Text Animation Using Shapes in After Effects

1. Course Trailer: Hi. My name is saliva on a motion designer based in Denmark. And this my course on text animation defense. I'll be teaching you everything from setting up the project, choosing a color scheme. It's actually animating the more between Czechs and levels. You'll get an inside into my thought process while animating shows and tricks to make the animation feel better. Using the graph editor throughout the course, all sure, you animation principles such as Question Stretch and I also teach you when to use physics give you animation a sense of white. This courses for all skill levels, as I want to teach you how to do certain things. But actually why you should be doing for the class project. You'll be animating your own name on the name. If you decide company, I'll pride my aftereffects source files. You can dive even deeper. I'll see you in class. 2. Setting Up the Project: Thank you so much for enrolling into this course. So we're gonna be using after effects throughout the entire thing. I have chosen these standard workspace, as you can see up here. So I suggest you do the same to follow along. Now we're gonna be starting out by creating a new composition. I'll name this main, and the aspect ratio I'm going to use is 1920 by 10 80 pixels and you can choose whatever aspect ratio you like. The frame rate is 24 frames per second. As I feel that's more natural for animation. And the duration is four seconds. So press OK, And now we have this plank composition. So first of all, we're gonna create a background, and we do that by going to layer new solid. And I'm just going to create a white solid for this one and call it BG. I said background. And now for the class project, you're going to be creating a logo animation that could be a logo for company, your own personal logo or just your name in general because we're going to use text and you can either import your text or your text logo by double clicking in the project tap and choosing your logo and pressing open. Now you can track and drop the loco into your composition and you're ready to go. If you don't have a local already and you maybe just want to use your name, you can start by creating a new text by pressing delete types who and typing out whatever text you would like. In this case, I'm going to be typing out shapes as that really fits the course theme. And I'm gonna add a dot at the end because we're gonna be using that later on at some extra animation. Now you can choose whether you would like to do this and not that's really up to you. So I'm going to be selecting the selection tool again, and now we want to align this text. So by going to window and a lie, we get the alliance stepped down here, we can press the first of all horizontal a line and then the vertical align and we have the text in the middle now the paragraph and the line saying up a lot off the timeline so we can actually drag and drop both of them up here. Now we can see much more. Five timeline again. Now we have to split this text up into all the different letters. And this can be done either by using the text, created all the logo, and I'm just gonna be doing it on the text. It's the exact same process for both of them, so we can see that it's 1234567 letters if we include the dot So we need seven different layers to duplicate the text. You press command D. And now we have seven cubbies. I'm just gonna name these for convenience sake, so I know what layer I'm working with at the moment. So now we're going to select the first layer, and we can press this staticky to get our assume, too, and soon in on the layer. And now we can press V again to get back to these selection to I'm going to select the pencil to mask out the first letter, and it's important to be on the S layer, and I'm just quickly going to mask around it like that. Now we select the next layer and to move along. You can hold the space key and just track. So we're going to mask it out, as we did with the other letter. And actually, you're just going to repeat this process for every single letter, remembering to choose the right letter down in the timeline. Now, this mask, it doesn't have to be anything crazy. It just has to outline the letter itself. So we're almost done with this part, and we just need to do it for the doctor like that to get back to your selection to you, press V. And we consume out by pressing down here and choosing fit. So this looks great. And now we'll be able to place the anchor point for each individual letter. The anchor point is essentially the center off the animation, and I'll show you in a bit exactly what that means. So by choosing the first letter in the timeline, we can already see the anchor point placed here somewhere in the middle. So by choosing the anchor point to, we can select the anchor point and by holding command on Mac or control on windows, it will snap to specific points so we will snap it down here the bottom in the middle. Now we will repeat this exact process for every single letter as we want them to be animated in the same way. So just like that, we have it all set up. And just to show what the anger point essentially does, we can pick the first letter, and by pressing s, we're showing the scale. And if we scale this little up, it's essentially scaling from that point. So if we move the anchor point again, let's say to the top and try and scale it again. It will scale from that point. So the reasoning behind the fact that we're placing it at the bottom, it's actually that we're gonna be squashing it down, and it needs to be scaled from this point. Right now, the project is actually set up, and next, we're gonna be looking at a color scheme 3. Picking a Color Scheme: so to pick a color scheme were going to be using the website called Color Starts CEO will press the start generator button, and the way that this website essentially works is that it gives you five different colors and every time you press space gives you a new color scheme. So if you like one color in particular this, say this brown. You can press the luck I can, and when we press space again, it will keep that color and find colors that match that one in particular. So let's say you like this one. You can go to export P and G, but you can also go to the explore tap. And here you can find a selection off the community color palettes. And if you want to see the best rated once, you can perceive best button up here in the right corner. So he see top rated color palettes by the community, and I have actually gone ahead and picked one already. So if I go to my profile, I can see my color palette right here. And if I go to export P and G, I can right click this image and press save image. Us and I can choose to call these color scheme. So when I get to aftereffects, I can double click the projects up Juicy Color scheme and open it. Now I can just strike and drop it into my composition, and I can actually track it down so I could just see the top of the colors. So whenever I want to use the color, I can use the eyedropper tool and just pick it really quickly from down here. If I don't want to see the color scheme while animating, I could just go down here to the Aiken and press it to hide the scheme. 4. Shapes to Cover the Text: Now we're going to cover the text with shapes and first of all, I'm going to assume in a bit So press said and track press V again to get this election too . And for this one, I'm going to use very geometric shapes, so you could use triangles, squares, rectangles, circles and so on. For this one, I'm actually just using rectangles and circles. So first we want to block out the S, and I'm going to go up and select the erects ankle tool, go down and drank a rectangle bucks over the S, and I can go down here and press to de select. Now I'm going to do the same for the H de Select. And for the A. I actually want a circle, as it has a bit of a circular shape to it, soak up to the rectangle to click and hold juicy ellipse too. And to create a perfect circle I'll be holding down shift and then tracking over the A now de select go up again and pick the rectangle to I will trek a box like this and for the e. I also want a circle, so I will be picking that again, holding down shift to make it perfect de selecting And last but not least, I'll make a rectangle for the s. Now, we don't need to do this for the duck, because that will be animated in another way. So if I want to tweak anything, I can press the to get my selection tool and to see Les us and just adjust them as I like. Now this doesn't really have to be perfect anything. It just has to cover up the text. So now I will be assuming out by pressing the soon button pressing fit. And if you go down to my layers, press the 1st 1 command age, select everything or control a on PC press you and now just click next to the players. I have everything de selected. So now I can name these shapes. The 1st 1 is actually the last one, so I'll go the other way around. I'll go S h a he a and s. Now I could just track them in the right order, so it's a bit more organized. Now I want to change the anchor point again. And we have already talked about this so I select the 1st 1 pick the anchor point tool and hold down control or command and just tracked the anchor point to the middle. I just have to pick the right one track the anchor point to the middle of each shape, and it should just snapped perfectly to the middle. So there should be no problems there. And now we have actually covered the lettuce with shapes s. We wanted to 5. Animating the Path: Now I'm going to animate the path that will essentially turn into all of the shapes. But first of all, I want to hide every layer except for the background. So if you go down to my timeline, select the first layer, go all the way down and while holding shift L selected Layer just before the background and then I will hide every single layer. Now I can de select everything. And before I start creating my path, I want a great to see where the center off the composition is placed. So if it go down here, click this button and choose the title action safe. I'll have a great that'll show These sets a point. Now I can create the path by choosing the Pento, and I want my path to go from the top left corner, swished down and then go up just a bit above these center point of the composition. So click where when my part to start, go down to the lowest point of my path, click while holding shift and I can drag it out. Then I'll go just above the center point click holding shift and then tracking it up a bit now you can see it's not really a stroke or path. It's more like a filled shape. And you could remove this Phil by clicking the fill text and choosing no Phil and pressing . Okay. Also, this is not the color that we want to stroke to be so first. Weaken, hide secret. We couldn't show our color scheme. Then we go up to the stroke color to see. I'd rather chew and pick the color off our stroke press. Okay, and I'll stroke will be the desired color. So this is a bit too thin, and I'll go up to the stroke with and juice. Let's say 25 pixels now. I don't really think it's that smooth at the button point off the path, So to adjust this, I'll just click the point, and then I can track it to wherever I like and track these handles to adjust the path. And when it gets to a point that I like, I can just press beyond the key part to get out of selection tool and then de selected. Now I can hide the color scheme again, and we're going to be animating this stroke. So by pressing that layer. We can rename it to stroke, and we will open up the stroke layer and to animate it, we will add something called a trim paths from this menu. So what the trim path essentially does, it said. It trips the path of a stroke to a desired length, and if we adjust the end property, we can put it all the way down to Ciro, so it starts outside the composition. Now we will click to at a key frame and go 10 frames forward by pressing command shift and right arrow key. A control shift, right Arrow key. If you're on a Windows machine, we can then put the end to 100%. And if we play back the animation, it looks something like this. So we don't want the entire stroke to be shown at all times, so we can also animate the start property, repressed the key frame for the start and then go to the end of the animation and said, It's a 100. So right now you won't see anything, and that's because thes start and end is it being animated at the same percentage. So if we choose the start. Key frames hold down old and prissy right arrow key. You can move the key frames a bit. Let's say two frames and you'll see that it will be animated, so just show a bit of a stroke. Now, this animation is very linear, so to adjust it, we're going to use him easing. Now, by selecting all of the key frames, we can go to the graph editor, and here we will see the key frames. If your graph editor doesn't look like this, it's probably because you're not in the value graphics I am, so you can just choose it from this menu. Now what the Vela graph essentially shows is the value over time. So as you can see right now, this is a linear motion, meaning that it doesn't ease in out at all. If I select all of my four key frames press F nine on the keyboard, you can see that some easing is happening now to assume in and see this properly, you can press the fiddle crafts button, and as you see, the value will ease in at the start and then it will ease out at the end again when the graphics the steepest that means it has the highest speed. So if we play this back, you might not be able to see it. But it would ease a bit at the start in the end. Now we want to make this a bit more extreme and we wanted to be east more to start and then accelerate towards the end. So it really speaks up and we get that sense of motion. So if we choose the 1st 2 key frames, we get these two handles and we can track them out just like this. Now you see that it's a lot steeper and that means it has a lot more speed. So if we play this back, you can already see that it goes a lot quicker. But we still want to keep a little bit of easing at the end just so it doesn't disappear all of a sudden. Now when we have this animation done, we can go back to our regular view by pressing the graph it. It's a button again and we have this animation to make this a bit more interesting. We can actually make a duplicate of it by pressing Command D, and now we can sake this stroke and give it another color. But to do this we have to show a cruller scheme again and pick, this time the orange color. Now we won't really be able to see the two strokes because they're happening at the exact same time. But if we go to shrug number two and press you on the keyboard, we'll be able to see every animated property. So if we select these two last key frames and by holding down old and clicking the right arrow key, we can just push it back to frames. Now we want this orange stroke to be behind the blue one so we can track it just below. We play this back, we can see that the orange stroke. It's not also visible to make it even more interesting. We can choose the orange stroke and make it a bit thinner so we can make it 15 pixels. And if we close down the properties and open them up again, we can go to the shape itself and choose the stroke. Here we will be able to add some dashes. So if we just show the stroke like this, we can click the plus, Aiken attaches. Now you can see this is a bit extreme, so we'll be able to increase the dishes to our liking. Now, if we play it back, we can see that the animation looks a bit more interesting. All and the stroke is animated. 6. From Path to Shapes: Now we'll be animating the stroke into the different shapes. So the idea is that the stroke interest the frame and then the shapes will pop out of the stroke, going to a notch and landed there. Decide position. So first of all, we'll have to enable all of the shape players. So we select them and we showed them again. Now we'll have to animate the position at first. So we'll go to the stroke, press you and then we'll see roughly the end off this animation. So I'll go to key frame number 11 and I will then go down to my shapes, press p as in position and then hit the key frame. Biker. I want this animation to have a duration off 10 key frames. So I'll press command shift, right Arrow key. And then I'll press the key frame like and again. So any made the position So actually, I want to split up the position into the X and Y axis, and what this essentially means is that we have the horizontal axis, which is the X axis. And then we have the vertical one, which is the why excess To do this, I will have to select the precision off every single shape layer by holding down the command button. And then I will right click on the position and you separate dimensions. This will mean that we can animate the two excesses separately, and we'll start by animating the Y Xs. So if we first of all take our s shape, we can go to the start key frame, take it and track it up to where the stroke ends. Now we want the exact same position, key frame for every single letter so we can actually take select these two key frames, Chris Command, see to Cubby. And then we can select the with a s one by one and just pasting the key frames. So now we can see that the shapes will just move directly down. And we don't really want that as we want the arch animation. So about going back to the first key frame, we can press command and right arrow four times to go four frames ahead, and then we can select all of the shape players again and at a Y position key frame. Now, by doing this, we can change the vertical position off these shapes at the given time. So by selecting these shapes, holding down shift and tracking up, we can see that the position changes. Now, if we play this back, it's linear. So we look really weird, but we'll be able to fix that by easing the key frames. So we actually don't have to ease the X axis off the key frames. And the reasoning behind this is that when an object moves in a horizontal direction, it moves at a constant speed. Now, I have had physics for a few years, so I might as well put it to some use. And the thing that happens is that gravity effects the object. So if you throw something up in the air, the gravity will pull it down again and it will accelerate as it moves towards the ground. So when thing about this principle we can start easing the key frames, the middle key frame for the exposition is actually not necessary as its linear, so we can just choose every single one of these by holding down shift and deleting them. Now we want to eat the Y position so we can juice every single. Why position key frame just by holding down shift and dragging. Then we can press F nine on the keyboard and go to the graph editor. Now you can see that we want this to be an arch, and right now it looks pretty weird. So to be able to see all of the key frames, we press the fit old crafts to view. And if we think about the physics and gravity, the thing is that when you throw something up in the air, it will actually d accelerate as the gravity will pull it down, Mom more so, it will be at the highest speed of the start, which will mean that if we adjust the value graph accordingly, we see that the value change will be very high and start and then it will slow down over time as it reaches the peak. Now we can track this out a bit just to really exaggerate the motion. And then when the object is at the peak off its height, then it will start moving down again. And as it moves towards the ground, it will keep accelerating because of the gravity, Which means that s it is the closest to the ground. It will have the high speed and therefore it will also have the highest change in value. So therefore, we can just strike all of the's handles accordingly, and we can select the top key frame. Just wreck it out a bit. So we get this nice curve. And actually, this curve of this arch pretty much represents the archer you'll see up here. So if we play this, we can now see that it already looks a lot better than before. Because we have this arch and we have the right easing and the reasoning behind that, it looks much better. It's because we're following the loss of physics, which means that it's reacting like it would in the real world. Now that we have East thes key frames, we can go back to the normal view, and we can actually start focusing on the rotation of thes objects. Now the objects closest to the middle will rotate the least and the objects that are mortal . What's the sites will rotate the most, and if we go to the start of the animation, we can choose every single layer that is a shape prissy are key to get the rotation at a key frame. Go 10 frames, forwards and at a key from again. Now we'll rotate the optics at the start, and we start with the object that it's the most towards the left, so that will have the most rotation. We will go with a positive rotation about 140 as the object. Then we'll rotate outwards. So then we go a bit more inwards, and that means that the rotation will be a little less. So we'll choose maybe 110 degrees, then a little bit less again. So maybe 90 degrees. And now we switch sites, which means that we'll have to make the irritation negative. This will be the least rotated shape off the right side. So maybe we'll also give that minus 90 invitation, then minus 107 and minus 140. So, as you can see, the shapes are rotating outwards, and the once that are the most of the site will rotate the most. Now the last thing we will animate with these shapes is actually this scaling because, as you can see, the updates come from this tiny stroke, which has a small with and therefore we want the shapes to be very small at the start and then scale up Nestle move outwards. So if we go to the start of the animation juice, all of the shapes and press s for scale, we can then at a key frame, go 10 frames, forwards and at another key frame. So at the start, we want the objects to be small, but we don't want them to disappear completely. So we can go for something like 20% in scale. And we can actually see that matches the stroke with pretty well. So if we play back the animation, I could see that it looks something like this. As we can see, the stroke is this blue color and this orange color. So we want to create a mix of thes colors. So I'm going to select all of the shapes juicy fill color, use the eyedropper tool to select the blue one and press OK. Now we want some variety in these colors, so we could just select to random ones. So that could be the e and the H that we can make them the orange color like that as a last touch, we can add a smear to our shapes. So it's me. It's essentially a motion trail behind the object as it moves down. So to do this, we're going to go over here to the arrows, select effects and presets. And then we're going to search for Echo, gonna drag and drop the effect onto our first shape layer. And as you can see this some distortion happening to the color. But we could fix this by changing the echo operator from at to maximum. Now, the echo time is essentially the uncivil between the copies off the echo. So if we increase the number of echoes, you can see that the interval is way too big as this. This huge gap between the shapes. Therefore, we're going to change the echo time to something lower. So I'm just going to replace it to first freeze with to Ciro's. Now we have to increase in number of echoes to actually see the emotion trail. So if we changed it 1 to 40 we should be able to see it. If we scrub through the animation and to make it even more visible, we can increase it even more and you can see it goes along the motion path. So we want to animate this effect as we do not want it to happen when these shapes moving up, but rather just when it goes down, therefore will go to the exact frame. When it starts going down here, we will at a key frame to the number of echoes and said It's zero, then we'll go to Frames ahead said it to 40 and now it's animated as it should be. We want to cover this effect to every single shape layer. But before we can do this, we have to add a key frame to every property that we have altered with. Otherwise it won't be cubby to the other layer. So if we go to the first frame off that echo animation, we had a key for him to the Echo Time and the Echo operator. We go down to the shape, press you to see all key frames and here we have the properties for the echo animation so we can highlight thes properties. Copy them and then we can select all of the other layers press command V to paste it. And now we have the echo effect on every single layer 7. Text: Squash & Stretch: At this point, we go ahead and create the squash and stretch animation for the text and first fall. I have a little example off this question stretch just with the square so you can see the principles and how it actually works. So if I play back this information, you can see that the square starts by being stretched up, and then it's washes down and goes back into its final position. Now, the way this question stretch works is that it has to retain the same volume throughout the entire thing. So you can see that the volume of the square here is approximately the same s when it stretched out. So when you stretch something out, you also have to squash it in to retain that volume. Now, if you look at the key frames for this animation were decaying the timing, so that means the interval between them. So it starts at seven frames six, five, four and free frames. So that's the same thing that's happening to this scale off the actual square. So who click on the scale and go into the graph editor. You can see that the scale is but into the why scale, which is the vertical access and the ex scale, which is the horizontal axis. Now these has to be opposite of each other because they have to retain the volume. And you can see that the middle line here 100% is the scale that he Scrabble end up being. Therefore, you can see that it's the highest scale at the start of the animation. Then it gets a bit low. Uh, bid low, uh, a bit lower, and they're just opposites of each other and away you can actually see how this works is that we have. These two knows that actually showing the decay curve that's going on. So if I click the scale on each one of them, go into the graph editor, you could see that I have created to decay curves, so that means that it is actually decaying exponentially. So at the start, it decreases the most in value, and at the end it slows down Thies to decay. Curves can be used as a guideline for the actual squash and stretch, So if I also choose set, you can see that it goes within these decay curves and actually follows it. Now, this can look a bit hard at first, but when we actually get to create this thing, I'll show you step by step, how to do it. And it will actually be a lot easier. So if we go into the main project, we're going to find our text down here and just show every single letter. Now, these letters have to appear just as the shapes will disappear and that's when they touch the ground. So you can see if we go to these shape, just pick the 1st 1 and press you for the key frames. The key frames stop at this frame. Therefore, we will choose all of the shapes, press command shift D to split the layers and just delete. Now we want the text to started this exact position. So we will select all of the text layers, press command shift D, and then we have to select the first parts of the text by holding down command control on windows at the leading. But doing this you can see that the shapes transform into the text and now we want to at the squash and stretch. So the smart thing about this is that you can copy the scale key frames from one shape to another. So we actually only have to animate the question stretch for the s letter and then we can copy it to every single other letter. So if we just solo out the s and the background by clicking the solar out, I can We can then press set and direct Suman on the S and press V to get our selection to So now we first of all want to create the decay ca. But we need to match out the timing of the animation. So we need to decide how long this question stretch has to take. So if we click on the S key to get the scale, we can place our first key frame. Now this has to decay. So I will start at seven key frames. So by holding down command, pressing the writer a key, I'll go seven key frames ahead. Then I let another key frame go Six frames ahead had a key frame than five frames, four frames and free frames at last. So this is the decay we want for the squash and stretch. Now we can create the guide lists that will guide how we actually animate this. So to create a new null, we go to layer new nal object. Now we contract this all the way down to R s letter and then we can just retirement. So it has the same duration as our s letter. We go to the start off this press the S to animate the scale and then we'll just at a key frame. Then we go to the end of this animation and at another key frame. Now we can select both of these key frames press F nine on the keyboard to Eastham. I go into the graph editor. At this point, we have to figure out how much of his questions stretch we want. So we go to the first key frame and then we can say that we wanted to start out by having a scale off 150. Now, to see this entire animation, you have to click on the fiddle crafts to view. And now we'll have to create the tick acre. So, as I told before, the K Cup is essentially occurred that the case exponentially, which means that we will have to have a big value. Change it to start, and then it will slow down as time goes on. Therefore, we can track down this handle and then we could take the other handle and track it out like this and you can just adjust it to your liking and you can see the disk of the case. Now, we also want an opposite of this because we have to animated for both the X and y scale. Therefore, we could go out of the graph. You choose the null object and Priscah Mandy to get a nother null object. Then we can press the S to see the scale and we want this to be the opposite. So the 1st 1 started at 50% higher than the final point. So we want this to start at 50% lower. So we'll just go and put this at 50%. Now we should go to the craft, you and press the fit old draft of you. We can see that it has messed up our eating. But the only thing we actually have to do is take this handle and just reverse it like this . Now if we select both of these scales by holding down command, pressing the fit photographs of you. We can see that these two K curves are the opposites of each other, and they should match pretty well. Now, we don't want to be able to adjust these decay curves while working on the other scale. Therefore, will just click on this little button to include them in the craft view. And then we can look both of these layers so we won't be able to edit them. But even though which is scale off our s letter, the other curse will still be visible so we can use them. I will start out at this first key frame and we selected and we contract this up. Now, we want the first key frame to be where the letter is stretched so I can see that this ex scale has to be the lowest. So it's stretched and then we'll take the Y scale and pull it up. So it fits the dick acre, and now you have this stretched s. This process will be repeated for out the inside the cake up, and you'll have to remember that the scale has to go from the septic acre to the bottom, to the top, to the bottom and so on. So if we pick this one, it has to go up as it was down before and the why scale has to be opposite now it can be pretty hard to actually see where you have to place the key frames when getting to this point. So if we select this also assume craft height, then when we scrapped throughout the animation, you can see that it's soon sin accordingly. So when we get to the next one, this has to go down. This has to go up, go ahead a bit more and we just keep repeating this process to match the key frames to the decay curves. So right now you can see that they are all matched up and the final step is actually just easing the key frames. So we don't want to see these decay curves anymore as the bit in the way. Therefore, we can unlock both of them, click this icon again to remove them from the graph editor and then we can select all of this scale key frames and press F nine to Eastham Now, this has to be a very smooth easing as it is scratching stretch. Therefore, we will actually do a an easing which is in the middle. So if you choose this one handle, pull it to approximately the middle of thes. Two key frames do the same with the other one. You can see that they match up now. This needs to be done for every single key frame. So it's actually just the same process over and over again. Now you can see thes line up and you don't want to pull them too far because the change of value will be too extreme. So if we go forward a bit, we can just keep repeating this process to get some smooth curves and some smooth results. Now you can see I forgot to ease this last key frame. So just Dragon Select and press F nine again. Then I get the curve and I can track it out. So now the bouncy, squashing structure animation is actually done and we can go ahead to preview it, go out of the graph, you soon a pit out and then play the animation so you can see that this looks pretty good. And now we want to time it with the rest of the animation. So these nal objects, we don't really need them anymore. So we can actually, First of all, we can go ahead and click out of thesis. Ingle outlay us so you can see everything again. Then we can hide these two null objects. Then we consume all the way out to fit the entire thing. And then as the shape changes to the S, we don't want it to be stretch out this much. Therefore, we can select all of the key frames holding down old. We can click the left arrow key a few times to match it up and see how that feels. Now when this feels good, we can go ahead and Coby all of the's key frames to the rest of the lettuce. So we select all of the key frames. Press command. See? Then we go to the point where we want the key frames to start select off the other layers by pressing the 1st 1 holding down shift, selecting the last one. The present command V. Now, when we play this animation, we could see that all off the lettuce have this balancing squash and stretch animation 8. Text: Bouncy Rotation: now we'll be animating a bit of bouncing rotation for the text. But first of all, as you can see these shapeless invisible far too early. So if we go down to one of the shape players and press you go to the first key frame, then we can select all of the layers and just tracked them and time them. So they started that key frame, then pursue again de select. We can see that they appear just at the right moment. So to enemy disputation, where you're going to be using the same method as we used for the squash and stretch. But first of all, we can go ahead and delete these null objects as they're not needed anymore. Now we need to create two new null objects for the rotation so it can go to the layer new, No logic. Then we can go to the start off the actual text animation. Chris are on the null object, animate the rotation, and we might as well time it with the scale so we can go to one of the sexless press s to see what the scale key frame saw. Then we can select the null object again. Go back to the first key frame at a rotation key frame, go to the last one and at another rotation key frame. Now we want this rotation to be a bit most subtle, so maybe we can go for something like five degrees invitation and then select the key frames going to the graph editor here. We can select both of them. Press F nine to Easter. Now we want to create this decay curve again so we can go and Presley fit all graphs of you . Pick the first key frame. Just strike it down to get this exponential decay trick. The last key friend out a bit. So this should actually be fine. Go out with the graph editor and we want the other No object to be the other, said Irritation. So we command D to duplicate Chris off irritation, and then we can start it at minus five degrees instead of five. Let's go into the graph editor. Just quickly fix this decay curve like this, and if we pick both of them, they look just fine, so it would go out of the graph editor. We can then go ahead and just at the key frames full irritation on the S layer. So if we assume out a bit and just hold down shift while pressing, uh, then we can see the scale a swell. It's irritation, and we can just place the rotation key frames at the exact same points just like this. Now we can go ahead and show the rotation graphs in the graph editor, so we'll click this include this property in the graph that it's a set button both of them , and select both less and luck them so we don't change the decay cuffs. Then we will select all rotation key frames, go into the graph editor, and for this one, we won't have to separate key frames. So in the X and white, I mentioned, we could just have one, so it's actually easier to work with. Now we go to the start, just fit this at just it, probably other than it will go up and down, go head a bit. Remember to have the out assume enabled, so it will soon in on the graph, and this is the exact same processes before, So it should be pretty easy assuming a bit more for the last one like that. Then we want to ease these key frames. So first of all, we will hide these decay curves by unlocking the layers, disabling them here, then selecting all key frames, pressing F nine to Eastham. And again the same principle. We will check this out about halfway. So that's about here. So they match. And we'll just repeat this process for each of thes handles. So that should actually be it for go out off the graph editor and try to preview this. You can maybe see that the irritation is a bit too subtle as you can't really see it, but that's actually an easy fix for this. So if we choose all of the rotation key frames and go to the graph editor, just go os who can see every single key frame we can then select the key frames and choose this show Transformed Books. Now we want to scale this from the end rotation, which is here so we can track this anchor point while holding command so it snaps and just place it here. So we go to the top of this bucks, hold down command control on Windows click and track it up. Then we wanted maybe at 90 Greece. So we let go here now, As you can see, it still ends at Syria degrees because it was scale throughout this, her central access. Now we go out of the graph. Editor, just play this back. You can see that's a bit more rotation on the S letter. But we want to at this rotation to every single letter. So we'll just select all of the key frames. Press command, see, go to the first key frame and then select all of its X layers except feli dot press command V to Paste. And now, when we played back, we can see that the irritation is happening to every single letter. So we want to also this rotation a bit. So for some lettuce, we wanted to be negative nine degrees instead of the nine degrees at the start. Now, to do this, we select the few letters. So let's say this would be the H. Maybe the P on the E with Empress are to see the irritation. Key frames could just hide the S for now, and then we just go to every single key frame, and when it's actually positive, we can just go ahead and at a minus at the start and the opposite. When it's negative and go ahead and remove the minus. We'll just repeat this process for every single key frame and the last one is serious, so we don't have to also that now we can copy these key frames, go to the start and select the layers that we want the irritation to be altered. Um, then press command me to paste. If we play it back, we can see this a bit of difference in the rotation, and they're not all the same now. This is all happening very simultaneously, so maybe we want to offset the rotation from the scale a bit. So if we select all, if they let us and press the ah s invitation, you can select all of the's key frames and then we can offset them a bit to the right by holding down old and pressing the right Eric E. A few times, and now when we play it back, you can see it's a bit more quirky and fun as they're not happening. At the same time, 9. Text: Blinking Colors: At this point, we want at a bit off blinking colors to the text to make it more fun to look at. So we'll go to the start off the text animation, which is right here. Then where will just be animating this on one letter and copying it to the others? So we will select the S letter. Then we'll go to the arrow over here, select effects and presets, and then we'll choose the fill effect so we can track and drop this onto the layer. Now, as you can see, it has changed the color of the layer. So at first we want this to be blue so we can choose the eyedropper tool and pick the blue for my color scheme. Then we can go and at a key frame to the color, press you on the keyboard to see this key frame. Now we're going to be working with something called whole key frames, which means that the value won't actually change until the next key frame appears. So if you right click on this key frame, we can go to Tuggle whole key frame and then we can go. Let's say free frames ahead by pressing the command and right arrow key. Then we'll change the color toothy orange. And as you can see when scrubbing through, the value will change when the actual key frame appears and it won't change gradually. So maybe we want this to turn into blue again. So we're gonna go free frames ahead, pick the blue color, and then at last we wanted to turn into this gray one so we can go another three frames ahead and then pick the gray color. So if we play this back, you can see that it blinks. And we can also these key frames a bit to make it look a bit more random. So perhaps this will only have two key frames here, and that looks pretty good. But we actually also want the sex to bling out at the end of the animation so we can go all the way to the end. Then we can at another key frame for the color a few frames ahead. Change it to let's say orange. Then we can change it to blue, and then we can change it to the white background color so that you can see here the actual text blinks out and disappears now, maybe once at one more color. So we contract this all the way to the end. Then we can track this along and maybe adding another blue color here, and then we can try and play it. So this is maybe a bit too slow, so we can just select them and move them by pressing old and the right arrow key. And this, really it's all about keeping it random. So you can make this however you like, and just keep adjusting the key frames to your liking. Now, maybe this looks good, so we want to cubby all of the key frames to other text layers. So if we assume out, could select all of the's fill key frames Chris Command, see to Cubby and go to the start off that animation. Then we can select all of the other layers, except for the doctor, the press command V to paste these key frames. So now when you play it, you can see that all of the actual letters start blinking, and at the end they will blink again 10. Sequencing the Animation: If we have a look at the current animation, you can see that it's maybe a bit boring as every shape is animated in at the exact same time. But we can actually fix this and make it look more interesting by sequencing the layers. But before we do this, yes, we go down to every single text layer and select every letter. Press you So we see the key frames as we're going to move these layers around, will need to select the last fill key frames for every single letter and maybe just move them in a bit so they don't disappear out of the composition. Now we compress you again to hide it, and now we have to group the different shapes with their letter. But that I mean that we take the S letter as an example and move it just below the s shape . So they're easy to pick together. Now we have to do this with every single letter, so I'm just going to take them and place he let us alot their shape just like that. And now we can sequence this animation by actually offsetting the different lettuce, and this has to be a bit random, so we can just pick the 1st 1 Remember to pick them together. And let's say that this just happens to a few frames before Let's take this happens a bit after. We just really have to a justice quite randomly, actually. So there's no system to this, and it may take a few tries to get it just right. But then it will also look a lot better. So if we play this back, you can see that it already looks a lot more interesting as it's happening at different times. But this a bit of a problem, as some of the shapes coming out a pit sue early compared to the actual stroke. So we could just select every single one of thes lettuce and shapes unless they are happening too early, could distract in a bit to the right. See if this looks better, and as we can see this, this one, that's just one frame ahead. Just take that one frame black life that we played. This actually looks pretty good. We can see that the things are popping out at different times, but maybe some of the objects are happening. A bit too late. And again, this is all about adjusting. So we can select once that I happen to laid. Just track them a bit forward like that. Maybe this one happens a bit before playback the animation. You can see that this looks a lot better. Now, this takes a lot of tweaking around, but when you actually get it right, it looks pretty nice. And if we go to the end, you can see that this and mission is offset us. Well, so that also looks great. 11. Animating the Dot: At this point, we can start to animate the So we scrub through the timeline, we can see that the stroke turns into the shapes, the shape sent into the letters. And then Justice Lee let us about to settle. We want the dot falling down from the sky, hitting the e, bouncing up into a notch and then getting to its final position. So this looks like a nice time for the dot to actually start falling down. If we go to the dot layer, we can just quickly read time it and then if we press, you've you can actually see that we have already animated thes scale property. But we don't want this animated right now, so I just select the key frames, delete them, and then if we unlock the scale, just send it back to 101 100 so we'll start out by animating all the position. So we press p and at a key frame. Now I want this animation to happen roughly over 16 key frames, so I'll go 16 key frames ahead. Then I'll add another position, key frame, and again, I want to separate the position into the X and y access as we don't want to ease the X axis at all. So right click separate dimensions and now we'll start out by actually animating the exposition so we can go to the very start, and we perhaps wanted to start from somewhere in the middle. So if we take the exposition and just start tracking it and drag it roughly to the middle, then we want to animate the Y position and we actually want the A Y position to started. That's up then down at the top of the then it has to go up a bit again and then down to settle. So I'll go six key frames ahead. I'll add a key frame to my wife position. Falke frames ahead and at another key frame, said the start. We just want to drink this dot out of the side of frame so we can just track the position like this. Now we can go to the next key frame and we just want the dot to land on top of the so we can track this up. So it's roughly on top of the go to the next key frame and now we wanted up in the air so we can just wreck it up again. Something like this. And then it has the desired path. But now we want to ease the Y position. So it actually has this nice, curved motion, these artists. So we select the wide position key frames. Chris F nine go into the graph editor Now we want the actual tucked to accelerate as it falls down. Do you accelerate as it moves up and accelerate as it falls it down again because of gravity. So we start out by adjusting the graph editor so it will have to accelerate as it moves towards the ground. Then it will have to de accelerate as it moves up again. And at last it will have to accelerate as it moves towards ground again. If we play this back, it looks quite nice. Maybe it's a bit too extreme, so congested, just these handles to our liking to get the decided animation. So something like this looks quite nice. And now we want to add a bit of rotation to the animation. So you go out of the graph Editor hit shift our to show the rotation at a key frames of irritation at the very start. Then we want a key frame. Just says it hits the E so right around here and then a key frame at the very end. So we want the actual rotation to be outwards. So if we start here, go back to when it hits the we can perhaps at minus 180 decrease to the rotation. And as you can see, it rotates outwards. But now it's a bit too low. So if we again select the Y position, just wreck this up to fit the like that it looks perfect. Then we go to the very start and go for something like minus 360 degrees like that. And as you can see it, road sits down. It's the E and rotates outwards. Now we want a bit of squashing stretch as this hits the ground and therefore we'll just go up to our s letter. It is for scale and copy the key frames. Then we'll go down to our dark paste, the key frames. And if we hit the scale, we can see the key frames and we actually wanted to happen just as it hits the ground. So let's around here so we'll track the key frames over here. Something like this. Perhaps we play back, we can see that the squash and stretch is there, but we don't really want it to be stretched throughout the entire animation. So we can just selected point right around here and then make the scale 101 100. So by doing that, we can see that it stretches out as it falls down here. And maybe that is happening a bit too early to distract the key frames around to mess with it, as you can see here, stretches out, hits the ground and squashes. So if we play the entire animation looks something like this and the gut looks amazing. Maybe the dot is hitting the E a bit too far to the left, and we can actually see that now. It's not probably adjusted according to the so if we press the P as in position, Press said to assume in, we could just take our Y position my position like this, move it down and then we wanted to hit in the middle so we can actually just adjust our exposition so it lands perfectly like that. Now, if we play it back and see that it lands as it should, and the dot is animated. 12. Final Touches: now he makes some final adjustments to make our animation look just that much better. And they re script forward. You can see that when the dot hits the e, the doesn't react, and that doesn't look so good, but we can actually fix that. So if we go down to the e letter and it s for scale, you can see that the scale is already animated for the so we can animated again. But wait, So actually do this is by using a null object. So if we go up to layer new null object, then we can take this null object and position it just where we want the scale to take place. From then, we can just re time the layer just as the dot hits the so that's around here. Then we want to parent the E to the knowledge eject, which essentially means that everything that happens to the null object will happen to the So we Pickwick from the EU layer, drink it to the null object. We could then rename the know to know underscore E. Now we just copy the key frames from the e letter, paste them to the null object and if we press s for scale, could see that the scale is already taking place. But right now it looks pretty weird. So we actually have to re time this so it gets squashed just as the dot hits it. So that can be around here and then just before we don't want it to be stretched out like this, which is pretty extreme. So we can just go one frame before this initial squash. Then we can unlinked the scale said it's a 101 100% and delete the first key frame. So by doing this isn't stretched out extremely. But we'll still get that squash animation just as the dot hits it. Now we just have to readjust the actual position of the Dutch so it hits the instead of floating above it. So if we select that layer, go down to the dot and press P for position can just wreck the Y position, so it fits and it's pretty hard to see right now. So if we press set and soon in, take the Y position again, break it down like that and soon out. So now if we play that fruit. It looks pretty nice. Another thing we can do is at some colors to the dot as it has the same color for out the entire animation. So if we go to the arrow, select effects and presets, we can search for the filled property and track it over to the top layer. Now we want the taught to be blue at the start so we could just use the eyedropper tool to pick the blue color. Then we can, at a key frame, press you to see all key frames. Then we can right click Tuggle whole key frame and then as the dot goes down and hits the E , we can change the color to an orange, then go forward a bit as it is at the highest point. We can change the color back to the blue and then at last, when it hits the ground, we can change the color back to the gray. So if we have a look at this, you see that the Dutch changes colors, which looks pretty nice, and we also want the dot to blink out at the end as the rest. If he let us do so. If we pick one of the letters, Chris, you see the key frames can then just copy the key frames and paste it in somewhere like this. We can see that the dot blinks out with the rest of the text. Now a final adjustment that we could make. It's just at a bit of scaling to the entire animation to give it a bit more life. So to do this, we go to Leia new adjustment layer. Then we could just rename it scale, go to the effects and presets and search for the transform. Track it to the scale adjustment layer. Now what the adjustment layer dust is that it actually applies this effect to every single layer beneath it. So if we go forward a bit and we had just a scale, could see that the scale of the entire thing is being animated. So if we go to the start, we can add a key frame for the scale, go to the end and added another key frame. Let's say, at 115 if we play the animation, you can see a bit of scale happening throughout the entire thing, which looks quite nice now, I want to hide the color scheme as it isn't useful anymore. And if we look at the timing of the animation, maybe that's a bit too much time before the actual letters disappear. We just play it again, can see that it stands for a bit too long. Therefore, we could just press command A and you to see every single key frame. Then we can select all of the fill color key frames toward the end by tracking down. And then we can just adjust them bits of the left. And if we play again, we can see that it stands for a bid list. Time, maybe a bit more to the left. Play it again and this looks quite nice. Now we just have to readjust the compositions duration. So if we go to the very end, we can see that all Let us have disappeared at this exact time. So if you click here, just copy the time goes to the composition, composition, settings and paste the duration in press. OK? And now we actually have the entire animation done 13. Exporting a GIF: Now you're ready to rent out your animation. First it's a video file, and then we'll create a gift from it. But first you have to make sure that your workspace is set accordingly and your workspace defines what will be rendered out. You could see my workspace is the entire compositions length, and when this will be played back, you can see that it will actually loop. So that's perfect for a gift. So just workspace. You actually drag this blue handle contracted in. And if we do like this, play it. See that? My worst pieces? No. Shorter. But I wanted to be the entire duration of decomposition. So now we can add this to the Rennick. You are going to composition at Serena Que, and we will actually keep it at best settings and lossless, and we'll just output it to whatever decide it's nation want. It's beer, and I'll call this shapes animation. Then you could flick Orender. This is super fast, as it's just basic shape information. Now we could make this video into a GIF using photo shop. She'll go to file open and you'll just find your video file so I haven't located right here and I'll open it up that you'll just click. OK? And as you can see, you have your video located down here in the timeline. If you press space played back should be playing nicely. Then you can go to file export and choose safer wept. Legacy. Now this option is actually just saving it as a gift. And you want this gift to be below two megabytes so you can upload it to skill share because he down here that minus not even close to two megabytes. So that's great and go to the preset. I grew up and choose the gift. 128 dither. Now we want the colors to be a 256. Well, actually, just let this load first so you see that the colors changed. What set them back to 256. So you can see down here that it's still low the two megabytes, and then you'll have to make sure that it's looping forever so it will loop as a gift should be looping. Then you can personally save button. Choose where you want to save this cell, save it to my desktop this folder and just call it these shapes animation. I'll just versus safe. And then it just has to render out the gift for you. Then you could go to the desktop away, over. You have saved this gift just opened up. Have a look at it. You can see that the gift iss actually animating perfectly. And it's also looping. So now this is ready to upload as a class project. 14. You Made It!: So you're old done. Thank you so much for taking this course. I really hope that I told you know just how to any mate, But actually why you should be doing certain things. Remember to post their class project down below and you can also shared with me and social media at all. Feel free to follow me a skill share to get notified when upload future courses. That's all for now until next time.