1. Narrative Motion Graphics
Lesson B: Adobe After Effects Animation Tools

2. Project Folders in After Effects
When your After Effects file has no external files– just AE shapes, text, and effects-- then you don’t need a project folder to contain your AE file. From now on, you will ALWAYS import external files, such as the audio file this week. Images and movies and 3D content and sound files that are imported into After Effects are not actually put in AE: only POINTERs to the source files are added to the AE file (which is why AE files tend to not be very large). This means you need to keep everything in a production folder, ideally one with a relatively flat structure: your AE file at the top level, your other files in a single layer of subfolders. TRY THIS NOW: Create a new folder on your desktop (yourname_class2), add a folder inside called audio, and drop a .WAV file in there (you can use the provided “Animation” audio file on the course site or your own). Create a new AE file, import the audio [Cmd/Ctrl]+[i], and save to the top level of your production folder. If you ever open your project and get a message that files are missing, or see the colorful “missing file” vertical pattern, you need to check to be sure all your files are in your folder structure and possibly re-import them by RightClicking them in the Project window and choosing Replace Footage > File.

3. Panel Controls in After Effects
IMPORTANT CONTROLS TO NOTE: Project panel bottom: Create a folder, create a Comp, trash an item. Also, RightClicking an item in the Project allows us to Replace it with something else or Interpret it for different framerate. Timeline: The Scrubber changes what frame we are viewing, and also is the frame at which we can align our selected layer or copy our keyframes. [PageUp] & [PageDown] to incrementally move forward and back one frame. At bottom there is a Timeline Zoom tool to get closer and view frames. Timeline Stack: Top bar shows current frame, search filter, and settings like Blur, 3D, and the Value Graph which have to be activated before clicking below the Smaller boxes for specific layers. At bottom right see Toggle Switches/Modes. Transforms: select the layer and hit [P] for just Position, [R] for Rotation, [S] for Scale, [T] for Opacity, [A] for Anchor, and [U] to just show animated tracks. Viewport bottom: Controls for setting Color Display, Camera, Exposure, and more! MiddleMouse scroll to quick zoom in an out, hold [Spacebar] to pan. Toolbar: Select/Move, Pan, and Zoom, Camera settings, Anchorpoint settings, Shape and Pen masks, Text, PaintBrush and RotoBrush tools, and Puppetry Pin.

4. Animation in After Effects
In a new Comp, with no layers selected, create a Shape.
Note how the stroke and the fill can have their colors changed or removed.
Click the rolldown next to the Layer Track in the Timeline, open Transforms.
Animate movement across the screen: at frame 1 hit the Stopwatch next to Position to create an initial keyframe and activate animation. REMEMBER: Don’t hit this stopwatch again, or all animations on that track are removed.
Move the timeline scrubber one second later and move the object to the right.
Animate Opacity: At frame 1 hit the Stopwatch next to Opacity to set a keyframe
Click the diamond to the left at other times to add more frames, and at those times change the value to create animation (from 100% to 0% for example).
Use Bookending to create a controlled blinking animation, with pairs of frames for visible and invisible.
Try a slower crossfade with two background layers to fade between them!

5. Shortcuts in in After Effects
TIMELINE SHORTCUTS:
Choose Start and End points: Move the Timeline Scrubber to a desired time, then [Alt]+[ [ ] to set the START of the clip, or [Alt]+[ ] ] to set the END of the clip.
Also, selecting the track and simply hitting [ or ] moves the start or end of the track to the current time.
Duplicate a selected Layer: [Cmd/Ctrl]+[d].
Split a layer at the current time: [Shift]+[Ctrl]+[d]
[Page Up] and [Page Down] keys move the Timeline Scrubber forward and back a single frame

6. Audio in After Effects
Audio is imported just like any other file in After Effects: hit [Cmd/Ctrl] + [i] to add a .WAV file to your timeline. We do not have the ability to scrub audio in After Effects, so we listen to changes by hitting Numpad [.] and open the Waveform twirly to view peaks and valleys, and synchronize our motions to them. Often we want to zoom into a portion of the Timeline to better view the Waveform Hit the Preview button in the Play menu for a limited playback of animation + audio (it is not interactive). When setting Audio Levels: 0=normal, -48 = silence, and +20 is so loud we expect the waveform to get crushed at upper and lower limits.
RUBBERBANDING: animate the Audio Levels to start at -48 and within 5-20 frames reach normal levels, so we are not hit with a sudden blast when we hit play. Do the same to ease out the audio at the end.

7. After Effects Pre-composing 1/2
Compositions can be nested inside of other composition! We can drag an exiting project Comp into our current Comp timeline. OR, we can select one or more layers in our Timeline and RightClick to “Pre-compose” which will put the content of that Layer/s inside a nested Composition. DoubleClick this nested Comp to “enter” it, and note Timeline and Viewport tabs to exit back up to the main Comp. We can also always DoubleClick the main comp in the Project panel to get back to its view.

8. After Effects Pre-composing 2/2
There are lot of uses for nested compositions!
We might have a bit of looping motion we want to embed in another timeline.
We might want to separate the animation of a masked layer shape (top level) from animation inside the shape, of its texture (inside nested Comp).
TRY A PRECOMP FOR TEXTURE ANIMATION:
Create a new Solid. Mask-out a blob-shape, and animate Position so it moves across the screen.
RightClick to Pre-compose, and in the dialogue box choose the option to “Leave all attributes” in the top Comp, so the animation and masking are left above, and not moved into the nested comp.
DoubleClick the nested Comp to enter it, and create two new solids in this nested timeline. Scale them into thin rectangles and animate them to move across the space.
Exit back up to the main Comp, and see how the nested “texture” animation interacts with the shape movement!

9. Looping Animation in After Effects
This week you are making walks and other motion cycles to make a rich, expressive interpretation of your chosen audio. A “walk” can be interpreted many ways, especially with blobby shapes, so you are encouraged to play and experiment!
Most commonly, a walk includes Center of Mass motion: the root (around the pelvis) going up and down, side to side. Also consider secondary motion– how arms or clothing or tentacles can swing along with the body motion, potentially with delays.
TRY A LOOP! Animation loops in After Effects require a “Pre-comp” (a nested composition) and a tiny bit of Java Expression code:
In a new Comp about 1 minute long, create a short bouncing animation: 3 seconds: at frame 1 turn on stop watch, set “bookend” keyframes every second, lift in-between.
Select the Layer and RightClick to Pre-compose. Choose the second option “Move all attributes into the new composition.”
DoubleClick to enter this Precomp. In Composition > Composition Settings cut the duration down to the animation length. Exit back up to the master Comp (DoubleClick in the Project panel) to see how it is now a limited length.
RightClick on the Layer title (Precomp) to choose Time > Enable Time remapping.
Open the twirly, [Alt/Option]+LeftClick on Time Remap Stopwatch to open the Expression window.
Replace the text with this expression: loopOut()
Click out of the Expressions window, and now you can stretch that small Precomp to fill the space and watch your motion loop!

10. Wiggling Animation in After Effects
A Wiggle is a way to get random motion. It can be applied as an expression script to any animate-able parameter. Be wary of over-using.
TRY A WIGGLE with a tiny bit of Java Expression code:
In a new Comp create simple shape.
Select the layer and hit [p] to show the Position track.
[Alt/Option]+LeftClick on Stopwatch to open the Expression window in the timeline.
Replace the text “transform.position” with this expression: wiggle (3, 300) The first value is SPEED and the second is AMOUNT (for a Position wiggle, amount = distance).
Turn on Motion Blur for both the timeline and the shape layer.
Hit Play!
This can also be used to make a still-photo look like it was shot with a hand-held camera, and can be applied to any animate-able parameter!
Source:

11. Adding Shadows in After Effects
Consider making Shadows to ground your character into your world! For each object, make a separate black shape at low opacity. You want this shape to be positioned below your animated character-shape and to be parented to just your character’s horizontal motion. This can be done using the previous Looping tutorial: put the up-and-down, stretch and rotation and other character motions in a Precomp, and then animate the Precomp's position to move it horizontally across the screen. If the shadow is parented to the Precomp, it will only inherit that horizontal motion. On a related topic, if your background has a ground for the shadow to cast upon, have the character walk below the horizon, not directly on the horizon line, to create a sense of depth.

12. Useful Animation Tips in After Effects
POP: Scale, move, rotate with overshoot to create emphasis: go a bit further than intended at the nearly-end of your motion, and then a few frames later “return” to final scale/position, orientation
MOTION BLUR: Create a simple motion, like a quick pan across the screen. Enable motion blur for the entire project by clicking the ghosted circles icon in the Timeline toolbar, and then turn it on for the individual layer.
EASY-EASY: Select around keyframes, RightClick one to choose Keyframe Assistant > Easy Ease or hit [F9] to add ease-in/out to your motion (slower at start and end).
THE WIGGLER: Adds random “noise” to an animation, and can be applied to any selected sequence of keyframes, like scale, position, rotation, or opacity. Open Wiggler in Window menu, choose smooth or jagged, and hit apply.
SURFACE ENHANCEMENTS: Source your colors with Color Lovers or other sites that offer hexcodes, so you can create more diverse palettes. Also, add textures (at low opacity or with interesting blending modes in a precomp of the solid) from photos you take of distressed surfaces like peeling walls, rusty metal, veiny stone, etc.
Notes source:

13. Designing and Animating Backgrounds 1/4
A background does a lot to inform an animation: If characters are complex or brightly colored, backgrounds must be simple and subdued to not fight for our attention. An opposite example: consider the super detailed backgrounds and simple characters in Howl’s Moving Castle.

14. Designing and Animating Backgrounds 2/4
Try Subtle Complexity: Create overlapping shapes with gentle color differences, like analogous choices on the color wheel, or degrees of value (light/dark). NOTE: Make your film accessible to the color blind by giving all colors value contrast, so they appear distinct in grayscale.

15. Designing and Animating Backgrounds 3/4
Create Background Animations: Slow or subtle shape motions to imply a rich and dynamic world. If you define a horizon line to separate ground vs sky, you can have different shapes and textures moving through those spaces, at different angles.

16. Designing and Animating Backgrounds 4/4
Try Parallax Motion: motion that creates a sense of distance by having foreground elements pan more quickly than the elements behind them during a panning shot. If you have characters walking/ slithering/ moving from left-to-right, you can have vertical bars in the background to imply trees. The thicker/ darker/ more saturated ones in the foreground should move right-to-left more quickly, and the thinner/ lighter/ less saturated ones in the background should move more slowly. You can even have a layer of trees in font of the characters!

17. Animation in After Effects
The Value Graph
For maximum control over motion, we have the Value Graph (Graph Icon on Timeline toolbar. Hit also the graph icon next to the Position stop watch). Time is the horizontal axis and value is the vertical.
If you have set two Position keyframes with different values, you will see an S-curve, representing the default ease-in and ease-out (After Effects calls it “Easy Ease”). This makes the motion slower at the start and end, and faster in the middle.
You can adjust the handles,
in the graph or the Viewport,
to make the line more straight,
Or to get the kinetic speed you
desire. To create new keyframe, click the diamond near the stopwatch. To change how the Bezier handles function, right click a keyframe, hit Interpolate, change in viewport.

18. Parenting in After Effects
Parenting for Complex Shapes
We can make one character-shape that is a combination of many shapes by parenting them into a hierarchy to create a basic Forward Kinematic Rig:
Add 3 Solids and shrink and position to make a vertical line: Head (top), Torso (middle), and Leg (bottom: both in the Timeline and the Viewport). Hit [Return] on each layer to name them.
Under transforms, change the Anchor Point vertical value (2nd) on each to locate at the bottom.
In the Timeline Toolbar, in the little empty space to the far left before the actual Timeline, rightclick to open Columns > Parent. Note the little spiral icon: this is the Parent Whip.
Leftclick drag from the Head whip to the torso, and then for the torso to the leg. Now, when you Transform the leg, the torso and head change, and when you transform the toros, the head also changes.

19. Puppetry in After Effects
We can also use Precomposition and the Puppetry tools to animate a more complex beast:
Select a layer with a shape, click the Pin tool on the toolbar, and add pins to act as joints. Each joints is its own animate-able track for this layer, under Effects, with a keyframe automatically placed when and where you put the pin-joint.
Build a monster with limbs, something wacky with tentacles and long or stubby bits: multiple shapes on multiple layers, Precompose into one layer, and use pins to animate the limbs.
ANOTHER TRICK: to record a real-time performance moving the joints (the actual timing of you waving the joints around): hold [Ctrl/Cmd] so that your cursor over the a pin turns to a stopwatch, and make changes. These changes get recorded as animation, the way you moved them– true puppetry!
Notes source:
NOTE: Working with all the pin-tracks can be challenging.
Hit [u] to view all currently animated tracks on a selected layer, and ONLY those tracks.

20. Useful Tips in After Effects
SWAPPING AN ITEM IN THE TIMELINE (While keeping all the changes!)
Let’s say you are working with PNG images imported into After Effects. Image #1 has been animated extensively in the timeline, transforms and effects, and then you have decided you would rather it all be on image #2. You do not have to do all that work again : you can swap the image out from under the animation:
Select the layer you want to change in the Timeline Stack. This is critical
HOLD [Alt/Option], and
Click and drag the new image file onto the selected layer.
You are done! The images have been swapped, with all transform and effects data now applied to the new image.
How could you use this technique this week? Let’s say you duplicate a layer with an animated mask shape, and you want the copy to use a different color. Because they are both derived from the same Solid in the Project panel, changing the color of one will change them both. So we do this:
Duplicate the solid in the Project panel: select it and hit [Ctrl/Cmd]+[d]
Change the color of this solid in the Project panel: Layer > Solid Settings.
Follow the steps above to swap the new color under the mask and motions!
Do you want the new copy to also have a different mask? You can delete the mask on the copy and make a new one from scratch, or you can copy and paste it from another layer!

21. HOMEWORK 2
Due on Piazza hw2 an hour before class next week: Project 1B: SHAPE-A-MATION: Choose an instrumental-only piece of music (see sample provided by teacher, or choose your own) and set rich shape animations to roughly sync with a second clip of this music. Please only use solid-shapes that YOU create in After Effects (or Illustrator). Strive for legible and varied motion. Surprise us! Consider motions that walk across the screen, starting off-screen and ending off-screen. Include a background that also changes! Render as an MOV and post to Youtube or Vimeo. Paste the link into your Piazza post (and hit [Return] to make the link active), hit [Return again], and click the [Add File] button to add a compressed .ZIP file of your .AE project.