Recap:

• Hold ctrl and double click pan behind – centres anchor point
• Ctrl + N – new composition
• Easy ease in – Ease into a destination
• Interpolation – filling in  unknown data between keyframes

This time, we learned about staggering keyframes and how to stagger layers. Staggering in terms of animation just means one after another, like steps.

In After Effects, we made a basic animation of two squares growing larger and overshooting. I added easy ease and separated the dimensions of the shape layer. In graph editor, like before, I made sure the line was not linear and using the bezier handles, adjusted the speed to what I wanted. Now, to achieve the delayed effect, I duplicated the layer using ctrl + d and moved the keyframes to stagger. Then, I precomposed the layers to flatten them into one and make them easier to work with.

 

 

I duplicated this precomposed layer, dragged the copies out, and started to stagger them as well. To make this easier, I took the ends of the layers and dragged them to the end of the animation, shortening them for easy handling. This also meant that when they staggered, there wouldn’t be a 30-second gap before the next segment started. Another method of staggering is right-clicking all of the layers, going to keyframe assistant, sequence layers, and no overlap, which automatically staggers them. If this wasn’t to my liking, I could edit the gaps that caused the delay, but I only had to make some minor adjustments. The final thing that we learned and did was how to make the squares straight. This was easy, as the align options were on the right, and any changes regarding alignment could be done there. Lastly, I rendered the video in Adobe Media encoder, and there we had it! A complete staggered sequence.

 

 

 

 

For the continuation of the lesson, I focused on my time animation, by drawing more assets in illustrator. I got quite a lot done, and most of them are original, but for some, like the people and waves, I found that I needed some help, and I had to trace reference images. When tracing the people, I didn’t want to focus on the details, because that would take attention away from the main thing in the scene, the sun, and water. So I simply did the outlines of the clothes and bodies and used similar colours to the background to colour them. I think they turned out very interestingly and definitely created a set style for the first picture in the animation. The other simple elements didn’t take too long to do, like the clouds with which I simply “went with the flow”.

 

 

When I had all of the assets for the first picture ready, I brought everything that I had done so far together in After Effects. It was incredibly satisfying to put all of the individual bits and pieces in layers and then animate them to move. I made the waves move at different paces, the birds faded away as the sun sank and the sky slowly changed from one colour gradient to the next. Something I had in mind but wasn’t able to execute perfectly was an effect that I have sometimes seen in animation. It is when the characters, who are standing still, are made more interesting, by hovering or slightly swaying on the spot. I attempted this and the first time, I made the people move too far and too fast. The second time was much better – I moved the keyframes a bit further apart and the positions close together so that the people moved slowly and little. This was as close as I could come to the effect I had in mind.