December 9, 2020 Training

Mastering Text Animation with Expression Controllers in After Effects by School of Motion

Repeaters for text animations (sim to previous notes)

    Source Text properties > Open Expression Box > Add .repeat(X)

    x=number of times you want the typed expression to repeat

If you set character number high, tracking to negative values, and add a slider effect to the repeater expression, you can create a line that you can adjust the length to by altering the slider

Save animation preset will create an item that contains all edited properties without having to recreate each time you need it.

Reduce tracking to fill in gaps

Honestly, this video is just worth a rewatch if you’re trying to do something weird in AE and can’t figure out how to do it.

Remember offset! Great for animating

Math.abs() will force set any property values to positive

clamp() will limit potential values of a property within a desired range

Show layer controls will turn on/off the manipulation properties in the preview window

Remember, interest comes from complexity, you can use effect layering to create complexity with simple tools and effects

Ideally, you can still easily edit your original path or shape without damaging the rest of your composition too much (some is unavoidable, try to preserve what you can)

Adobe Illustrator Tips for Motion Designers by School of Motion

All Illustrator effects are vector effects (non destructive) vs Photoshop effects, that are raster effects

Use blend tool with stepping on to create equal divisions of a space (like creating a series of equally sized rectangles)

Snapping to pixel grid can mean that shapes you create in illustrator don’t actually close, which can cause some messiness later

    Turn off align to pixel grid, can be toggled and will not revert changes

Shear tool can help warp text to create fun angles

Distort and Transform effect allows you to create copies and shift those vertically and horizontally to create 3d text effects

Change fill and stroke colors to add additional visual interest with this

If you change stroke/fill of object (as opposed to the text) you get some additional functionality, like being able to reorder how stroke/fill is applied to the item

    Also, add multiple strokes!

Turn off Scale Strokes and Effects to preserve stroke width while transforming

Scale corners to preserve curve of corners

Object > Transform > Reset Bounding Box to reset box to perfect 90*

Object > Clipping Mask > Make to create a clipping mask

Effects > Path > Offset Path can help create “double” stroke effect

When you have multiple shapes with the same styling (fill, stroke, effects, etc.), then remove all styling, group, and reapply styling (to keep things neater and easier to manage)

You can offset fill from stroke to create cool, glitchy effect

Lots of grain effect options in illustrator

    Also, halftones!

Ctrl+K is shortcut to AE composition settings

Time reverse keyframes to switch order to keyframes

Puppet Pins tool will allow you to set points to control for animating a “solid” graphic

Guide layers can set  unrendered reference points in an animation

After Effects Looping Background Tutorial – 3D Grid by Ben Marriot

Asterisk will create markers in AE

    Use to space layered animations evenly apart

    Shift and drag will snap it to marker position

Alt + ] will trim end of layer to wherever you currently are

Ctrl + ] will move all selected layers to top

Use B to set beginning of animation, N to set end

You can select everything with the same label color if you need to make adjustments to multiple layers