Hello everyone and welcome back to another
After Effects tutorial, I am your host Elias Sarantopoulos. Motion graphics and animation
can be an easy process inside After Effects by just using shape layers so let's go
ahead and explore how to spice up your work by creating and animating accent
motion graphics, the easy way! Alright so let us go ahead and kick this off
inside After Effects with a blank New document and the first I am going to do is go to the Layer menu
and create a New Solid
layer (Ctrl+Y/Cmd+Y). So I am going to rename this to BG (for background)
and make sure that I have the same Width and Height which means I am going to click on the Make
Comp size just in case and then click OK. Now in the event actually that you want to go back to
the same window, back to the Solid Settings, you can also go back to the Layer menu and choose
solid settings (Ctrl+Shift+Y/Cmd+Shift+Y) and now we're back on the same window in this
case I am going to use the Eyedropper tool to
choose one of the colors that I have saved
inside my Adobe Libraries and then click OK and at the same time I am to going to lock this
layer so don't accidentally move anything, great! I am going to go back to the Layer menu
and I am going to create a New Shape layer, in this case, we get the Shape Layer 1, I always
like to rename my layers and I highly recommend you do the same so in this case, I am going to
press Enter/Return and I am going to rename this to Outer Circle, hit Enter/Return
, and if I was
to look at the Contents of this Shape layer here we get Contents with pretty much
nothing and the general Transformations, OK, which means we need to add certain elements.
So I am going to click on the ADD flyout menu and add an Ellipse when we do that After Effects
goes ahead and creates a perfect circle right in the center of the Composition. Now if I was to
open up the ellipse Properties here I only see the Size and the Position which means we need to add
more things to i
t. Again I am going to click on the Add flyout menu and I am going to add, let's
see, I am going to add a Stroke so for the Stroke, let's see I am going to target the Stroke Width.
Right now is set to 2 pixels, so first of all I am going to create the first (1st) keyframe by
clicking on the Stopwatch and I am going to set the stroke width to something big, let's say fifty
(50) pixels then let's see, I am going to scrub the Current Time Indicator to perhaps one (1)
second or so and then clic
k on the value to set from 50 pixels down to zero (0) and After Effects
goes ahead and creates a keyframe for us. So if i was to RAM preview this by pressing the Spacebar
on the keyboard and I am going to be doing this quite a lot, this is what we get, right? Nothing
special but this is what we have right now, great! OK, this is one thing, let's go ahead and
press the letter (s) on the keyboard and that will bring out the general Scale of the Outer Circle of
the Shape layer and the first I
am going to do is, bring the Current Time Indicator to the
very first beginning of the Timeline, click on the Stopwatch to create the
first (1) keyframe and then press the letter (u) on the keyboard to show properties
with keyframes. Now I did this, so I can show you that the next keyframe that I am going to create
is going to be right here, on the same spot so if you want to be accurate inside After Effects
and instead of trying to guess where is the exact position of the next keyframe, fo
r example,
there's a great keyboard shortcut which is, the letter (k). So the letter (k) goes to the next
visible keyframe and the letter (j) goes to the previously visible keyframe and I am going to be
using those a lot. OK, so in this case, I am going to press the letter (k) and I am going to set the
Scale value to three hundred percent (300%) and I am going to jump to the previous keyframe the
previously visible keyframe (j) and I am going to set this to zero (0). So let's go ahead and p
ress
the Spacebar for the RAM preview and this is what we have. OK, it's a little slow but let's see,
I am going to keep it time for now. As you can see here basically we have a Linear animation
which means the animation begins instantly at the first keyframe and continues to the
next one at a constant speed and velocity which means, it is a quite boring animation. So
let's go ahead and spice things up. For that, I am going to target the Stroke Width and I am
going to click on the Graph Ed
itor (Shift+F3), as you can see here, from these straight
segments this is a linear animation. Now another thing that I want to mention is if I was
to click on the Choose Graph Type and Options, I am working inside the Speed Graph but it can
also work inside the Value Graph. Right now I am going to stick with the Speed Graph and I am
going to change the type, the Interpolation type from Linear to Easy Ease. Now basically Easy Ease
is a combination of Easy In and Ease Out and it's used when
elements need to be accelerated
and decelerated and that's what exactly we're going to do. So let's target this keyframe,
now these two are keyframes, you can also bring this Influence handle, this is
the Influence handle, bring it in. OK, we're looking at the percentage number here
you can also double click on this keyframe to bring out the Keyframe Velocity. So I am going
to set the Influence to seventy percent (70%) and I am going to do the same exactly on the first
keyframe, double cli
ck on that and I am going to set the Outgoing Velocity to seventy percent (70%)
numerically just to make sure that I have the same speed. OK, this is on the Stroke Width, how
about the Scale? Let's marquee select those two (2) keyframes and change the Interpolation
type from Linear interpolation to Easy Ease. Again I am going to double click here and for the
Incoming Velocity, I am going to set the Influence to 70 percent (70%). Double click on this
keyframe, I am going to set the Outgoing
Velocity 70 percent (70%) as well. OK, so I am going
to click back on the Graph Editor here to go back to the Layer Bar mode and then bring the
Current Time Indicator to the very beginning. Press the Spacebar for the RAM preview, not
bad, see that motion? I like what I see. Alright and the timing I think is OK for now,
let's go ahead and actually add one more thing. I am going to go back to the add flyout menu,
click on that and I am going to add another Stroke so I have two (2) strokes. Fi
rst of all, let
me change the color of the first Stroke here and perhaps use this color, there we go and now
we have the second Stroke. So when I press the Spacebar for the RAM preview as you can see
at the end of the animation the circle still maintains its width side which is set to, let's
see inside here, is set to two (2) pixels. So what we're going to do here is, we're going to keyframe
this so I am going to click on the Stopwatch for the first keyframe and then I am going to jump
to
the next keyframe by pressing letter (k), and actually, I should do this on the visible
keyframes so let me press the letter (u) and then press the letter (k) for the next
visible keyframe. So I am going to set this to zero (0), there we go. Let's RAM preview this,
I like what I see! Now, by the way, you can change right, you can change when this
Stroke is more visible or not, depending on where do you want this to Start, I
believe this is OK and I am quite happy with that. OK, so we've got
the first circle, just make sure
that you save your work Ctrl+S to Save, Cmd+S to Save. Alright so we've got the first circle,
now let us go ahead and create a second one and the easiest thing to do here is to actually
make just a duplicate. So select your layer and use the Ctrl+D/Cmd+D on the keyboard to duplicate
that and then actually let me go ahead and rename this. I am going to press the Enter/Return on the
keyboard and I am going to rename this to, Inner Circle, like so. OK and then
what I am going to
do is to Offset the whole layer just a bit in time so it doesn't start immediately. OK so if I was
to RAM preview this it's going to be something like that. OK, this is subject to change, of
course, a lot of things will be subject to change so let's go ahead and open up the Scale
property. I am going to press the letter (s) on the keyboard and then I am going to jump to
the next visible keyframe which is this one and I am going to set the Scale property from 300 down
to
220 so we have something along those lines. OK, let's go ahead and open up all the Contents as you
can see we have two Strokes because we duplicated this layer so I am going to press the Delete on my
keyboard to remove the second Stroke and just keep one stroke, in this case, let's open this up and
I am going to change the color of course so we have two (2) different colors and let's see what
else can we do. Well, let's go ahead and target the Stroke Width as we did with the first
one so I
am going to press the letter (j) to jump to this keyframe and I am going to
set the Stroke Width from 50 pixels down to 15 pixels. Alright so if I scrub the Current Time
Indicator I have something along those lines. OK, what else can I do? OK, circles look good but we
can also have a bit of variety here so instead of a circle I can actually have dots just dots.
And the way we do this, is inside the Dashes so if you hover over the Plus (+) icon here
it says, Add a dash or a gap, in this cas
e, I am going to do both! Click on the first one,
we've got a Dash, click again, you have a Gap. So first of all, you see those ridged ends, this
is under the Line cap. The Line cap controls basically the Path Stroke end so I am going
to click instead of Butt Cap, I am going to go for Round Cap, here it is and then I am going
to set the dash from 10 pixels down to zero (0), here it is, see that? This is what we
have, problem is, there are way too many dots here so I am going to increase the
Gap to perhaps 21, let's see, there we go. It looks good right, but what else can
we do here? Let's see, if I was to move the whole thing, you see, offset this a
little bit less, I can have this circle to appear a little faster there, see that? That's one
thing I can do, another thing is, I can influence the Stroke Width, see that? So let me
just RAM preview this for a second, there we go, let's do this again. So I like the
Gap, I like it when it appears and I like when it dies down, see
that, great! What else can we
do? This is very nice but we can actually animate this circle and we do this from the Offset so I
am going to create the first keyframe, I am going to click on the Stopwatch on the Offset and the
first Offset, let's see, I am going to set this to, let's see, minus twenty-one (-21) because
we want to rotate this clockwise and then go a little further and set this to zero (0).
Let's see, did it work or is the opposite, yeah it's the opposite so I am going to pres
s the
letter (j) and this is going to be zero (0) and the next keyframe will be set to minus twenty-one
(-21). Alright so lets RAM preview, this is exactly what I was going for. Now the
thing is that the animation here needs to extend not beyond here of course so let's
RAM preview this, perfect, see that? I like what I see, now there's a lot of
things you can do here and change the timing, how long this Rotates and so
on so, for now, this is OK, I am going to keep this and just don't forge
t to
save your project, Ctrl+S to Save, Cmd+S to Save. Alright, so we've got those two circles,
let's go ahead and add more elements to our Accent Graphics animation? So what I am
referring to is basically add a straight segment, just a straight line. Now I am going to do this
actually from the very center of this composition and After Effects can help us with that by
clicking on the, Choose Grid and Guide options and then use the Title/Action Safe right off the
bat we can see this cross h
airline right here which means this is the very center point of the
composition. So for that, I am going to go ahead and use the Pen tool to create the first Anchor
point, right here and immediately we get this Shape Layer 1, great! Now let me zoom out a bit
and lay down the second Anchor point around here. Now don't forget to hold down the SHIFT key as you
do, click on that, and here is the straight line. OK, now no need for the Title/Action Safe, let
me zoom in a bit and as you can see we
have again straight segments here so let's go ahead and fix
all those things. I am going to rename this to Line and then I am going to open up its
Contents and target of course the Stroke. OK so for the Stroke the Line Cap is set
to Butt Cap, we will go for Round Cap, here it is now we have round corners, I will definitely change the color to White to
perhaps this color, I can also click on that and bring this a little bit, a bit brighter, there
we go and let's see...let me zoom out here.
Set the Width, the Stroke width to perhaps four
(4) pixels, alright, because it's a bit, a bit too thick, great! Now we need to decide when this line
animates, when does it start and what does it end, and the best way to do this inside After Effects
especially with Shape layers is to add a Trim Paths operator. So in the Add flyout menu, I am
going to go ahead and use the Trim Paths operator. It's a great feature because it allows us to
animate the Start, the End, and the Offset of a path wi
th precise adjustments and that's what
we want to do. So first of all we need to decide when this is going to start taking
place, so let's say, perhaps around here, I am going to add the Start and End, I
am going to have two (2) keyframes here. Now I want the one to have zero
percent (0%) and the other one, I am going to set this to end instead of a
hundred percent (100%). You see, if I scrub this, right, I am going to use fifty percent
(50%) so basically halfway, see that, halfway and the
n the rest of the way, is going
to be, probably the rest of the animation. So this is not set yet, alright, so we need to
play with the timing here, so where is going to be the next one? Let me target this one and press the
letter (u) to make sure that I can see where the keyframes end so I am going to press the letter
(k) to go to these keyframes and set the Start to a hundred percent (100%) and the End to hundred
percent (100%) as well. This is not correct yet so let's see how it works. T
here we go, it's a little
too slow but that's OK, we're going to fix that, the question is, how much do you want the path to
appear and disappear. You see we have the Start and End so when I scrub this to the left, you're
going to get more of a life span, see? So the height kind of increases, see that, so if you like
that you keep it this way, it's entirely up to you but what we need to change is, we need to fix
how the animation, the Interpolation animation, in this case, I am going to cli
ck on the Start,
click on the Graph Editor (Shift+F3) as you can see we have a Linear interpolation so I am
going to marquee select those two (2) keyframes and use the Easy Ease. We're going to do
the same trick again, double click to set the Keyframe Velocity for the Incoming to seventy
percent (70%), double click on this keyframe, set the Outgoing Velocity to also seventy percent
(70%). We will do the same thing on the End property, marquee select those two (2) keyframes,
change Linear i
nterpolation to Easy Ease, double click for the Incoming
Velocity to seventy percent (70%), and for the Outgoing Velocity
back to seventy percent (70%). Again I like to do this numerically
so I have the exact same animation, perfect, see that, that looks great! What
doesn't look great is, when this line appears and disappears, you see I don't want to have this
Line visible here because the animation begins with the circles and not with the Line, that means
we need to make sure that the Lin
e is not visible, perhaps to around here, we'll see...So for that,
we're going to bring up the Opacity property and inside After Effects the keyboard shortcut for the
Opacity is the letter (t) for opacity! OK, so I am going to set the first keyframe here and let me
press the letter (u) again to see all the visible keyframes and then set this to zero (0) and
then scrub the Current Time Indicator just a bit and set this to one hundred percent (100%).
Let's play that, which means you can chang
e when this appears or disappears. So I am going
to actually bring this out a bit, this one-two, perfect, again you can play with those
two (2) depending on your animation, something along those lines, OK? there
we go. So it's up to you how much do you want to, which exact time you
want this to appear or disappear, entirely up to you. So let's say I like this,
we're going to continue this to the next part to show you some even more cool stuff. Don't forget
to save control to save, Ctrl+S t
o Save, Cmd+S to Save. Alright, so one more cool thing to do before
we close this up! So I am going to go back to the Add flyout menu and this time I am going to add a
Zig Zag operator. Once I do that you can see that the straight segment has become a zig-zag, great!
Now one thing that I noticed that we have, this red background color, actually this is the
fill color, so if you open up the Fill here I am going to set the Opacity from one hundred
percent (100%) down to zero percent (0%) and
the Fill color disappears, great, now let's look
inside the Zig Zag parameters. So we got the Size, the Ridges per segment, and the Points, right
now the Points are set to Corner, and actually I would like to have something smoother, all we
have to do is just click on this drop-down menu and set this to Smooth Points. I believe this
looks a little better at least on my end. Alright, so we got the Size and the Ridges per
segment so I am going to scrub the Current Time Indicator to let's say
around here, I am going to
set the first keyframe for the Size and another keyframe for the Ridges per segment. I am going
to set the size to zero (0) and the Ridges per segment also to zero (0), then I am going to scrub
the Current Time Indicator to perhaps around here, at the end of the last keyframe, set the Size
to 4 and the Ridges per segment also to 4. Now of course this is subject to change depending
on your own animation. So I am going to press the Spacebar on my keyboard for the RA
M preview and
see how... I like this animation and I actually like it quite a bit. You can change the size
or the Ridges per segment and have your own settings here depending on what you're after. OK,
so let's say I like this, now the next step is basically us to make a lot of duplicates clockwise
all around but what we need to pay attention to is where all these transformations begin from.
You see the pivot point for the Line here is set to be right here, right at the very bottom and
this
is very important once we go clockwise. So this actually inside After Effect is called
the Anchor point, if yours is not set here you can always go to the Pan Behind tool (Anchor
Point tool) so click on that and set the Anchor Point right there, at the very beginning of
the Line and then all transformations would take place from here. So now we are ready to go
to the next step and make a bunch of duplicates, so Ctrl+D/Cmd+D to make the first duplicate and
then I'm going to press the letter
(r) on the keyboard to bring up the Rotation property and
this is for the general Rotation so I am going to set this since we're going clockwise to 45
degrees. I am going to duplicate this again, Ctrl+D/Cmd+D, press the letter (r) for
the Rotation set this to 90 degrees. I am going to continue this...this
is going to be set to 135 degrees, the next one will be set to 180 degrees,
the next one will be set to 225 degrees, the next one will be set to, we had 225 degrees before, to 270 degrees
on this one, and I believe we have more one to go and that will be set to 315 degrees. So let's
RAM preview all of this line, press the Spacebar, there you go, I really like what I see. Again
there's a lot you can do, you can Offset this in time, there are so many things you can change and
play around with. So I like what I see with the animation, now this one last thing I would like
to mention is the whole animation ends around here which means the rest is empty so you don't
want to have
the animation dragging on and on...Basically what we need to do is we need
to set the End of the Work Area around here and the keyboard shortcut is the letter (n). Now we can do is just right click and Trim
Comp to Work Area so if we RAM preview this then we only see this looping on and on,
OK, this is exactly what we're going for. So there it is folks, an example of Accent
Graphics animation using simple Shapes circles, Trim Paths, Zig Zag, Rotations, and so on
something that you can use
for your own projects movies, or what have you. Thank you everyone for
visiting my channel and watching the inspiring lectures and tutorials, do not forget to subscribe
and share the knowledge! Elias Sarantopoulos.
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