After Effects Sessions

My first venture into the After Effects world. I've been told its "photoshop with moving stuff" which sounds like a dream. I've had a bit of experience doing basic editing videos and photos with iMovie and upon opening Ae the interface layout is kinda similar, as in you can drag and drop audio or images into various panels for editing, so I'm looking forward to get in to grips with it -especially after having a quick look online to see existing examples of what can be done using Ae.

Document set up

Useful shortcuts

P > Postion

A > Anchor

R > Rotation

S > Scale

T> Opacity (transparency)

Shift + R = add rotation

i > Inpoint (start of selected layer)

O > Outpoint (end of selected layer)

B > Beginning 

N > end of work area

U > Selects all the animated properties of layer  

Double U > Selects all modified properties of layer

Select all layers + P, click on stop watch which activates key frame on all layers.

CHANGING MULTIPLE PROPERTIES AT ONCE

Horizontal button > click and drag time shapes, they keep relative position.

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In order to import a psd with editable layers to a bit of this...

Instead of Footage, select Composition from the drop down menu

Or Composition - Retain Layer Sizes

Once in your Project panel, double click the composition button and 

it will appear in the Compostion panel.

If some, or all of your image files are missing or have bee moved to another folder since you last edited your Project then they'll be replaced with colour bars.

To replace with the re-located files, right click > replace footage> select desired file.

The lesson of this little problem is to save all the files used in your Ps & Ae project in the same folder so you'll always have the correct imagery when you open your composition in After Effects.

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• LAYER EFFECTS •

SHY Switch

Select the small Shy icon on your layer/s of your choice, then click the large icon above - it turns blue, hiding all the selected layers leaving you to work on just the layers you want, when things start getting a bit busy in the layers pallete.

When using vectors brought in from Ai then click the icon next to shy -this allows your images to remain as sharp, scalable vectors which won't won't lose resolution quality and start pixelating once imported into Ae.(continuously rasterise)

Upon import in Ae

After enabling the continuously rasterise button

The quality & sampling button lowers the image resolution helping 

you to work faster when the composition size starts getting a bit big.

Motion blur, does exactly what it says on the tin - simulates shutter duration, making a shape look like its moving really fast! Click the larger icon above to enable.

• ADJUSTMENT LAYERS •

This is the equivalent to Photoshop's layer presets. 

Type in a key word in the Effects & Presets search bar.

Drag and drop onto the specific object or layer in the layer pallete.

The effect will then appear in the Project panel up top, click and drag on blue numbers to change parameter, or use drop down section to make your alterations. Click the stop watch icon to create key frames featuring your effects alterations.

 

• ADJUSTMENT LAYER •

Layer > New > Solid > Make Comp Size (which makes it the same dims as your composition). Place on top of your layers, or under the layers you don't want to affect. 

CLICK THIS BUTTON

Go to effects & presets > hue & sat. Drag onto the layer, where you can alter and add keyframes etc.

To add blending modes to your shapes and layers, click on 

the toggle switches/modes button and the bottom of the frame.

To import a psd file and effectively make a layer mask out of it using the Track Matte feature, do this..

Once again you can alter scale, opacity, position using keyframes to create a whole bunch of interesting illusions.

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Study Task - Animated Sting Analysis

Thinking about movements and a tone of voice for my animated sting, and these came to mind. Im  a big fan of the end credits of the first Captain America films, which is probably he nerdiest thing anyones ever said. But i am! Visually they look very different but as far as the transitions and movements between frames goes they're very similar. I read up about how they were made here: The First Avenger - Making of   & here  Winter Soldier - Making of

           

Captain America: The first Avenger by Method Design, 2010.

With the first film, as the majority of it is set in around of WW2 timscale, it incorporates lots of war propaganda poster imagery and sort of merges them in to one long moving image,using often only small object movements, but big camera zooms, spins and pans. They use Maya and more 3D, Film industry based technology to make it all, but hopefully i should be able to achieve a similar kind of effect with After Effects, especially when it comes to smooth panning from one part of my imagery to another. The big fanfare music by Alan Silversti (a big film score hero of mine) also really gives the whole thing an amazingly nostalgic,victorious, uplifting, war-time feel,well as uplifting as War time could be?! Makes my hair stand on end a bit, which is weird,and a bit soppy.Watching and hearing it make me feels like I've overcome a massive obstacle (a bit like a war) and I've come out of the other side alive and well,and as a winner, and all's well with the world. A similar feeling i got when i handed in my essay last year.

          

Captain America: The Winter Soldier by Sarofsky Corp, 2014.

The credits of the second film are much more clinical, graphic and somewhat influenced by classic film credit animations by Saul Bass (below), in movement and the fact that black,white & red are the only colours used for the whole thing. Which is the same stipulation with our brief.Watching this sequence over and over, and studying the transitions between scenes and how they're all linked together has given me lots to think about and possibly try out with my ouwn sting, although I'm assure its a lot more complicated to achieve than it looks. But the slick graphical shapes would definite suit my style of work.The Henry Jackaman score is also also hugely complimentary with the animation - making the big swoop, zoom, spin movements seem even larger and more powerful. The cracking screen screen part would transfer really well in to my sting also, as I'm thing of incorporating some sort of crumbling/cracking earth imagery to symbolise the end of the world in my prints & animation. Again, something I'm sure will take far more working out than i can fathom. 

          

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This third animation is so far removed from the previous examples, but i also really like the mood set in this one by the wobbly drawings, simple movements, cute litre sound effects for each motion, and the way the the narrator's real, pissed-up voice has been synced up over the top of the animation to turn the initial joke into a small story.  It's the little uncomplicated things that i enjoy with this one; the little 'pop' noises that the scenery makes when it appears, the flag constantly flapping gin the background, and the after credits scene, showing the further dimise of the nice nacho guy. 

"Two Chips" / An Animated Short from Adam Patch on Vimeo.

I maybe won't be looking to make anything quite as 'twee' as this (although twee works in this instance) but i'll be looking to incorporate little, simple movements and sound fx to enhance the whole thing. Great concept though,still makes me chuckle every time i watch it -  i must remember to record more drunk convos with my mates, i'd get some 'intersting' material for animations.

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This short 10 second sting fits in an amazing amount of narrative in the short space of time. It's been made using some pretty advanced After Effects techniques by the looks of it, but only using quite simple shape based characters and sea surroundings. The island, sky and plane bursting into flames looks super realistic, so haven't a clue how he managed to make those bits? Also the rain drops falling onto the camera lens is a great touch.


                   

Sting 12 - Dharma from Anthony Hibbert

The friendly looking shark character pops up from the paper-cut looking waves, but the minimal facial movements turn him from cute to sinister as he dives back under water  to get 'something to eat'. The camera movements do a lot of the work here - bobbing in the water, bringing the shark into the frame and them moving beneath the waves for instance. It's all very slick and at the level i'd ideally like to reach, if not by the end this module then somewhere not too far down the line (a bit ambitious maybe?). The additional sound effects help create set the mood aswell, and bring everything together to make a tiny 10second film, and left me wanting to see lots more!  I'm just really looking forward to sourcing loads of sound fx to chop up an lay over my animated drawings. My Music Technology Diploma could finally pay the dividends. 

Digital Print Sessions

I thought i knew a fair bit about the whole digital printing process - turns out, i don't know shit! So in these sessions  I've picked up a whole bunch of useful tips and shortcuts that are going to save me a load of time, compared to the ways i might've gone about colour separation etc. Example: Select> Similar.! After all the years I've been using photoshop, how have i only just discovered this?!

• SPOT COLOUR POSITIVES & CHANNELS IN PHOTOSHOP •

Magic Wand 

Select >

Select > Similar

Colour Range> Fuzziness toggle used to increase/decrease 

the amount of pixels that are being selected >Selection Preview > White Matte

New spot channel > select a new colour

Repeat for as many colours as you intend to use.

Channels > split channels > print off your spot colour layers.

SAVE BEFORE YOU SPLIT! as you can't undo this.

Save as psd or tiff

Take it into Illustrator, Place > Window > Separation preview > Overprint preview (which is preview before print) > Print  > Output separations (hot based). Un-tick CMYK boxes, then print.