Step by step description of process
In class exercise
- Where do these images come from?
- I shot/scanned them – you are welcome to use them, no rights reserved.
- Using the materials provided in the classfolders (wingRF600.psd, grnwater.jpg) or others of your own creation, make an animation of wings flapping and moving in unison along a path, with an appropriate BG.
- This should contain a nested composition (flapping wings).
- What you will be learning:
- Mirroring a graphic by scaling in the negative
- Changing the anchor point of a graphic
- Changing the timing of an animation
- Cutting and pasting keyframes
- Using opacity
- Changing velocity with the graphical timeline editor
Create File and Position wings and BG
- 0. Open AE and create new composition 720x480, 7 sec. long
- 1. Import the file: wingRF600.psd from classfolders/TBC
- 2. place it in the timeline, wing in layer 1
- 3. scale the wing to 45 in the x (leave the constraint in place, this should make the y 42.9)
- 4. Rotate +100 degrees
- 5. move anchor point to shoulder of wing (59,44)
- 6. Position in center L of screen (294, 137)
- 7. change opacity to 70%
- 8. click on wing name in timeline, copy, unhighlight, paste
- 9. in Scale of copy, unlink x&y and make x negative (this will reverse it – horiz. Mirror)
- 10. rotate appropriately (+262)
- 11. change x position to separate wings a bit
make wings flap
- 12. click on stopwatch to create keyframes, move timeline pointer a few frames, and YScale wing from 40 something to 10
- 13. move a few more frames, copy keyframe one and paste into new position
- 14. copy folded and unfolded positions and paste along timeline to create back and forth motion
- 15. To change timing on flaps, highlight all keyframes and option/drag (Mac)
Create a new composition (it should by default have the same properties as the previous one unless you change them)
- 16. import grnwater.jpg and place in timeline, adjust size to size of comp window
- 17. drag Comp 1 into timeline in top layer position
- 18. create keyframes in Position to make wings move across screen, using at least 3 keyframes to make a curved path
- 19. move position of central keyframe(s) and see what happens to timing
- 20. Create rotate keyframes to make wings realistically align to path
- 21. Click on graph at upper R of name section of timeline panel to display graphic view of animation paths
- 22. right click on keyframe and choose keyframe interpolation to display modification panel. Try different options for spatial and temporal keyframe types.
- Lengthen and shorten and reposition handles for different results to timing and shape of path.
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