00:00:00
so you want to create silky smooth
00:00:02
animations just like this or maybe
00:00:05
something a little more subtle in this
00:00:09
video I'll show you how to master the 3D
00:00:12
camera in After Effects and by the end
00:00:15
you'll be able to create smooth camera
00:00:17
movements in seconds the assets for this
00:00:20
project can be found in my Discord
00:00:22
server so make sure to join for
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exclusive templates let's get started i
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posted the intro to this video on X and
00:00:29
Tik Tok and so many of you guys have
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asked for a tutorial so here it is but
00:00:33
before we head into After Effects you
00:00:35
need to understand that creating
00:00:37
animations like this takes a lot of
00:00:38
planning first you start off with a
00:00:40
script so that you can have a good
00:00:41
outline of your video and then you need
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to draw up a storyboard so you can get
00:00:45
an understanding of what to design and
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how different scenes will transition
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between each other once you've got that
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down you can start designing your style
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frames and these are just designs for
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each scene that we will import into AE
00:00:57
it's better to design these in
00:00:58
Illustrator as you can scale them up
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without losing quality but for the sake
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of the tutorial Photoshop will do just
00:01:04
fine i've already created these UI
00:01:06
designs for us to work with you can
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download them from my Discord server
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below now let's head on over to After
00:01:11
Effects start off by creating a new
00:01:13
composition i'll name it UI animation
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set the size to 1920x 1080 the frame
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rate to 30 the duration can be however
00:01:22
long you like
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now let's import our assets i'm going to
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drag them in one by one make sure that
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when you get this popup you select
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composition retain layer sizes and that
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editable layer styles is enabled all
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right so let's just drag the rest of
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them in
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spotlight video
00:01:41
players X and to keep our workspace
00:01:44
organized I'm going to select all of
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these layers and group them in a folder
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called assets now let's open up the
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background comp which is a part of our
00:01:53
first scene and copy and paste this
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layer into the UI animation composition
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and then we can open the notes comp
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select all of these layers Ctrl + C to
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copy and paste them in the UI animation
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comp we can even highlight all of the
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notes app players and make them a
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different color just so we don't get
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confused okay we've got our first scene
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set up i want to be able to move all of
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the note app players together so I'm
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going to link them all to a null object
00:02:19
first let's start by adding a null
00:02:21
object to our timeline then select all
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of the no app layers and by using this
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whip icon under parent and link we can
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drag them onto the null object which
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will link them together this means that
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if I move this null layer it's also
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going to move all of the note app layers
00:02:36
we can rename this null to
00:02:38
notes and I'll also enable 3D and motion
00:02:42
blur for all of the layers make sure
00:02:43
whenever you're working in 3D that your
00:02:45
null layers also have 3D enabled all
00:02:48
right before we do any camera work we
00:02:50
should first animate our UI select the
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text layer and right click create and
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convert to editable text this will turn
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it into a text layer so we can now apply
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a text animation preset i will apply
00:03:02
text style too watch the previous video
00:03:05
to find out how text animation works in
00:03:07
After Effects and let's just adjust the
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timing on that a little maybe a bit
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shorter
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uh that's too
00:03:17
fast that works i'm also going to open
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up this text layer and change the
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position of the text animation so that
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it slides up from a higher position 40
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should be all
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right perfect we could also animate
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these note pages select highlighted note
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note one and note two and hit P to open
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up the position controls set a key frame
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for the position and just move it across
00:03:42
the timeline a bit i'll use these red
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arrows to move them to the
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left that looks okay maybe we can make
00:03:50
it a bit
00:03:52
faster and let's easy ease these key
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frames open the graph editor and drag
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the right point in so that the animation
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is fast at the start and slows down
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towards the end this is what we've got
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so far let me just adjust that again
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cool go to the start of the animation
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and hit T to open up the opacity set a
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key frame and drag it out to the right
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and then change the opacity value to
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zero this will make the layers fade in
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so that they don't just appear out of
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nowhere and now let's just stagger these
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layers so that they slide in one by
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one perfect you can hit U twice to close
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all of the layers let's create our first
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movement which is the notes app sweeping
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in from the bottom select the notes null
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and hit P to open the position controls
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i'll set a key frame and drag it out
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about 1 second and then I can decrease
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the Y value till it's completely out of
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frame this is how it looks so far let's
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make it more fluid select your key
00:04:57
frames right click and apply easy ease
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then go into the graph editor and drag
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in the right point we're going to be in
00:05:04
the graph editor a lot for this type of
00:05:06
animation yeah that's looking smooth
00:05:08
maybe we can make it slightly faster
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let's see how that looks and now that's
00:05:13
much better i'm also going to adjust
00:05:16
when these other layers are revealed so
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something like
00:05:21
that i'll have the text come in a tad
00:05:24
later that's looking good all right
00:05:27
let's create a second note object this
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one will zoom into the text before it
00:05:32
can control anything we need to parent
00:05:34
our layers to null two since we've
00:05:36
already parented the notes app layers to
00:05:38
the first null we can just drag the pick
00:05:41
whip from the notes null onto null 2 and
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do the same for the background as we
00:05:45
want to zoom into that as well now the
00:05:48
trick to the smoothest camera movement
00:05:50
is to key frame your null layers before
00:05:52
the previous one has finished so drag
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the timeline before this movement ends
00:05:56
and set a key frame for the position on
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null 2 also don't forget to enable 3D
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then we can move up our timeline i want
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the camera to zoom into the beginning of
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our text and then pan to the right as
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the text reveals itself to zoom in
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change the Z position which is the third
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value you can go to this icon here and
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select proportional grid to help you
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frame your scene better and then we can
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adjust the position until the first word
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of our text is aligned to the center
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that looks good to me now apply easy
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ease and go into the graph editor and
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drag in both sides a
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little let me make it come in
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earlier i'll even move this text layer
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up a
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little maybe if we move it a bit more to
00:06:46
the
00:06:48
left that's looking sweet when it comes
00:06:50
to camera animations like this you're
00:06:52
always going to be adjusting the key
00:06:54
frames the graph and the values so when
00:06:56
you're doing your own make sure you're
00:06:58
taking the time to really dial in the
00:06:59
values now it's time to pan the camera
00:07:01
to the right create a null layer and
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parent null 2 to null three just so
00:07:07
you're still following me null two
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controls the movement of all of the
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layers below so linking it to null 3
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allows me to move everything including
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the movement from null 2 enable 3D and
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hit P to open up the position controls
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set a key frame making sure that it's
00:07:22
before our previous one has ended and
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then move the timeline to when the text
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animation is complete and drag the
00:07:28
position until the end of the sentence
00:07:30
is in the middle of our screen about
00:07:32
here should be good apply easy ease and
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drag in both
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points let's see how that looks that is
00:07:42
way too fast we're going to have to
00:07:43
adjust all of these key frames so that
00:07:45
the animation plays smoothly just keep
00:07:47
playing it over and over until you're
00:07:49
happy with the results so let me just
00:07:51
adjust these and there we go i think
00:07:54
that looks perfect now onto the
00:07:56
introduction of our second asset the
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spotlight search open the spotlight comp
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and copy the layers into UI animation
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let's attach these layers to its own
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null
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object and rename it to spotlight i'm
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also going to move the timeline where I
00:08:11
want the spotlight search box to show up
00:08:13
hit the left bracket on your keyboard to
00:08:15
make the start of the layer begin from
00:08:17
that time this is just to keep our
00:08:19
timeline from looking too messy enable
00:08:21
3D and motion blur for all of the
00:08:23
layers once enabling 3D you might notice
00:08:26
that the layers have vanished we can go
00:08:28
to this dropown where it says active
00:08:30
camera and change it to custom view to
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show you what's happening as you can see
00:08:34
the spotlight search is behind the
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desktop in 3D space we can select the
00:08:38
spotlight null and just use this blue
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arrow to bring it in
00:08:43
front and then we can switch back to the
00:08:46
active camera now just move the
00:08:48
spotlight search into position using the
00:08:50
null about here looks good before doing
00:08:52
any camera work we should animate all
00:08:54
these elements move the text layer to
00:08:56
where you want it to appear so about
00:08:59
here would be good and convert the text
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to editable text by right clicking
00:09:03
create then convert now apply text style
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one
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sweet we can also apply animations to
00:09:11
these other elements drag the
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highlighted item layer to where you want
00:09:14
it to start and press S to open the
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scale set a key frame and drag it over
00:09:19
to the right then change the scale value
00:09:22
to zero so we now have this layer
00:09:24
scaling up i'll apply easy ease to smoon
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it
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out we can make it a bit longer
00:09:36
there we go for the suggestions and the
00:09:39
divider we can just do a simple fade in
00:09:41
so select both of the layers and drag
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them over hit T and set a key frame for
00:09:46
the opacity move that over to the right
00:09:48
a little and then change the opacity to
00:09:51
zero we can just make some adjustments
00:09:53
here like
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that cool for these Safari links I think
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a slide down animation would look really
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good so I'll select all of them
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hit P to open position set a key frame
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and drag it to the right then just
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change the Y value and move it up now we
00:10:12
can apply easy
00:10:16
ease i'll have the layers fade in as
00:10:19
well so they're not just appearing out
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of nowhere set a key frame for the
00:10:22
opacity and move it up the timeline and
00:10:25
then change the opacity to zero let's
00:10:27
see what we've got so far
00:10:30
we've got a bit of a problem here
00:10:31
because the spotlight search was
00:10:32
accidentally dragged too far so let's
00:10:35
just put that
00:10:37
back i think if we staggered these
00:10:40
Safari links it would look much better
00:10:42
so just drag each one out by about two
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to three
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frames much better for the rest of the
00:10:49
UI we can make it just scale in press S
00:10:52
to open the scale controls and set a key
00:10:55
frame drag it over and then change the
00:10:57
scale value to zero easy ease the key
00:10:59
frames and in the graph editor drag the
00:11:02
right side in i'm going to play
00:11:04
everything over a few times to eliminate
00:11:06
any harsh or rough movements so let's
00:11:09
just do that real quick there we go now
00:11:12
we can work on the camera movement first
00:11:14
I'll hit U on my keyboard to close all
00:11:16
of my layers create a new null layer now
00:11:19
select the spotlight null and null three
00:11:22
and drag the whip icon over to null 5
00:11:25
remember the spotlight null is
00:11:27
controlling the spotlight layers and
00:11:28
null 3 is controlling all of the layers
00:11:31
here so attaching them to null 5 will
00:11:34
allow us to move everything let's find
00:11:36
an appropriate time to start zooming
00:11:39
in and then set a key frame don't forget
00:11:42
to make the null 3D then we can move up
00:11:44
the timeline and zoom into the spotlight
00:11:46
search you can enable the proportion
00:11:48
grid again to make this
00:11:50
easier i'll align the starting word
00:11:52
directly in the center of the grid
00:11:57
and apply easy
00:11:59
ease drag the left side in so that we
00:12:02
can ease into the zoom and a bit on the
00:12:06
right now for a bit of
00:12:10
adjusting definitely too fast let's slow
00:12:13
it down a
00:12:16
bit all right cool we got it now create
00:12:19
another null layer and parent null five
00:12:21
to it and also make it 3D drag your
00:12:25
timeline back and set a key frame for
00:12:27
the position go a few frames ahead and
00:12:30
move the position so that the final word
00:12:32
is in the center of our grid and now we
00:12:34
can apply easy
00:12:38
ease let's just go through this
00:12:40
animation a few times and make sure that
00:12:41
everything flows smoothly i know it's a
00:12:44
little tedious but you've got to put in
00:12:46
that extra effort if you want to master
00:12:47
smooth camera movements and after a
00:12:50
bunch of changes here's what we've got
00:12:52
so far let's create the final animation
00:12:54
for this scene which will transition us
00:12:56
out create a null layer and parent null
00:12:58
six to null 7 enable 3D and set a key
00:13:02
frame for the
00:13:04
position and then we can move a few
00:13:06
frames ahead and just drag the position
00:13:08
down till it's out of the frame and
00:13:10
finally apply easy
00:13:13
ease let's just drag that in and we can
00:13:17
just move
00:13:21
that that looks perfect if you're
00:13:23
finding this video helpful so far then
00:13:25
be sure to hit the subscribe button and
00:13:27
if you want to learn how to go from an
00:13:29
absolute beginner to an After Effects
00:13:31
master and land your first few clients
00:13:34
with video editing then sign up to the
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editing launchpad with the link below
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i'll be releasing a series of tutorials
00:13:40
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your skills to a whole new level i will
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very own editing agency there's only a
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few number of spaces available so
00:13:56
register below before they're gone onto
00:13:59
the video player scene open up the video
00:14:01
player comp and copy the layers into UI
00:14:04
animation and we can link all of these
00:14:07
layers to a new null object called video
00:14:09
players
00:14:12
enable 3D and motion blur on all of the
00:14:15
layers all right now we can select all
00:14:18
of the layers and move them up to when
00:14:20
they're about to be revealed which is
00:14:22
here and press the left square bracket
00:14:24
to align them to the timeline and
00:14:26
because the desktop layers are closer to
00:14:28
the camera in 3D space when the desktop
00:14:30
slides down they will automatically
00:14:32
reveal the video players so remember
00:14:34
when working in a 3D environment the
00:14:37
position of your layers in the timeline
00:14:38
doesn't really matter if you can see
00:14:40
them or not depends on where they are in
00:14:42
3D space all right so I don't want the
00:14:44
title bar or any of these other video
00:14:46
players to be showing when it's first
00:14:47
revealed so press P on the video player
00:14:50
note and move it around until we can
00:14:52
just see the background and the
00:14:54
text we can hide the player controls for
00:14:57
now as well the edges of the other video
00:15:00
players are still visible so we can just
00:15:02
change their Z positions until we can't
00:15:04
see them anymore if we go into custom
00:15:06
view one you can see that all I'm doing
00:15:09
is dragging them closer so that they're
00:15:11
out of the camera's view this will also
00:15:13
give it a parallax effect when we zoom
00:15:17
out let's animate this text layer right
00:15:21
click create convert to editable
00:15:23
text i'll apply the text style 4 preset
00:15:29
let's just move it a little
00:15:34
forward hit U to reveal the key frames
00:15:37
and just drag them closer together so
00:15:39
that the text reveals
00:15:42
quicker we could even animate the
00:15:45
position of the text layer so that it
00:15:46
looks like it's sliding down with the
00:15:48
desktop so hit P and create a key frame
00:15:50
for the position drag it
00:15:53
out and then move the layer up a little
00:15:57
and apply easy ease to this key frame
00:16:00
move the right point all the way to the
00:16:02
left so it starts fast and takes its
00:16:04
time to slow down which matches the
00:16:06
movement of the
00:16:09
desktop that's looking sweet so once the
00:16:12
text is revealed we want the camera to
00:16:14
zoom out and reveal all of the other
00:16:15
video players surrounding this one so
00:16:18
set a key frame for the position on the
00:16:19
video player note and then move up and
00:16:22
change the ZV value of the position
00:16:25
something like that looks good and we
00:16:28
can apply easy ease so let me just
00:16:30
adjust
00:16:33
these that's what I'm looking for cool
00:16:36
the background is black so let's just
00:16:38
put something there go into the
00:16:40
background comp again and copy it and
00:16:42
paste it into UI animation drag it just
00:16:45
above null 7 i'll use the left square
00:16:48
bracket to line it up with the rest of
00:16:49
the layers and enable 3D now move your
00:16:54
timeline to the last key frame of the
00:16:55
video player null and change the ZV
00:16:58
valueue of the background so that it's
00:16:59
behind all of the frames right now it's
00:17:02
covering the main video player and then
00:17:04
we can hit S to adjust the scale and
00:17:06
make sure it's covering
00:17:07
everything and just link this to the
00:17:10
video player null which should keep it
00:17:11
in frame throughout the whole
00:17:13
animation awesome let's get into the
00:17:16
spin transition into the XUI create a
00:17:19
null object actually before we get into
00:17:22
this transition let's neaten up our
00:17:24
timeline it's best practice to cut off
00:17:26
parts of your layers that are not in use
00:17:28
this will keep your timeline more
00:17:30
visually readable i'll hit U to show all
00:17:32
of the key frames and we can just select
00:17:34
all the layers below as soon as we
00:17:36
switch to scene two hit command shift D
00:17:40
to split the layers and then delete to
00:17:42
remove the excess and now our timeline
00:17:44
looks much more readable back to the
00:17:47
spin transition all right so we have our
00:17:50
null object link the video players null
00:17:52
to nine and make it 3D find a good time
00:17:56
to start the movement and set a key
00:17:59
frame for the position and then press R
00:18:02
and set a key frame for the orientation
00:18:05
now we can move down a few frames and
00:18:07
zoom in by changing the position
00:18:10
value and rotate it by changing the
00:18:13
third value of the
00:18:16
orientation with the layer selected I'll
00:18:19
hit U to show both of the key frames at
00:18:21
the same time now we can highlight our
00:18:23
key frames and apply easy ease to
00:18:26
achieve the best looking spin transition
00:18:28
we're going to use a very specific curve
00:18:30
we'll drag the left side in all the way
00:18:33
and the right side will also be dragged
00:18:35
so the animation doesn't slow down it
00:18:37
starts off as slow as possible and then
00:18:39
just keeps on ramping up let's see how
00:18:41
that
00:18:43
looks could probably do a bit more zoom
00:18:46
and
00:18:49
rotation awesome that looks perfect now
00:18:52
we can go to this last key frame and
00:18:54
highlight all of our video layers and
00:18:56
then press command shift D to split it
00:18:58
then delete to remove the excess now it
00:19:01
will spin and once it reaches the max
00:19:03
speed it will go straight into the XUI
00:19:06
open the X comp and copy the layers into
00:19:08
UI
00:19:09
animation create a null object named
00:19:13
XUI and link the X layers to it make
00:19:16
sure to enable 3D and motion blur to
00:19:18
these layers now go to the point where
00:19:21
we made the cut and select the null and
00:19:23
all of the XUI layers and then press the
00:19:25
left square bracket to move all the
00:19:26
layers to that point in the timeline now
00:19:28
we can move this null and center the X
00:19:30
avatar enable the proportional grid
00:19:32
again to make this easier since my logo
00:19:35
is black I'll just hide the background
00:19:37
real quick and enable
00:19:38
transparency and let's just zoom in so
00:19:40
it's
00:19:43
larger something like that looks good we
00:19:47
can unhide the background now
00:19:49
create a new null
00:19:51
object and press the left bracket to
00:19:54
move the layer in the timeline we'll use
00:19:56
this one to apply the second half of the
00:19:58
spin transition onto the XUI layers so
00:20:01
first link the XUI null to null 11 and
00:20:04
make it 3D then set a key frame for the
00:20:07
position and the orientation drag them a
00:20:10
few frames
00:20:11
over and then adjust the orientation
00:20:14
i'll just drag it back a little
00:20:16
something like that make sure that it's
00:20:18
moving in the same direction as the
00:20:20
video players were spinning and zoom out
00:20:23
so that the camera looks like it's
00:20:24
continuously zooming in from the
00:20:26
previous scene and now we can easy ease
00:20:29
these key
00:20:30
frames now remember how we set up the
00:20:33
video player curves it was super slow at
00:20:35
the beginning and then ramped up and
00:20:37
didn't stop well in this one we're going
00:20:39
to be doing the reverse drag the right
00:20:41
side all the way to the left and drag
00:20:43
the left side to the left as well so
00:20:45
that our spin movement starts off really
00:20:47
fast and then ramps down as it
00:20:49
progresses we've got to play around with
00:20:51
the values a little so that we can get a
00:20:52
seamless transition so let me just
00:20:55
adjust
00:20:58
those all right for the UI elements we
00:21:01
can just have them fade in towards the
00:21:02
end of the rotation so select these
00:21:05
three layers and set a key frame for the
00:21:07
opacity drag these key frames down the
00:21:09
timeline and then change the opacity to
00:21:11
zero so now we've got
00:21:14
this let's make it slightly
00:21:19
quicker much better now we can create a
00:21:22
zoom out effect to give the frame some
00:21:23
breathing space and transition us to
00:21:25
move across the text create a new null
00:21:28
object and use the left square bracket
00:21:30
to align it to the timeline then link
00:21:33
null 11 to it make sure you set it to
00:21:36
3D and set a key frame for the
00:21:39
position then move a few frames down and
00:21:42
zoom
00:21:44
out apply easy ease and just mess around
00:21:47
with the curves you should know the
00:21:49
drill by
00:21:51
now that looks cool finally let's
00:21:54
convert this text to an editable text
00:21:56
layer i'll drag it to where I want it to
00:22:00
appear and apply the text style 2 preset
00:22:03
open it up and change the animator
00:22:05
position amount to
00:22:08
40 we can end off by creating a simple
00:22:10
camera movement that drags us across the
00:22:12
text as it's been revealed so add a new
00:22:15
N layer and link the previous one to
00:22:18
it make sure you enable 3D as
00:22:22
well key frame the position and then
00:22:24
move down the
00:22:26
timeline and simply move the position
00:22:28
across until the last word is in the
00:22:30
center
00:22:32
now we can apply easy ease just a few
00:22:35
more
00:22:39
adjustments
00:22:42
perfect here's a look at our entire
00:22:45
project and that's all I will leave you
00:22:47
guys with for now we could definitely
00:22:49
make it a lot better if we spent time
00:22:50
dialing in all the values and the
00:22:52
timings hopefully this has given you an
00:22:54
insight and a starting point for
00:22:55
creating smooth UI animations the assets
00:22:58
can be found in the Discord community be
00:23:00
sure to subscribe and I'll see you next
