Week 8

two techniques were learnt this week: pinning and colour correction.

pinning allows distortion of a layer. this is achieved by creating 'pins' or points on the layer and then moving these pins around, which distorts the areas of the layer that are 'pinned' down by that point.

to create a pinning demonstration i first added the walking footage from week 4 into a composition. i then added an elliptical mask by changing the shape button to ellipse and then double clicking the button (double clicking automatically adds a mask of that shape to the layer). i then feathered this mask to fade the edges of the video.

next i pressed ctrl + p, which selects the pin tool. now points can be added to the layer for pinning. i added points in an ellipse around the image. now if the select tool is used to move the points, the footage is distorted. i keyframed the positions of the pins to create a video.

in my first attempt i didnt keyframe the points and just distorted the footage once and then rendered the video.

the pin effect is a bit too strong, so i tried again, this time keyframing the distortion and also keeping the pins around the edge, so that mainly the walls were distorted.

colour correction effects include many different fixes and editing tools, including contrast, brightness, levels and colour change.

i used this flower picture to try out a few effects.

first i added the image to the composition and then drew a mask around the edge of the flower. this allowed me to draw attention to the flower by fading the rest of the image using feather.

i added a colour change effect to the layer, and set the tolerance to 17%. this means that only the blue flower should be affected, as i chose the blue using the colour picker. using colour change the brightness, saturation and hue of a colour can be changed. below i have changed the saturation and brightness up and down respectively.

i then added a curves effect to the layer. this affects the tone of an image, includng colour and brightness. below i have edited the curve to give a vibrant colour change.

in my final render i decided to leave out curves and just use the colour change, as this was easy to key frame, and therefore to animate. i added key frames for the saturation and lightness parameters.

i then used colour correction to edit a photograph. i used this image:

i chose this as it is a dull image without much saturation.

i started by adding an adjustment layer on top of the image, and then adding a hue/saturation effect to it. changing the saturation changes the intensity of the colours in the image, so i turned this up to 85.

i then used a curves effect to brighten up the whole image, but especially the sky. finally i added a levels effect to correct the contrast, by lowering the black arrow, which darkens the shadows, and then increasing the white arrow, which adds more brightness to the lights.

to change the sky to a blue colour i used a blue solid layer, which i then laid over the sky area roughly. i then added a mask and feathered the layer, and also turned the opacity down slightly. the final touch was to change the layer mode to multiply, so the layer beneath shows through.

here is the outcome:

Week 7

In this weeks lesson we played about with the particle effects within after effects.

to start i added a solid to the composition. i then added the particle playground effect, and set the shape of particles to faded sphere.

i used the velocity parameter to make the particles shoot upwards, and turned the gravity to zero. i then used Gaussian blur to create a smoky effect.

the last effect i added to the layer was a ripple. this creates waves in the layer, and when used on the particle cloud it created a wave effect in the smoke. i then key framed the gravity up and down to make the particles rise and fall.

the second technique we learnt was the pick whip. this can be used to parent layers and objects together.

we used the pick whip to create an expression for us, which would normally have needed some scripting. i used two null objects to control the animation of some text. firstly the text layer was created and then two null objects added.

i then rolled down the layers so i could see the transform options. alt clicking on the clock icon for a parameter creates and expression. i then used the pick whip to connect the text layers scale to one null objects position, by dragging from the pick whip icon in the text layer to the position in the null layer.

i then did the same for the rotation of the text, and connected it to the scale of the second null layer.

this image shows the expression panel open. the red text indicates an expression is being used. the box to the right is where expressions can be typed.

i then keyframed the null objects position and scale and created the animation.

Week 6

This week i practised another technique that i want to use in my 90 second video: drops of water on the camera lens.

i used the lighter footage from week 4 as a base, so first i imported this in. i then added the mr mercury effect to the footage.

to complete the effect another layer of the footage must be added underneath this layer. the black areas in the video above are transparent so the second layer is visible.

i changed the effects parameters around, including the point light, which i placed on the flame so that the light looks to be coming from the flame.