Book Image

Creative Motion Mastery with Adobe After Effects

By : Vishu Aggarwal
Book Image

Creative Motion Mastery with Adobe After Effects

By: Vishu Aggarwal

Overview of this book

Visual effects and motion graphics are everywhere, shaping the film, TV, games, websites, and application landscape. Navigating a field this complex and ever-expanding demands more than mere familiarity with tools; you need to stand out to get ahead. Creative Motion Mastery with Adobe After Effects is the definitive guide that not only equips you with the essential skills to distinguish yourself, but also takes you through real projects that you can add to your portfolio. Guided by a hands-on learning approach, you'll master the UI, workflow, and diverse projects such as text animation, shape layers, and rotoscoping. With this newfound knowledge, you’ll take your graphic design and post-production skills to the next level using chroma keying, particle simulations, and 2D and 3D tracking. You’ll progress faster than someone taking a formal course in Adobe After Effects! And it’s not all about creating; you’ll import graphics from Illustrator and Photoshop and apply post-production effects to give them a new life. Finally, you’ll discover how seamlessly you can export and manage your projects, ensuring end-to-end coverage of all you need. By the end of the book, you’ll have a thorough understanding of Adobe After Effects, equipped with the skills and practice you need to propel your career in graphic design.
Table of Contents (18 chapters)
1
Part 1: Working with Motion Graphics
8
Part 2: Post-Production and Visual Effects
13
Part 3: 2D and 3D Tracking, and Rendering

Animating shape and text layers

For animation, we will start with text animation and shape animation. But before we animate the shape layers, we need to make sure that the anchor points are adjusted. To do that, go to the funnel layers and change the anchor point position to the top center edge of each layer using the Pan Behind tool.

For the handle, you can keep it aligned on the right-hand side of the funnel.

Figure 4.24: Funnel layer anchor points adjusted using the Pan Behind tool

Figure 4.24: Funnel layer anchor points adjusted using the Pan Behind tool

Now that we have adjusted the anchor points of the shape layer, we can start with the animation of the shape layers.

Animating shape layers

Let’s now animate the shape layers that we made in the Start screen composition:

  1. We will start with the top part of the funnel. Select the Funnel Top layer and go to Transform | Scale. You can also use the S shortcut to reveal the Scale property.
  2. Now, take the playhead to 00 seconds. Go to the Scale property...