Julieanne Kost's Blog / PS – Warping Multiple Layers as One
ADDITIONAL INFORMATIONBio, Contact and Artists StatementLightroom Video TutorialsPhotoshop Video TutorialsSchedule of EventsAdditional ResourcesPortfoliowww.jkost.comby Julieanne KostFree Transform (16)Smart Objects and Smart Filters (18)Warp (1)
Alongside the basics of animation that are easy to implement in After Effects, "wizards" are provided to help you the next step in the development of your animation. It is the ideal time to learn and begin to implement layers too.
The layers are just what they sound like and if you use other graphic products such as Photoshop or Fireworks, you'll be familiar with the concept of the layer. Layers allow you to place different objects in your scene, on their own "layer".
This gives you the freedom to treat differently, to give these different actors of their own personality. We believe that provide a background color or a parameter for your stage backdrops and mattes.The action of your animation may well involve the different actors.
Even a simple logo unfolding on stage may play with a waterfall or Sunrise, a motorcycle zoom in the center of the stage or instructor in your tutorial to address the audience. All of these "players" will be put on their own layer and each layer has its own definition, including what is perhaps the most fundamental, and this is where it appears on the timeline, where this object enters your animation.
Because we are mixing layers and assistants in this tutorial we are going back to wizards for a moment. We have learned about the wizard of motion sketch, in our last article how to register the movement and animation of your object by simply followed the path as you would on a piece of paper. This method is very easy to use, very easy to visualize, but it lacks a bit of finesse. This is where appear the two assistants: the "smoother" and "auto-orient".
The ' softness ', as it's name implies, adjusts the speed and distance of the keyframes that you created by tracing with motion sketch. " In the same way, it is virtually impossible to hold your camera still perfectly when you take a photo, it is almost impossible to draw a path without a bit of hand movement "gittery." Once you have designed and reviewed your sketch of query, choose the more smooth, under window > smoother. Select all your images position key simply by selecting the position under your animated objects property and click "apply" under the smoother options. That's all. You will see the number of keyframes reduced and your path will be "smoothed". If you increase the tolerance on the smoother, it will help further reduce the number of key frames. Like most settings in After Effects, the best way to determine what works best for you and this particular animation is to try some different parameters. Play with it a little bit and then run your movie and observe how this wizard refined your animation.
Another wizard who belongs to this lesson is the wizard rotation auto-orient. It is also a fairly intuitive tool. Imagine a bird or a plane, a cruise along a winding road car. Animate the motion would only seem comic if your car was not always directed along the path. Auto-Orient (choose layer > transform > Auto-Orient) offer an "Orient long path" option that will keep your object aligned on the front movement. Your car will be appear to be oriented along the path, it follows, as your bird or airplane.
These simple wizards help your refine your animation, save you time and help to create a control that would be very difficult to create manually by setting each keyframe yourself. Experience with animation assistants and you will appreciate their ease of use and simple contributions.
Next? We will learn more about layers!
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Web Designer Tom Womack uses Adobe Design Suite, creation of dynamic sites with rich media.
Adobe After Effects is my application of choice with unlimited possibilities. I use Premiere Pro for video editing, Flash to the latest compatible film Web. I'm on a learning curve constant and regularly update my media page.
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Photoshop lets you select more than one layer at once, but unfortunately it doesn’t let you simultaneously change the blending modes of those layers (good JDI suggestion). Scripter Mike Hale has whipped up a panel for Photoshop CS5 (made with the help of Configurator 2) that plugs the gap. (An earlier version remains available for CS4 as well.)
Posted by John Nack at 7:00 AM on April 09, 2011Creative Suite SDK Team / Working with Layersby Olav Kvern Julieanne Kost's Blog / Color Coding LayersADDITIONAL INFORMATIONBio, Contact and Artists StatementLightroom Video TutorialsPhotoshop Video TutorialsSchedule of EventsAdditional ResourcesPortfoliowww.jkost.comby Julieanne KostColor Coding (1)Layers (1) 