Adobe After Effects 7 - How to Animate and Organize Layers in the Timeline Video

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Ali

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Ali

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Adobe After Effects 7 - How to Animate and Organize Layers in the Timeline

Now, I am just going to turn off the composition motion blur here because that will allow us to work a bit faster then I am going to scrub along to round about one second and 18 frames across. This is about 10 frames later than the final key frame we have added here because this is where we want the titles for the TV show to appear. Now again, this is going to be another layer. I am just going to twirl this one up. Come back over to the project pane and scroll up here back to the illustrator files and we will see the mind-they-got-the-titles.ai. Then once again drag this in this for a second, place it at the top of the timeline. Hit the S key to access scale and just bring this down to around 75%. Now as final position it is going to be somewhere up here in the upper left hand side we have got plenty of room in here between me and whatever else is in the background but that would change just in the second. We are going to have a couple of animations happening on this one title. Now, we are going to animate this one backwards just to show you a different way of working. This is the final resting position of the layer. If we move this off screen now and then animate back on. We are basically doing twice the amount of work. Well this seems it is already in its final position, what I am going to do is now access the position property and move ten frames along in the timeline and then turn on a key frame. That records these position ten frames in. If we go back to the beginning of the layer and now drag it all the way off the left hand side then we only effectively had to do one set of key frames. After effects is now animating it in the right direction for us because we key frame it backwards. So that is actually a quite a nice way of doing this. Now, once again we should probably select that one key frame and use shift F9 just to smooth the motion in. as we scrub through that. You will see it does decelerate down into that final position and then let us go another 20 frames along the timeline and add another key frame for this object in its current position. We actually wanted to stay like that for 20 frames and then it is going to move across the other side of the screen. Well because we have already got it in its current position we do not need to grab it and move it around in order to apply another key frame. We can come over here into the column on the left hand side and this ante-diamond shape icon here simply allows you to add a key frame or delete one if there was one in its placed. By clicking there now you will see it adds another key frame in the timeline for this object at its current position and then let us go another 10 frames down the timeline and we will slide this across now to the right hand side. Now, I know this is going over the top of my face there but we will fix that in just a second. Once again, shift F9 to ease that in. So if you scrub the playback of that we see we ease in to that left hand side it is still for 20 frames and then it goes across the other side and eases in as well. Now in order to sort out the layering, it is very straight forward just you would in Photoshop or Illustrator. The vertical stacking over here is the order in which they are appearing on the screen. So currently our logo is on top of absolutely everything else. We are going to move that quite a few layers down because we are going to have appearing from and behind of other elements a bit later on. I want you to move it down so it sits just above the union jack wheel but below the city. Now, that will definitely put it behind my silhouette that I will also help us put it behind other elements when we complete the animation. Now, the reason our logo is sliding across at the right hand side over this piece of the animation is that we are actually going to introduce more silhouette. So give a bit more of a random feel to I have different pictures in different places in the scene and also in different levels of 3-Ds or behind the building and in front of it. So what we are going to do is actually at this point two seconds and 18 just as this starts to slide across the screen. We want this layer to end because we are going to put another image over here on the left hand side. So this layer is the Stevefaces01.psd here on the top of the timeline. Just going to hold down the option key or the ALT key on the PC and hit the right square bracket to trim that layer out if you scrub beyond there now by just one frame you notice that layer has indeed disappeared. Now, we are going to bring in another composition very similar to this one with the animated layers but ones I have already setup that use different versions of the silhouette just to give us a couple of seconds of animation. So montage 1 is the first one that we are going to bring in. Once again click and drag this down onto the timeline at the very, very top where we can see a different image on the left if you hit the spacebar in preview you will see the back does did change as it goes across. We have got some funny shots there and I am going to put little faces. Now, the same stop point if we just go back to where this layer begins. Remember not the previous frame but this one. This is actually at 219, if you want to be precise. We are also going to introduce another montage. Let us bring in montage 2 just another few funny animated pictures. Drop this into the timeline but this time bringing it down below montage 1 hit the S key to bring up scale and I will bring this down to around 50%. That will probably do the trick. Now as highly behind this one I am just going to drag over here on the right hand side. I do not want to literally sit behind this white mask but in front of the city. I do not have to be precise and place it there. That would actually be incorrect because do not forget this is a drop shadow on this layer and the shadow would not appear on me. So I would drop this down just a little bit. Maybe placed that over here on the right hand side in order to get the layering correct remember all you have to do is come over to the timeline and drag it down to the right position. Now, we are getting quite a few layers in here and it is getting a bit jumbled. So what we can do, thanks to this wonderful new interface inside of After Effects is expand the timeline just by dragging it up. You will see that the preview window up here nice to scales down to accommodate us. We can now see one of the layers very clearly and then drag the montage 2 down below the white solid but above the city back as perfectly into the correct layer order. Now if we scrub through the timeline on those you can see that they both do their own thing. Once again we reach an end point where they both actually stop. So once you reach the last frame of that just go one frame on the timelines so we have got nothing visible and we will bring in our third and final montage. Just for this at the top first, second just so we can get the scaling and everything correct. Once again hit the S key, let us scale this one down not too much because it is kind a in the foreground. Maybe about 85% will do fine and I am just going to move it out so it sits very, very central over here. Now, I want this one to appear all the way back as he sits behind the city but above the title. Well. this is why we drag the title down as far as we did in the timeline because if we now drag montage three down and put it below the city you will see it is still above the gap title and we have got another set of images nicely cut out and playing over at the original background.

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Now, I am just going to turn off the composition motion blur here because that will allow us to work a bit faster then I am going to scrub along to round about one second and 18 frames across. This is about 10 frames later than the final key frame we have added here because this is where we want the titles for the TV show to appear. Now again, this is going to be another layer. I am just going to twirl this one up. Come back over to the project pane and scroll up here back to the illustrator files and we will see the mind-they-got-the-titles.ai.

Then once again drag this in this for a second, place it at the top of the timeline. Hit the S key to access scale and just bring this down to around 75%. Now as final position it is going to be somewhere up here in the upper left hand side we have got plenty of room in here between me and whatever else is in the background but that would change just in the second. We are going to have a couple of animations happening on this one title. Now, we are going to animate this one backwards just to show you a different way of working.

This is the final resting position of the layer. If we move this off screen now and then animate back on. We are basically doing twice the amount of work. Well this seems it is already in its final position, what I am going to do is now access the position property and move ten frames along in the timeline and then turn on a key frame. That records these position ten frames in. If we go back to the beginning of the layer and now drag it all the way off the left hand side then we only effectively had to do one set of key frames. After effects is now animating it in the right direction for us because we key frame it backwards.

So that is actually a quite a nice way of doing this. Now, once again we should probably select that one key frame and use shift F9 just to smooth the motion in. as we scrub through that. You will see it does decelerate down into that final position and then let us go another 20 frames along the timeline and add another key frame for this object in its current position. We actually wanted to stay like that for 20 frames and then it is going to move across the other side of the screen. Well because we have already got it in its current position we do not need to grab it and move it around in order to apply another key frame.

We can come over here into the column on the left hand side and this ante-diamond shape icon here simply allows you to add a key frame or delete one if there was one in its placed. By clicking there now you will see it adds another key frame in the timeline for this object at its current position and then let us go another 10 frames down the timeline and we will slide this across now to the right hand side. Now, I know this is going over the top of my face there but we will fix that in just a second.

Once again, shift F9 to ease that in. So if you scrub the playback of that we see we ease in to that left hand side it is still for 20 frames and then it goes across the other side and eases in as well. Now in order to sort out the layering, it is very straight forward just you would in Photoshop or Illustrator. The vertical stacking over here is the order in which they are appearing on the screen. So currently our logo is on top of absolutely everything else. We are going to move that quite a few layers down because we are going to have appearing from and behind of other elements a bit later on.

I want you to move it down so it sits just above the union jack wheel but below the city. Now, that will definitely put it behind my silhouette that I will also help us put it behind other elements when we complete the animation. Now, the reason our logo is sliding across at the right hand side over this piece of the animation is that we are actually going to introduce more silhouette. So give a bit more of a random feel to I have different pictures in different places in the scene and also in different levels of 3-Ds or behind the building and in front of it.

So what we are going to do is actually at this point two seconds and 18 just as this starts to slide across the screen. We want this layer to end because we are going to put another image over here on the left hand side. So this layer is the Stevefaces01.psd here on the top of the timeline. Just going to hold down the option key or the ALT key on the PC and hit the right square bracket to trim that layer out if you scrub beyond there now by just one frame you notice that layer has indeed disappeared. Now, we are going to bring in another composition very similar to this one with the animated layers but ones I have already setup that use different versions of the silhouette just to give us a couple of seconds of animation.

So montage 1 is the first one that we are going to bring in. Once again click and drag this down onto the timeline at the very, very top where we can see a different image on the left if you hit the spacebar in preview you will see the back does did change as it goes across. We have got some funny shots there and I am going to put little faces. Now, the same stop point if we just go back to where this layer begins. Remember not the previous frame but this one. This is actually at 219, if you want to be precise. We are also going to introduce another montage.

Let us bring in montage 2 just another few funny animated pictures. Drop this into the timeline but this time bringing it down below montage 1 hit the S key to bring up scale and I will bring this down to around 50%. That will probably do the trick. Now as highly behind this one I am just going to drag over here on the right hand side. I do not want to literally sit behind this white mask but in front of the city. I do not have to be precise and place it there. That would actually be incorrect because do not forget this is a drop shadow on this layer and the shadow would not appear on me. So I would drop this down just a little bit. Maybe placed that over here on the right hand side in order to get the layering correct remember all you have to do is come over to the timeline and drag it down to the right position.

Now, we are getting quite a few layers in here and it is getting a bit jumbled. So what we can do, thanks to this wonderful new interface inside of After Effects is expand the timeline just by dragging it up. You will see that the preview window up here nice to scales down to accommodate us. We can now see one of the layers very clearly and then drag the montage 2 down below the white solid but above the city back as perfectly into the correct layer order. Now if we scrub through the timeline on those you can see that they both do their own thing.

Once again we reach an end point where they both actually stop. So once you reach the last frame of that just go one frame on the timelines so we have got nothing visible and we will bring in our third and final montage. Just for this at the top first, second just so we can get the scaling and everything correct. Once again hit the S key, let us scale this one down not too much because it is kind a in the foreground. Maybe about 85% will do fine and I am just going to move it out so it sits very, very central over here.

Now, I want this one to appear all the way back as he sits behind the city but above the title. Well. this is why we drag the title down as far as we did in the timeline because if we now drag montage three down and put it below the city you will see it is still above the gap title and we have got another set of images nicely cut out and playing over at the original background.

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