From after effects to flash poetry in motion graphics - part 5 docx

Naturally, there are some rules for using the Write On filter. The major ones are as follows:

For this filter to do anything, the Brush Position needs to be animated between

keyframes.

The Brush Time Properties are used to animate the look of the stroke as it moves

along the path.

This filter does not draw lines. It draws a series of dots. A line is simulated by using

a low number in the Brush Spacing parameter.

You can’t start to merrily scribble away. The Comp must be in edit mode.

Now that you have a better understanding of what this filter does, let’s put it to work.

1. To put the Comp into edit mode, double-click the Comp name in the timeline. You

will know you are in edit mode when the Comp appears in its own tab in the Comp

window and there is a timeline under the Comp in the Comp window.

2. Twirl down Comp Name ➤ Effects ➤ Write On in the timeline. When the Write On

properties appear, specify the following values:

Brush Size: 3.0

Brush Hardness: 51%

Brush Opacity: 48%

Stroke Length (secs): 0

Brush Spacing (secs): 0.068

Paint Time Properties: Opacity

Brush Time Properties: Size

Paint Style: On Transparent

You are now ready to start creating your sine wave. The properties you just set determine

how the dots will appear and how far apart they will be when the wave animates. The key

to animating a brush is the circle with the crosshairs that you see in the middle of the

Comp window. It is the starting point of the animation.

Figure 5-25.

The Write On filter lets you

paint on a solid.

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3. Add a keyframe at the 0 point of the timeline in the Brush Position property. Drag

the crosshairs to the upper-left corner of the Comp until the values in the Brush

Position area are 24, 27. This will be the start point of the sine wave.

4. Drag the playback head to the 1-second mark, and change the Brush Position to

152, 224. When you release the mouse, you will see a dotted line. Use the follow￾ing values for the remainder of the wave:

2 seconds: 372,71

3 seconds: 688,272

4 seconds: 707,286

If you look at the Comp window, you will see the dotted line appears, and there is a square

where each of the keyframes is located. If you click one of those squares, you will discover

that it has handles (similar to what you’d find in Illustrator or Fireworks) as shown in

Figure 5-26. (The handles will appear as small dots on either side of the square you

clicked.) This means you can move the locations of the keyframes and use the handles to

adjust the path of the dots between the keyframes.

Figure 5-26. You can control the shape of the curve by adjusting the keyframe locations and

moving the handles.

5. Click the Comp 2 tab in the Comp window. If you scrub the playback head across

the Comp, you will see the dots create the curve shapes.

If you paid attention to the original animation, you may have noticed there are two waves

that intersect each other. Does this mean you have to repeat these steps on a new layer?

No. If you recall, we are inherently lazy, and here’s a real neat way of duplicating the curve

and flipping it with a simple drag of the mouse:

6. Select the layer in the timeline and press Ctrl+D (PC) or Cmd+D (Mac) to duplicate

the layer.

7. Click the new layer once in the Comp window. Handles will appear around the

edges of the Comp.

8. Drag the upper middle handle of the Comp to the bottom of the Comp. The ani￾mation “flips” as shown in Figure 5-27. Scrub across the timeline, and you have two

waves of dots moving across the screen.

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Figure 5-27. Duplicate the layer and “flip” it to create the second animation.

Blinking and melting text

During the opening sequence of our video, the text blinks a couple of times and then

melts into some sort of liquid state and runs off the stage. This text effect is actually quite

easy to accomplish. It only requires three filters.

1. Select the Text tool, click the Comp window that is open from the previous exer￾cise, and enter inspiration in motion. Set the font to Arial, the size to 24 points, and

the color to white (#FFFFFF).

2. Twirl down Effects & Presets ➤ Stylize and drag the Strobe Light filter onto the text.

The Strobe Light effect is actually quite interesting. As the name implies, anything affected

by the Strobe Light filter will light up and disappear depending on how often the object is

“lit up.” This explains how the text “blinks.” When you drag the filter onto the text, a num￾ber of properties will appear in the Effect Controls panel. Here is what they do:

Strobe Color: Specifies the color of the light.

Blend With Original: Indicates a percentage value that determines how strongly

the effect is applied to the layer.

Strobe Duration (secs): Specifies how long the object appears on the stage.

Strobe Period (secs): Specifies how much time elapses between strobe blinks.

Random Strobe Probability: Specifies the probability that any given frame of the

layer will have the strobe effect, giving the appearance of a random effect.

Strobe: Specifies how the effect is applied. Operates on Color Only performs the

strobe operation on all color channels. Make Layer Transparent makes the layer

transparent when a strobe effect occurs.

Strobe Operator: Determines the blend mode to be applied to the subject. The

default setting is Copy.

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3. In the Effect Controls panel, apply these settings to the Strobe Light effect (see

Figure 5-28):

Strobe Color: #FFFFFF (white)

Blend With Original: 0%

Strobe Duration (secs): .8

Strobe Period (secs): .2

Random Strobe Probability: 23%

Strobe: Makes Layer Transparent

Strobe Operator: Screen

Figure 5-28. Applying a Strobe Light effect

If you drag the playback head across the timeline, the words will “blink.”

The “melting” text is due to the interaction of two more filters: Gaussian Blur and Liquefy.

4. Twirl down Effects & Presets ➤ Blur & Sharpen and drag a copy of the Gaussian Blur

filter onto the text.

5. In the timeline, twirl down Effects ➤ Gaussian Blur, add a keyframe in the Blurriness

property at the 2-second mark, and change the Blurriness value to 2%.

6. Drag the playback head to the 4-second mark and change the Blurriness value to 25%.

7. Drag the playback head to the 2-second mark, open the Distort folder in Effects &

Presets, and drag a copy of the Liquefy filter onto the text.

The amount of fun you can have with this filter should be illegal. If you open the Liquefy

Settings in the Effect Controls panel, you will see a bunch of tools. These tools essentially

allow you to “paint” with pixels and create some rather interesting effects as you distort

the object. We really don’t have the time to walk through each tool but, if you have some

play time, take this filter for a highly entertaining test drive.

8. In the timeline, twirl down Effects ➤ Liquefy and, in the Distortion Mesh property,

add keyframes at seconds 2 and 4.

9. Click the keyframe once at the 4-second mark, twirl down the Liquefy tools in the

Effect Controls panel and select the Warp tool—we call it the “finger-painting

tool”—and click and drag the “brush” from the top of the text to the bottom of the

Comp. Notice how the pixels smear in the direction you drag the brush? Repeat

this a couple times to give yourself an oozy bit of text as shown in Figure 5-29.

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Figure 5-29. Liquifying text with the Warp tool to create an ooze effect

10. Do a RAM preview and click the Play button when the RAM preview finishes. The

text will run off of the screen.

Creating pulsing circles

Remember those old black-and-white newsreels? There would be a radio tower at the start

and a bunch of circles would radiate out from the top of the tower to indicate radio

waves. If you watch the video for this exercise, you will see a similar effect occur in the

upper-right corner of the stage: a circle seems to pulse out of that corner. Here’s how we

did it:

1. Drag a solid from the project pane to the timeline. Twirl down Effects & Presets ➤

Generate and drag a copy of the Radio Waves filter on top of the solid in the Comp

window. When you release the mouse, blue “radio waves” will appear on the Comp

(see Figure 5-30).

Figure 5-30. You start with blue waves.

The Radio Waves effect creates radiating waves from a stationary or animated effect point. It

doesn’t take a great deal of imagination to see how you can use this effect to generate pond

ripples, sound waves, or intricate geometric patterns. Best of all, using the Effect Controls

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