Animation in After Effects

[alfienoakes]

Very quick question, I am going to be putting together an animation in Adobe After Effects.. problem is I have only ever used Premiere and that was a while ago.

 

Every time I type in what I think is a decent search description into Google, for an animation tutorial, its not quite what I'm after.

 

So.. can anyone point me in the direction of a decent tutorial of how to put together an animation in AE, using multiple still frame TIFF's.

 

Many thanks..

[Ernest Burden III]

Poke around among these:

http://library.creativecow.net/search.php?q=after+effects

 

There is a function to import a Premiere project into AE, and sometimes that is how I've done things--set it up in Premiere, which I use a lot, and import to AE.

 

Why not just work in Premiere, though?

[erickdt]

Hi Andy,

 

I typically put together animations in After Effects by first rendering our your various passes as well as beauty pass out of max as normal. Be sure to give your passes unique names, otherwise it will cause you problems when you import the tif sequences into AE. IOW: If you're using more than one extratex map for AO etc. be sure to name that pass AO Pass as opposed to Vray Extratex #1234 (for example). Once you've rendered out your passes you'll need to open up After Effects and import all of your passes as footage. Max will have serial numbered them in the order they should go in the sequence. AE will recognize this and automatically sense there's a sequence of images when you select any one of the images from the sequence. You may need to reset your frame rate for your sequences as I believe AE automatically assumes a 30fps frame rate. You do this by right clicking on your footage in the project window and going to interpret footage => main. You can also adjust your alpha channel settings here.

 

Now what you'll want to do is make a seperate composition for each one of your cameras. You go to file => new composition at which point you'll be asked to put in the composition settings which includes duration and resolution. You can go back and change these settings at any time from the project window. Every time you create a new composition it will automatically appear in the timeline window. This is where you drag your imported tif sequences of your passes. Here you can layer them up however you typically would do so in Photoshop. You can choose the blending mode by right clicking on the footage in the timeline window and choosing the blending mode which are almost identical to what you'd find in Photoshop. One thing to note is that opacity in AE is a transform function and therefore is adjusted under transform which you'll find by clicking on the arrow that is directly below the footage in the timeline panel. You can adjust the levels, color balance, etc. by right clicking on your footage and going to effects => color correction.

 

You then repeat this process for however many cameras you have. A few tips to speed things up: 1.) you can copy effects from one composition to another by clicking on the effects in one, hitting ctrl+C abd then going to another composition and clicking on the footage you want to apply the same effects to and pressing ctrl+V 2.) You can disable the automatic refresh, which can slow things down, by hitting your caps lock button which will blank out the preview window until you turn off caps lock. This way you can layer everything up and apply effects while not previewing them until everything is in place.

 

Once you've set up all of your camera compositions you create a new composition in which you'll edit together all of your cameras. Once you've done this, you can drag your camera compositions into your master in which you edit them together. I typically will have my cameras layered in the order I want them, the first one in the edit being at the top down to the last one on the bottom. You should also ine them up in the timeline in the order they'll be shown in the edit. Below all of this I create a black solid layer. Now you can edit them together by crossfading, etc by keyframing their opacity. Add some music and voila, you've got yourself an edited animation all in After Effects.

 

Hope that made sense...

 

E

[Scott Schroeder]

http://www.videocopilot.net/

 

Pretty much a one stop shop for free After Effects tutorials and extra goodies.

 

Even many of the non-architecture or still frame based tutorials will give you an unending wealth of knowledge of how to do things that will translate into arch viz stuff. So just because a tutorial may not be relevant in nature, doesn't mean you shouldn't watch it.

[alfienoakes]

First of all, many thanks for those links.. They are book marked and ready to go. I need to get in to AE really as I have never really used it.

 

Secondly, and this goes to Ernest.. Yes, what a very good idea...!. On closer inspection of the Master Suite, I realised that Premiere Pro is actually part of this package.

 

I have got so bent out of shape thinking about AE, that I completely glossed over Premiere...

 

OK.. now to have a look at Premiere Pro and try to remember how it worked about 15 versions ago..!

 

Cheers

[Ernest Burden III]

First of all, many thanks for those links..

 

Here's another I just found that while rather broad, does suggest some ways to jump between the Master Suite apps:

 

http://help.adobe.com/en_US/premierepro/cs/using/WS6693F22C-C06E-431a-A634-62343C65BA7B.html

 

I used to use AE mostly to do layer effects like having my linework applied in Multiply or Softlight mode as I do in Photoshop. But in the more recent versions of Premiere you can set those layer modes to clips in the timeline. Fantastic!

[Peter M. Gruhn]

Erick, that looks pretty useful. THanks for taking the time.

[Nic H]

not directly related but a good example of a architectural film done entirely in after effects (no 3d renders / 3dmax)

[Jeff Mottle]

Funny I'm just starting to use AE myself. I actually just logged on to post a link to this AWESOME script http://aescripts.com/bg-renderer/ AE has piss poor rendering management and this script allows you to render in the background. Love it! Hopefully this will help you too once you get into it further.

[Ernest Burden III]

AE has piss poor rendering management...

 

It might actually be brilliant, if only it wasn't so inscrutable. The render que can be quite confusing, and not your friend when you're on deadline and tired.

[Fooch]

If its just a simple cut/edit film, use premiere.

However if you want to push it more, really add motion graphics, then use ae.

I would start by the basics in video copilot first. (that's the first thing I use to get my class to go through)

When you get the hang of it, it's just like photoshop on drugs.

[Fooch]

Funny I'm just starting to use AE myself. I actually just logged on to post a link to this AWESOME script http://aescripts.com/bg-renderer/ AE has piss poor rendering management and this script allows you to render in the background. Love it! Hopefully this will help you too once you get into it further.

 

You would love this then Jeff

 

 

http://www.monologue.gr/tutorials/monologue-ae-render-manager/

[erickdt]

When it comes to rendering in AE I suggest you take a look at your memory and multiprocessing options under preferences. Tweaking these to match/utilize use full system specs will greatly decrease your render times. Also, whenever possible, try to render things off your local machine or try to establish the fastest connection to your server possible. My link to the server was just patched into the server core which resulted in a 100x increase in my connection speed resulting in renders times that were a fraction of what they had been before.

 

E

[dande]

Digital tutors have some free beginner tutorials

 

http://www.digitaltutors.com/11/training.php?pid=746&autoplay=1