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Online resources have become an

invaluable asset for smaller motion

studios and freelancers. Rather than

traditional keyframing, you can save timewriting and testing Expressions by using

pre-written templates online, and apply

those Expressions to objects to create

random, natural or wind movements.

Here you will use your parenting skills

to make your Expressions work for you.

Youll import a layeredPhotoshopor

Illustratorfile and create a layer hierarchy

using parenting. This technique is faster

than keyframing you use layers, driven

by Expressions, parented to other layers,

with Expressions driving them. This will

create a chain reaction in movement, and

make it easy to create convincing effects,

such as random gusts of wind.

These movements will add anotherlevel to your projects, creating interesting

depth and an organic atmosphere. Whether

you are adding trees, or objects on a pond,

the movements will give the hint of an

environment with wind, air and gravity.

In the following steps I will show you

how to make an object move as though a

gust of wind is affecting it. Feel free to use

your own files and stray from my settings.

Illustration and tutorial by JJ Johnstone

www.jjjohnstone.com

If you want to save time creating natural movement effects, JJ Johnstone will show you how.Learn how to use parenting skills and online resources to make Expressions do more work

DYNAMIC ANIMATIONSILLUSTRATOR AFTER EFFECTS

58| November 2006

ON THE CD

Youll find all the filesyou need to completethis tutorial in the foldermarked Tutorial\Expressions on thisissues CD.

TIME NEEDED

30 minutes

INFO

Motiondesigner

and award-winningdirector JJ

Johnstone hails from theUS. To check out hiswork with the RockadeeCollective and otherstudios, visit his websiteat www.jjjohnstone.com.

1If youre working on your own image,separate each moving object onto itsown layer in your Photoshop or Illustratorcomposition and save it in the native format.If youre working on the file provided on thisissues CD, youll see that each layer hasbeen named according to its hierarchy,from the centre of gravity out to the endsof each affected object.

FULL

MOVIE

ONTHE

CD

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November 2006 |59

TUTORIAL|

2Import the bamboo.ai file, provided onthis issues CD, into After Effectsas a

composition. Now, using the softwares PanBehind tool, adjust the anchor points ofevery individual layer to the centre of thatobjects movement or gravity.

6Option-click the Rotation property of the base of your object and Paste the Expression.Lower the settings of the Expression to give a more subtle effect. Amplitude is the amount

of rotation your object uses and Period is the amount of time it takes the rotation to decay to 0.

3Next, youll need to set up your parent/child relationships. Start with the base

of the object as the parent its child will bethe stock directly on top of it. Thisrelationship will be repeated, as youll see.

7Now apply the sameExpression to each of the

child stocks. Edit theExpression on each stock toincrease the Amplitude andPeriod for each child. Makeeach childs Expressionstronger than its parent.

5Now that everything is set up, you can start looking for the right Expression for the kind ofmovement you want. In this case, I used Dan Ebberts Swinging Rotation Expression, from

motionscript.coms Expressions Lab. You can copy the Expression straight from his site.

9Now do a RAM preview and adjust eachlayer as needed. The smaller the changes

from each Expression, the more subtle theeffect will be, and vice versa.

ONLINE RESOURCES

Online resources arean invaluable asset tomotion designers,especially when itcomes to Expressions.Most of the Expressionsposted on the following

sites can be copied andpasted directly intoAfter Effectsfor use inyour work. Try www.motionscript.com,www.jjgifford.com/expressions/, forums.creativecow.net, www.toolfarm.com/forum.html, www.mograph.net, www.lynda.com,www.pixelcorps.comor www.graymachine.com/tutorials.html.

ADDED EXTRAS

Since you have takenthe time to parentthe entire object here,why not try addingadditional effects,such as scale, with DanEbberts Squash andStretch effect. This willmake the entire object

grow from the base orcentre of gravity out.Apply the Expressiononly to the base stockor centre of gravityand the parent to childrelationships willmake everything grow.Do a 0 to 100 per centscale on the baseobject, and thats it.

4Each stock will parent the branchconnected to it, and the leaves or

smaller branches of that branch will bechildren to the branch. Make sure theparent to child relationship goes from thebase or centre of gravity out to the ends orlast moving object.

8

Apply the sametechnique to the each of

the branches. This will give ita ripple effect. By making thebase initiate the rotation, allof the stocks, branches andleaves will react.

10You should now have an object witha dynamic animation rooted in anorganic or natural movement, without asingle keyframe. Mix up the effect by movingaround the parent to child relationships andcreate a variety of movements.

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