As we previously discussed, adding a virtual camera to a 3D scene in After Effects can give an entirely new dynamic quality to your compositions. Virtual lights can have a similar effect.
Week 13: The Third Dimension
So far, we’ve used After Effects for 2D motion graphics and animation work. After Effects can also be used for 3D work – although there are some caveats. After Effects is not designed to do 3D graphics work in the same way that programs like Maya, Cinema4D, and Blender are. You can’t create detailed 3D models or complex environments in After Effects. However, you can move 2D assets into the third dimension – and create some unique and dynamic results.
Week 12: Page to Screen
For the last several weeks, we’ve focused on the technical abilities of After Effects as an animation platform. Now, let’s take a step back and look at the animation process in general. Live-action films have a fairly straightforward workflow: a project is scripted and planned, then filmed, then edited. The editor has a large role in shaping the tone, pacing, and narrative qualities of a film – they choose the best takes and camera angles, define the length of shots, experiment with overall structure, and much more. However, animators don’t generally produce much, if any “extra” footage – there aren’t multiple takes or camera angles to choose from. So what is the role of an editor in animation?
Week 11: Walk Cycles
Now it’s time to tackle one of the most challenging things in character animation – walking. Walking is one of those actions that’s both ubiquitous and surprisingly complicated. When a walk looks wrong, it sticks out noticeably – good walk cycles appear effortless. The way a character walks also tells the audience a lot about their personality, mood, age, and more. It’s an important skill for any character animator to work on. Mastering it takes a lot of practice.
Week 10: Expressions
Adding keyframes is one way of animating properties in After Effects, but there is another method as well – using expressions. An expression is essentially a line of simple code that is applied to an animatable property. It’s not the same as writing computer code – you don’t need to know any specific programming language, or anything like that – but the idea is similar. To add an expression to a property, alt-click on the stopwatch icon that you usually use to turn keyframes on and off. The value associated with that property will turn red and a box of text will open in the timeline window. That window is where you add the expression.
Week 9: Character Design and Creation
There isn’t really a right or wrong way to design a character; the kinds of characters you choose to make is ultimately a matter of artistic preference. We can, however, learn a lot by listening to the advice of other artists and animators. In his book Making Comics, Scott McCloud suggests that there are three qualities that a successful character must possess: an inner life, visual distinction, and expressive traits. Without these qualities, a character might be confusing, flat, or – worst of all – forgettable.
Week 8: Introduction to Character Animation
Now that we know how to parent objects, pre-compose layers, and adjust anchor points, we can move on to actual character animation. A simple puppet might have the figure’s arms, legs, head, and body on different layers. Complex puppets will break down the figure more and more – you might have separate layers for parts of the face, finger segments, clothing, and more. Basically, any part of the figure that you want to animate should be on its own layer.
Week 7: Exploring the Effects
There are a lot of effects built into After Effects and countless more can be added using third-party plugins and scripts. While there are far too many to discuss them all individually, I thought it might be useful to take a look at a few of them more closely. Here are a few “must know” effects – and a couple that are just fun to play with.
Week 6: Link Things Up
Last week, we went over some of the ways that layers can interact with each other in After Effects, using track mattes and transfer modes. This week’s lesson has a similar theme, as we’ll be combining, affecting, and linking layers in new ways. These techniques will be essential as we begin to work on actual character animation, but they are also extremely helpful when creating motion graphics and text animation.
Week 5: Text, Effects, Masks, and More
Most of the media you add to your composition can have three kinds of properties: masks, effects, and transform properties. You should be familiar with transform properties by now; they are the most basic keyframe-able properties of a piece of media, such as scale, position, and rotation. Masks allow you to cut unwanted areas out of a piece of media. Effects are used to modify the media in countless different ways. These three properties – masks, effects, and transform properties – are always applied in the same order: masks first, then effects, then transform properties.
Week 4: Manipulating Keyframes
This week, we’re going to dig deeper into After Effects – specifically, keyframes. In the previous lesson, we discussed how to add objects to a composition and keyframe their basic properties, such as position, scale, and rotation. That lets us do a lot, but to make animation really seem alive, we need to move beyond the basics.
Week 3: Introducing After Effects
It’s time to dive into After Effects. As we explore the program, consider the things we’ve discussed so far – like cartoon representation and the twelve basic principles of animation – and try to incorporate them into your projects.
Week 2: How It Works
We know that animation is made up of deliberately composed frames, but how do those frames end up on the screen? There are currently three basic techniques used for “capturing” animation, with a few outliers and overlaps.
Week 1: Animation Through The Ages
To study animation, I believe that it’s important to understand two central aspects of the form: one is technical and the other is aesthetic. The technical aspect of animation deals with the mechanics of its creation – how animation, in it various forms, is made. The aesthetic aspect of animation examines the unique qualities of animation as a medium, as opposed to other forms (such as live-action cinema, photography, and literature). Put simply, these two aspects comprise how animation works and what animation can do as a medium.