Animated Environments

Motion Graphics

In the ever evolving world of combining computing with visual entertainment (games/movies/TV) motion graphics has come to represent the incorporation of digital footage or animation (which creates the illusion of motion or rotation), with audio for use in multimedia projects. Simply put, we can combine real and rendered footage along with sound - manipulate it to give the illusion of motion and enhance a production.

Assignment #9 - Motion Graphics Tutorial

You will be making the following motion graphics composition in After Effects and in Premiere Pro. To do so you'll need to grab these resources (click on each and download to a common folder called Motion Graphics on the D drive):

After Effects

Step 1 - CREATION OF THE COMPOSITION

First thing you will do is open a brand-new after effects NEW COMPOSITION

Use the settings to the left

SAVE IT TO THE LOCAL DISK DRIVE (LIKELY D:)

Some background. After Effects has 4 major areas in the default workspace:

The Project Assets and Effects Control area (1)
The Composition Control and Timeline - think layers from photoshop/Premiere (2)
The preview area (3)
The Effects search area (4)

Step 2 - IMPORTING FILES

Bring in the Spartan Graphic, Spartan Type and energetic music into the project assets area (you can drag them in, or right click in empty space and import>file and choose the 3 files)

Step 3 - BRINGING AUDIO TO THE TIMELINE

Drag the music file down into the composition area at the bottom like you would an audio track in Premiere. You'll see it load in the timeline exactly like a clip in Premiere would do.

Double click this new music track in the timeline and you'll get an editing window appear where you used to have the composition preview (center of the screen).

At the bottom of this window where you see a timecode click and you'll get a "go to time" popup appear. Type in 30s as you see it here. Click OK

Mark the music out at this point. To do so click on the SET OUT POINT (it's the little curly bracket next to the time at the bottom.

Go ahead and return to our competition by clicking on the COMPOSITION COMP 1 tab in the preview pane.

Step 4 - ADDING A SOLID

Right click down in your composition area and create a dark grey solid. I made a solid that has the following hex colour (click on the box at the bottom of the solid settings panel that pops up):

#2D2D2D
Make sure the size of the solid is 1280x720px (it should be by default).

Step 5 - ADDING THE GRADIENT RAMP

This is a pretty boring grey colour. Let's make it more interesting. To do so we're going to add a radial gradient to it. To do so search GRADIENT RAMP under the effects library area at right. Drag the Gradient Ramp selection to the solid that is in your timeline (or onto the preview window - either will apply the gradient ramp to the solid).

You will get a black to white gradient apply to the screen (like below). We're going to change that in the next step.

Step 6 - ADJUSTING THE GRADIENT RAMP

Look at the screen capture at right:

I can click on EFFECTS CONTROL in zone 1 (top left section of the screen) and control my Gradient Ramp effect there
I can also use the little arrows in the Composition control/timeline area to open first

DARK GREY SOLID>EFFECTS>GRADIENT RAMP

Either area affects the gradient ramp - it's a matter of convenience which one you choose.

We're going to change the RAMP SHAPE to RADIAL

We'll use an start-color of white and an end color of the grey we used earlier (#2D2D2D)

With the timeline activated at the bottom (there should be a blue box around it when you click anywhere in the bottom pane) hit the spacebar and preview our fantastic piece of music and our grey radial gradient. Ohhh. Ahhhh. Let's lock both the music layer and the solid grey layer by clicking the little lock icon next to each name.

Step 7 - BRINGING ASSETS TO THE TIMELINE

We're now going to bring in both the Spartan head and the Spartan text Illustrator files. Drag them from the Project assets area (Area 1) to the timeline at the bottom. You'll see there are now two new layers in our Timeline. Make sure the Spartans Helmet layer is ABOVE the Spartans Text layer.

Step 8 - STAGGERING ENTRY

Well, we have some graphics in the center of our screen and they're overlapping. Not cool. Now we'll stagger the graphics in so they appear at different times. To do so we will zoom in on the timeline. There are a number of ways of doing this. We can a) click on the slider that looks like little mountains at the bottom of the timeline or, b) grab the time navigator end (blue half-circle) above the timeline or c) ALT+MMB roll or d) hit the equal sign to zoom in (the - sign next to it zooms out). Notice that when we're zoomed out we get time measured in seconds, but as we zoom in enough time is measured in frames.

We are now going to move the starting time of the Spartan Helmet over to 20f (20th frame - almost 1 second into the animation). To do so, just like in Premiere, grab the left side of the clip and drag it to the right until it gets to 20f.

Now we're going to do the same thing with the Spartans Text layer except we will push that out to the 3rd second and 15th frame (you'll see 3:00 15f).

Hit spacebar to preview the animation again. You'll go almost 1s before seeing the helmet appear, then about 3.5s and see the text appear. However the text is in the wrong spot still isn't it. And frankly the helmet's a bit too low for what we want to do.

Step 9 - ADJUSTING HELMET X/Y

We're going to be adjusting position of assets on the stage. Ensure the CTI (the "playhead") is over the time where the spartan helmet exists (i.e. it has to be sometime after 20f). Use the little menu triangles to do SpartanHelmet>Transform then choose the position X/Y coordinates. Ensure that the coordinates are x=640 y=276. Notice you can't see any transform controls in the Effects Control area of the screen (left side)? It's because Transform isn't considered to be an effect. Once we add ANY effect we'll see the controls there (like when we added the radial gradient to the solid). Lock the Helmet layer.

We're now going to move the CTI to around second 4. Click on the TEXT layer and make the position of the text X=640 Y= 590. Lock this layer.

The objects should look like the bottom right. Lock both layers.

Step 10 - KEYFRAMING X/Y

Now for the magic. So far we just have one graphic appearing at 20f into the composition, and another at 3s15f in. We want them to be dynamic. Move the CTI to exactly the 1:00s mark. On the Helmet layer (unlock only it) change the XY position to be 640, 988. That tells the graphic to go off screen below the stage. Click on the little stopwatch next to the word Position. That adds a keyframe and the word position

Move the CTI to time 1s14f. Make the X/Y coordinates 640,158 (notice how it automatically makes a little blue keyframe dot on the timeline for you?)

Move the CTI to time 1s28f. Make the X/Y coordinates 640,276 (or original data points).

Boooooring. Our helmet slides past the resting spot, then comes back again to our final X/Y position, but it's not very energetic.

Step 11 - EASES

Adding pizazz. Click on the little graph icon at the top right of the composition control area. It will open a graph showing the speed at which the assets move (or frankly do ANYTHING) on the screen. We can have the object speed up and slow down by manipulating this graph.

We're going to change our graph to a speed graph. (picture at right on top)

Next we're going to add in an EASY EASE. To do so simply draw a box around the points and click on the EASY EASE icon (or hit F9) - as seen to the right. This turns a very static movement into a series of more graceful motions.

However, it's a little TOO graceful. I'm going to adjust the bezier handles (the little yellow handles) on the control points to sharpen up the movements

When you're done it should look something like the image below. Notice the speed has gone from 2500px/second (in the original ease) to nearly 4000 pixels per second by moving those bezier handles.

Step 12 - 3D rotation

More pizazz. We're now going to add some basic 3D rotation to our helmet icon. To do so search up the BASIC 3D effect. We'll choose the OBSOLETE BASIC 3D preset and drag it onto the helmet layer.

Move the CTI to 2s13f. Make sure the Swivel for the basic 3D is set to 0x00degrees. Click on the stopwatch to create a first keyframe.

Move the CTI to 3s11f. Ensure the Swivel for the basic 3D is set to 2x00 degrees.

Again, EASY EASE that tween by selecting the 2 keyframes in the timeline and hitting F9

Step 13 - PULSE

We're going to introduce a pulse now - that will bring about a blizzard (step after this). Search for the effect CC RIPPLE PULSE. Drag it onto the Helmet.

Open the controls for the Ripple Pulse and change the CENTER to X/Y = 290, 366

Change the CTI to 4s18f and make the PULSE LEVEL at this time to 100 (click on the stopwatch since it's 100 already) and AMPLITUDE to 100 (again, click on the stopwatch).

Change the CTI 4s22f. Change the PULSE LEVEL to 1000 and keep the AMPLITUDE at 100.

Drag a box around those keyframes and hit F9 for EASY EASE. Lock the HELMET LAYER.

Step 14 - RAYTRACE

The way the SPARTAN TEXT comes in is a bit boring. Let's go ahead and change that now. Rather than have an XY transform sliding it in, lets use rays from a LIGHT BURST EFFECT. Unlock the TEXT layer and search up CC LightBurst 2.5. Drag it onto the TEXT layer.

Change the CTI to 3s15f

Change the CENTER to 290, 100

Click on RAY LENGTH and change it to 250. Click on the stopwatch to force the first keyframe.

Change the CTI to 4s21f and make the RAY LENGTH 0.

EASY EASE the effect.

This effect will DRAMATICALLY slow down the machine. Hit SPACEBAR and be patient while it renders. It looks pretty cool now though right? Great, now TURN OFF the Light Burst effect by clicking on the little FX button next to the word CC LIGHT BURST in the Composition area. We'll turn it all back on towards the end when we want to tweak some of the final effects.

LOCK the TEXT layer.

Step 15 - MAKING PARTICLES

Create another Solid. Use the default settings (it should be dark grey like it was before). Call it SWIRLING SNOW STUFF. Drag the starting time of this solid to 4s22f

Look up CC PARTICLE SYSTEMS II and drag it onto this new grey solid layer.

Set the CTI to 4s21f. Open the PARTICLE SYSTEMS options and set the:

BIRTH RATE to 17,
LONGEVITY to 2.3
PRODUCER
- POSITION to 640,360
- RADIUS X/Y to 90
PHYSICS
- ANIMATION to TWIRL (click on stopwatch to insert keyframe)
- VELOCITY to 2.3 (click on stopwatch to insert keyframe)
- INHERIT VELOCITY to 29 (click on stopwatch to insert keyframe)
- GRAVITY to 1 (click on stopwatch to insert keyframe)
- RESISTANCE to 13
- DIRECTION to 2x321deg.

PARTICLE
- TYPE to Faded Sphere
- DEATH SIZE to 0.6
- OPACITY MAP to CONSTANT
- BIRTH COLOUR to WHITE and DEATH COLOUR to #2d2d2d

Finally, in TRANFORM OPTIONS make the opacity of this layer 0 and click on the stopwatch to force a keyframe. We wan this effect to key in over a few frames.

Set the CTI to 4s26f and make the OPACITY 100%.

Let's kill off this effect. Move the CTI to 8s22f and set the:

VELOCITY to 0
INHERIT VELOCITY to 10
GRAVITY to 5
RESISTANCE to 35

Also go to the TRANSORM section and click on the keyframe icon between the two little arrows on the far left. This will insert a keyframe ensuring the animation effect is still 100%

Set the CTI to 9s21f and set the:

INHERIT VELOCITY to 0

and the TRANSFORM>OPACITY to 0

LOCK THIS LAYER

Preview the animation, then turn off visibility for it to speed up on the last few steps.

Step 16 - LIGHT SWEEP

We're on to the last few touches. We're going to add CC LIGHT SWEEP to the TEXT LAYER so unlock that layer.

At CTI 9s22f set the:

CENTER to -180,200 (Keyframe this)
Shape to SMOOTH
COLOUR to #ABA173
Under COMPOSITING OPTIONS>Effect Opacity to 0 (Keyframe this)

At CTI 10s0f set the:

Under COMPOSITING OPTIONS>Effect Opacity to 100

At CTI 10s26f set the:

CENTER TO 200,12

At CTI 12s26f set the:

CENTER to 545,114

At CTI 14s21f set the:

CENTER to 240,284

Preview the composition with SPACEBAR. Once you've seen what it looks like, turn off the effect by clicking the FX button at the left.

Step 17 - I BROUGHT YOU INTO THIS WORLD AND I CAN TAKE YOU OUT

We're going to remove our HELMET and TEXT layer both with light burst. This is graphics processor intense so turn off the visibility of the SWIRLING PARTICLES layer and the helmet layer to start.

PART A)

Make sure the TEXT LAYER is visible (still) and that you've turned off the FX button next to LIGHT SWEEP. Expand the LIGHT BURST FX that already is on this text layer. It bursts in, we're going to make it burst back out.

Set the CTI to 14s6f and click on keyframe icon at the far left of the RAY LENGTH option. This adds another keyframe of 0 RAY LENGTH.

Set the CTI to 16s16f and set the ray length to 215.

PART B)

LOCK the TEXT layer and UNLOCK the HELMET layer. Turn off the FX for BASIC 3D, and RIPPLE PULSE.

Set the CTI to 15s8f and ADD in the LIGHT BURST effect to the HELMET layer. Set CENTER to 265,270 and set the RAY LENGTH to 0 (and keyframe it in).

Set the CTI to 18s4f and set RAY LENGTH to 215

Step 18 - Render Out

We're done. Go into each layer, make sure the FX buttons are all on, and the visibility of each layer is on.

Grab the WORK AREA END handle and drag it to the 20s mark.

Hit spacebar and walk away for a couple minutes. When you get back the entire top bar in the TIMELINE should be green. Hit spacebar and see your creation in motion.

We're going to export the composition now.

First File>Export>Add to Render Queue

Change the RENDER SETTINGS to BEST SETTINGS. Change the OUTPUT MODULE to HIGH QUALITY and change the name (click on it) to Spartan Tutorial. Make sure it's on the D drive.

This could take 5-10 minutes to do. Don't worry about your computer "Freezing". It will be slow. DO NOT WORK ON YOUR COMPUTER at this point in time. Let it churn away.

When its done open PREMIERE IMPORT this footage and we're going to put some finishing touches on it.

LAST STEP - Sorta-kinda

Bring in the Spartan Tutorial video into the Assets space in Premiere. Drag it on to the Timeline.
Bring in the Spartans Logo Helmet Only illustrator file.
Bring in the TV Static Stock footage.

Step One:

The end is too slow. We're going to unlink the audio from the video and cut the video at timecode 12:20. Right click on the remaining chunk of video and choose SPEED/DURATION and change it to 500%

Step Two:

Now put the TV-Static-Stock footage after this in the sequence. (the screen capture at right is from a later step, you don't have the SpartanTV and TGJ4M_SC_logo clips in the timeline yet at this point).

Trimming back the Static Stock clip

The TV Static Stock clip is too long. We're going to trim it back to around the 17s mark (picture at left)

Step Three:

NOW I'm going to put on the TGJ4M_SC_logo spartan helmet in video track 2. Have it start a bit before the track 1cut between the AfterEffects composition and the TV Static Stock . It'll look something like this. I have my Helmet Layer appear at time 12;13.

Have the XY position of the Helmet Layer be 650, 310 (under the Video Effects section top/left).

Keyframe in this Helmet layer to be 0 opacity at first (clisk on the stopwatch after you set it to be 0), then by the time you get to timecode 13;04, have the opacity be 100%.

Step Four:

Now we're going to search for an effect called TrackMatte Key. Drag it on top of your TV STATIC STOCK clip. We're going to set the Matte to VIDEO 2.

Notice the HELMET jumps to be an enormous size. We're going to SCALE the helmet back to 70%

Last Step:

I'm going to ensure that all of the visuals end around timecode 17;05

I added in an Audio Exponential Fade and made sure that it was done by around the 18s mark.

Export the overall project as (Spartan Final Render)

Step Five:

Go to timecode 13;18 and use the Text Tool and write in Spartan TV

I've positioned mine at XY 640,360 It should look something like this.

To Submit:

The After Effects exported video file (Spartan Tutorial.avi)
The Premiere exported video file (Spartan Final Render). Choose H264

Assignment #10 - After Effects Tutorials

You are to choose THREE After Effects Tutorials that must be OK'd by me before you begin (I don't want to have you tackle something insanely complex, nor choose something too simple).

To submit:

In google classroom please submit the URL for the 3 tutorials.
Export your final projects as an AVI draft quality. Call them AE tutorial #1, #2 and #3 respectively please.

Assignment #11 - Fusion of video footage and motion graphics

You are to shoot some video footage of a weather report in front of the green screen. You will take this footage, bring it into Premiere and apply green screen keying to it. Then you are going to bring that into AE and insert relevant weather details (e.g. rain falling, text, various other graphics).

This will be a challenge as there are MANY different elements to this broadcast in the video at left. To be clear YOU ARE NOT TRYING TO REPLICATE THIS EXACTLY. That would be way beyond the scope of what you should be able to to. However, use this as inspiration to make your weather forecast dynamic.

You are targeting 30s of finished weather report.

Assignment #14 - After Effects Final Project [for those interested those focusing on motion graphics instead of graphic design]

You are to create either an intro or an outro for a blockbuster film/tv. The intro or outro must contain the basic information that exists in the cinematic film/tv (e.g. director/cast etc...). You must use CC music and and CC stock imagery/film is a must. You may NOT take the actual film/tv soundtrack or any of its copyrighted content. When finished submit:

a) all assets you used (music, sound effects, pictures, stock video)

b) export the project as an H264 video

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