For week 2 of Making of Integrated Practice, we were doing work on one of my favorite subjects After effects. I felt excited this was a chance for me to learn new things to develop my understanding of motion comic animation. Over the next few weeks we would be looking at different tools and features and for today it was a simple refresher course of animating in after effects with a ball bounce and pendulum exercise.
I knew this was to help us get back into the swing of after effects and so we started with the ball bounce exercise. In doing this exercise I learned something new, such as how we can change the time code to show us frames instead of seconds by right clicking on the time code it changed the appearance of the time line. In doing the exercises we learned about the anchor points in a shape that we create in the solid shape option. By clicking a tool named Pan behind which is an alternative to the anchor point tool in the transform options and that by holding the shift key it could snap the point to anywhere on the shape however for this instance it was the centre of the circle.
Learning from first year we could move the shape with the positions option but James the IT technician showed us a way of separating the dimension settings by right clicking on the position transform option and select separate dimensions. This was needed for what came next we performed some simple bounces using the Y axis and as a short cut James suggested the use of copying and pasting the same movements. This I felt would save the trouble of performing the same action again and again and again.
To show movement in the ball we were taught to place key frames with the X position tool at the start
and end of our animation this showed the movement in the bounces. James then explained how much like Maya, this program had a graph editor to adjust the speed or positioning of the animated object. I was rather surprised but this being animation software it was to be expected. Using the editor much like we would in Maya we used a tool which converted the keyframes to an auto beizer which we used to adjust the bounces and the impact on the ground.
I found this editor more simple to use than the one in Maya as I now had a clear idea and guide to the shape of the bounce and the impact. This same element applied to learning the pendulum but copying and pasting the movements was rather tricky and I had to place in key frames to show it slowing down to a halt. The piviot point however for the pendulum was in the top of the pendulum.
We moved to perform an exercise using a leg. The point of this was to show how we could create puppets using After effects in pieces. We accomplished this using the pen tool that uses pivots to create the shapes much like Adobe Illustrator/Photoshop. Learning from past experience in the multiplane exercise the layers needed to be named to avoid any confusion when doing an animation. An area of particular interest to me was pairing the different parts of the leg together. This I felt was something from the arm and leg movements of a motion comic/ animatic.
The way this was accomplished was through the layers box, and we could click and drag on the swirl symbol or the drop down option to connect that particular area of the leg such as connecting the lowe leg to the upper thigh or connecting the foot to the lower leg. I found this rather useful and may consider experimenting with this more in my own study time.
This was also used to pair words to the ball animation so that it would move at the same time which could be useful for logos on vans in motion comics.
Looking back on this workshop I would think I have learned a lot from this and has provided answers to questions that I had on the subject of motion comic animation. Learning from this I may consider applying the pairing separate limbs idea to my comics in preparation for use in my own work and would thereby be an improvement over past pieces.
In terms of my animations it has given me some perspective on how else I may animate exercises for other modules and may even use it for a walk cycle. I could see the sense of these exercises getting us more aquainted with After effects and learning new tricks to help us in our work in creative collaboration, and as a possible method for the animation medium. In conclusion todays lesson was very informative and interesting and I looked forward to conducting future animations using what I have learned and look into doing more animations in my own time using my own animations.
In future I shall ask more questions to the tutor about the potential this may have for animation styles that I may wish to pursue for my own use.
To show movement in the ball we were taught to place key frames with the X position tool at the start
We moved to perform an exercise using a leg. The point of this was to show how we could create puppets using After effects in pieces. We accomplished this using the pen tool that uses pivots to create the shapes much like Adobe Illustrator/Photoshop. Learning from past experience in the multiplane exercise the layers needed to be named to avoid any confusion when doing an animation. An area of particular interest to me was pairing the different parts of the leg together. This I felt was something from the arm and leg movements of a motion comic/ animatic.
The way this was accomplished was through the layers box, and we could click and drag on the swirl symbol or the drop down option to connect that particular area of the leg such as connecting the lowe leg to the upper thigh or connecting the foot to the lower leg. I found this rather useful and may consider experimenting with this more in my own study time.
Looking back on this workshop I would think I have learned a lot from this and has provided answers to questions that I had on the subject of motion comic animation. Learning from this I may consider applying the pairing separate limbs idea to my comics in preparation for use in my own work and would thereby be an improvement over past pieces.
In terms of my animations it has given me some perspective on how else I may animate exercises for other modules and may even use it for a walk cycle. I could see the sense of these exercises getting us more aquainted with After effects and learning new tricks to help us in our work in creative collaboration, and as a possible method for the animation medium. In conclusion todays lesson was very informative and interesting and I looked forward to conducting future animations using what I have learned and look into doing more animations in my own time using my own animations.
In future I shall ask more questions to the tutor about the potential this may have for animation styles that I may wish to pursue for my own use.
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