Transcripts
1. Introduction: Parallax is this
neat three D effect that allows you to bring so
much depth to your designs. You often see it in web design, but I personally use it to
make my illustrations pop. Hi, my name is Man. And I'm a motion designer and illustrator based in France. I have worked with clients
like Converse, Adidas, Instagram, or Adobe on projects that combine
the best of both worlds. I'm a firm believer that animation is an extremely
valuable skill to have. As an illustrator class, I'll be showing
you how to create mesmerizing three D illustrations
using after effects. I'll share all of my
favorite tips and tricks with you from organizing
your illustration from motion to
creating and exporting your animated parallax
illustration in after effects. This is an intermediate class. So for those of you who are completely new
to after effects, I would recommend you watch
this 1 hour plus before, or if you just need
a quick refresher. There is also the chapter titled After Effects
in 15 minutes. From this class, I'm excited
to jump into after effects, so let's get started.
2. Class Orientation: I'm so glad you decided to
take my class. Let's begin. As I've mentioned, the class is split into two main parts, the warm up and
the class project. In the warm up, I'll introduce each notion
covered in the class. You'll be able to
apply them directly in short animation exercises using
my after effects project. Then I'll show you how
to prep and organize your illustrations for
animation in Photoshop. We'll dive into animating your first parallax
illustration. Let's talk about
what you'll need. Your favorite layer based
digital drawing app. I'll personally be using Procreate Photoshop to
clean up your design. After effects. To animate my after effects project and the after effects
shortcut list. Both can be found in
the class resources. Feel free to ask as many questions as you
need in the discussion tab. I am here to help. Don't forget to download the resources before
starting the class. And you can post any of the following for feedback sketches. Final illustration. The warm up projects. My class project
with your own twist, or your very own project. I'm excited to start animating. Let's jump into after effects, and I'll give you a tour.
3. Warm Up: Let's start by exploring the various three tools and
panels in after effects. If you've taken any of my
other skillshare classes, you should be familiar
with D animation. In this class, we'll
experiment with after effects, fake three D or 2.5 D. 2.5 D
allows you to add depth to your flat illustrations
and designs by using z space in addition to
the regular x and y axis. This means that while the layers themselves remain flat
and two dimensional, you can arrange
them in a way that simulates a three
dimensional environment. I have a composition here and I have two layers that
I'll use as an example. You can tell these are three D layers by the
small icon in here. Right? Now this looks just like a regular two
decomposition, right? But if I go to my View tab, switch it from default
to any custom view, now I can see that both of these layers actually
exist in a three D space. We can also add more views to get a better understanding
of the scene, for example, from the
left or top side. Now we can see the
same tool layers just from different angles. Next in the tool bar, you'll notice three
camera tools that will help us navigate
the three D spaces. We create the orbit around tool, the Pan tool, and
the Dolly tool. These tools offer
different options such as orbiting around your cursor or the centerpoint of the scene. Next, when I click the
selection tool or Price V, the three D position scale
and rotate tool appear. They allow us to adjust our
layers directly inside of the preview window instead of using the
properties down here. Then at the bottom right
of the preview window, you'll find different options. The first one is the
draft three D button, which will be very helpful especially when previewing
complex scenes. Next is the Render Engine tab, and I'll be using
classic three D and I recommend you do the same. Okay, so that's everything
you need to know for now. Let's go and create our very first after effects
three D object.
4. 3D Layers: Now let's talk about three
D layers in after effects. Like I mentioned previously, similar to two D layers, three D layers remain flat. But a third value, Z, or depth, is added
to its position. Anchor point and
scale properties. You can use bitmap efecto files
to create three D layers. The single rotation property transforms into
orientation x, Y, and Z. And rotation x, y, and z orientation determines the initial direction
a three D layer faces, while rotation defines
its actual rotation around the anchor point, enabling animations
in three D space. Let's open the after
effects project. In the project panel, you'll find a
reference composition for the warmer Project 1.2 with everything already
animated right above. That is where we will work. Let's open project One, where we have this nice
little vintage TV. I've already added a few secondary
animations for you with some wiggle expressions on the reflections and some
colored highlights. We're going to animate a three D cube inside
of the screen. Let's open that pre completion. So right now, all of
these layers are two D, and if you look over here, you'll see a small cube with
a check box underneath. When you check the box, your two D layer
becomes three D, meaning the Z axis is
added to its properties. Okay, so let's make a cube. Now, creating three D shapes
out of flat layers in after effects requires you to do just a little bit of math. But don't worry, it's
actually quite simple. First, we'll switch to two views and pick a top view
for the left side. Right now, all of our layers
have the same z coordinate, which when I press
for position is zero. I also know that my layers
are 500 by 500 pixels. To create a cube, I need to create a distance of 500 pixels between each face. 500/2 makes 250. So I'm going to select
holding control or command every other face
layer and bring them by 250 pixels to then I can do the same with the
remaining layers but forwards. So negative 250, we've created
space between the layers. Next, I'm going to need
to rotate each pair of layers around the center point of the cube to create volume. I'm going to use
knolls to do that. Let's go talk about knolls
and parenting layers.
5. Parenting and Nulls: All right, let's finish our cube by parenting the faces to nulls. When you parent one
layer to another, the child layer inherits the
transformation properties, the position, rotation, and scale of the parent layer here. This will allow us to
easily rotate each pair of layers around a
common anchor point instead of their own. So let me refresh you on nulls, just in case a null is an invisible layer that
functions as a control point, allowing you to control and organize other layers
within the composition. We're going to need a null
for each pair of layer. Price control shift alt Y, or command shift
option Y allow three D. Now it's at the exact center
of my future cue parent, each pair of layers to its
knoll using the pick whip. Now each knoll will
act as the controller. For each pair, I will quickly color code everything perfect. The first two are going to create the right and left sides. Select the null, press
R for rotation and create a Y orientation
of 90 degrees. The second pair will create
the top and bottom faces. Press R for rotation
again and create an X orientation of 90 degrees. We won't touch the last two, but we can use this null as the controller for
the entire cue. Press Enter, rename it lead, and parent the other
two nulls to it. Now if I play around
with the rotation, we have a cube for a
quick looping animation. Add a keyframe at zero on the y rotation and another one at the very
end of the time line. Let's say at two cycles. Duplicate those key
frames on the Z rotation. And to fix the cube
clipping out of frame, press for position and move everything back by 250 pixels. Press space to preview. Perfect, we have our cube. Now let's add some
detail to the scene. I'm going to add a copy of
the cube within the cube, a cube section, if you will. You're going to select all
layers, price control, or command to duplicate them, and bring them to the top. Right now it looks
exactly the same, but price to size it down to about 45% And we'll
adjust the animation. First let's delete the Y
rotation on the X rotation. Make it go from zero to
minus two cycles on Z. Let's add a few degrees
on both key frames. Let's also make that
rotation negative. Let's preview. It's a bit busy, but I do have back up layers for the second cube in my
project panel right here. If you don't know this
neat little trick, you can actually replace
the source of a layer and keep all of its parameters and animations by selecting it, grabbing its replacement
from the project panel, holding down Alt or Option
and dragging it on top. And voila, let's do
that for all layers. Let's preview. Great, let's go back to the main composition. And I'll activate this
adjustment layer to give you a little sneak peek of the retro styling effect
we're going to talk about. At the end of the class, we have animated our
first three D object. Now let's move on to the second project and talk
about three D cameras.
6. Cameras: So far we've been manipulating our three D layers in front
of a fixed point of view. But in after effects, you can view your objects from any distance or point
of view using cameras. Cameras in after effects are similar to cameras in
three D softwares. They allow you to
choose a point of view and travel within
a three D scene. Cameras only affect
three D layers or two D layers with an
effect that has a com, camera attribute which
we'll talk about later. In this one we're
going to create a landscape viewed
from a moving train, and we're going to use a custom camera to travel
through that landscape. Let's open our warmer
project number two. Double click on the pre
comp and let's get started. First, let's activate three D on all layers except
the background. This is just a gradient
so it can stay static. Now we have three
compositions here and here. Both have collapse
transformations enabled because
some of the layers inside have blending modes and transparencies that I want to interact with the rest
of the composition. However, since we're activating three D with collapse
transformations enabled, we need to ensure
the layers within the precomposition are
also three D. Otherwise, this composition will act
as a sum of two D objects. Let's go fix that, and
then we'll talk about cameras in after effects. You can choose between
viewing a composition through the active camera
or a named custom camera. If you have not created
a custom camera, then the active camera is the
default composition view. Let's switch to two views with a top one here and the
active camera there. Let's create a new camera. You can go to new camera or press control shift Alt or
command shift option C. Okay, I know this may
look intimidating because there is a
lot of information to take at once. But don't panic. Just press okay to
create the camera. And then we'll go to layer camera settings and I'll explain the
different properties. If you look at the
top view here, this little dot
is the camera and the cone in front of it
is its field of view. After effects,
cameras share many settings with real life
cameras such as zoom, focus, distance,
and focal length. And pay attention to how the cone in the
top view changes. With each of these settings, you can have a one note camera, which only has a
position property. Or a two notes camera with
an additional point of interest property offering more flexibility when animating. You can also activate
the depth of field to create a sense of distance and play around
with the aperture. However, this will absolutely
destroy your rando time. We won't use it here, but feel free to experiment
on your own time. Finally, if you don't want to get too deep into customization, you can absolutely use any
of the presets right here. Now we'll go with a
standard camera which would be a two 50
millimeters camera. Cameras don't have modes,
mats, or switches. You can't change the scale
or opacity of a camera, but you can move and rotate it. All right, so we
have our camera now, let's set the scene to
animate our moving train.
7. Expressions: In this chapter. Will set
up the fully scene and will distribute the layers in
space using an expression. An expression is a piece of code that can be
applied to layers, Properties to
automate animations, create dynamic relationships
between properties, responsive animations,
and so much more. So to create depth
for the scene, your first reflex should
be to grab a layer and try to move it away
or closer to the camera. However, since this isn't a real three D scene
with accurate scale, moving layers can lead to unrealistic sizes
and proportions. These are two D illustrated
assets that were drawn with an implied sense
of scale and perspective. If I move those mountains back, they're quickly
going to get way too small to maintain relative
size in the frame. We'll use an expression
that scales the layers proportionally to their
distance from the comps camera. This expression provided by and George on my favorite
after effects expression, gold mine, creative cow.net. Will be applied to all
layers scale properties. Let's take a closer
look at the expression. This line defines the camera as the active camera
of decomposition. This line defines a
value called distance, which is the distance between
the layer and the camera. This line multiplies
the layer scale by the distance divided by the
camera zoom value, Okay, So if this brings
up painful memories of blankly staring at the
whiteboard in geometric class, for you, it's perfectly fine. That's why we have people
way smarter than us writing expressions
on creative net. So just a final note to ensure the expression
works correctly. All layer anchor
points should be in the same spot at the
center of the composition. You can achieve this by either
importing your PSD file as a composition and not
composition retain layer size, or moving the anchor
points manually. I'll select all three D
layers except the window, which is staying right here
in front of my camera, and the background, which is
staying two D and static. Press for scale and
apply the expression by holding Alt or Option and
clicking on the stopwatch. You can copy and paste the expression from the
class resources tab. I'll just copy and
paste it from here. Then you can click right
Copy Expression only, and paste it onto
the other layers. Now let's hide the window and create some for the landscape. You can move the layers back by using the blue arrow
in the top view. Or you can adjust the values manually by pressing
for position. Note that there are limits to
the space in the top view. For distant objects
like the sun, I'll use the Z position value only go make the
adjustments and come back. Once I'm happy with my scene, I'm back. Let's check out the
layers for the power lines. I place them at the
edge right here, followed by the
first line of rocks, the second line, the third line, the first mountain range,
second mountain range. And the sun is far outside
the bounds of the top view. Of course, feel
free to experiment with the values in
your own scene. Now that we're on the
topic of expressions, I'm going to add a
wiggle expression to the Windows position to simulate the shakiness
of the moving train, Press P for position, hold down, Alt or Option, and
click on the stopwatch. The wiggle expression generates random fluctuations in a
property value over time. The first value represents the frequency or
variations per second, and the second value is the amplitude or
range of variation. Let's go with
wiggle 4.2 and move the window a little closer to the camera to avoid
clipping on the edges. Let's say -100 Remember that
in our final composition, this 1080 by 13 50 section in front of the camera is
the only thing we'll see. To keep the window moving with the camera and in front
of it, let's use a null. Just like we did previously. Press control shift all ten
Y or command shift option Y. Press Enter and rename it. Lead enable three D and parent both the camera and
the window to the null. With everything set up, we can move our camera
through the scene. Press P for position on the null and bring it all the way to the left composition at about
-5,000 Add a key frame, go to 12 seconds. Let's move to, let's say
10,000 Switch to one view, and let's slow the preview. Great, our scene is almost done for the
finishing touch will use a three D camera
compatible effect to add floating
particles to the scene.
8. 3D Effects: This may not be the official
definition of these effects. I couldn't find an official
Adobe list for them. But by three D effects, I mean effects
that can be viewed through the composition
camera in a three D space. Here I want to create
quick and easy particles. I'll use a combination
of CC Starburst, a two D effect CC ball action, which is a three D
compatible effect to distribute them
in three D space. Let's start by creating a new solid with control command Y, renaming it particles and placing it right
under the window. Then you can go to Effects
Simulation and CC Starburst. I'll just isolate
this layer for now. This effect creates
a moving field of stars on a
transparent background. I personally don't
want them to move. I'll change the speed to zero, scatter to four spacing, 232. Let's go with 20 for the size. Great. Now let's
add CC ball action. Go to effects simulation
and CC ball action. This effect is compatible
with three D cameras, as you can tell by the little icon right
next to the name. This effect turns your
flat two D layer into a field of three D balls With some customizable
properties. I want to distribute the
balls in three D space. I'm going to raise the
scatter parameter to 300. Actually, if I
switch to two views, you can actually see
them from the top view getting spread out on the z
axis, which is pretty cool. I'll also lower the bowl
size to let's say 40. Let's bring back the other
layers. You know what? I'm going to adjust the
color very quickly. Go to effects, generate fill. Let's use the eye drop tool
to copy the color of the sun. Now if I move through my scene, I can actually see the particles distributed in space in
between my different layers. I'm just going to soften the
effect a bit by changing the transfer mode to overlay
and lowering the opacity. So let's press and let's say 50% back in the
main composition. Activate the styling
adjustment layer for a full preview look at that. Your second Orma project
is officially finished. Now that you know a bit more about three D in after effects, let's dive into
the main project.
9. The Project: By now, you should feel pretty confident with your
new three D skills. Let's talk about your first
parallex illustration. The goal here is to create
a simple three D scene and integrate it into a
framing device or object. This could be a static window, a rear view mirror, an arch, a picture frame, or any type of reflective
or framing object. This type of composition
will allow us to dive deeper into three scene hierarchy
and three D precompositions. We will add some light
animation here and there, but the main focus should
be the camera movement and the reflection
displacement created on the surface of the object. We will also integrate a
three D cube constructed following the same process used in the first
former project, a field of static
stars or particles. Using Cb action. Just to note that for the effect to work with the comcmera, it will have to be placed in the same composition as the framing object
and not inside of it. For example, here they will be placed in front of my mirror. So let's recap what we'll
need to create the animation. The main illustration PSD file, I recommend a one by one
ratio under 1,600 by 1,600 pixels RGB color space and layered featuring
a simple three. The scene containing at least four to five
fully illustrated elements on separate layers, a framing or reflective object, and on separate layers, some masks mapping out the areas that will
display the three D scene. The cube PSD file, one by one ratio, 300 by 300 pixels, RGB color space, and layered featuring six
different face layers. Now for some tips, think ahead of how
your objects will interact in space and
adjust your composition, colors and contrast accordingly. Illustrate all elements in
full and on separate layers. Finally, try to give your scene enough leeway
for camera movement. The environment should expand past your framing
devices bounds. Just like in warmer
project number two, I think that's enough theory, so let's take a look at
my own illustration.
10. Preparing the Illustration: In this chapter, I'll
provide a general outline of my illustration process before moving on to formatting. In Photoshop, I usually
draw in procreate, so that's what I'll be using. But any layer based illustration software
works just fine. I'll create a new
high resolution file. I usually go for 3,500 by 3,500 just in case I
want to make prints. Then I'll go check on the color profile by
going to Actions Canvas, Canvas information, and
making sure it's an RGB. Because display P three, which is the default
in procreate, doesn't really work well with
after effects color space. I'll go sketch something up
and I'll come back soon. Through the magic of editing. I'm back. I did a few color
thumbnails right here. I think I'm going to
go with this one. Remember, when
illustrating, it's essential to draw the
entire scene with separate, fully illustrated layers
for each element. Including the
framing device here, it's a mirror, so we're just
drawing inside of here. We're also illustrating outside of those bounds, the dice here. I sketched out in three D, but I'll work on its six layers in a different
file in Photoshop. I think that's everything. So I'll go work on the illustration and we can
meet back when it's done. I'm done. Here's my
final illustration. Here's a side by side
with what I would have drawn if I didn't have any
animation plans for it. I'm sure you can already spot some very obvious
key differences. I'm going to go to
Actions Share PSD and we'll meet back in Photoshop to organize and format
the illustration. All right, let me
give you a tort. We can think of this illustration as
having three depth levels. First, we have
what's going to be floating around in
front of the mirror. My future particle field right here is just like what
we did in the warmup. But instead of
using CC starburst, I went ahead and drew my particles on a
transparent layer. Then we have the
petals and the dice that is in a separate file
with six different layers. Then the mirror itself and a group containing
the three D scene. It's going to be reflecting, and of course we have
background layers for both here and inside
of the mirror. Notice how all the elements of the three D scene expand
past the mirror's bounds. I'm actually going to
reframe this composition in a four by five ratio
for the animation. But I worked in a
one by one ratio to ensure I would have
enough extra space for camera movement. My backgrounds are going
to stay two D and static, but if you want to have a
more complex background and view it in the three D
space through the camera, I would recommend expanding
even more on the sides. I also have a layer here for
my mirror cracks underneath. I have these four layers
mapping out the mirror surface. One is the entire
surface or base, and the three others map
out the broken pieces. These will be used as a mask on the precomposition
for the three D scene. To create the reflection
displacement effect, all of my layers are
fully drawn out. I've actually
separated my hand into four different layers with
enough overlap so that I can create a little bit
of distance between each of them and create a
subtle parallax effect. Let's talk about my formatting
process for animation. First, separate, then
merge, rename and organize. What do I mean by separate? For example, I drew the
petals on a single layer. They will need to
be separated and then merged with the
corresponding flower. I usually go for the lasso tool, right click, and create
a new layer via cut. Then I find the right layer
or group and merge them together using control
or command E of. I always make sure
to rename the layer, which is definitely something I forgot to do here. Boo me. Anyways, once that's done, I'll make sure that my elements
are organized in a way that makes sense with their
position on the z axis. So let's say if the hand
is touching this flower, then the rest of
the fingers will need to be placed
right underneath. So I'll go organize everything and I'll come
back to export with you. All right, so here's
what my file looks like. Everything is separated,
merged, renamed, and organized. One thing to note is that I'm keeping the
contents of the mirror in a group so that it automatically creates
a precomposition. Once in after effects, the dice was created in photo, so all layers were already
named and organized. Let's for animation and export price control
or command shift. And let's resize to a
square of 1,600 pixels. That's a little bigger than
the final export size, which is going to
be 1080 by 13 50. But that gives us
some wiggle room. If we ever need another format, my dice is already
in 300 by 300, which is fine for the size It's going to be
in the animation, so no resizing needed. Then I can price control
or command shift to save a copy because we don't want to overwrite the full
rise illustration. So I'd like to add
underscore animation at the end and save in the
folder of your choosing. I'll do the same with the dice and we're
ready to animate. Let's go set up the
after effects project.
11. Setting Up the Project: Our illustration and
assets are looking great. Now it's time to set up
the after effects project. The project provided in the class resources is
already set up for you. But I'll demonstrate my
process for reference. As a well organized project
can save a lot of time. First, I'll import
my illustration and dice files as
composition and not composition retain layer
size because we need to center all anchor points
for the scaling expression. I'll also merge layer styles though you can keep them
editable if needed. Checking the
composition parameters with control command K, we have 12 seconds, 30 FPS and 1,600 by
1,600 which is perfect. I'll import the dice. Click on the composition
Press Control Recommend K, and go ahead and resize the composition to 500
by 500 right away. Just so we have more
room around the dice. Once it's in three D. Next I'll create the final
export composition. I'll click here, Name it Main with a 1080 by 13 50 resolution, which is suitable for
Instagrams four by five format. Like I said before, animating in a bigger format
allows some flexibility for different exports or even zooming in if
you ever need to. So I'm going to move everything imported into the pre
comp and Assets folder. And I'll keep my main
composition right here. I'll rename this one
illustration and this one dice. Now I can import my illustration comp
here and scale it down, press S, let's say 85% perfect. I'll go do some color coding, enable three D on all layers. And I'll be back in a sec. Okay, I'm back. I've color coded each
pair of dice faces together and I created color
groups in my compositions. I've hidden layers like mats and the particles for now as
we'll work on them later on. And I just wanted
them out of the way. All of my layers
are three D except the background particles which are going to be animated
with an effect. And the background and stars
in the mirror pre comp. Now our projects
should look the same. If you encounter a
missing footage error, this no worries. Just right click
on any layer here. Go to replace footage file and just select the
corresponding PSD file from the footage folder. All right? I think
that's everything. So let's start animating.
12. Creating the Secondary Animations: Okay, so we're keeping it light and simple on animation
for this project because I really
want to focus on giving you a good understanding
of three D scenes, But for additional
animation and ideas, feel free to revisit
my two other classes. Okay, so here I'm
going to quickly add some visual interest
through the dice, flower petals and the stars in the background
inside of the mirror. Let's start with
the flower petals. I'll just hide the
mirror content pre comp. Now let's add subtle
floating movement to the petals on a
three second loop. We know a three second
animation loop works for this composition because
three is a factor of 12. Always check on your
animation loops length before committing to them. Select all three layers
and press for position. Add a first key frame at zero second and
another one at three. And then right in the middle
at 1 second and 15 frames, I'm going to bring
their Y position down by let's say 25 pixels. Then select all key frames, right click keyframe
assistant and ***, or just press nine. Now let's loop that animation with a loop in and
out expression. Hold Alt or option, and click on the
stopwatch and you can find the expression in
the class resources. I'm just going to
type it in it's loop in plus loop out, minus value. This expression will
repeat the key frames on the loop before and after for the length
of the composition. Right click, copy
expression only and paste it onto the
two other layers. To make it more natural, I'll offset the animations
on the time line. This one can stay here. I'll bring this one about here. This one can be
here at ten frames. Okay, let's preview. Perfect. We have our petals. Let's move on to the dice. Okay, this should be a breeze. It's the exact same process
as the first warmer project. You're going to hold
control or command, and select every other
face of the cube. Press P for position. These are 300 by 300/2 max 150. Let's bring them
back by 150 pixels. Then we'll do the
opposite for the rest. Great. Press control
shift alt or command shift option Y to add
a null for each pair price. To hide all properties, don't forget to allow three D, link each pair to its null. Then link the two bottom
nulls to the first one. Rename it lead and perfect. Select these two price R for rotation and
you're going to set a 90 degrees x
orientation for the first and a 90 degrees
orientation for the second. We have our dice price to height properties and go back to the illustration
composition. Add the dice composition enable three D and
collapse transformation as well so we can get the dice as a three D object and not
just a three D flat layer. Now it's a three D object
integrated into our scene, allowing interaction
with the camera that we're going to add
in a couple of chapters. I'll press for scale
and scale it down to about 25% Then press
R for rotation. I'm going to create
a quick animation on the X and Y axis. First keyframe at
zero and another one at the end for a
full rotation cycle, making it a loop. And now it looks like this. I'll press control and
control V to create a copy. Here I'll add a
couple in the mirror. Content pre cop as well. I'm going to arrange them
around my composition. And I'll come back once I'm
happy with the placement. Okay, I'm back. I reactivated my mirror content
precomposition to be able to see both sets of
dies at the same time. I have two here and two inside of the mirror
at different heights. I haven't moved them
on the Z axis yet. They're clipping a
bit on the mirror, but we'll fix that later. When we set up the
three D scene, I've also changed their
initial orientation to make it look more natural. We have this one
at 60.75 degrees, then the first one at 0045
inside of the pre comp. These two look like this. I also scaled these two down to 20% That's everything
for the dice. Now let's go work on the
stars inside of the mirror. Pre Cp here, I'm going to try to create a looping shining stars effect. For this precomposition, you're
going to press control or command Y to create a solid
and name it Stars, Matt. The solid will serve as the
track mat for the stars. A track mat works similar
to a mask in Photoshop. It determines the opacity
of the link layer based on alpha properties or transparency
or luma properties, which would be the brightness. Here I'm going to create an animated black
and white texture and use the brightest areas
to determine which can shine. This is my go to effect. I even have it saved in my animation presets
as fractal loop. Here I use it extensively and I have covered it in length
in my previous classes. Let's give a round
of applause to my best friend in the world. Fractal Noise. It
has so many uses, but here's my personal recipe
for a good starfield lumet. Go to effects Noise, grain and fractal noise. First, use dynamic twist
for some organic shapes. Pine to soften things and
set the contrast to 400 and the brightness to minus a stars will only show
up in these white areas. Scale it down to 50 and
set the complexity to two. To create some softer areas, animate the evolution with a key frame at zero
in the beginning, let's go with four
cycles at the end. If I press it looks like this. Don't forget to check
cycle evolution for a perfect loop. That's it. If you want to save
this for later, just select the effect. Go to animation and
save animation preset. Now I can add my solid as a
track mat on my stars layer. Turn the alpha mat
option to Luma. Now we have some shining stars. If you have an older
version of after effects, the track mat menu will
look like this instead. But it works exactly the same. Let's precompose them together
to keep things organized. Whole shift to select them, click and precompose or press control or command
shift C and name it. Stars, pre, con, allow three D. Let's go back to the main
composition and preview. Nice, everything looks good. We can now start setting
up the three D scene.
13. Creating the 3D Scene: In this chapter, we're going
to set up a scene step. Try to keep in mind
that this isn't set in stone and
we can absolutely revisit and fine tune the layers positions later
when we add camera movement, let's go into the
mirror pre comp as we did in the warm up. We'll add a camera, the scale expression to all layers and then we'll
distribute them on Zx. Press Control shift Alt
or Command shift option to add a 50 millimeter camera. Copy the expression from
the class resources. Select all layers except the two D background
and the dice. I can just adjust their
placement later if I want to, but this is the
composition we're trying to preserve with the
expression, not the dice. Press S for scale, hold Alt or option, and click on the stopwatch. Then paste the expression. Right click, copy
expression only, hold control or command. Select the scale on
all layers and paste. Now as I move the layers
away from the camera, they will scale up proportionally to
maintain the composition. I'm going to switch to two views with a top
view on the left. Set up my scene. And I'll come back
when I'm done, I'm back. Feel free
to pause to take a look at the positions and
you can also check them out. In the reference composition, I've created a bit of distance between my hand layers so
that when the camera moves, it feels more like
a three D object. I also made a copy of the stars, and I positioned them at different distances
from the camera to create even more depth. And I just rotated the copy by 90 degrees to create
some visual difference. Now if I come back to
the illustration comp, you can see from the top
view how the contents of the mirror are positioned in
that general three D space. That's how they're going to interact with the main camera. I also took the time to
move the dice and petals forward so they don't clinch
the mirror, the dice. I just moved forward like
this for the petals, since they already have
a keyframe animation. You just need to be careful and select all
position key frames. Position the time
indicator on one of the key frames and then move it forward using
the property value. That way you won't
mess up the animation. I think that's everything. Now let's see what it looks like with some camera movement.
14. Animating with the Camera: In this chapter,
we'll be working on camera movement and we'll
be focusing on rotation. This time we already have a camera in the
mirror pre comp, but it's just a reference for the expression that we used. You can think of it as a null. The real camera
work happens here. Let's add one by pressing
Control shift Alt or command shift option C. Select a 50 millimeter camera
and press okay. I could animate the rotation
directly on the camera, but we do lose the
mirror very quickly on the sides and we don't really get a chance to see
the parallax effect. Instead we'll use
a three Noll right here as a parent for the camera. Basically, we want the center
of the rotation to be both closer to the mirror and right in the middle
of the camera. Zoom distance, price
control shift, alton Y or command shift option y to create the
null and name it. Camera lead, activate three, parent the camera to it
using the pick whip. And now if I rotate the
null much better already, but we still have a
significant amount of empty space on the sides
inside of the mirror. I'm going to correct that
by setting my camera further away from the
subject and zooming in. It's the exact same thing as why they recommend
taking portraits from a distance with a little
bit of zoom instead of close up to the face because you're going to
get less distortion. I'm going to set my distance, let's say -6,000 Counter
that with a zoom at 6,000 Because we need consistency between
our main comp and the mirror content pre comp. I'm going to go apply
the exact same values to the camera inside of
the mirror pre comp. Now I know, I know it
looks exactly the same. But trust me, once we start
animating the rotation, we're going to get
less distortion. And the image is just going
to look nicer. Just trust me. All right, okay, quick reminder. It's possible to view
this mirror pre comp in three dimensions
and not just as a flat layer through this camera because collapse
transformations is enabled. So once again, just
make sure that your pre comp has collapse
transformations enabled. Great, let's create
the animation loop. Select the camera lead, press R for rotation, and we're going to work on the y axis key
frame at the start. Let's go with minus seven, another one at 3 seconds. Let's go with seven, and another one at 6
seconds, at minus seven. Again, select all
key frames and press F nine to ease the
animation in the graph. Editor accentuate
it a bit like this. Press Alt or Option, and click on the Stopwatch and add the loop in and
out expression. I'm going to switch
back to one few. Close My Properties magic. We've done most of the work, now we can start
refining things. Feel free to go back
into your pre comp and adjust your layers
position if needed. Everything looks good to me. Let's integrate this three
D scene into the mirror.
15. Building the Mirror with Mattes: In this chapter will create
the broken glass effect using track mats on different versions of
the mirror pre comp. We have four mats, one for the base and three for the different
areas of broken glass. Along with our mirror pre comp, I'll press control or command to create
three more copies, the pre comp and assign
each copy to a track Matt. I'll make sure to color code and rename with the correct
number each of the copy, I'll use the pick whip to
assign the track mats. We'll use alpha this time
the pre comp will be visible wherever there is a pixel above 0% transparency
on the track mat. Now we have different
copies that show up in various areas of the mirror
and we can have fun. First, I'll add a
transform effect. Go to effect, distort
and transform. This effect offers similar
transform properties as found here on the layer. This is basically
a second layer of information on top of the
existing transform properties. I'm using this effect
to keep things tidy because I'm also
adding a level effect. Go to effects color correction. Now I can adjust everything
together in the same panel. Now I'll copy both effects
and paste them onto the remaining two
copies linked to the track mats of broken glass. We're keeping the base as is. The goal is to recreate the displacement of
a broken mirrors. Reflection experiment as much as you want with
these two effects. For the first copy, I'm going to add a slight, maybe five and a tiny
bit of rotation. Let's go with two already
interesting results, you really don't need much. Next, I can boost the lights
by setting the gamma to 1.1 and the white output
to 36,000 All right, so I'm going to experiment with the two other sections
and I will circle back. Once I'm happy with the results, I'm back. This is
what I came up with. The base has no effects. And the second version is slightly scaled up
and also a bit. And the third version has a minor position adjustment
and reduced gamma. It really doesn't take much and it already looks so interesting. All right, now let's go add some light reflection
to our pieces of glass.
16. Adding Reflections with CC Light Sweep: In this chapter, I'll show
you how to quickly add some reflections to your mirror using a solid and an effect. First, create a new
solid press control or command Y and name it. Reflection color coded yellow. This layer doesn't need to be three D as it will sit on top of everything where we
will see it will be defined by its
future track mat. Next, go to Effects Generate
and CC light sweep. You can animate the center
and choose the direction. Here you have
parameters to control the shape and intensity
of the light. Let's adjust the direction to -40 Position the light
on the broken pieces, lower the width to 30. And set the light
reception to cut out to make the rest of the solid
disappear. You know what? I'm feeling a bit fancy. I'm going to add a bit
of color distortion with a V R effect that's absolutely not intended
for that purpose. It's here, it's not a paying RGB distortion
plug in it does the job. Go to effects, immersive video, and VR chromatic aberrations. Perfect. Now duplicate the
solid suppress control. Recommend a couple of times and assign each
one a track mat. Bring each copy on
top of the track mat. Assign track mat by using the pequip rename with
the right number. If you're using an older
version of after effects, you'll need to duplicate
the track mats and place each one above
its reflection layer. However, with the new updates, you can assign multiple
layers to the same track mat, which is honestly life
changing and spectacular. Great. Now just like
for the mirror pieces, let's add a slight displacement to all of the light reflections. Maybe this one can be
positioned lower down here. This one slightly
to the left here. Okay, now if we
preview the animation, it's looking a bit static
and a bit life less. But no worries. We can just fake the movement. Select all reflection layers. Press P for position and add a key frame at the beginning
of the null animation. Add another key
frame at 6 seconds. For a nice looping
animation at 3 seconds, the mirror is turn
in that direction. It would make sense, I think, for the reflections to move down a bit like this. All right, press Alt or option. Click on the stopwatch. Let's add or loop in and out
expression one last time. Right click, copy
expression only and paste it onto the two
other reflection positions. Then press nine to ease the animation in
the graph editor. Accentuate the easing a bit to match the nose rotation
out of the graph editor. Let's switch their
transfer mode to add, download a preview and voila, so this already looks great
and we could stop here. But I'll show you a
couple more things to really elevate
your animation.
17. Adding Depth with CC Ball Action: To be honest, I just love adding floating stars
or particles to my animated
illustrations because I feel like it adds
a lot of depth, but without taking away
from the main subject. Let's revisit what we learned in warmer project number two. I'll turn my particle
layer back on and go to Effects simulation
and C, C action. You could work from a solid with a CC starburst effect
like we did before, but a PSD layer with a transparent background
works just as well. Here I want to create a
discrete particle field that's subtle enough but still enhances the
three D effect. I'm going to bring the
grid spacing down to one and the pol size to 60, then we can scatter them. Let's switch to two
views and let's see. Yeah, I think around
250 should wear. Yeah, I think that looks good. So let's preview. And great, so the movement is subtle but still noticeable. Just like I want it personally. I'm very happy with
how this looks. So let's move on to
the final touches.
18. Styling with an Analog Effect: This is 100% a bonus chapter. If you're not into retro
or analog effects, feel free to skip ahead and
we'll meet back to export. I just really wanted to
show you my personal mix to achieve this look without
any third party plug ins. Let's get started. First, add an adjustment layer
suppress control Alt and Y, or command option
Y, and rename it. No, plug in retro TV. Okay, so now we're going to make a pretty big
pile of effects. I don't know if that
translates well in English, but in French I like to call
them effects sandwiches. So let's make one first, go to effects noise and grain, and add some noise and set it to 10% Here's what it
looks like up close. Now we need to blur it out. Go to effects blur and sharpen and add
some fast box blur. Let's go with something
light one for the radius. And just one iteration, and this is going to create some nice blooming
around the noise and the edges next go to effects
blur and sharpen again, but this time we're adding an unsharp mask to
cancel out the blur. And we're also adding
some damage and contrast around the
edges in the process. I'm going with 110 for
the amount you can get some really interesting contrast around the edges
with the radius. I don't want to overdo it. Let's do four then
with the threshold, you can keep some of
the blur in some areas. Let's go with 400. Let me zoom in to show
you the difference. We're trying to get
something similar to old VHS tapes and now we can close the effect sandwich by bringing a copy of the
noise on top of everything. Press control or command D, bring it to the top and
let's bring it down to 5% So now we have
some blurry noise at the back and also a smaller
amount of sharp noise at the front to bring back some of that graininess
we have our base. Now let's add what I would
call the toppings, I guess. Let's bring back VR
chromatic aberrations. Go to effects, immersive video, and VR chromatic aberrations. I don't want to overdo it. Let's set the fall
off distance to ten. Next, activate fall off invert so that it only affects
the edges of the image. Add a bit of green at minus six. Soften the blue to five. Next, add some glow. Go to effect, stylize and glow. But same here. Let's
not overdo it. Raise the threshold to 98% to affect only
the lightest areas, expand the radius to 25 and lower the intensity
2.6 of course, adjust according to
your own color palette, because these numbers
will vary depending on the tones that you use
and onto the extras. This is optional, but I tend to work in slightly
desaturated tones. I always like to bring back some saturation at the very end. Go to effects, color
correction, hue and saturation. I'll bring it up to 15. I'll adjust the reds as
well at five minus five. And sometimes if I want
something more choppy, I'll add a pasteurized
time effect. Go to effects time,
posturized time. I'll set the frame rate to 15. This is going to look a bit more vintage and less digital. Let's load one last preview, this time in the main composition
with the right format. Look at that for reference. Here is the animation before and after the styling effect. I think we're done. I hope you're happy
with your animation, and let's go export
your masterpiece.
19. Exporting: I really hope you're happy with your project now
let's export it. In my previous classes, I've shown you how to export
through media encoder. But now that the MP four
export is available, again, directly
in after effects. I'm just going to
export from here. Go to Composition,
Add to render or just press control
or command here. My output is already set to 0.264 which will give
me an MP four file. If that's not your case, just click here and select H 0.264 in this drop down menu. Next, go to Format
Options and select CBR. For constant bitrate encoding, I usually try to stay around 12 megabytes/second for
the target bit rate. Then press okay here, Select your destination
folder and file name. Then press Save or Gist. If your computer language
is said to French like minus, click Render Congrats. Here is your animation. Ready to post everywhere.
20. Conclusion: So congrats, you made it. If all went well, you just created your very
first parallel illustration and you're ready to
share it with the world. I hope you go on to
create many more of these mesmerizing
three D scenes using cameras expressions
and three D effects. Here are some examples
from my own work that will hopefully inspire you
to make more of your own. Don't forget to
upload your project. I am so excited to
see what you create. I share as many projects as
I can over on Instagram, so do tag me if you post
it on there as well. If you have any questions,
comments, or concerns, please write me in the
discussion tab when you're done, don't forget to
review the class. It helps me so much to
improve with every new class. So feel free to check out my two other English classes for more animated illustration
and typographic tips. If you do speak French Giant, thank you so much
for taking my class. I really hope you enjoy
it and talk to you soon.
Manon Louart, Motion Designer and Illustrator
