Animating and Compositing Futuristic Menus in After Effects
In this series of tutorials, we will learn how to animate and composite a futuristic menu interface with footage of an actor. Software required: After Effects CS6.
What you'll learn
In this series of tutorials, we will learn how to animate and composite a futuristic menu interface with footage of an actor. This course is a follow-up course to Designing Futuristic Menus in Illustrator. If you have any interest in learning how to make all of the pieces that we will be animating, you may want to watch that first. We start out by importing all of the assets in the various ways that will best interface with after effects for animation. We then learn how to make the pieces move with the actors motions and how to use expressions to make some of the secondary pieces have visual interest as they rotate, scroll, and reveal. Towards the end of the course, we go over some great compositing tips for making your menu look better integrated with your shot. This course will teach you how to efficiently animate multiple objects and maintain visual consistency that mimics the design of a real life interface. By the end of this course, you will have your own composited shot of an actor interacting with a futuristic interface. You'll also be armed with knowledge on how to create complex animations using expressions with ease. Software required: After Effects CS6.
Table of contents
- Importing Assets and Setting up the Main Composition 12m
- Placing the Interface Composition on the Table 11m
- Creating a Difference Matte 14m
- Precomposing the Interface Elements to Re-group 10m
- Animating the Phone Border 18m
- Planning the Animations 15m
- Bringing on the Start Button 12m
- Repositioning and Animating the Introduction of the Photo Interface 18m
- Moving the Photo Folder with the Hand and Adding Secondary Animation 18m
- Masking the Photo Text to Mimic Life-like Functionality 6m
- Placing and Animating the Pictures 16m
- Fine-tuning the Picture Animations and Scaling up the Main Picture 15m
- Scaling Down the Other Pictures and Exiting the Main Picture 15m
- Introducing the Maps Button and Exiting the Pictures 13m
- Adding Maps to the Functionality 17m
- Placing and Masking the Maps 17m
- Entering the Maps, Maximizing the Main Map, and Exiting the Smaller Ones 14m
- Rotating the Map with the Actor's Motion 14m
- Exiting the Maps 15m
- Animating the Reveal of the Interface with the Push of the Start Button 16m
- Finishing the Start Animation Reveal 10m
- Animating the Folder Reveal and Its Secondary Elements 16m
- Rotating the Fan Dial 11m
- Animating the Thermometer 9m
- Animating the Level Meters 8m
- Changing the Opacity of the Apps for a Blinking Color Change 8m
- Adding Rotation Animation to the Start Button 10m
- Adding Motion to the Apps Button 15m
- Animating the Maps Button Using Offset 8m
- Animating the Clocks with Expressions 13m
- Adding Rotation for the Kilowatt Hour Meter and Fan Dial Centers 6m
- Creating a Sweeping Radar with Detection Dots 13m
- Animating the Cylindrical Counting Dial in the Folder 12m
- Creating a News Marquee 9m
- Animating the Rotating Arrows on the News Button 14m
- Creating a Draw-on Effect for the Graphs 6m
- Animating the Elements of the Main Dial 8m
- Fine-tuning: Switching on Motion Blur and Fixing Any Timing Issues 14m
- Creating a Render with a Png Sequence 3m
- Adding Camera Shake by Using Existing Footage 10m
- Adding Vignette, Reflections, and Blur 8m
About the author
Laura is a passionate visual effects and motion graphics author at Pluralsight. Ever since her first exposure to After Effects in college, Laura has had an eternal drive to learn more about motion graphics, and teach others what she has discovered. Laura began working at Digital-Tutors (now a Pluralsight company) as a motion graphics artist, creating visually-appealing advertisements and informative art for the site. Throughout her time at Digital-Tutors, Laura contributed greatly to both the ... more