PROJECT 6
Create a 3- 5 second animation that includes a WALK CYCLE and a LOOP
Save your project as an .mp4 file
Expression – Loop Out
Create a 1 second animation comp – for example a ball bouncing.
Ex- Animation starts with a ball up high, it hits the floor and squashes and the goes up high again.
Now create a new composition that is 10 seconds long.
If you place your bouncing ball comp animation in this new longer composition you’ll notice it is not long enough.
Instead of copying the short animation you can add an expression to make it loop!
Right click on the name of the ball comp an choose
TIME > ENABLE TIME REMAPPING
now ALT+CLICK the TIME REMAP Stopwatch
now CLICK THE ARROW and go to PROPERTY > LOOP OUT
Now you can extend the length of this composition in the timeline and eventhoug it was a short animation, it will now loop as long as needed!
Build the Character in Illustrator
Create a New Layer for each part
*you may add more parts for more detail
1. Head
2. Eye
3. Mouth
4. Body
5. R Arm
6. L Arm
7. R Leg
8. L Leg
Save the file
Import into After Effects
Choose Import as Composition – Retain Layer Sizes
You now have a composition with each of your illustrator named layers
*if you want more control of each layer you can convert them to Shapes by right clicking on the layers and choosing Convert to Vector Layers
Click the composition and change the Composition Settings to make it 30 frames *or 24 if you prefer
Move & Keyframe the Head & Parts
The head should reach a high point halfway through and then return by the end
Use the Position Keyframe to set a change and create a beginning, change and return for the head position.
Now use the Parent setting to set each part of the body to match the follow the HEAD
Now change the rotation point for each of the body part using the PAN BEHIND TOOL
Now use keyframes to rotate each limb create a beginning, change and return for each
Now create a Background Scene
Now create a Final Comp Scene and drop in your Background and your Walk Cycle
Adjust the COMPOSITION SETTINGS of the Final Comp and make it 5 seconds long.
You’ll notice that your walk cycle isn’t long enough, so lets use TIME REMAPPING and LOOPING to make it work.
Go to the Walk Cycle Layer – right click – Time > Enable Time Remaping
Alt +Click the stopwatch to revel the EXPRESSION OPTION
Use the Arrow to choose Property > Loop Out
Now you can extend layer and it will repeat!
Now adjust the Position Key frame to make it walk across the scene
Expression – Time
Use this expression to make a variable in your animation grow based upon the time (the time code) of your composition.
Create a large stroked Circle in your composition.
Create a much smaller circle and make it align with the large Circle.
Make sure the smaller circle’s rotation center is the center of the composition.
Now open up the option for the small circle.
Alt+Click on the Rotation Stopwatch to open the expressions.
Go to the Arrow and choose GLOBAL > TIME
This will add the word ‘time’ in the expression box.
The small circle should now rotate slowly based on the time of the time code.
To increase this rotation type an asterisk next to time. Add a semi-colon at the end of the expression
ex: time*100;
or
time*-100
Experiment!
Great Tutorial