Digital Photography & Imaging / Week 10

25/11/2024 - 1/12/2024 (Week 10)
Daphne Lai Yu Cheng / 0366380
Digital Photography & Imaging / Bachelors of Design (Honours) in Creative Media / Taylor's University
Project 2 / Poster Design & Digital Imaging

Group 1

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Week 10 (25/11/2024)

Lectures: 

Introduction to After Effects

Adobe After Effects

• A 2.5D animation software used for animation, visual effects, and motion picture compositing to create movements. 

• Used in film, TV, and web video creation by integrating physical based media as well through photographs and videography.

• Used in the post-production phase 

• Hundreds of effects that can be used to manipulate imagery (rasterised and vectorised art) which allows to combine layers of video and images into the same scene.

Figure 1.1 Adobe After Effects

Pre-compositing in Adobe Photoshop : Transforming still images (graphic elements and photography) into moving images.

Figure 1.2 Compositing Layers in Photoshop

• All layers need to be arranged and renamed accordingly so that it will be organised and easy to be animated in After Effects. 

Pre-compositing in Adobe After Effects : Animating layers sequence from various elements and platforms.

Figure 1.3 Compositing Layers in After Effects

• Start from importing elements such as images, video, vector and more into After Effects. 

• Elements layers need to be organised and synchronised to the external software platforms such as Photoshop & Illustrator. 

• After Effects files does not embed its media, it links to it.

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Tutorial: 

Mr Fauzi introduced us to Adobe After Effects and did a demo video tutorial during class. He also provided us with a demonstration video of kinetic typography.

Figure 2.1 Kinetic Typography by Mr Fauzi

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Practical:

Instructions:

1. Download the PSD composition below:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1etLC49TGicn1FdLF4KRla_GzQJjFqksp/view?usp=sharing

2. Import the W10_ANIMATE.psd into Adobe After Effects.

3. Create a composition setting 1080 px (Width) x 1920 px (Height), Duration 15 second

4. Create a keyframe animation to the layers using Position (P), Scale (S) & Masking path.

5. Render output: Quicktime (.MOV) or .MP4

6. Upload your exercise into your Youtube Channel.

7. Update your progress and video to your E-Portfolio blog. 

8. Attach your E-Portfolio link on this Submission.

Process

Figure 3.1 Animation Settings

I followed the settings given by Mr Fauzi and proceeded to animate the composition.

Figure 3.2 Top Circle using Rotation

I applied Rotation of 45 degrees on the top circle and set keyframes and loop for the rotation.

Figure 3.3 Bottom Circle using Rotation and Scale

For the circle below, I applied the same settings as the circle above but added Scale to enlarge the circle as the animation goes and applied the same keyframe at the end to loop the scale transformation.

Figure 3.4 Fish using Position

I tried on a different element, the fish. I applied Position to the fish to make it slowly move left and right as the animation goes.

Figure 3.5 Process (29/11/2024)

Final

Youtube Link: https://youtube.com/shorts/H5B-Tc4Ypsg?feature=share

Figure 3.6 After Effects Exercise (Final) (29/11/2024)

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Reflection:

In this week's lecture, I learned about Adobe After Effects, including its functions and how to use the software. For tutorial and practical class, we worked on animating a Photoshop composition to create movements for each elements. It was a bit challenging at first because the panels were cramped and I am still not really familiar with the software which made everything feel disorganised. However, I followed Mr. Fauzi's demonstration video step by step and I slowly started to enjoy the process. Animating the elements and working with transformations and adjustment layers was fun, it is also important to set suitable keyframes in an animation. Overall, I found this exercise enjoyable and it has helped me prepare for our final project.