Animating with the Forces of Nature in After Effects
In this series of tutorials, we will learn how to create typographic animations that appear to be affected by different forces in nature. Software required: After Effects 12.2.0.52, Illustrator 17.1.0.
What you'll learn
In this series of tutorials, we will learn how to create typographic animations that appear to be affected by different forces in nature. We start out with magnetism, a force that is relatively easy to make look realistic. We then follow that up with animations for gravity, water and wind. As we move to the different forces, they ascend in difficulty. We learn how to create an expression and use a slider to control its properties over time. We also create an animation preset that can be reused later in the project. We cover many different principles of animation and how they relate to the affectation of objects to give them a real-world feel. By the end of this training, you will be equipped to bring your typographic animations to life as well as save time while making them. Software required: After Effects 12.2.0.52, Illustrator 17.1.0.
Table of contents
- Getting Started with Our Illustrator Project Files 8m
- Magnetism: Setting up and Placing the Letters in the Comp 8m
- Magnetism: Controlling the First Letter's Rotation with an Expression Slider 10m
- Magnetism: Setting Keys for the Slider 8m
- Magnetism: Adding Position and Rotation Keys to the Other Letters 7m
- Magnetism: Staggering Keys and Tying Them All to a Duplicate Slider 8m
- Magnetism: Chromatic Aberration for Secondary Animation 10m
- Gravity: Setting up to Create the Swinging Effect 7m
- Gravity: Creating a Swinging Effect with 3D Layers 9m
- Gravity: Creating and Using a User Defined Animation Preset 6m
- Gravity: Breaking a Layer to Move Its Anchor Point 8m
- Gravity: Creating the Fall and Follow Through Animation 8m
- Water: Animating the Position of the First Letter 7m
- Water: Animating the Rotation and Orientation of the Letter 'A' 5m
- Water: Setting up Sliders for Rotation and Position Idle Wiggle Control 7m
- Water: Reusing the Keyframe Data and Editing It 7m
- Water: Editing the Orientation for Each Letter 3m
- Water: Using CC Particle Systems II to Create Background Bubbles 7m
- Water: Editing the Particles System to Make Bubbles for the Individual Letters 9m
- Wind: Adding a Fill Effect to the Letters 3m
- Wind: Starting the 'W' Animation 7m
- Wind: Fine-tuning the Rotation 8m
- Wind: Adding Orientation Keys 5m
- Wind: Adding the CC Page Turn Effect to Show Wind Gusts 9m
- Wind: Setting up Sliders for Y Position Wiggle Control 5m
- Wind: Starting the 'I' Animation 8m
- Wind: Smoothing the 'I' Animation 9m
- Wind: Creating the 'N' Animation 7m
- Wind: Building the 'D' Animation 8m
- Wind: Editing the Page Turn Effect to Include the Final Letter 8m
- Wind: Adding Turbulent Noise for Wind Direction Reinforcement 7m
- Wind: Final Polish 6m
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