After Effects Tutorial 2

Shortcuts

Select layer first…

P = position property

A = anchor point property

R = rotation property

S = scale property

T = opacity property

(Press same letter again to hide)

If one property is already open, hold shift and press the shortcut for another property to open that one as well. 

Press any of them again to hide them all. 

Time ruler

In point - the frame where a layer becomes visible in the composition. 

Out point - the frame where a layer leaves the composition. 

I = the time marker will move tot he in point of the selected layer. 

O = the time marker will move to the out point of the selected layer. 

Work Area - the grey line sitting below the time ruler.

B = set the beginning of the work area to wherever the time marker is. 

N = set the end of the work area to wherever the time marker is. 

U = shows all of the animated properties for a selected layer. 

UU = shows all of the modified properties for  a selected layer (and changes since being added to composition, not necessarily animation)

Working with properties of multiple layers

Select all the layers you want to work with.

P - to work with position

Click on stopwatch icon on one layer to activate keyframe, this will automatically apply to all selected layers. 

Move time marker to show where the end of the movement will be.

Drag one of the position numbers to move the object - this will apply to all of the layers. 

Changing the rate of an animated sequence.

Select all layers.

U - show all animated properties. 

Select all of the key frames and move them to wherever you want. 

If you increase the distance between the keyframes, the action will happen at a slower rate. 

If you decrease the distance then it will happen faster. 

Shortcut for this...

Select keyframes. 

Hold alt and drag a first or last keyframe. The keyframes will space out but still relative to their initial placement to each other. 

Keyframe Interpolation 

When you specify the keyframes, aftereffects fills in the motion path between them. The part that aftereffects does is interpolation. 

Motion paths usually come as Bézier curves. 

To change this, select the pen tool from the tool bar at the top. 

Convert vertex tool.

Select the motion paths and they will change to a linear transformation.

Can be applied to any transformation but most visible in movement because you can see the path. 

Working with External Matierial

Preset -> Film and video 

Size -> PAL D1/DV Widescreen Square Pixel

Innermost rectangle - the title safe zone.

If you are working with text it is recommended that it is kept within this zone. 

Safe zones were established when old equipment for viewing moving pictures might crop the edges of a piece of film so the safe areas was the space which would definitely be viewed. 

Action safe zone is the outer rectangle. 

Keep anything significant within the action safe zone. 

You can use the whole frame for backgrounds, colour, etc but this may be cropped off. 

In AfterEffects...

Title action safe option will give you these guides as well. 

Saving Photoshop work for AfterEffects

Photoshop file, JPEG or TIFF.

Transparency will  be maintained in Photoshop files. 

When you make a new document, set the background to transparent. 

File -> Import -> Select file. 

'Import as' is faded out when importing a JPEG. 

A simple element (still image, video, audio) is referred to as footage and will be one layer. 

Drag image from project panel into composition panel. 

OR drag it into the timeline (this automatically places the image in the centre).

If you need to set something up that is bigger than the frame of the composition (like clouds that you want to move across in the background. 

Set up the photoshop document using the usual presets. 

The go to Image -> Canvas Size and alter the dimensions of the image. 

The guides will remain the same so you can see the area which is visible. 

Pan Behind / Anchor Point tool - allows you to position where the anchor point is of a certain object. 

Easiest to do this before applying any keyframe animation. 

This is my work from today's workshop. Overall, it looks a bit all over the place but making it helped me to understand the different options when it comes to animating with after effects. It's a lot more advanced than last week's attempt so things are slowly improving! I started using some keyboard shortcuts today, it will take a while to get used to them but they will definitely speed up the process when it comes to producing my animated sting. 

sunflowers from Naomi Smith on Vimeo.