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Create Stars in After Effects

Lesson 56 from: Adobe After Effects Fundamentals

Philip Ebiner

Create Stars in After Effects

Lesson 56 from: Adobe After Effects Fundamentals

Philip Ebiner

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Lesson Info

56. Create Stars in After Effects

Lessons

Class Trailer

Chapter 1: Introduction

1

Class Updates & My Favorite CC 2020 Updates

06:22

Chapter 2: After Effects Basics

2

Understand the After Effects Workspace

05:39
3

Starting a New Composition

08:15
4

CC 2018 Update - Starting a New Composition from Footage

01:55
5

Adding Media to Your Project and the Timeline

05:08
6

Using the Basic After Effects Tools

10:20
7

Create a Perfect Circle, Alignment, and Shape Colors

03:04
8

Working in the Timeline

10:59
9

Layer Properties

08:57
10

Quiz: After Effects Basics

Chapter 3: Animating with Keyframes

11

Animating in After Effects

07:35
12

Position, Scale, and Rotation Animations

05:17
13

Tips to Make Your Animations Look More Nautral

04:21
14

Using the Graph Editor

05:32
15

Challenge - Bouncing Ball

01:01
16

Solution - Bouncing Ball

13:00
17

Quiz: Animating with Keyframes

Chapter 4: Shapes and Solid Layers

18

Working with Solid Layers and the Ken Burns Effects

07:07
19

Working with Shape Layers, Strokes, and Paths

06:24
20

Adding Layer Styles like Drop Shadow, Bevel, and Gradients

03:44
21

Shape Effects - Trim Path Animations, Wiggle, and Zig Zag

05:54
22

Quiz: Shapes and Solid Layers

Chapter 5: Important After Effects Skills

23

Track Matte Animations - Make Layers Appear and Disappear

08:37
24

Using Pre-Compositions to Group Layers

05:34
25

Easily Reverse Complicated Animations

02:14
26

Playing with Time

05:54
27

Blend Modes

06:05
28

Stabilize Shaky Footage

04:04
29

CC 2018 Update - Previewing and Favoriting Fonts

00:46
30

CC 2019 Update - Responsive Design Time

03:36
31

CC 2019 Content Aware Fill

03:55
32

CC 2019 Create Motion Graphic Templates

08:37
33

Quiz: Important After Effects Skills

Chapter 6: Motion Graphics Projects

34

Intro to Motion Graphics Projects

00:53
35

Clean Lower Third

09:22
36

Logo Reveal Animation Bumper

13:25
37

Colorful Transition

16:59
38

Text with Mask Path Animation

10:05
39

Text Bubble Animation

13:39
40

Weather App 1

16:41
41

Weather App 2

08:21
42

Weather App 3

06:59
43

Quiz: Motion Graphics Projects

Chapter 7: Flat Animation Challenge

44

Flat Animation Challenge

02:47
45

Phil Designs his Flat Animation Scene

01:23
46

Animating Fireworks with the Repeater Effect

15:02

Chapter 8: Flat Animation Challenge

47

Removing Green Screen Background

06:46
48

Adding a Background that Matches the Foreground

07:55
49

Adding Motion to a Still Image with the Puppet Tool

06:26
50

Adding Movement with the Ripple Effect

06:07
51

Quiz: Flat Animation Challenge

Chapter 9: Green Screen (Chromakeying)

52

Intro to 3D

10:04
53

Swinging 3D Text Animation

12:11
54

Build Out Your 3D Composition

05:47
55

Animating Our 3D Scene

07:38
56

Create Stars in After Effects

05:11
57

Quiz: Green Screen (Chromakeying)

Chapter 10: 3D Animations and the Camera Tool

58

Using the Rotoscope Tool

06:55
59

Cleaning Up Your Edges

07:21
60

Finishing Our Rotobrush Animation

07:33
61

Quiz: 3D Animations and the Camera Tool

Chapter 11: Rotoscoping

62

Easy Screen Replacement with Masks

09:56
63

Replacing a Screen Version 2

13:49
64

Screen Replacement with Mocha

07:13
65

CC 2019 Update - Native Mocha AE Plugin

05:08
66

Quiz: Rotoscoping

Chapter 12: Screen Replacements

67

Using the Puppet Pin Tool

04:33
68

Animating Your Puppet Pins

03:04
69

Animated Blinking Eyes

08:21
70

Adding Perspective with Animated Clouds

07:10
71

CC 2018 Update - Advanced Puppet Pin Tool

02:08
72

Quiz: Screen Replacements

Chapter 13: Puppet Tool Animations

73

Applying Text Animation Presets

05:59
74

Create a Page Turn Effect with CC Page Turn

10:05
75

Radial and Linear Wipes

03:20
76

Color Correction in After Effects

03:33
77

CC 2019 Update - Selective Color Adjustments

03:25
78

Quiz: Puppet Tool Animations

Chapter 14: Motion Tracking

79

Motion Tracking Basics

09:51
80

Tracking Text and Visual Effects to Video Clip

06:21
81

Tracking Rotation and Scale

11:33
82

Adding Details to Our Text

04:04
83

Quiz: Motion Tracking

Chapter 15: Character Animations

84

Intro to Character Animations

01:31
85

Design Your Character

14:32
86

Rigging Your Character

02:50
87

Animating Our Character

09:55
88

Adding the Animated Background

09:12
89

Adding Details to Character Movement

06:46
90

Adding the Paper Cut Out Look

05:29
91

Quiz: Character Animations

Chapter 16: Exporting from After Effects

92

Exporting an H264 File from After Effects

07:03
93

Exporting from After Effects with a Transparent Background

04:03
94

Exporting from After Effects through Adobe Media Encoder

04:40
95

CC 2018 Update - Exporting an Animated GIF from Adobe Media Encoder

02:14
96

Create an Animated GIF from After Effects CC 2017

07:03

Chapter 17: After Effects Workflow & Tips

97

Audio Tips for After Effects

02:19
98

Working with Premiere Pro

05:54
99

Quiz: After Effects Workflow & Tips

Chapter 18: Expressions

100

Expressions Basics

07:24
101

Animate a Flickering Light with Expressions

17:35
102

Quiz: Expressions

Chapter 19: Conclusion

103

Conclusion

00:44

Final Quiz

104

Final Quiz

Lesson Info

Create Stars in After Effects

we have our spacing but it still looks a little bare and that's because we don't have any stars. Of course we need some stars to create stars. We're going to use a solid layer and an effect. So go create layer new solid and make it white. And I don't know if you remember this but a while ago when we were learning about solids, I talked about using them with effects and this is an example. Find the Sisi star burst effect in your effects and presets and drag it onto your white solid automatically the solid turns into this sort of star like field with all these little circles. But if you play through it you can see that the stars are actually moving. So if I turn off all these other layers, play through this. You know this is a cool effect in itself but I actually don't want our stars to be moving because we already have a camera move that will make it look like we're moving in space. So there are some settings that we want to play around with one is the speed. So I'm going to set the spe...

ed to zero. So now these dots just stay still the next. I want them to be smaller. So with the size I'm just gonna make them really small, Something like 20, it doesn't even let you go below 20 but 20 is perfect. Next I'm going to put this behind all of our other layers. Now this is cool but if I play through this it doesn't necessarily look that good because the stars would probably be moving a bit while we're zooming out from the sun. So what we can do is just a quick scale animation. So bring up the scale for this solid At the end we will set it to 100%. And then at the beginning we'll make it like 120 or so. And by doing that it looks like it's shrinking or it looks like you're sort of zooming out. There's a different way. We could have done this by putting it in three D. Space which will show you in just a second. But just that simple scale animation I think looks fine. So let's actually delete that key frame that both of those key frames and turn on three D. For this layer, you'll notice when I do that it disappears and that's because it won't be seen until at the very end when we see the Earth because it's on the same sort of plain as the Earth have the same point in Z. Space. So if we bring up our position for the Earth and for our white solid which I'll rename stars. Well see we're at zero Z. Space, we want our stars to be behind the sun. So if I go forward or even if I stay at the end and I drag this down or if I type in behind the sun which is what 20,000. So let's just put it at 21,000. So it's behind the sun but now we don't see it. If we go to the start of the composition we see it but at the end it's so small it's only stars in this little rectangle. So let's bring up the scale, press s to bring up scale, drag it up all the way until it's filling the complete frame at the end of our scene. So now you have your stars and you can see them from the beginning to the end of the composition. Both ways looked pretty good. I actually liked the first way that I added the subtle motion with the scale animation just because the stars are a lot further back than the sun and I'd want them to look like it's animating a little bit different. Here are both options. Here is the one with the original scale animation. I like the subtlety of it. There's not too much motion even when we're zoomed in on the sun we know those other stars are really, really far away and so they should be moving more slowly compared to the other option which we did with the three D. Layer. There's no right or wrong and you can kind of see which way you like better. But this is also a good example of how you can use both three D layers and non three D layers in a single composition. And just to clarify. So if I have the other stars, the non three D. Stars, The 3D layer, this layer doesn't get affected by the camera motion at all. What's being animated is the scale with key frames, but none of the other camera animations with the null object or anything will affect what this layer looks like. Only layers that are enabled for three D are affected by that. Alright. I hope you liked this section of the course about three D animations. Now you can use these techniques and all of your other motion graphics and projects. We will be diving into using lights and building out even more advanced 3D compositions in a future lesson. But for now, you know the basics and we're going to move on to some other effects that are important and just kind of understanding how you can work with more effects from the effects and presets tab. Thanks for watching and have a great day.

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Practice Files

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