Intro to Adobe After Effects Keyframe Animation

Hi, welcome back to educator.com.0000

This next lesson is on key frame animation. What is a key frame?0003

Well, key frame will be your best friend in After Effects.0008

Key frame records the current state of a parameter at a specific time on the timeline.0011

And then the animation begins when at least 2 key frames are applied to that same parameter. So, what does that mean?0017

Well, let us first take a look at what a key frame looks like.0023

Here is a screen cap. We will be creating key frames all the time.0026

Let us shim back over After Effects.0033

So, here we have our pistol. But in this pistol area, we will open it up like this, drop the triangle down.0037

And in the transformation properties we could set key frames with anchor point, position scale, rotation, opacity.0046

So, this is where you will be creating the key frame. You are going to turn on a stopwatch0055

And then you could have the access to create key frames up and down the timeline.0060

So, why would not we, actually, create a key frame?0066

So, to create a key frame let us do a quick RAM preview of what we have on this comp here.0073

This is where the pistol comes in from the side here. Hit zero for a RAM preview.0080

So, you can see it just sort of comes in from the right side of the screen.0090

I am going to turn this one off or we are going to create a new one here.0094

So, let us work backwards.0097

Here is our pistol and for now let us turn off the actual logo. The Six gun Sally logo.0101

And here we have our pistol.0107

So, let us go to about 12 seconds in. And let us actually create a key frame.0113

So, you are going to turn on the stopwatch by clicking the stopwatch there.0121

Now, you really turned off the stopwatch once you turned it on.0126

So, let us work backwards.0130

So, here we have one key frame here. And here are all the values of the key frame.0132

Now, let us go to the beginning of the timeline or hit the Home key.0138

And let us create another key frame.0142

Now, you notice that you have these two arrows here. So, these two arrows will take you up and down to the next key frame.0145

You will not go any further. You will have to actually use the page up or page down to go any further.0154

But, for now let us just stay within these 2 key frames. What have we done here?0160

Now, we have a space between the 2 key frames. They both have the same values here.0164

If I were to actually grab the pistol you can see that there is sort of a dot line there and sort of a path within the key frames.0172

So, what you want to do is, in this case, we can grab the actual element, the pistol here, with our cursor.0185

Or we can, let me hit Command-Z, we can actually move it by holding down the values.0195

And you can see how your cursor, just sort of, turns into a little double arrow there.0203

So, here we can go up and down.0209

So I have decided.0211

So, let us pull this guy right out the screen and let us hit play. Let us hit the RAM preview.0213

It is going backwards. But that is OK.0223

I just want to give you an idea of how this all works here.0226

So, we have created time here.0228

What we want to do is we want to move the key frames.0232

Let us put this value here at the beginning of the clip. So, it is going to be off screen.0236

And now you can see if we just sort of toggle through, page up page down, back and forth.0245

You can see that the actual animation begins.0251

I am going to hit a RAM preview again. There is our pistol.0257

If we turn on the Six gun Sally logo. Here we go.0262

You have just created your first animation.0269

So, let us go back here. How do we delete key frames?0275

When deleting a key frame you are basically going to select the key frame and hit delete.0284

Now, if you delete all the key frames what will happen is you actually turn off the stopwatch.0294

Now, the position layer is no longer active.0300

So, you want to make sure that that is what you want to do.0304

If you are really done with that property then you have to turn off the stopwatch.0306

But most of the time you are going to leave it on in most animations.0311

OK, so let me back up a bit here.0315

So, let me talk about a spatial interpolation.0320

Basically, what that means is the space between the key frames.0326

We turn off the logo again.0331

And that is space between the key frames is where you are going to be constantly adjusting your time values.0335

So, for instance, if want this pistol to enter the frame sooner.0344

I am just going to grab that key frame and move it closer to the timeline or the other key frame here.0349

That is the spatial interpolation they were talking about.0354

So, hit the RAM preview. You can see it just darts right in.0356

And if I just keep pull it out the farther the distance between the first key frame the more time is increased.0361

So, now is even slower.0372

So that is basically what we mean by spatial interpolation.0378

OK, so how do we get around these key frames?0384

Let us talk about the navigation in some keyboard shortcuts.0386

So, here we are back in After Effects.0391

Now, as I said, you can kind of page up or page down.0394

And if you hit this. Hit the Home key and it always goes to the beginning of the comp.0398

If you hit these arrow keys it goes to the next key frame.0403

And if you hit the U key. The U just tells you all the information within that layer.0408

These are all the actual key frames we are actually using at that point.0414

So, let us say I just wanted to see the position key frames. So, I will just hit the letter P.0417

That just shows, kind of save some real estate on the screen here.0424

Let us try another key frame. Let us try to let us add opacity and let us have this opacity into the same.0429

So, basically let us drop down the value so it kind of dissolves in. See that?0438

It kind of space that out as well. There you go.0446

So, once you get to hang up the key frames the fun begins.0457

You know, it is just a matter of learning the distance between the key frames.0462

How to apply different values to the key frames, learning how to grab, whether you want to, grab the actual elements.0467

I will get into all the details of what we can do with these different paths later on.0476

But, that kind of concludes key frames.0481

We covered what is a key frame, create a new key frame, deleting key frames, spatial interpolation, navigation and keyboard shortcuts.0485

OK, so I will see you back on educator.com.0495