Part 5 - Pre-Comps and Master Compositions

[♫New Age music] [ADOBE® TV Presents] [CLASSROOM] [Basic Compositing & Animation][In After Effects CS5] In the last episode we looked at Parenting and using Null Objects to group motion together. In this episode we're going to look at grouping all the layers together, into one unified composition. Each composition that we've created so far, we refer to as a precomp. It's not a finished animation because we're going to use this as elements in a larger composition. So let's get started. Go ahead and open up the AE-TitleSequence folder; then move your cursor to the AE_Lessons folder and open up lesson05.aep. You can open that by double-clicking it. This will bring you to the animations that we've built so far. What I'd like you to do now is to create a new composition that's going to be our Master Composition, and then we're going to add our music. So far, all of the compositions we've created, we've created from some sort of asset-- like the 4 videos that we've used so far. To create a composition from scratch there's a couple of ways to do this. One way is to go to the Composition menu and select New Composition. It's also got a key command of Command+N, on the Mac or Control+N, on a PC. Another way to create a new composition is to use the New Comp button at the bottom of your Project panel. Go ahead and use the keyboard shortcut of Command+N or Control+N, if you're on a PC. This will bring you to the Composition Settings dialogue box. Here, we need to modify the settings to make it match our source footage. The footage we're working with is 720 x 1280, and 24 frames per second. This actually translates to 23.98. It's kind of a strange nature of video, but we can modify it to make it work. You can select from a variety of presets by clicking the on the Preset pull-down. You'll notice it's got most common presets that you find in video-- everything from SD, all the way up to HD settings. I'm going to start with a setting, such as 720 29.97 This is the HDTV setting. Go ahead and select that. Now that you have the frame size correct, as you see--1280, width; and 720, height-- this will match our video footage and all the other comps we created. But the frame rate needs to be modified, so select the pull-down on the Frame Rate attribute and change it, from 29.97 to 23.976. Everything here seems to be configured properly . We might want to modify the duration of the composition if we need it longer or shorter. But in this case, 30 seconds is fine. So if the duration is currently set to 30, then you're all set to go. Go ahead and modify this to make it 30 seconds-- if it isn't already 30 seconds. To modify duration, you're going to adjust the Timecode. Timecode is a time variable which is defined through hours, minutes, seconds, and frames. Finally, the last thing that I'd like you to do, in configuring the composition, is to name it. A name like Comp1 is sort of meaningless, so we want something a little more specific. You can highlight the Comp Name, then rename it to read: PowerFoundation. This is the name of our final composition. Then click OK. You notice that the PowerFoundation composition is now created. So you want to move this composition into the Comps folder, keeping everything nice and organized. What we need to do now is to add our music to our composition. So open up the Music folder in your Project panel; then select the music, and click and drag it into the Timeline so that you place the music inside of the composition. Now I'd like you to add the first composition that we're going to use in this sequence-- and that's the Faucet composition. So open up the Comps folder and select the faucet_drops composition. Then drag this into your Timeline, and place it above the PowerFoundation layer. Notice that the layer order is determined by a little black line, which allows me to place this layer below or on top of the PowerFoundation layer. Place it on top of the music layer. Then I'd like you to create a Mask on this layer by selecting the faucet_drops layer, then move your cursor to the Rectangle tool. To add a Mask to this layer you can click the tool, then draw the Mask manually or just double-click the tool. By double-clicking on the Rectangle tool, you create a Mask which goes edge to edge, taking up the full layer area. We want to modify this Mask now, to put a little bit of angle to the Mask. So this means that we're going to move one side of the Mask in, and make it a little bit thinner. So change to your Selection tool if you don't already have your Selection tool, then highlight the 2 left-hand side points of the Mask. Then hold down your Shift key and use the Right Arrow key on your keyboard to slide this Mask to the right. Next, I'd like you to select the bottom 2 Mask points by creating a highlight box around those 2 points. Using your Shift key and your Left Arrow key, slide the bottom 2 points to make an angled Mask on this layer. Now what I'd like to do is add an effect. The effect that I'm going to add is called the Stroke Effect, and this adds a little line to the edges of any Mask. To add this effect, go to the Effect Menu. Under Generate, select Stroke. This adds a new Stroke on that current Mask. Now we'll want the brush size of this Stroke to be a little bit bigger-- because I want the line of the Mask's edge to be bigger than 2 pixels. If you notice, the Effect Control window has been revealed, and the Brush Size is currently set to 2 pixels. I want to modify this to be about 10 pixels or more. So move your cursor to the Brush Size attribute, click to modify the value, type the number 10--to make it 10 pixels; then hit the Return key or Enter key to confirm that action. You'll notice that the edges of this Mask are now highlighted with a white edge. I like this for the left and right-hand edges, but I don't want it on the top and bottom. So I'm going to have to make the Mask a little bit larger on the top and bottom. So then deselect this particular layer by clicking below the layers in your Timeline area. You can then reselect, by selecting the faucet_drops layer. You can then click on one of the Mask lines--either on the top or on the bottom-- to select 2 points: the top and bottom points. I'm going to select the bottom points first, by clicking the line between the 2 Mask points; then hold Shift, and hit the Down key on my keyboard. That's enough--all I needed is 10 pixels down, so that that's offscreen. We'll do the same action for the Mask line on top. Select the 2 points; hold Shift, and hit the Up key. This makes it so that I have a nice Stroke on both the left and right-hand edges of this particular layer, but not on the top and bottom. Now what I'd like to do is reposition the layer so that this left-hand Stroke is on the left side of the composition. So simply deselect, and then reselect the layer and slide it to the left. Make sure to hold Shift while you do this so that it only moves on the X-axis, and not on the Y-axis. Also notice that I'm positioning this so that that Stroke is completely covered up by the edge of the composition. Any little bit might cause a little bit of a distraction up in that top left-hand corner. So just be sure to position it so that that Stroke is on the left-hand side of the composition. Then, we're going to add animation to the Mask so that this point slides across. To do this, select the layer that you're going to animate-- in this case, the faucet_drops layer-- hit the "M" key to reveal the Mask Path attribute. Place a keyframe at the beginning of the composition, on Mask Path. Then advance forward 10 frames, Shift+Page Down. Eh--I'm looking at it now--maybe 20 frames would be better. So I'm going to hit Shift+Page Down one more time. This puts me at 20 frames forward in the composition. Now go ahead and place another keyframe on Mask Path, by clicking the Diamond button. You'll need to jump back to the previous keyframe and modify the right-hand edge of that Mask so that it slides from left to right. So use your "J" and "K" keys to jump between the keyframes-- in this case, "J" to go to the previous keyframe. You'll need to deselect the Mask, and then reselect it. To do this, click on the right side, in the black area, and then reselect by clicking the line between the 2 points on the right side. This way, we know that these points are selected, confirmed by those solid squares--and not seeing hollow squares. Simply grab that line, slide it to the left, and hold Shift-- and this will change the Mask Path so that it begins on the left-hand side. What we're doing here is essentially animating this Mask, over time. Mask Path is the attribute we use. By just simply placing a keyframe on Mask Path, moving down the Timeline and modifying the Mask, we add animation to the Mask. So let's watch it. [Earth Pictures][presents][video only] [♫music added][Earth Pictures][presents] So now we've added the Stroke to this, and animated the Mask so this scene looks pretty good. So it's about time to add the next scene. To do this, we're going to drag another Comp on top of this particular layer. But where we place it is kind of important because we're timing this, based off of a couple of things. We want to make sure that we can see it onscreen for long enough to read it, It's got to be clear; and also, allowing the music to drive some of these decisions. Motivating your edit decisions by music is one of the key factors in animation. So go ahead and navigate to the Project panel, and select the light_bulb composition. Go ahead and drag this composition, as a layer, into the Master Composition. Place it above the faucet_drops composition. Notice that this layer is now on top. If you accidentally placed the layer below the faucet_ layer-- not the end of the world. All you need to do is simply grab the layer and move it, by selecting the text, and sliding it above or below the layer that you'd like to reposition. Now let's figure out the right timing for this layer to move in. One thing you can do is turn off the top layer, by clicking the Eyeball so that you're just looking at the Faucet layer. Then I'm going to hit RAM Preview to get a sense of playback. And I'm looking for a key moment, in both the music as well as the image, to begin this transition. [Earth Pictures][presents] [Video playback only] [♫music added to video][Earth Pictures][presents] I'm hearing a little bit of a snare drop or some sort of motivation in the music-- which is going to help drive the reason for making this cut. So I'm thinking it's about 6 seconds or so, when we're going to see the cut between this scene and the next scene. So go ahead and grab this layer on the Timeline area, and slide it to the right. Holding Shift, it will allow it to snap to your current time indicator. Then what we need to do is animate the faucet_drops composition-- or layer, in this case--to move from left to right. Go ahead and enable the Position attribute on the faucet_drops layer by hitting the "P" key. At 6 seconds, place your first Position keyframe. Then advance forward--I'd say 10 to 20 frames-- Shift+Page Down, Page Down; then reposition the Faucet layer so that it moves to the right-hand side of the screen-- not totally off the screen, but leaving a little bit of the accent from that white line. So I'm going to grab the layer; and slide it to the right, holding Shift so that it moves on the X-axis only-- landing at about there. For me, it's about 15.65 on the X attribute. Okay--I think that looks good. Let me just scrub through the motion to confirm that I like the way it looks. It slides over, and lands. I think it looks great. Now what I'd like to do is turn on the light_bulb layer. Ah! I noticed something. In this case, we don't necessarily want the light bulb on top of the other layer. It's kind of an interesting thing-- even though it's the next scene in the animation, it doesn't necessarily mean that it's going to be on top. We want to create a composite here where we still see that blue side, from the faucet video, as well as that white Stroke. And then the Energy layer is going to be part of the next layout. So go ahead and change the layer order, by moving the light_bulb composition-- or layer--below the faucet_drops layer. Now reposition the light_bulb layer by using the Shift and Arrow keys--in this case, Shift and Left Arrow on your keyboard-- to reposition this light bulb so that it's positioned in a way that balances the composition. I'm looking for about equal distance between the light bulb, the edge of the Stroke, as well as the light bulb and the text. So maybe just one more slide over. That, to me, looks about right. Now what I'd like to have happen is when we see the Faucet layer slide from left to right, we want it to take the light_bulb layer with it. So all I have to do is Parent it to the faucet_drops layer. Now don't just go ahead and do that yet because there's some important things to understand here. If I Parent this layer before the animation-- let me just show you what happens. I'm going to Parent light_bulb to faucet_drops, and then play forward. Well, it takes the light bulb with it--that's a problem. It just sends it over to the right-hand side. I'm going to undo that previous action. Instead, make sure that your current time indicator is parked after the 2 keyframes of the movement of the faucet layer moving from left to right; then Parent light_bulb to faucet_drops. Now we're going to play in reverse-- or just scrub through it with our current time indicator-- just to see that it's moving in the right manner. I think it looks great. All right. I think that does it for the second scene. Now we're ready for the third scene. The third scene is the recycling_bin composition. Select it in your Project panel, then drag it and drop it above the faucet_drops comp. Now, I'm not going to just drop it in this position. If I drop it on the right-hand side of the Timeline, notice you get sort of a second icon that looks kind of like the current time indicator. This signifies placing this layer later on in the composition so that it doesn't necessarily begin at the very beginning. This is a quick way to speed up some of your work flow. Notice that I also placed it at a point where we have some overlap between the recycling layer, as well as the light_bulb layer. In my case, the beginning of this layer is at about 11.15. So then I'm going to scrub through this with my current time indicator, just to see what it looks like. So I'm scrubbing my Timeline, and I notice something that happens. I'm noticing that the faucet comp ends before the recycling comp begins. So I'm going to have to readjust the timing a little bit. I can do this by moving the timing for some of these comps. First of all, why don't I slide some of these keyframes back, by highlighting them and sliding them back in time. I'm going to reposition these keyframes to begin around 4 seconds or so. Go ahead and slide the keyframes, holding Shift so that they snap to the current time indicator. Then select the light_bulb layer, and slide that back so that it lines up with the first keyframe on the faucet_drops layer. Then let's slide back the recycle_bin layer so that it begins at about 8 seconds. So I'm going to park at 8 seconds, then I'd like you to select the recycle_bin layer and slide it back--so that it begins at 8 seconds; therefore, overlapping with all 3 layers. You've got the recycling bin sliding on, covering up the faucet_drops layer, then covering up the light_bulb layer. I think this looks great. So let's preview it. [Earth Productions][presents][video only] [a film about][ENERGY] [produced by Tiger Kirchman] [♫music added] [Earth Productions][presents] [a film about][ENERGY] [♫music] [produced by Tiger Kirchman][♫music] [Earth Productions][presents][♫music] So the third scene looks pretty good, but I think it's time to add the fourth scene--which is the Bike comp. Select the bike_wheel comp. Go ahead and drag it, and place it at about 12 to 12.15 in your Timeline. So now what I'd like you to do is move your current time indicator so that it's parked on top of the bike_wheel composition. Then open the Position attribute for the bike_wheel composition. Add a new keyframe at the beginning of the layer. You can go to the beginning of the layer by hitting the "I" key on your keyboard or the end of the layer, by hitting the "O" key on your keyboard. This is also referred to as your In and Out Points. So this is a quick way to go to the beginning or end of the layer. So click the "I" key to jump to the beginning of the bike_wheel layer and place a Position keyframe on the layer. Then advance forward 20 frames: Shift+Page Down--1, 2 times-- place another keyframe for position on the layer, and jump back to the previous keyframe by either selecting the "I" key or using the "J" key to jump to the previous keyframe. Then I'd like you to slide this layer down so that it's positioned below the composition area; click and drag it, then hold Shift so that it snaps to the Y-axis. Position it just so that it's just below the other layer. Then what I want you to do is to scrub through your Timeline to just see what it looks like, sliding from bottom to top. I think it looks pretty good, but what we also want to have happen is to see the top layer get pushed up, while this bottom layer moves up. Another thing we're going to need to do is add a Mask and a Stroke so that you see a nice white edge to the top of that layer. That's probably the first thing I'd like to do. So park your current time indicator somewhere later on that bike_wheel composition so that you can see the full area of that particular composition. Then double-click the Rectangle tool to place a Mask on the bike_wheel layer. I'd like you to then add the Stroke effect one more time, by going to Effect, Generate, Stroke. You may also notice that the most recent effect will appear at the top of the Effect Menu-- a quick way to arrive at the last effect that you used. So I'm going to go ahead and click that. Now that you've added the Stroke effect, let's increase the brush size. So move your cursor to the Brush Size attribute and increase the size from 2 pixels to 10 pixels. Confirm it by hitting Return or Enter. I think it looks pretty good. We want that edge on the top edge of it, but we want to modify the left, right, and bottom edges so that there is no Stroke, except for the top. To do this, click on the right, bottom, or left line of the Mask and then just slide the Mask points over, down, and over so that you only have a Stroke on the very top of the layer. Finally, when this layer lands, we don't want to see the Stroke anymore. So we're going to have to make the layer slightly larger. So I'm going to enable the Scale attribute for the bike_wheel layer. So hit the "S" key. This will reveal the Scale attribute. With the Scale attribute, you have X and Y--just like you have with the Position attributes, and a variety of other attributes in After Effects. But in this case, you also have a little Link button. This Link button constrains proportions, which means that when I modify the X, it also modifies the Y. That's good. That's what we want. So modify this value, from 100 to 105; and then hit Return to confirm your change. Now select the layer and hit the "P" key to reveal Position. Then park on the first keyframe, and add any additional movement that's needed to move this thing offscreen. Since we made it a little bit larger, you're starting to see that Stroke a little early on. So what I'll need to do is select the layer and just move it down a couple of pixels, using my Down Arrow key to slide it down--below the composition. Finally, we'll want to Parent the recycling_bin layer to the bike_wheel layer. But once again, it's important when you Parent this layer. If I wait till after the animation, it's going to carry it behind the bike_wheel layer instead of on top. So instead, make sure you're parked on the first frame--or even before it. Then use your Pick Whip to Parent the recycling_bin layer to the bike_wheel layer. And to confirm that it all works, you can use your RAM Preview button to preview all of the stuff we've built so far. Go ahead and do that now. [produced by Tiger Kirchman][video only] [starring][KATE MARQUEZ][video only] [♫music added] [Earth Productions][presents] [a film about][ENERGY] [♫music] [produced by Tiger Kirchman][♫music] [starring][KATE MARQUEZ][♫music] [♫music only] [♫music] [Earth Productions][presents] [a film about][ENERGY] [♫music] [produced by Tiger Kirchman][♫music] [starring][KATE MARQUEZ][♫music] Well, I think it looks great. But I do just want to mention one thing, real quick, about the Scale action that we did. When Scaling layers in After Effects, specifically precomps--and more importantly, when Scaling video in After Effects above 100 percent, you run the risk of pixelating the image and degrading the image. So it's really important that you do this in small amounts. So I'd say 105 is probably not a problem. But if you Scale it way up, you might find that the image gets degraded and it loses a little bit of quality. So I'm looking at it now, just to confirm that the quality of this video is sustained--and I think it looks pretty good. So I'm not too worried about the degradation of this particular layer. So that's about it for this episode. We've taken all of our other scenes and tied them together in a Master Composition to make it look real cool, with transitions and everything. In the next episode we'll be introducing PSDs as a work flow, working with Photoshop and After Effects together. Look forward to it. [♫New Age music resumes] [Adam Shaening-Pokrasso] [Presenter/Course Design] [Bob Donlon[ [Executive Producer/Instruction Supervisor] [Kush Amerasinghe] [Director/Graphics/Assets/Course Design] [Karl Miller][Producer] [Erik Espera][Editor/DP] [ADOBE® TV Productions] [tv.adobe.com]