Our stylistic and process reference for the session was the music video for MGMT - All We Ever Wanted Was Everything, which can be seen here:
MGMT - All We Ever Wanted Was Everything from oneedo on Vimeo.
We began by preparing our assets in Illustrator. One thing we had to make sure was correct was the order of the layers- the objects in the background being at the bottom of the layer stack and the objects in the foreground being at the top. Also we had to stretch the art board so that all objects were inside the board so that in after effects when the camera pulls back the correct portion of the images can be shown. We then saved this file as a stretched art board version so the original could be kept as well.
We then opened After Effects and imported our material by going to Menu - Import - Composition - and selecting 'retain layer size' so that all the individual layers were imported. We then arranged the composition settings so that the fps was 25 and the duration was 10 seconds.
We then prepared the layers. In the timeline we made sure the switches were visible on the toggles/switches and modes. We then clicked on the cube icon which allows the layers to be manipulated in three dimensions.
We then learnt about the different coloured arrows and what they mean, for instance the green arrow - Y - moves up and down. After this we set up two views on the screen horizontally, the view on the right being the top camera and the one on the left being the active camera.
Then we looked at how to use the cameras. With the main comp selected we clicked - layer - new - camera - and chose 35 or 50 mil camera and the type being two node camera. When animating using camera the Position and point of interest of camera are the aspects to focus on. On the camera layer we then selected Transform. We the hovered over the bottom point of the camera and moved this to the top of the art board, we then added a keyframe on the point of interest and position options.
After this we moved the playback head to the end of the timeline and moved the camera point down until the whole scene was in focus, adding a keyframe here as well.
If the clip was moving too fast we could spread out the layers to make them be revealed more slowly. We also learnt that if if you want to move objects around, get the camera to move up or around objects, changing your views - lift up X axis a bit so it goes over the object.
Once we had gone over the use of camera we then focused on the visual aspect of the clip. The artwork need to come back to original Illustrator artwork. If your artwork had lost quality you could select the diagonal solid line to make it the highest quality and less fuzzy. We also had to make sure all objects were in the frame. At this point I realised that if I had separated my London Eye object layers in Illustrator then I could have a rotating wheel, however I had put the wheel and stand on one layer so I would need to go back in to Illustrator and separate these layers to allow this.
Adding textures:
Taking inspiration from the MGMT reference, we were told to select around 6 subtle textures to use. We selected File - Import - textures in one folder - Open, and then created smaller comps within the main comp, something that is done in complex projects, called Precomposing.
To do this we selected a layer, went to layer menu- precompose, and called the pre comp 'Texture pre comp', and selected 'leave all attributes in main comp'. We then double clicked in the comp and dropped the texture in to the background. Then in the toggles/switches and modes we selected track mattes then 'alpha matte'. (Making sure the texture was placed under the layer/precomp). Everything done in the pre comp will show up in the main comp.
To add the 'flip up' effect:
Firstly we selected a layer to work with, then chose a point in the timeline where we wanted the effect to start reveal. To apply the effect we went to Effects-distort- CC Page Turn, then in the controls selected Classic UI - controls where it starts from- then to control the angle we input -180 degrees. We then dragged the cross hair to the bottom and off the screen, activating the keyframes where it said 'fold position'.
We then moved the playback head and dragged the cross hair to the top so everything was fully revealed. If you wanted to you could change the opacity and colour of the back of the 'paper'.
Here is my final clip:
Using cameras and 3D space in After Effects from Libby Howker on Vimeo.
Overall I am quite pleased with my final outcome, and think I have used the techniques shown in the session effectively, and even though I still find working with After Effects slightly challenging I managed to keep up. One thing which could improve the final outcome would be to make the wheel rotate and maybe add some audio.
