I was browsing courses and videos a week or so ago, looking for something to inspire me to start a project and to learn something new. I came across the School of Motion 30 days of After Effects collection So bring it on.
In this post I will be covering days 1 to 10 and highlight areas that I learned and what I thought of the result.
Day 1 - Write On
I was using a different way of doing write on called 'Stroke' and had always been my go to toll in After Effects write on. This one was slightly in using a way to get a brush effect for the reveal and using a plug-in from Omino called snake to get the feel of brush strokes and curves.
All though this method is a bit lengthy to do it does give a nice effect. I like this effect despite how long it took to learn but I can see how some titles in movies and TV shows are made. Using my name may not have been the best idea but I think it was worth it
Day 2 - Polar Coordinates
This is not a effect I have used often. In fact I can only think of 2 occasions of me using the polar effect. Thanks to the tutorial I certainly learnt more about what it does and the best on how to use it. Not sure it will be something I will be suing again soon but having the basic knowledge of it may end up being useful in the future.
Not sure mint green was right for this and certainly using a gradient was a bad idea. I think for this I should of paid a little more time in the colour and maybe something a bit more interesting in the middle. It's a bit plain and the lines on the edge are just too light and the effect is lost
Day 3 - Gear Rig
This one was more 'geared' (sorry) towards learning expressions which is something I need to learn more about. In my previous role I used the gears icon a lot so wishing I had known all this would have made my life easier.
Pretty happy with this, thou would like to have spent more time in the placement of the gears and adding more depth to it.
Day 4 - 3D Scene from a Photo
This was a very interesting one to do. This was creating masks and layers in Photoshop and taking it into After effects and learning to re-align, rotate and move layers to get the feeling of a 3D scene.
I decided to use one of my photos from last year as everyone loves a good snow scene. I did have some issues with aligning the ground with the background scene. Another fun bit was masking out the details in the trees branches. So it's not perfect but looks pretty damn good. Certainly fooled the guys at School of Motion into thinking it was a video ;) Next time I might try something easier.
Day 5 & 6 - Using MIDI data in After Effects
I had never heard of MIDI. But then I don't use MACs so some parts of this tutorial was lost on me. However learning the process is important in case I do have to deal with something like this in the future. Learnt a lot about linking animations to MIDI key frames and a lot of maths and script writing so it was a big tutorial.
Next time I think I would add more particle effects (thou difficult without trapcode) and add variation in the rectangles especially in size.
Day 7 - 3D in After Effects
I have done some basic 3D work in After Effects so this was definitely an opportunity to learn more about the features and limits. I was surprised to learn about how even a precomp layer can be converted in to a 3D shape. I can see this being used for bar graphs.
And what I have learnt so far I should be using the NULL object more.
To improve on this sequence I think I would change it to the children type wooden block toy and have it in a semi circle shape and of course with better camera work
Day 8 - Predki animation trick
This session was to show a animation technique in more detail. I was already familiar with the motion graph editor so was not much to learn from this session apart from a bit more in keyframe and the different motion graph views
For what it is it looks good but not something that not has a big impact. Thou using the transform control could save me some time.
Day 9 - Morphing letters
So a fairly simple one for Day 9 some playing with shapes. I have tried morphing in the past with various degrees of success. Problem usually is the amount or vertices in the shape being too much or too little.
Went over some of the basics of animation as well like anticipation and follow through but I want to cover that in more detail in a later session of this series. (Day 11 I believe)
Day 10 - Cineware for After Effects
Found this one a little frustrating. I completely understood how to create something in 3D perspective but for some reason the C4D file was not showing in After Effects. I am not sure why, could be y graphics card but the sample files that came with the session worked fine. No idea what the problem is. So had to play around with the sample files.
As a 3D person this was very simple to understand. I am just learning how to navigate and use Cinema4D
So that is days 1 to 10. I am going to be starting a 3 month contract soon so my updates for this may be a little more delayed than planned but keep an eye on my Twitter and LinkedIn accounts for updates. I also have a new Instagram account for my work, which is separate from my baking account. So please feel free to connect.
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