After Effects: Lesson 3

 We first imported an illustrator file of some cars on a road. When importing we dragged the file in and changed the import mode to composition (Layer Size). 

Added an animation for the red car by adding to frames and adjusting the path. We then added a bit of rotation and added auto orient. Layer>Transform>Auto-orient>Orient along path. This will make the rotation match the path. 

When the two cars meet we animated them moving back on impact. This makes the auto orient flip the car so we had to key frame the rotation. 

We then added a solids layer and added a CC Particle Systems II effect. 

Change Particle settings to Tripolygon shape. We then adjusted the colours to match the car colours and animated the birth rate from 8 to 0 on the impact.

We made a precomp of the car animation.

Then added a null layer and renamed it to wiggle. We then added a wiggle(5,5) expression to the position 

We then used ctrl+shift+d to split precomp layer and set the impact part to have Wiggle as it's parent. This makes it appear as if everything shakes when the cars hit. 

Download image of Mannequin: Selective Focus Photo of Multicolored Wooden Mannequin · Free Stock Photo (pexels.com)

Made a new comp called puppets and import the image. The image is bigger than the comp so we did right click> transform>Fit to comp height. 

RotoBrush

Click on rotobrush then double click the image. Then draw over the areas you want to keep (define the subject).

Change effect settings. Quality to best. Feather to 10%. Shift Edge to -9. 

Once done click freeze. 

precomp the image and freeze the frame (RightClick>Time>FreezeFrame)

Use puppet tool (The pin next to the Rotobrush) to add pins and then move the pins in a different frame to animate it. You can also change the type of the pins so that they are position, starch, bend or advanced type. These change how the other pins effect the pin. I made the pins that I didn't want to move much into starch type so that they were warped less by the other pins.

Vegas effect can be used to make text look like it is being written. Keyframe Length. Transparent mode. Duplicate change colour and random seed. Create wiggle effect layer (wiggle(5,5)), parent text layers.

Nulls can be used to control multiple layers if you use it as a parent.

After this we got a chance to make our own motion graphic. I made an icecream animation where the icecream was melting a bit so it drips. I was also given advice to use a grid and alpha track matte for the waffle cone. To follow on with this I would prehaps like to animate the cone coming into frame and also maybe make some sort of text with the melted icecream?