as shown. Now, preview your animation. Now each letter animates
at a different time.
8. Create a Pre-Comp and Loop: To create a precomp. Select all the layers. Right click. Select Precompose. Here you can change the name. Make sure move all attributes
is selected. Click Okay. Now we have a precomp. All our layers are now
combined into one layer. To create a loop, we're
going to have to trim our work area head to 30
frames on the timeline. Click the key, or drag the start of the
work area as shown, head to 120 frames
on the timeline, and then drag the end of the
work area to 120 frames. Now if you preview
your animation, it should loop head to 30
frames on the time line. Take a snapshot using the snapshot button head to
120 frames on the time line. Use the Show Snapshot button. If both pictures are
exactly the same, it means you have
a perfect loop.
9. Offset the Pre-Comp: Now we're going to use the same technique we used earlier. Duplicate our layers
with controlled D. Now offset each
layer by one frame. Now we have three layers
animating at a different time.
10. Choose a Color Palette: To generate our color palette, we're going to use a
website called Coolers. Click the Start
Generator button. By clicking the Space bar, it does all the thinking for you with color combinations
that look good together. If you like a color, click on the lock button to save it and continue to
press the Spacebar. Continue this until you get a color palette
that you like. Once you have a color
palette that you like, go up to export and you
can save it as an image.
11. Apply Colors: To import our color palette. Right click import file. Find your color palette. Drag it into the
composition window, press S to bring up the scale. Scale it down. We'll move it to the
corner of the screen. The first thing we're going
to do is add a background. Go to Layer New Solid,
rename it Background. Using the eye drop tool, we can select our color click. Okay, move the background layer to the bottom of the layers
in effects and presets. Look for the fill effect. Again, using the
eye dropper tool, we can select our color. Do the same thing
for each layer. Add the fill effect,
select our color.
12. Stroke Layer Style: To add a stroke to each layer. Select the layer, go to layer, Layer Styles, and select Stroke. Toggle. Down the stroke layer, change the color to black. Change the size to five. Now select the Stroke layer. Click control C to copy. Click on the next layer and
press control V to paste, and do the same for
the third layer. Now each layer has a stroke.
13. Fixing my Mistake: I just noticed that
I made a mistake. As you can see, I have the
back letters animating first. What I wanted to do was
have the front letters animating first to
fix my mistake. All we have to do is
rearrange our layers there. Now it's animating
the way that I wanted it to.
14. Export Using Adobe Media Encoder: Before we export, we're going to have to make
sure that the beginning of our work area starts at 30 frames and the end of our work area ends
at 120 frames. Now go to File Export, Add to Adobe Median Coq. Once inside media encoder, click any of these links to
bring up the properties. You can choose one
of these presets. I'm going to choose Youtube, 1080 P full HD. You can change the name and
where you're going to export. Click okay. And click the
green arrow to export.
15. Bonus Lesson - Gradient Background: In this bonus lesson, I'll show you how to create
a gradient background. First thing we're
going to do is create a new solid layer
layer, new solid. You can change the
named background with the layer selected. Press control D to duplicate, we can add a fill effect
to change the color. With our new background
layer selected, we're going to draw a
mask using the pen tool. Again, with the layer selected, press F to bring up
the mask feather. Pump up the mask feather to a really high number until
you get a nice gradient look. To add some animation, we're going to use
another effect called turbulent displace. Hold Alt and clip a
stopwatch beside evolution. Here we can type an
expression, time times 50. Now you can see that adds a
little bit of animation to our background to give
it a more grainy look, we're going to use
an adjustment layer. Good to layer, new
adjustment layer. With the adjustment
layer selected, we're going to search
for the effect. Noise. Hls, auto Beside noise, you can select grain and we're going to turn
up the lightness to something around six. You can change the grain
size if you would like. You can also change the
noise animation speed, but that's essentially it. If you want to create more
simply duplicate the layers, change the color of the
layer, edit the mask. And you can keep doing this until you get
something you like.
16. Bonus Lesson - Text on a Path: In this bonus lesson, I'm going to teach you
how to animate text on a path like I did
in my intro video. Here I have my text centered in the middle
of the composition. With my layer selected, I'm going to get my
Pen tool, draw a line. Now you can see what we've done is we've drawn
a mask over our layer. Toggle down the text path
options Besides path, choose mask one to animate it, we're going to use
the first margin. To animate it, Simply drag the first margin
till it's off the screen. Click the stopwatch
to put a key frame. Move over around 15 frames. Type in zero to
the first margin. Move over another 15 frames. Now drag the first margin again till the text
is off the screen. Now select all your key frames. Pick F nine to Easy's head
into the graph editor. Make sure you're on
the speed graph. Now we're going to
change the speed, drag the handles as shown. What the shape of this curve indicates is that the
animation starts fast, slows down in the middle, and then speeds up
again at the end. Now by doing the
exact same steps as we did in the
earlier lessons, you can end up with
something like this.
17. Bonus Lesson - Scale Animation: Now I'm going to
show you how I did this animation using
the scale property. For this animation, we
need to make sure that our anchor point is at
the bottom of our layer. With the layer selected press to bring up
the scale property, click on this button to
unlink the properties. This way we can
animate only one of our properties at the
beginning of our timeline. Type 75 into the Y property. Press the stopwatch
to put a key frame. Move over around 20 frames. Type in 130 into our Y property. Select our key frames, press F nine to *** head
into the graph editor, make sure we're on
the speed graph. Now we're going to
change the speed of our animation by dragging
this handle to the left. Now we can add our loop out
expression by clicking Alt, clicking on the stopwatch, typing in our expression. Now the animation
loops back and forth. Now using the same technique of duplicating our layers
and using masks, we're going to
offset each letter, make sure each mask
is set to add. We're going to offset
each layer by one frame. Now by repeating all the steps we learned in our
earlier lessons, you can come up with
something like this.
18. Outro: Congratulations. Now you can share your project in
the project gallery, so everyone can see
what you created.
Tyler Bennett, Motion Graphics Designer
