For the first process and production lesson this year we revisited the basics of Adobe After Effects and looked at using the “wiggler” tool.
To start off the lesson, we watched a video called the ‘Thomas Beale Cipher’ which was an example of the kind of animation we would be doing in the lesson.
Vimeo: The Thomas Beale Cipher from Andrew S Allen
This is a fairly simple yet very effective technique in Animation.
A Loop: A loop is the repetition of part of an animation. For example, you can animate a clock ticking around the clock just once, then repeat the animated portion with a few clicks automatically rather than repeating it manually.
A Living Hold: A clever tool that shows the viewer that the animation hasn't stopped or broken when text appears on the screen. (Look for it in the introductory credits of the Beale Cipher)
We started by creating a character on Adobe Illustrator, separating each body part into layers so we can move each part later on in Adobe After Effects. Once on After Effects, we loaded the Illustrator file and parented the layers.
Using keyframes, we moved the layers around to create movement, experimenting with different transformations. We then moved onto using the Wiggler tool, a tool that alters the speed and smoothness of the animations, although it is a little unpredictable and takes a while to get it just right. Finally, we tried out a little bit of coding, not my favourite part of the lesson as it wasn't too easy and didn't give the kind of effect i like from doing it manually myself.
Shortcuts:
A - anchor point
P - position
R - rotation
S - scale
T - opacity
Using track mats was the last part of the lesson, this adds textures to the animation making it look a bit more interesting.
