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One of the best ways to pick up useful techniques is simply to watch

how other people work. The techniques and tricks that I use frequently to make something look great are sometimes very simple, but when used correctly they can become incredibly powerful, too.

In this tutorial I will be showing you the best way to animate a bird taken from Mainframe’s self-promotional short called The Seed. This is the brainchild of my co-worker Mike Alderson.

Parenting layers in the right way will allow you to animate lots of layers with more speed and control. Parenting layers with different Null layers will enable you to rotate several layers around a given anchor point. Setting up extra Control layers is an easy way to tweak your final animation without getting lost within your original keyframes, and this also gives you the flexibility to react quickly to client changes.

One of the problems with computer-generated images is that they can sometimes look a bit too digital, but with a bit of blurring and changing of Layer Modes you can make colours bleed just enough to make the final image look more analogue.

The Illustrator files included on this issue’s CD are prepared for importing into After Effects. By separating these files into layers you can jumpstart your After Effects compositions because the layers will already be set up for you.

1Open After Effects and import Bird_Layers.ai from this issue’s CD. Make sure

you choose Import As Composition – Cropped Layers. Change the bird_layers comps size to 2,048x576px, 100 frames. The bird from our promo will be animated flying in from the right and then out to the left, so you’ll need some room to play with.

2 Now import the StandingBirdXray.ai file as footage. This will be used as a

reference image for both the standing bird and the X-ray of the bird.

Illustration and tutorial by Arvid Niklassonwww.mainframe.co.uk

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TIME NEEDED

1-2 hours

INFO

Arvid Niklasson is a 2D/3D animator for Mainframe in

London. He originally worked in Sweden as a freelancer doing anything from visual effects to videos and graphic design. Find out more by visiting www.mainframe.co.uk.

ANIMATED SEQUENCESAFTER EFFECTS • ILLUSTRATOR

When deadlines are tight, it’s good to have a few simple tricks up your sleeve. Arvid Niklasson reveals how to utilise After Effects’ parenting and control layers to increase flexibility and create animations in no time at all

3Drag StandingBirdXray.ai to the bottom of the Bird_Layers comp and then position it in the

middle of the composition. Position the other bird-part layers to resemble the StandingBirdXray.ai. Position the anchor points of the tail, leg and wing so that they look natural when you rotate them.

4 Add a Null (Alt+Shift+Ctrl+Y) and name it FlyCtrlNull. Add another Null and name it FaceCtrlNull. Position the FlyCrtlNull somewhere in the middle of the bird, and the

FaceCtrlNull so that its anchor point is in the centre of the head. The placement of this anchor point is important because this will be the rotation point of the bird’s face.

TUTORIAL |

MOVIE

ON THE CD

70 | June 2006

5Parent all the bird parts and the Null-layers as above. The FaceCtrlNull controls the beak, eye and eyeball. The wing, leg, head and tail is

parented to the body. I animated the body and fine-tuned the bird’s flight with the FlyCtrlNull. The extra control will give you the flexibility to make changes should your client request them.

AFTER EFFECTS • ILLUSTRATOR

6Now you can start animating! Select each

of the layers, except the leg and those parented to FaceCtrlNull. Next, press Shift+Alt+R and then Shift+Alt+P to add rotation and position keyframes to the selected layers. Add keyframes on frame 46 on the same layers. This will give you a couple of frames to fade to the X-ray bird a little later on.

7 Animate the bird flying in from the right and landing from frame 0 to 40 and

continue take-off from 46 to 100. I usually start out with the biggest moves so I can get a quick feel for timing and weight. When you’re happy with that just add to the animation with the more detailed stuff.

8 Switch back and forth to balance the rough motion with the secondary motion

and remember that one mucked up keyframe can destroy the whole animation. On the other hand, the right keyframe can make a bad animation look awesome.

9 You will notice that keeping the leg planted when the bird lands is tricky, so

use two leg layers to plant the foot. Go to the landing frame, split (Ctrl+Shift+D) the leg layer and unparent the new layer (leg 2). Move the anchor point of leg 2 to the claws. Animate the rotation of the new leg layer so that it follows the bird. For the take off, split leg 2 and parent leg 3 to the bird’s body.

10Now make a new comp (2,048x576px, 200 frames) and call it BirdXRay. Drag

in Bird_Layers Comp and duplicate it, simply by hitting Ctrl+D. Name the top comp BirdTakeOff and the lower comp BirdLand.

11Next drag in the StandingBirdXray.ai and position and scale it so that it

aligns exactly with your BirdLand at frame 40. Rename the layer X-RayBird and put it at the bottom of the comp.

12 With the Time indicator at frame 40, select BirdTakeOff and trim the in

point (Alt+[). Set a 0 per cent Opacity Key on all layers. Now go to frame 42 and set a 100 per cent Opacity Key on all layers. Select BirdLand and swap the two opacity keyframes around. You can now trim the out point by hitting Alt+].

13Select Birdtakeoff and move it over so that the first Opacity Keyframe is set

at 125. Copy the two Opacity Keyframes and paste them on to StandingBirdXray.ai before swapping the copied keyframes around.

It’s essential that you learn and master the different key interpolations – it makes such a big difference when it comes to making your animations move more naturally. Ctrl-click on a key to toggle between Linear and Auto Bezier, Ctrl+Alt+click to make a key hold and hit F9 to make any keyframe into an Easy Ease.

INTERPOLATIONS

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June 2006 | 71

14 Animate some text layers and images between frame 46 and 125 for the

‘technical’ description of the bird. Even if all layers have the same animation it helps to offset the animation on each layer. Precomp the animated layers and call it Text&Info. (We also imported an image sequence made in 3ds Max to get a mix of 3D and 2D.)

15 Make a new comp and call it Maincomp. Ensure that this comp has

a 1,024x576px resolution and is 200 frames in length. Create a solid by selecting Ctrl+Y and name it BackgroundRamp. Add a Ramp filter to it and choose two nice sky colours.

16Drag in BirdXray, create a new black solid and name it Vignette. Next,

create a white solid and name it WhiteBorder.

17 Open Illustrator, create a document that measures 1,024x576px (RGB) and

call it MaincompMask. Use the Rounded Rectangle tool to make a border and use the up and down keys to make it rounded.

18 Select Edit>Preferences>File Handling&Clipboard and make sure

AICB is ticked. Now press OK and select your rounded rectangle. Copy it by selecting Ctrl+C and then switch back to After Effects. 21 Go to frame 43

and scale the BirdXray so it fits nicely in the main comp. Set a scale key and go to frame 39. Create another scale key with the value of 80 per cent. Copy the two keys, go to frame 124 and Paste the keys. Swap them around to get a zoom out. Select the first and last scale key and press F9.

22 In the project window, drag the Maincomp to the Make New Comp icon. Rename the new comp MaincompGrading and

duplicate the Maincomp layer (Apple+D). Add a Gaussian Blur filter to the top layer, set it to a value of 6 and set the Layer Mode to Soft Light. This will make the colours bleed and the animation look a little rougher.

Naming things might not be much fun, but when you work in a team it’s very important. It’s good to sort out some kind of naming structure (also with your colleagues if you are working in a team). It will make things much easier later on and will prevent you, and your colleagues, from getting yourselves lost within a composition!

WHAT’S IN A NAME?

19 Select Vignette and paste the mask by hitting Ctrl+V. Invert the copied mask

and give it a feather of about 55px. Change the Mask Opacity to 33 per cent before selecting WhiteBorder. Finally, Paste and Invert the mask again.

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20 Import squared_paper.tif and drag it in above the BirdXray Layer. Rename

it PaperTexture. Set the Layer Mode to Multiply. Hold down Shift and press the + or - to cycle forward or backwards through the Layer Modes. Go to frame 40 and set an Opacity Key at 0 per cent. Go to keyframe 42 and add another key at 20 per cent. Copy the two keys, go to frame 125 and Paste the keys. Swap them around to get a fade out.