10.9.07

week 8 ant paths in after effects etc...

Have Finally got the faces done, but have to do a bit more scanning.
Today I had a pretty productive day and worked out how to fix the ant problem!
I have learnt in after effects how to attach a composition to a path and follow it. This has been extremely useful as I can make more variety, changing the sizes and where the ants walk, they follow the paths really smoothly.
Paths turorial:
From the very cool after effects book: "After effects apprentice" (Trish and Chris Meyer)
Step 1. Click on the composition/object you want to follow the path
2. in the top right hand corner is an option that says "workspace:" Change the workspace to "animation"
3. Then a Motion Sketch panel will come up. Make sure there is a tick in the "Wireframe" box and the "background" box. Click "Capture" to start.
4. Draw your path from starting point to end, the speed you drag your mouse will determin the speed of the path.
5. click on the composition or object you made the path for and press "P" tp view the position keyframes in the timeline.
6. To simplify the number of key frames you can go to the "smoother" panel. move the "tolerance" to determine how smooth you want it (10 is a good number)
7. To get the object to follow the path type (Ctrl Alt O) to open Auto-orientation box - then select orient along path and click ok
8. Rotate your object to face in the direction you want it to move along the path
9. to preview your object moving (especially if it is with sound) go to RAM preview.

The only problem with the paths is that they take up alot of memory, so after alot of paths it starts to get slow, I tried making anew composition and adding the ants together later so I could work a bit faster!

I have lots of stop motion bookings for next week!! and one for tomorrow so have been working on some x-sheets

OK at the moment the ants are too big to post a picture of, but its all coming together

4 comments:

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Anonymous said...

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Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.