Friday, July 27, 2012

Week 4 Notes

Animated Background - Jumpbacks
looped background

Loop
-Select your jumpaback (the thing you want to loop)
-Click the first icon (Interpret Footage) // You can also right click the imported file to get interpret footage.
-In Interpret Footage you can change the frame rate and the select the alpha channel if that is an option on the piece you are importing.
-In Interpret Footage>Other Options (at the bottom) you can select to loop 

Blending Modes
In the time line area you right click place where it says Normal. (under the icon of the guy)

The Sun switch / looks un-pixelated
Everything must be RGB
From Illustrator if you scale up an Illustrator file it looks like crap unless you click that little sun/star icon next.
-Import the ai file
-Drag it into the time line
-Click the little sun icon next to the / (slash) icon


Scaling vs Zooming
If you zoom in it looks like crap but if you scale it will be normal.
It doesn't matter if you're at 400% and it looks like crap, it matters what it looks like at 100%.

Animated Text
Animation > Browse Presets
double the one you want
the text may disappear because now it will be animated


Making a Sequence in Photoshop
You can make a PS file with a bunch of layers and have them played sequential in photoshop.
1. Make a PS file with a bunch of layers. The top layer will be animated first ( played first).
    So if you want a line to grow the top layer has nothing and the subsequent layers add more to the
    line.
2. In PS File>Scripts>Export Layers to File
    Make sure you select that it is a PSD or PNG, whatever.
     Make a new folder for all the files to be stored.
3. In AE Import the file > when you import only select the first file.
    At the bottom check off: 
    +Save PS Sequence
    + Force Alphabetical Sequence
4. Once you have it all imported you select Interpret Footage and you can change the rate at which
   layers are played.


Week 4 Home Work Criteria_w6

Week 3 Notes

Animation gets cut off
When you place an animation inside the composition and the animation looks like its geting cut off at the edges. You go into Composition Settings and make the width of the original animation larger.

Shy Layer 
(looks like a guy peeking over the fence) Which ever layers you check the "hat" and then click the guy you will only see those layers. This is so the timeline doesn't get so cluttered.

Solo Layer
Makes just that layer appear


"Rigging"
Use the pan behind tool (2 left of the pen)
to move the rotation point

Rendering
(in the render queue the yellow text)
Render Settings - Resoultion > half
Output Module - Quicktime
                         - Format Options > H264


Rendering Faster in the Preview
Hit Capslock and it is faster

Make Object Rotate Automatically
Right click the layer (inside the timeline)
>Orient on path
(AS6 Transform> Auto-Orient)

Clipping Movies
In the preview area above the timeline you click and drag that timeline. You click the button that looks like { to cut the clip.
This doesn't change anything permanently.

Slice
Go to the point you want to slice.
Command+Shift+D
Edit > Split Layer

Stretch the Clip - so it spans a longer time distance
right click on the layer in the blank area to the right of the cube
Columns>Stretch

Reverse
Drag the clip to right away from 0 on the timeline (or else it jumps to negative numbers and you cant grab it)
Layer>Time>Time Stretch
Click stretch number (100% or whatever) then make it negative -100%

Frame Blending
Click the thing that looks like a bunch of pieces of film on top of each other.
Then click the box on the layer (it will have a dotted slashed line to it on)
This blends the frame

Control Blur
Composition Setting > Advanced Tab > Motion Blur Setting

Parenting
One the layer where it says none you toggle down to say what you are parent.
So you can animate a left wing and parent the right ring so you don't have to animate it.
Make sure you do it at the right keyframe or else it doesn't look right.

[Speed things up]
Collapsing layers into 1 comp
 Select the layers you want to collapse
Layer>Precompose "move all attributes" to 1 composition

Collapse all the extra tabs in the layer area


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Midterm Examples

Bolt
Everything is constantly moving so it feels dynamic.
Not so good ending
Good timing with music

Anchor Man
You don't need have the characters, it sort of gives away the movie.
-------------------
Setting up midterm

Photoshop
Photoshop set up with preset for Film &  Video
720x480
RGB
pixel aspect ratio d1/dv ntsc
(make sure to respect the title safe area)
Folders will convert to compositions

Illustrator
Document profile - Video & Film
NTSC DV
rgb
dpi 72
You have to create layers

Title Safe
You can turn the title safe area on in After Effects by clicking the Dotted Square icon above the timeline.

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Scripting Links
http://motionscript.com/expressions-lab-ae65/table-of-contents.html

Friday, July 20, 2012

Week 3 Notes

Week Three

Week 2 Notes

week 2

Keyframes
Click the diamond to get a still "dummy" frame.

Rendering
To render you have to have the timeline area all selected to get Composition>Add to Render

For Homework
For the homework bring the resolution down to half in Render Settings.
Format > Do not choose AVI for homework, choose Quicktime - change Video Codec to H264
   For the midterm do Motion jpeg


You have to Check the Audio Output box to get audio.

Motion Blur

You click the motion blur box on the layer.
First you click the motion blur button on the top (above the layers area) then you click the actual layer/object that will have the motion blur.
*Shutter angel is the amount of motion blur

The green line
has something to do with the ram and the memory


Select all the key frames
Select them all and hold ALT it moves them in a "scale" way

----------------------
Easing
The dots on the motion path (the line that is created when you move the object), they represent the imbetween time. Since the spacing is even, the movement is even. But if you wanted to EASE it, like in Flash, then the dots would be space further apart towards the end of the motion path.

Graph Editor
Slecet Keyframes
  Go to Animation>Keyframe Assistant > Easy Ease In, Easy Ease Out, etc
 In the graph editor you see the curve that represents that easing movement.


To remove the easing you Control Click on the dots so they turn back into diamonds.


--------------
Importing Layered PSD
Import As- Composition Retain Layers

Change Background Color
Composition Settings

Duplicating
Make a new composition call it final.
 Drag your other compositions (your other original animations) and drag it into your new Final composition. For example make a composition called Bee where the bee flies around. Drag Bee multiple times into Final. Then stagger each of the Bees that are inside Final, you staggger their time line. You can make changes to all these bee, for example you can mirror them.


Homework
Storyboard for Midterm
Bug project

Tutorials
http://www.videocopilot.net/
http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/adobe-after-effect-tutorials-beginners-intermediate-advanced-users/

http://www.artofthetitle.com/ 
week_two week_one