I’ve been recently learning Adobe After Effects for my day job and it’s been a crash-course type experience. That, to me, is the best way to learn. Give me a bunch of projects and I’ll learn whatever software I need to very quickly to get it done. I’ve been having a blast learning the interface and all that After Effects can do and am constantly surprise at how powerful it is.
I was using Adobe Flash up until now and will most likely never go back unless there is interaction between the animation and user (ie: a website). Flash appears to me to be on it’s way out. It’s not even supported on my mobile devices and many of the animation/interaction type stuff a website needs can be accomplished with HTML5.. at least this is what I’m told.
At any rate, it’s been baby steps and as you’ll see by the two samples, I’m won’t be working at Disney by week’s end. I’ve been thankful in that the projects that have been given me so far haven’t been intensive and have allowed me to learn a few features or tools at a time.
The first video shows me using the “stroke” feature. I make an adjustment layer, grab the pen tool and draw out the full stroke. Then I apply the stroke effect on that layer.
The second video is using the Matte Track effect. Essentially I select a layer and track it to the layer above, which then turns that above layer into a matte.
It took me much more time to figure out how to do it and seconds to actually implement it. But, that’s learning. Without further ado…
NOTE: the line in this first video is purposefully “off” from the little robot. It is to show imperfection when math theory is applied from the “math world” to the real world.
Thanks for checking it out.
Till next time…
David (Cali Dingo)