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Animating Our Character

Lesson 87 from: Adobe After Effects Fundamentals

Philip Ebiner

Animating Our Character

Lesson 87 from: Adobe After Effects Fundamentals

Philip Ebiner

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Lesson Info

87. Animating Our Character

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

Animating Our Character

now let's animate. So what I like to do when I create my character is to duplicate this composition. Just so I have another draft of it. If I ever want to go back, refresh, restart, I can do that. So I'm going to take the hero to layer, duplicate it and I'll just name this one hero to draft. Okay. And I'll just put that in the compositions folder if you want to look at it too. Okay, so for a hero to No, we still have our hero too. I'm actually just going to close out all of these other tabs and I'm closing those out by pressing command. W that's the shortcut for that let's animate. So in our other one actually let me open that back up, we animated the legs. So he sort of kneels down, he gets ready with his arms and then he springs up and there's also a little subtle like deeper little push and then he jumps up. We're going to do something similar, but he's just gonna sort of do a squat and then lift up. So what we need to do is animate both the legs and the arms right now. So starting ...

with the legs which seems to be the most obvious thing to animate first. Let's open up our leg well right and leg left. Go into contents and we're going to be animating the path. So I want to open the path of both of these so we have it easily accessible. Okay, zooming in. Okay, so to get that squat action first, we want to set a key frame here at the beginning. So he's going to be standing there for just a moment to set a key frame for path for both legs left and right, then go forward. Maybe a 2nd or so. And now in the path we want to creates sort of a bend. So we're going to take this point. We're going to bring it up a little bit so it's a little bit shorter. But then take the extension and drag up. So we get that sort of bend. Now for the leg left. Let me just show you something so that you understand what's going on. If I just click left leg and then I try clicking on this. Whoa. That's not exactly what I wanna do. You gotta click into the path. Okay. And so we're going to bring it up to about the same point. And then bandit just like so kind of match the bend. Something like so we can even bend inside too if we want. But I'm not going to do that. So that looks kind of close but you'll notice something funny happening. He's bending his legs but he's not squatting down. What the heck? So what we need to do is animate the torso as well. But how do we know exactly where we want him to squat down to? That's where we use rulers. Now. You might have noticed that I have these rulers open. If you don't have those open, go to view show rulers or press command. R. See you now what I can do and if you've used adobe illustrator or Photoshop this is similar. We can click within the ruler on either the top or the left and dragged into our composition. And this creates sort of an invisible just for our reference. A line that we can use. And I'm gonna put that right there at the bottom. That's where his feet are. Right. Okay so now what I can do with the torso press P. To bring up position. I can set a key frame right there where our first position key frame is for the path the first path key frame is I'll go to the second key frame just by pressing K. On my keyboard and I'll drag down. Okay so now it looks like he's actually squatting down now. We might want to make this a little bit more extreme actually. So what I can do is bring him down further closer to the ground and then that gives us a better reference for how much we need to bend our path. So let me go again into our path one not just the path because if I take the path and I take my selection tool it moves the whole path Click Path one. I know it's confusing and I keep repeating myself but I know this is confusing for a lot of people. Let's take our leg up like so and then make even more of a bend now with our other one take our path like left, just like that. Okay, let's take this one. We can even take this one in for the other one too. That might actually look good. So let's rotate this like, so okay, so now if we zoom out, we get more of a squat. Okay, the one thing is that the legs kind of blend in with the arms, so actually for the leg, I'm going to change the color so I'm gonna select both legs right and left. Take the not in the film but the stroke and make it a little bit darker. So we just have a little bit of a difference in color from the legs and the hands in case they cover each other up. Like so awesome. So that looks pretty good. We actually, one thing I realized is that I don't want the feet to move apart, you know, this is just playing around with it. So I'm gonna move this point in just a little bit at this point in, okay, that looks better and we'll play around with the speed of this stuff too, which will make it look better. Okay, so the legs go down and maybe when the lights go down, the arms kind of go up and the elbows like point up. So let's close our legs. Okay, now go into our right arm and left arm going to contents shapes, path, shape path, go to the first key frame set a key frame for path, so we'll start there and then if we go into here, let's zoom in, click on our path, we can bring this up like so Okay, bring the elbows in something like that. I think that looks pretty good. Take our other path, bring it up, rotate our arm around. Okay, something like that. Okay, that looks pretty good. Crouches down, That's pretty good. Okay, let's play through this. Crouches down and then he needs to spring up so we'll send another key frame for around here a second later. So let's just copy all of our key frames. Press you on our keyboard and then you again to see all of our key frames and let's just copy them copy paste, copy paste. Or just click this little key frame button on the far left, which creates a key frame based off of the other key frame that was previously set, so now it sticks down there and then we'll have a shorter sort of jump up. So what we can do is just actually copy these first key frames but we might want to I don't know if our I think our arms, I guess our arms when we jump, we probably putting them down, but a superhero is going to put his arms up, right? So instead of these key frames for the arms, let's make our arms go up. So again we have to go into our arm path layers itself, move them up. I'm sure the rotation is right, just like so okay, maybe one arm is up, One arm is down. You can do whatever you know kind of motion you want? Okay, so now let's zoom out and see how this looks. Yeah, that looks pretty good. Arms go up. No like so so let's play through this. Crouches down, springs up. Cool. Okay so now let's play run with the motion or the speed. So again press you you again select all of these key frames F nine on my keyboard or right click key frame, assistant easy ease. Now when he crouches into this key frame we want to slow it down. So let's go into our crafting graph editor. Select this point which is now selected for all those key frames I've selected. So it's going to slow into that Crouch and then it's gonna be like a pop. So let's take both of these key frames in at the end. Yeah, that's good. That's good. Looks like he's popping off the ground. So now this looks like good motion, he's jumping up but we need to add some context to it and that's what we're going to be doing with adding a background

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