Personal and Professional Practice: After Effects Induction

After Effects Induction - Part 01

Motion Graphics Animation

The Project will inform you about what object is in place on the composition

Timeline is informs how long the animation will play for in seconds

The Composition is were the animation happens

To create an animation the first step is to:

File - New - New Project

Then next is to go to Composition - New Composition

Then you will get a file box, here you can change the name of the background colour of the animation file e.g 'Square'. The Preset for a general animation will be the Pal D1/DV etc. Frame rate - 25 and then you can change the colour of the background. Duration is default is usually 30 seconds, but in this case we changed it to 5 seconds. Key Frame means the evalue.

Now the colour of the composition is blue.

Like Photoshop, there will be an eye icon. This can make the layer of the eye visible or hidden.

To create a simple animation. First create a new layer - then solid

Then another file box will appear, here we can edit the object that you wish to animate. So our square will be 100 x 100 in size and then change the colour e.g Yellow

This should be like this on the composition section:

On the Project it will show where the object is and what objects are present on the composition page.

There will be a red line on the timeline highlighting the duration of the animation, you can edit this by simply dragging the line. Therefore, it will be lowering the seconds and cropping the animation time.

To start the simple animation, first drag the yellow square to the side of the composition page.

Then press on the Keyboard the letter 'P' to position the object. There should be on the timeline section a stop watch icon. Click on that stopwatch icon and a diamond icon will appear. Click the diamond icon and then drag the yellow square. A red dotted line should follow the square, this will indicate where the square will move on the composition section.

Then press the spacebar on the keyboard to play the animation.

To make the object curve, use the red dotted line and drag the anchors or with the pen tool add more anchors.

To rotate an object - Position the object - Press the letter 'R' to rotate.

If you wanted to speed up the selected object on the composition page. Move the diamonds closer together on the timeline.
Cmd - letter D will multiple the squares.
To select more than one object - select all squares - position - click the stopwatch icon - then the diamond icon will appear. Drag them all across the composition page and move them.