Welcome back to lesson seven of Animated Loops.
In this part we'll animate the scene that we created in part one and add some
smoke with a looping particle effect.
Let's get started.
I have a Timeline,
nine seconds long,
and we're making a three-second loop with Start and End markers between three
and six seconds.
To start with,
we're going to animate RockerLeft.
set the Rotation to -5 and keyframe that.
At the mid point,
change it to 5 degrees.
And at the End,
copy and paste the Start.
I'll just add Easy Ease,
and a loop expression.
We'll add the same Rotation on the body null.
-5 at the Start,
5 at the mid point
and -5 at the End.
Easy Ease and add a loop expression,
then move these keyframes six frames later.
In time with the BodyNull keyframes,
animate the FaceNull rotation,
too.
0 at the Start,
-5 in the middle
and 0 at the End.
Add Easy Ease and a loop expression.
Now we'll animate the FaceNull Position,
but we want to separate the dimension.
On
the X Position at the Start marker,
keyframe
this at 65.
About 13 frames later,
change this to 90.
At 5 seconds,
make this 97.
Nine frames later,
around 85.
At the End,
copy and paste the Start keyframe,
add Easy Ease and a loop expression.
Then shift these all 10 frames later.
Then in the Gaph Editor smooth out the curve.
Now I'll animate the feet.
On FootLeftNull at the Start,
move the foot slightly forward from the current position
and set the Rotation to 45.
Keyframe both,
copy and paste those keyframes at the mid point of the loop.
At around halfway between those keyframes,
move the null and set the Rotation to 70
Add Easy Ease and a loop expression.
Move all of these 10 frames later,
then adjust the Rotation six more frames after that.
Add a very slight curve to the motion path.
Copy and paste these keyframes to the RightFootNull.
Then select all the Position keyframes and slide the null back toward the chair
and lower down.
Move all of the FootRight keyframes three frames later,
and the legs are done.
Now we'll animate the Beard nulls.
We'll start with Beard:
KneeLeft,
again separating the dimensions of the Position.
Keyframe the X Position in time with the X Position keyframes of the FaceNull,
keeping the edge of the Beard just behind the leg.
Then add Easy Ease and a loop expression.
Repeat this for the Beard:
KneeLeft in and out nulls too,
smoothing out the curve of the beard shape as it moves.
And you can also smooth out the movement in the Graph Editor,
too.
On the BeardTip at the start,
keyframe the Position pointed back just behind the LeftFoot.
Keyframe it here at the mid point of the loop,
too.
Roughly halfway between these keyframes,
point the BeardTip forwards around the middle of the chair's rockers.
Easy Ease,
add a loop expression and move
the keyframes six frames earlier.
Then use the Convert Vertex Tool to curve the motion path down.
In time with these keyframes,
we'll also animate the BeardTip in and out nulls.
Move the nulls so the Beard curves out to the left at the Start,
out to the right in the middle and back to the left at the End.
Then add Easy Ease and a loop expression.
Do this for both the in and out nulls.
The in and out nulls need to move ahead of the Tip.
So,
move the key frames twelve frames earlier.
I want to adjust the right side of the Beard,
so show all of the shy layers.
Reveal the three Beard:
KneeRight nulls and deselect the shy option box,
then hide all the other shy layers again.
Repeat the same process for these nulls as you did for the Beard:
KneeLeft nulls,
animating their X Position in time with the FaceNull X Position.
Now the Beard is done,
so I'll animate the pipe next.
Before we do that,
we need to make one last addition to the rig.
Duplicate HandRightNull.
Name the original null PipeNull instead so
the new null will be HandRight null.
Set the Anchor Point of that null back to 0 and position it over the null below.
Parent PipeNull to that.
I did this because I want the pipe to be able to rotate from the right hand and
the pipe end,
at the same time.
start the position with the arm extended out,
keyframe that.
At 3:22 move the pipe in towards the mouth and up slightly.
Easy Ease these keyframes,
then adjust the motion path to arc down through the movement slightly.
Set the last key frame to hold.
Then at 5:09 keyframe again and Easy Ease out.
copy and paste the first keyframe and adjust the motion path to have a bigger
arc than on the way in.
At the Start,
set the Rotation to around 4 degrees.
At 3:15,
increase that to around 8 degrees.
At 3:26,
0 degrees.
Easy Ease the first two keyframes.
At 5:10,
keyframe the Rotation again at 0 and Easy Ease out.
Five frames later,
increase it slightly to 3.5 degrees.
At the End,
copy and paste the first keyframe.
Add
a loop expression and move them all 4 frames earlier.
Now I'll animate the PipeNull.
At the start,
keyframe the Position and Rotation at their current values.
At 3:18,
keyframe both again.
At 4:17,
keyframe the Rotation at around 7 degrees.
set the Rotation back at zero
and move it slightly to the right.
At the End,
copy and paste the Start keyframes,
Easy Ease the Position keyframes and the middle Rotation keyframe.
Add a loop expression to both of these and also to the HandRightNull position.
I want to move these Rotation keyframes a couple of frames later.
And I don't want the arm to extend as much.
So show the right shoulder and move it slightly further out.
I'm also going to rotate the pipe up in the middle instead.
I'm going to add some depth to the pipe by animating the Rim shape.
On PipeFront at the Start keyframe the Rim at the current size.
At the mid point reduce the height to 15.
At the End,
copy and paste the start keyframe.
And set the Velocity Influence of these to 50%.
I want to animate the fingers,
too.
Keyframe the RightHand finger Path shapes at the mid point at their current
position.
At the Start,
shorten them slightly to match the pipe movements.
Copy and paste this at the End.
Set the Velocity Influence to 50%.
Adjust the finger behind the pipe on HandRight,
too.
Now animate the mouth closing on the pipe,
starting with MouthMatte.
keyframe the Stroke width and the Path shape.
Set the Stroke width to around 37.
12 frames later,
increase the width slightly to around 38 and narrow the Path slightly.
10 frames later,
make the Stroke width around 20.
And narrow the mouth to almost a circle around the end of the pipe.
One frame later,
set the Stroke width to 0 so the mouth is closed.
Easy Ease and
change both of the End keyframes to hold.
At 5:10,
keyframe the Path and change it back to a normal keyframe.
At 5:12,
keyframe the Stroke with again and Easy Ease.
Six frames later,
increase the Stroke width to around 34 and copy and paste
the second Path keyframe.
At the End,
copy and paste both Start keyframes.
Move the Stroke width keyframes back two frames and add a loop expression.
In time with the Stroke width keyframes,
I'll also animate the tongue shape in MouthDetail.
Change the Position of this so it moves up and down with the size of the Mouth.
Add Easy Ease and a loop expression.
On PipeBack add a mask around the shape of the mouthpiece.
And set it to Subtract.
around 3:23,
keyframe the
mask Path here.
Eight frames later,
move the mask to cut off the end of the pipe.
Eight frames after that,
move it back to almost fully revealed.
Eight frames later,
copy and paste the keyframe before,
copy and paste those last three keyframes again,
then
eight frames later back to fully revealed.
Easy Ease all of these keyframes besides the last one.
Now we'll animate the eyes.
Keyframe both eyes sizes at 3:11 at 60.
12 frames later,
reduce the height of both to 50.
At 5:09,
keyframe this again.
Four frames after,
reduce them to 0 to make them blink.
Four frames later,
back to fully open,
Easy Ease them all besides the closed keyframe.
On the eyebrows,
keyframe both Path shapes a little higher at 3:15.
About 11 frames after that,
move the left one up slightly and the right one down.
At 5:06,
keyframe them both again.
About 12 frames after,
copy and paste the Start keyframes and add Easy Ease.
Now,
we are ready for some particles.
Create a new composition and named this Particle.
Make
it 100 by 100,
then create an Ellipse inside that
around 60 pixels wide.
Drag this in to the RockingChair composition and hide it.
Next create a new Solid,
the size of the composition and
move this down between the PipeFront and PipeBack layers.
Name
it Particles1.
I would normally use Particular to create particles as it gives you a lot of
control over different emitter and particle settings,
but it's quite expensive.
So I'm going to show you how to create a similar effect using one of the
particle effects that comes with After Effects instead.
In Effects,
Simulation select CC Particle World.
Set the Birth Rate to 0.5,
set the Longevity to 2,
which is the lifespan of the particle.
For it to loop,
this needs to be less than the length of the loop,
which is currently three seconds.
Set the Producer Radius to 0.01 in all
directions.
Under Physics,
set the Velocity to 0.25.
Set the Animation Type to Cone Axis.
Set Inherit Velocity to 25%.
Set the Gravity to 0.025.
Set Extra to 0.2 to reduce the Cone size.
Set the Direction Axis all to 0.
Set the Gravity Y Vector to -1.
Under Particle,
set the Particle Type to Textured Square.
Under Texture,
take the particle layer we just created.
Set the Birth Size to 0.6 and the Death size to 0.
Size Variation can stay at 50% and Max Opacity should be 100%.
Set the Birth and Death Colors both to the same light gray.
Under Opacity Map,
draw a line along the top of the graph,
which should make the particles fully opaque for their whole life.
But sometimes I find they are still briefly transparent at the Start.
To help fix this,
you can add a Level effect.
Choose Alpha
and pull the right handle back to around the middle of the histogram.
This also sharpens up the edges a little as by default the effect can be
slightly blurry.
Then,
create a new null,
which is going to be our Emitter.
Parent
this to the PipeNull,
and move it just below the bottom of the Rim.
We want to use this null's position as the emitter or ProducerPosition of the
Particle effect,
but because it's parented to other nulls,
its position is relative to those nulls.
We need it to be relative to the size of the composition.
To fix this,
we can add an expression to the null's position,
copy and paste this expression from the lesson description.
This moves the null to the lower right,
but its Positionvalue would put it at the end of the pipe,
if unparented.
In the Particle effect,
the Position values of the Producer use a number relative from the middle of the
composition,
where 0.5 is the right and -0.5 is the left.
So we can't just parent this directly to the Position values of the emitter
null,
instead we need to add an expression to these values,
to convert the emitter position into the format which the effect uses.
Add this expression to the effect's X Position.
Add this to the effect's Y position,
you can just copy and paste these from the lesson description.
Now we have a particle effect which follows the null,
but we need to make it loop.
Keyframe the Birth Rate at the Start at 0.5.
At zero,
keyframe this at zero.
Make these hold keyframes.
At the End,
keyframe it at 0,
too.
Now the particles only start to emit at the Start marker.
And they stop emitting at the End.
Duplicate the Particles1 layer,
move this layer back so the last keyframe is at the Start marker.
Now this layer's start frame is the same as the other layer's end frame.
And as the particles stop emitting here,
by the End of the loop,
they're all gone as their lifespan is less than three seconds.
So,
now if we play both layers together,
we have a looping particle effect.
If you want to reposition everything,
you can just move the ChairMoveNull.
And if you did want to adjust the animation by increasing the chair rotation,
for example,
you can do this easily as everything is linked together.
That's where I'm going to end the loop for this lesson.
I'll see you in lesson eight.
Thanks for watching.