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

Creating an info chart

Now, we will create an animated bar chart with text and path line animation, and we will learn how to easily control the path vertex points using the Null object in After Effects. Follow these steps to implement this:

  1. First, create a new composition. This new composition will have the same settings we used previously, in the Creating shape layers section, which are Full HD, a frame rate of 25, and a duration of 10 seconds. Change the composition name to info chart and click OK.
  2. Go to the Tools panel and select the Rectangle tool. Make sure the Fill color is set to white, and change Stroke to None. Then, make sure that Bezier Path is deselected as you do not need it for this shape.
Figure 4.30: Rectangle tool settings

Figure 4.30: Rectangle tool settings

  1. Create a bar that you can click and drag to create a rectangular bar from top to bottom. Name the shape layer Bar.
Figure 4.31: Rectangular bar

Figure 4.31: Rectangular bar

What we intend to...