Process and Production Sara - Lesson 3

Within this process and production lesson with Sara, we looked at using the stroke effect on a design of our choice, before we started to create the animation I needed to create 3 designs that were the same but slightly different in a way. This is so the letters move and create an effective piece, to do this I drew out the design on a piece of paper and then scanned them in to the computer using the scanner. Once I had done this I was then able to take these sketches into the programme Adobe Illustrator to image trace, so that I would be able to use in this animation that I was going to create. After I had done this I was then able to place these sketches into the programme Adobe After Effects that I was going to be using for this lesson, however I firstly had to create a new composition by following the process of composition > new composition. I had to make sure that all the settings that I wanted for the document were correct.

In addition to this I was then able to place these designs into the timeline at the bottom of the screen, I then moved on to look at the stroke effect tool. But before doing this I had use the pen tool to trace and create masks around the letter that I had chosen to animate and highlight, however when using the pen tool to create masks I had to make sure that I didn't connect the lines together so that it wouldn't create a block colour of shape or look odd. To add a stroke effect to the animation I had to go to Effect > Generate > Stroke, in order for the design to work I had to make sure that the thickness of the line was changed from 2 to 20 and the colour of the line was a suitable colour that would be easier to see and stand out on the animation that I was going to create. I then had to move the timeline playback header to the start of the timeline, in order for the design to work I needed to make sure that the stopwatch of the end option had been selected. This then allowed me to change the value of the end option from 100% to 0%. I then moved the timeline playback header to around 4 seconds and changed the value to 100%.

Furthermore into this I then added a texture behind the design to make the design look vintage looking and stand out. I felt that I was pleased with this design overall.

We then moved onto look at the CC sphere tool, which allowed me to create a sphere that looked 3D. For this part of the lesson we were going to create something that was round and spinning, I decided to use a world map that I had created to create a globe. To create the world map I had to paste this into a new composition with the sphere. I decided to change the radius of the world to 200.0, so that the design and globe would be very easy to see in the animation, I then made sure that the playback header was at the beginning of the timeline where I then looked at the rotation of globe using the axises Y and Z I had to make sure that the Y axis was 0x+0.0 and the Z axis was 0x-20.0. After I had done this I was then able to put the playback header to the end of the timeline and change the value of the Y axis to -3x+0.0 which allowed the globe to spin around 3 times fully before stopping.

The hand from Rebecca Thorp on Vimeo.

Overall I was very pleased with this animation that I had created, to develop by skills further I might create several other designs using the stroke effect to expand on my knowledge in After Effects.