Basic Key Framing in Adobe After Effects skateboarding

Basic Key Framing in Adobe After Effects
Written By- Username

Ok the first thing you are going to do is fire up After Effects and begin a New Composition. Then you’re going to right click the timeline and click New-> Text. Type whatever you want because this is just a tutorial to practice key framing. After that go ahead and reposition your text with the selection tool until it’s in the center. So far you should have something like this.

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y20...rial/bkft1.jpg

Now the next thing you are going to do is click the drop arrow beside your text on the timeline. You should get two drop downs one labeled “>Text” and the other labeled “>Transform”, so go ahead and click the arrow beside transform, this should expose your key frame options “Anchor Point”, “Position”, “Scale”, “Rotation”, and “Opacity”. Like so.

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y20...rial/bkft2.jpg

Ok the next thing we are going to do is set the original key frames to where are text is located now so all future key frames will be based off the text’s original position. To do this simply click the little stopwatches next to all the options until there is a check mark beside each one like so.

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y20...rial/bkft3.jpg

Now I will take you through all five of the key frame options and explain how they work. But first you must understand key frames. By this I mean that key frames are points in a video where you tell the video the starting point and ending point of movement done by a certain object in the video. Your editing program uses the start point and the end point and creates smooth video transitional movement between the two during the time you leave between the two points on the timeline. I hope that’s understandable.

Anchor Point

Ok to experiment with anchor point the first thing your going to want to do is drag the blue arrow at the top of your timeline to give you some room to change the value of the original key frame. You will do this step each time I move onto a new key frame.

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y20...rial/bkft4.jpg

Now anchor point is the little circle with an X through it on your preview window.

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y20...rial/bkft5.jpg

Basically what anchor point does is it is the “anchor point” for rotations, scales, etc. ironically named anchor point. I’m going to change my anchor point randomly at -50, -50 just to teach you how to use this key frame. To do this input different coordinates to position your anchor point like so. (My coordinates were -50, -50 but feel free to choose whatever).

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y20...rial/bkft6.jpg

Also notice that another box was added on the timeline, it’s what is called a key frame.

Position

Ok to experiment with position the first thing your going to want to do is drag the blue arrow at the top of your timeline again to give you some room to change the value of the original key frame.

Position changes the position. To change your position simply click and drag your text to a different location. In this example I dragged it to the top left hand corner.

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y20...rial/bkft7.jpg

Scale

Ok to experiment with scale the first thing your going to want to do is drag the blue arrow at the top of your timeline yet again to give you some room to change the value of the original key frame.

Scale is how large or small the object you’re working with is, scale. To change the scale simply click the corner of your object and drag in to make it smaller or out to make it larger (hold shift while dragging to maintain proportion), do this until your heart is content. In this example I made the text larger.

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y20...rial/bkft8.jpg

Rotation

Ok to experiment with rotation the first thing your going to want to do is drag the blue arrow at the top of your timeline yet once more again to give you some room to change the value of the original key frame.

Rotation is rotating your object from its original anchor point, rotation. To change your rotation simply select your rotation tool.

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y20...rial/bkft9.jpg

Now use your rotation tool by clicking the object you want to rotate and drag it until it is rotated the way you want it. In this example I rotated the text clockwise.

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y20...ial/bkft10.jpg

Opacity

Ok to experiment with opacity the first thing your going to want to do is drag the blue arrow at the top of your timeline for the last time to give you some room to change the value of the original key frame.

Opacity is like fading in and out basically, transparency. To change your opacity simply input a different value other than 100%. In this example I chose 0% for my text because I want it to fade all the way out at the end.

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y20...ial/bkft11.jpg

Now go change your composition length so there’s not a lot of black crap at the end of your video. You can do this by going to Composition-> Composition Settings. In my case I changed it to seven seconds.

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y20...ial/bkft12.jpg

Now go to Composition-> RAM Preview, to preview your video. You will notice that all the effects happen throughout the whole video instead of one effect, then the next, the next, etc. This is where your original value key frames come in handy. Simply slide the original key frames over to where you want that effect to start. It should look somewhat like this.

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y20...ial/bkft13.jpg

Now go to Composition-> RAM Preview, to preview your video again. However it should be right this time.

Finally you’ve done it. Go to Composition-> Add to Render Queue. Click the blue where it says Current Settings. Use these. Then click ok.

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y20...ial/bkft14.jpg

Now click the blue words where is says Lossless. Use these settings. Then click ok.

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y20...ial/bkft15.jpg

This is the end, choose a destination and render your file. Compress it with what you will and you should come out of this with a basic understanding of how to use key frames in after effects and a video that looks like this.

http://media.putfile.com/bkfiaae

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