Animation Work from the Class of July 2013

During June & July 2013 we ran our first Digital Animation course at QUAD. The aim was to take students though the animation process to create a short piece. Below are some of the work completed in class.

Resources Links - Software, Sounds, Fonts & more

Sound Effects
(Always check the terms of use for the sound effects as you may need to credit the artist)

http://freesound.org/ - Register for a free account, good selection of sounds.
http://www.partnersinrhyme.com/ - no account needed


Fonts
Dafont.com - great selection of fonts and ability to preview text in chosen font



Textures
http://www.textureking.com/
http://www.cgtextures.com/
http://freestocktextures.com/



Software

2D Animation & Effects Software

Adobe After Effects
For 2D effects and animation.
http://www.adobe.com/uk/products/aftereffects.html
£17 per month for just After Effects CC on the Adobe Cloud subscription
(NB: Look around for earlier versions, for example a kinda "free" version of CS2 here)

Alternatives:
http://www.techshout.com/alternatives/2012/20/after-effects-alternatives/
Adobe Flash Professional
Anime Studio

Imaging Software

Adobe Photoshop
http://www.adobe.com/uk/products/photoshop.html
£17 per month for just Photoshop CC on the Adobe Cloud subscription
(NB: Look around for earlier versions, for example a kinda "free" version of CS2 here)

Alternatives: http://sixrevisions.com/graphics-design/10-excellent-open-source-and-free-alternatives-to-photoshop/

Creating and Animating Characters Tutorials

Illustrator & After Effects: Vector Based Characters

Adobe Illustrator is great for creating crisp vector designs from scratch for animation. The process is very similar to using a Photoshop document, the below links to the Tuts+ website which is a great resource for a lot of software.

http://vector.tutsplus.com/articles/news/how-to-animate-a-vector-character-in-after-effects-with-aetuts-and-ben-mounsey/

Computer Arts: Animate a character in After Effects

Great step by step guide by Computer Arts, they publish a monthly magazine and their website is full of great tutorials, reviews & features.... http://www.computerarts.co.uk/

Download the PDF tutorial here

After Effects - Working with Audio

Working with Audio in After Effects can be a bit tricky and are you are best to prepare you audio clips before hand in an audio programme such as Audacity (free for PC/MAC), Garage Band (free with MAC), Soundbooth (Adobe) etc.

Import audio files as you would any file by going to File--->Import--->File. It will appear with your other files in the project panel.

Drag your clip onto the timeline and line up with the action.

In order to preview the audio with the images, we have press RAM Preview. Look for the Preview panel (usually on the far right of screen), if you cant see, goto Window--->Preview.

1 - Playback Buttons - First Frame, Back 1 Frame, Play, Forward 1 Frame & Last Frame.

2 - Mute Audio

3 - Loop Options for Previews

4 - RAM PREVIEW - creates a realtime preview including audio. Render time depends on Resolution settings (5) and complexity of content.

5 - Preview Resolution - set to Auto to match current settings or set to a manual option e.g Quarter.

6 - From Current Time - when ticked, the preview will start from the current Play Header position. If un-ticked, preview will start from beginning of composition.
Full Screen - Tick to preview in full screen.

Press (4) RAM Preview whenever you want to see audio and images playing together at real speed!!

Altering the Preview Area

If you want to preview a certain part of the timeline, you can set you IN and OUT points.

The yellow handles on the Timeline represent the start and end of the preview area. Drag (1) and (2) to set the IN & OUT points. When you now preview, only this area will be previewed.

IMPORTANT: Setting the the IN & OUT points also determines what part of the composition is exported out. So remember to change before creating your final video file.

TIPS

- Open up the drop down options for Audio layer on the timeline to alter the volume and to see the waveforms.

- To just preview audio, press . {full stop key} on the numpad or goto Composition--->Preview--->Audio Preview. 

After Effects - Animation Guide

From Photoshop to After Effects

• Build a character or scene in Photoshop using layers for separate animatable layers. Be sure to name all layers e.g Head, Upper Arm Right, Lower Arm Right.

• Save your Photoshop composition as PSD file with layers box ticked

• In After Effects, goto the menu File-->Import-->Fie and choose your PSD file. Change Import As box to Composition - Retain Layer Sizes

• Your files is now loaded as a Composition in the Project Bin (far left) and can be opened by double-clicking the file icon.

Animating in After Effects

Keyframes are used to set values at chosen times on the timeline. After Effects computes then animates between the two values. The main things we will use will be Position, Rotation and Scale.

Timeline is where all your layers will be listed vertically and the time running horizontally. 

From: http://blogs.eciad.ca/mrose/resources/resources02/after-effect-notes/notes-on-keyframes/

The above image represents the typical timeline in After Effects.

A: Timecode - current time

B: Play-header - click and drag this to move through time

C: Add or remove keyframe by clicking on the diamond. Use the two arrows to jump between keyframes.

D: Activate Keyframes on the selected effect or tool. Only click this once, as clicking again will delete all keyframes create on this tool.

E: Keyframes - you can have as many as needed. 

Playback

After Effects needs to render before playing back at real time. Hitting the space bar will begin the render from the current play-header position. A green bar appearing over the rendered area and you can  then drag your play-header back to the beginning of the rendered area and press play to view.

Speed up Render Time

Under your main composition window click on this drop box to lower the playback quality. This will not alter the quality of the animation when exported out but will speed up render time for previewing.

Controlling Speed of Animation

Keyframes at 10 frame intervals

The speed of the animate is determined by the distance between any two keyframes. If you set a keyframe at the 1 second mark and the 2nd keyframe at the 5 second mark, the animation will happend over 4 seconds.

To alter the speed, increase or decrease the distance between keyframes by clicking and dragging them on the timeline.

Switching Layers On & Off (Good for blinking)

Using Hold Keyframes stops After Effects animating the change between the keyframes. For instance:

set Opacity to 100% at 1 second mark 

set Opacity to 0% at 2 second mark

Opacity will remain at 100% until the it hits the keyframe at 2 seconds and switch to 0%

i.e. you will not see it fade from 100 to 0

This is useful for blinking and flashing lights etc. 

Activate Hold Keyframes by right clicking on the required keyframes and select  Toggle Hold Keyframe. It will alter the Diamond shape of the keyframe to a square or arrow.

Creating a Loop

Loops are used in animation to save time, for instance with walk cycles. To create a loop, set your keyframes with the first and last keyframe being the same value. 

Next with the ALT key held down, press on the Stopwatch of the tool/effect you wanting to loop. This opens up Expressions, which allows for basic coding. In the text box that appears, type the following code and press return/enter key:

loopOut()