From after effects to flash poetry in motion graphics - part 10 ppsx

11. Move the playback head to :09:22 and add a keyframe to the point of interest.

Move the playback head to :10:09 and change the point of interest value to –32,

374, 0. You are finished with the Camera 1 layer. Twirl it up.

12. Move the playback head to :09:29, and, in the Grid layer, add a keyframe to the

Anchor Point and Orientation properties.

13. Move the playback head to :10:29 in the Grid layer and change the Orientation value

to 357, 30, 0.

14. Move the playback head to :11:15 and add a keyframe to the Position property.

Right-click (PC) or Ctrl-click (Mac) the keyframe just created and select Keyframe

Assistant ➤ Easy Ease In. The keyframe, as shown in Figure 11-36, changes to a

right-pointing arrow.

Figure 11-36. Use the Easy Ease assistants to control the easing

of objects into and out of keyframes.

15. With the playback head still at :11:15, add a keyframe to the Orientation value and

change the Y Rotation value to 0 x –128.0 degrees.

16. Move the playback head to :12:14. Change the Position value to –457.6, 239.2,

-483.3 and be sure to change the keyframe to Easy Ease In. Change the Orientation

value to 357, 64, 0 and twirl up the Grid layer (make sure you changed the orienta￾tion on the grid layer, not the camera layer).

17. Save the project and click the Play button. The grid will move through space (see

Figure 11-37), colors will appear in the background, and the text will appear at the

end of the video.

The three Easy Ease assistants have specific functions. Easy Ease eases the speed

coming into and out of a keyframe. Easy Ease In controls the ease speed coming

into a keyframe, and Easy Ease Out controls the ease speed when the playback

head moves out of the keyframe.

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Figure 11-37. Welcome to the Fake TV Late Show.

Making the movie Flash Friendly

As it currently stands, this project will play in Flash if the user has a bandwidth pipe the size

of the tunnel between France and the U.K. and has the most powerful PC in existence.

Everyone else attempting to watch this in Flash can simply forget about it. The size of this

video—640✕480—will simply overwhelm the Flash Player. In many respects, it will be like

trying to push a watermelon through a worm.

This isn’t to say it can’t be done. You can push a 640✕480 FLV file through the Flash Player

providing there isn’t a lot of movement and that the frame rate for the FLV file is reduced

to at least 5 frames per second. The problem here is there is a serious amount of move￾ment. The grid is in motion, and the videos play while the grid moves. Toss in the fact the

camera is swinging around to show the videos, and you can see that playing this video at

its current size is simply not an option.

To make this movie Flash friendly, it needs to be resized. The hard way of doing it would

be to simply start over with a Comp that is 320✕240. The easy way is to let the software do

the work. Here’s how:

1. Click the Comp window and add the Comp to the Render Queue, which will open

the Render Queue panel.

2. Click the Lossless link to open the Output Module Settings dialog box.

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3. Select QuickTime movie from the Format pull-down menu and select None in the

Embed pull-down menu.

4. Click the Format Options button in the Video Output area to open the Compression

Settings dialog box. Select Video from the Compressor Type pull-down menu and

move the Quality slider to Best in the Compressor area. Click OK to accept the

changes and return to the Output Module Settings dialog box.

5. Select Stretch and change the Width and Height values to 320✕240. Make sure the

Stretch Quality is set to High and that the Lock Aspect Ratio option is selected as

shown in Figure 11-38. These settings won’t stretch the video. They will simply

reduce its output size to a Flash-friendly one. Leave the Crop area deselected.

Figure 11-38. The key is the Stretch values.

6. Select Audio Output and click OK to close the dialog box.

7. Click the Output to link and navigate to the folder where you have been working on

this project. Click Save.

8. Click the Render button in the Render Queue. When the render finishes, save the

project and quit After Effects. Play the rendered video in the QuickTime Player as

shown in Figure 11-39. Not bad.

Yeah we know . . . there is no audio. Remember what we mentioned earlier in this

book? Sometimes the timing and playback of an FLV file in Flash can be a little off.

Flash video designers and developers have discovered including an audio track in the

QuickTime movie and the FLV file solves this potential issue.

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Figure 11-39. The resized video playing in QuickTime

Summary

The dragon hunt has taken you into territory regarded as the Holy Grail of Flash . . . the

third dimension. Even so, we showed you a number of ways ranging from rotoscoping to

camera movement that allow you to add 3D works to Flash.

One of the major themes of this chapter has been that though After Effects has some

industrial-strength 3D tools, the objects in 3D still remain flat. If you need to extrude a sur￾face, use the tool for the job—a 3D modeling application—not After Effects.

We started looking for 3D dragons by creating a simple text-based button that spun on the

X-, Y-, and Z-axes. We then showed you how to add the button to Flash by embedding it

into the Flash timeline. We also showed a rather cool technique that allowed you to con￾vert that After Effects button into a series of images and how to import the whole series

into the Flash timeline at the click of a button.

The chapter then explained how 3D space works in After Effects and how to use the vari￾ous view menus to get an accurate picture of where objects are in that 3D space. You also

explored the lighting and the camera features of After Effects by creating a flashlight

effect and creating an animation based on camera movement.

We have included both the QuickTime and FLV versions of this project in the Chapter

11 Completed folder found in the Chapter 11 Exercise folder.

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With those fundamentals in hand, you created a video cube that used a stationary camera

and rotating videos, thanks to parenting. The final project pulled the entire chapter

together by showing you how to work in a large 3D space and Comp and how to prepare

the project for placement in Flash.

Make no mistake about it, though, the exercises in this chapter were designed to get you

using 3D in After Effects. We covered just the fundamentals. There is a lot more to what

you can do than presented here. Still, this chapter should get your mind working overtime

looking for ways to incorporate even more complex 3D work into your Flash projects.

Our dragon hunt is about to end. It concludes with one of the more underrated aspects of

any Flash or After Effects project: audio. Turn the page and we’ll meet you there.

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