Saturday Morning Tips: Animation Setup in After Effects

At the time of this post (or at least what I intended) I am currently attending CTN, so I'm keeping it simple this post. I was asked a week ago how I animated straight ahead in After Effects.

In this post we'll cover how to block in After Effects - quick and easy:

There is a number of ways to approach animation in after effects - most of these ways are effective in their own right. However when you start making an ultra convoluted character and expect to animate it in After Effects like you would in Maya, Blender, Modo, etc - you hit a wall.

 Most techniques out there are fine for motion media types ,which is what After Effects does well. It's when you have 21 controls with about 3-10 attributes each, that is when you realize that you're not moving a square, but an army.

Also I'm not suggesting that you should have 21 controls on your character rig. If there is anything I've learned less IS more.

The setup is simple: for every attribute you need, the stopwatch must be toggled. You could use the auto key-frame, but I find it to be messy working with also I can't get to a default pose quicker.

When your done toggling: select these new keys, right click, and go down to toggle hold keyframe.

 

This will turn the linear keys into easy-in holds. Note: If there was a linear key before the easy-in 

hold it would tween to a slow stop. Anything after the easy-in hold will be a true hold, however this isn't anything to stress over.

After creating all these holds I usually tuck these keys one frame left of zero. This way I can quickly reference the default pose if I need to call it up.

After I have done this I block, and I make sure to alter everything on each pose - insuring order. You want to know that everything is keyed on frame x, frame y, and frame etc.

However it is wise to adjust the resolution before you start:

You'll need to manage both the work space's resolution and the preview's resolution.

Go to the resolution tab and go down to custom:

Here you can adjust for every x pixel horizontally and vertically, that pixel will be rendered as opposed to all of them. This will save on render and playback time as you fine tune your animation. When you feel like it is ready for the final cut be sure to boost it back to full res.

Those were a few quick tips to get started - I hope they were helpful.