After Effects Playtime

After picking up a few more bits on after effects, here's what a few hours worth of playing around came up with...

Create a '3d' object
Trying to create a '3d' piece in the scene... I created a cube by fixing 6 square layers together and played around with rotating it/using the camera/adding some light.

Firstly, pre-comped the 'cube', then used keyframes to change its orientation


Then using the cube, changed the position of the camera



Finally, played around with the lights and position of the camera as well and added in a couple more cubes just for kicks.




Speed Graphs
In a couple of the examples above I played around with the speed graphs, to adjust the speed of the transitions between keyframes. The speed graphs are probably most useful for realistic situations, such as a ball bouncing, pendulum on a clock, a car accelerating, etc.

So just to illustrate what I mean, here's a simple swinging box, notice how it seems to speed up when falling, and slow down, or 'ease in' when it's traveling upwards...


Using this idea, (and still keeping in mind I want to animate to sound), I was thinking along the lines of a clock ticking .. meaning I can kill two birds with one stone, getting the most out of what I'm doing? As I'm getting the hang of after effects, I want to try to use the last week or so to put together a really short piece, that is simple, but manages to add in extra things I haven't covered yet such as sound, and being able to practice the other bits and pieces like fading in/out, speed graphs for the key frames and other simple things.

I'm becoming more and more comfortable with using the software now, and starting to pick up short cuts and quicker/different ways of achieving something... That's what I love about after effects, there's something you can pick up everyday, and just keep learning and learning. Think of something you want to create or a composition you want to try an effect on, and you're bound to be able to achieve it one way or another.

Also, since I've been putting this post together, I came across this video on youtube...
This helps solve the problem of the spaces between my solid layers in the cubes above, as for my 'cubes' I just slotted them together as best as I could. I'll put the use of the anchor point together next time I use a 3d shape :)