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AFTER EFFECTS
THE ILLUSTRATION
Artist: Website:
Magictorch www.magictorch.com
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AFTER EFFECTS
SELF PROMOTION
Creating a
showreel
Use After Effects 5.5 to create an impressive
vehicle for your projects – a stylish personal
showreel with an animated logo…
his month we’ll be using the the potential client a little about the
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AFTER EFFECTS
Composition
In this tutorial, we nested the
logo composition within the main
area in which we were working.
Nesting or pre-composing, as it
is known within the industry, is
the process of working on a
section of a project as its own
individual mini project, like the
logo, and then using all the
elements before they have been
rendered within another part of
the project. The benefit of this is
that you can apply effects and
transformations/animations to
the group of elements as one, You can also use the Blue_4_morph.psd file
In Photoshop, create a new image that’s 2 on the CD. Open After Effects, create a new Zoom out in the viewer window to 50 per
rather than applying everything 1 3 cent. You’ll see the edges of the larger
on each layer and element. In
1200x800. Colour it randomly in varying composition that’s 10.01 seconds long, has a screen
HTML, for example, you can
shades of blue. You can use blurs to blend the edges size of 720x576 and a framerate of just 1fps. Name Photoshop file overlapping the main screen.
together. Don’t worry about detail too much, as it something suitable, such as ‘Morphing Position the static file flush in the top left-hand
create a table within a table to
After Effects will be converting the end result to a Background’. Import the blue file you’ve just corner. Select the static in the timeline and Press P
position, and then move the main
smooth blending image. created, and drag it onto the timeline. to access the position twirly.
holding table around, also
moving the table inside. This is a
simplified version, but it should
help you understand the concept.
5 We want to move and rotate the large static 6 Don’t worry about the multitude of dots on
image on each keyframe, so that at each of the the screen, this shows how the image would
ten keyframes there’s a different image. This is why move if we were actually animating the static
4 We want to place keyframes at each we created the image much larger than the final image. If you drag the timeline head you can see
individual second, so create ten keyframes by destination screen. Use different corners for the first the image moving; we’re about to stop this. On
moving the timeline head to one second, clicking four keyframes, then rotate the image 90 degrees each keyframe, right-click and select the Toggle
the miniature stopwatch (circled). For subsequent (press R for the Rotate options, at the fourth second, Hold Keyframe option. This removes any animation
keyframes after the first, you must click the empty placing one keyframe and rotating 90 degrees) and between keyframes, and animates in jumps rather
box, which will then fill with a tick and add a repeat the different corner placements. Press U to than smooth motion. Make sure you’ve positioned
keyframe to the timeline. show only the settings that have a keyframe. the image in ten different ways.
7 Now we’ll render the sequence as a TIFF 8 In the Project window, click on the 1 TIFF
sequence. From the Composition menu, click sequence file. Select Interpret Footage>Main
Add To Render Queue. Click on Output Module from the File menu. Set the looping option to x200.
Lossless. This brings up a new dialog box. From Set the framerate to 1; although we’ll create a new
the format dropdown, select TIFF sequence, and comp that’s 25fps, our TIFFs will only be coming
select 24-bit (32-bit would contain alpha channel once per second. Therefore After Effects will use 9 Drag the TIFF sequence to the timeline. You’ll
information). Then click OK and Render. The TIFFs frame blending to interpolate in between 25 frames, now see that the Frame Blending option is on.
will be sequentially numbered; import these files creating a smooth looping background, looping You need to check this and click the Activate Frame
from their destination folder to the project via the 200 times. Create the new comp, called Loop, set Blending button. Both of these are circled. Now you
File menu. You need only select the first image of the framerate to 25fps and make it 1 minute 20 have one perfectly blended, looping background for
the sequence and click the TIFF sequence box. seconds long. use in your project.
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AFTER EFFECTS
Part 2: The logo
Next up is a mighty morphing power logo. Start by creating a new composition in
After Effects, calling it Logo…
Different TV
settings and
framerates
We are operating on UK PAL
settings, which is one of the
main screen resolution settings.
The other biggy is NTSC, used in
parts of Europe, Asia and the
USA. The standard framerate in
the UK is 25fps, NTSC uses
29.97 and the screen size is
slightly different too, 720 by 486
(although there are several
variations which differ by a few
pixels. The other main TV setting
is SECAM, but this is fairly rare; 2 Create a new solid from the Layer menu of
Your new composition should be running at any colour. From the Effect menu, use Path
the main country using this 1 25 fps, with a 720x576 screen size and a Text and type in your name, twice. The Path shape Now add the following effects from the
3 relevant place in the Effects menu, to make the
format is France. length of 10.01 seconds. We’re going to create a should be circle, character size 72 and tracking 2.
3D, spinning, rotating, morphing logo; not one of Twirl down the Control Points twirly. You should text a lot more interesting: Fractal Noise from
those 3D text spinners which was used so much last manually alter the size of the circle using the control Render (default settings), Bevel Alpha from the
year. Where we use the ‘Bigimpact TV’ text, use points, so the text just forms a perfect circle, with Perspective menu (edge thickness 2), and Glow
your name instead. both your names separated by the correct amount. from the Stylise menu (default settings).
Now, get sneaky. Create scale keyframes for From the Composition menu, select
7 the top and bottom layers at the 8-second 8 Composition Settings. Modify the length of 9 Perform a render by adding to render queue
and click on the ‘lossless’ text. Create a .mov
mark. Create more at the 9-second mark, and swap the comp to 120.01. You must copy and paste the or .avi and render, then re-import. This is to speed
the values for the top and bottom layers so 20 per scale and position settings of the top and bottom up rendering times later. To get the file size down
cent scale becomes 60, and vice versa. As you can layers, until the end of the sequence. Also, create a without losing too much quality, select Format
see, what is happening is the bottom and top layers keyframe at the end of the 1min 20 seconds for Z Options, to select a codec. We have used Indeo
grow and shrink then pass through and around the rotation, setting the rotation to 12 full cycles, 13 for Video 5.10, which is an .avi compresssor. Sorenson
middle ring. How cool is that? Now we need to the third layer and 14 for the fourth layer. The three or Sorenson 3 at full quality is the rough equivalent
extend the sequence for the duration of our reel. circle logos will thus spin at slightly different speeds. for .mov files. Import the rendered file.
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AFTER EFFECTS
Aspect Ratios
If you are rendering for computer
distribution rather than video,
you should use square pixels,
because monitors also have
square pixels. Televisions,
however, have squished pixels:
slightly wider than they are high.
With this in mind, when you bring
what looks square or circlular on
a TV screen into a computer, it
will appear higher and squashed
from the side – as the computer
doesn’t compensate for the wider
TV pixels. Fortunately, After
Re-open the Loop comp. Drag either the
Effects does a clever thing: by 1 render you just made, or the Logo composition
2 If you’re using the rendered version, you can’t
using Interpret Footage (as in the help but notice that the screen is black, the logo
tutorial) you can change any onto the timeline, depending on your computer’s is white and no looping background can be seen. A
power (we dragged the comp). This composition is
footage to or from any type of quick trip to the Blending modes will sort this out. 3 From the CD, import the following files:
now considered to be nested (or pre-composed), Right-click on the logo render for the shortcut to Bigimpact Blue Stripes, Harmoniser, Nexus and
pixel aspect ratio at the click
which means that whenever you apply a single many of the useful AE commands, then select Psunami_grained. These are some of our ancient
of a mouse!
transformation or filter, all the layers contained Transfer Mode>Screen. The black will be removed, mini renders, which you can use freely in any of
within the composition are affected. leaving you with the basis for the showreel. your future projects, commercial or otherwise.
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AFTER EFFECTS
Extending
the showreel
This project only uses four items
for its showreel. If you have lots
more items that you wish to
include, you will have to do a few
things to make your showreel
longer. First, remember to use
interpret footage to make
everything loop longer. Also, you
can copy and paste the scale and
position frames of the logo. You
can shrink the clips further still,
to allow enough room for all the
ones you want to use.
For the Nexus clip, create a keyframe at 28.02.
11 The initial clip was 20.02 seconds, and we
On the timeline, you now have extended clips;
10 you simply have to drag the cropping triangle started it at 8 seconds. At this point, the next loop
to the end of the timeline to extend the clips. You begins, and thus the point at which we want to have At the 28-second keyframe, scale the clip to
the clip in the centre of the screen, beginning the 12 60 per cent and position it to just inside the
can actually loop clips as many times as you like, to
tailor the length of showreel to what you think will next loop. Create a keyframe at 26.02, where we’ll bottom-right corner’s action safe region. Use Easy
be most suitable for your prospective clients. begin its movement. Also, create scale keyframes. Ease In on both keyframes again.
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