After Effects CS5

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Making Your Animation Smarter

Animation in After Effects CS5 is very easyto create. Making it smarter is what takes a
little moretime. You want your animationto be realistic with your elements behaving liket hey would in real life. We just created a very simple animation with a ball moving fromt he beginningtot he end of a ramp ("After Effects CS5 Keying andt he Timeline"). This was more of an introductiontot he tools and panels than a realistic animation.There were some very basic things missing and we will addresst hose now. Our ball was supposedto be rolling down a ramp but instead it just decidedto move from one
endtot he other. Of course it needsto rotate andto roll down a ramp; it needs a littlehelp, a little
slopeperhaps with some assistance from gravity.

With just a little review we will addt he few adjustmentst hat will maket his a real roller. We
checked under our ball's 'Transfer' attributes, set a keyframe fort he 'Position' value by clicking
ont he stop clocktot he left of 'Position', moved our balltot he end oft hetimeline and added
another keyframe. This is allt hat was necessarytohave our ball move fromt he beginningtot he

end oft he ramp.

We really just needto addtwot hings int his exercise. Our ball needsto roll downt he ramp and the rampn e e d s to provide a slope. We'll add the rolling partf ir st.It's very easy butd o e s have one After Effects caveat. The rollingpart is just liket heposition. Entert he 'Home' keyto be sure you are at the beginning of your movie.

Opent he 'Transform' attribute set. Just like we clicked ont he 'Position' settingto create a
keyframe at the beginning, click on 'Rotation' and click itstime clock. You will see a gold
diamond, a keyframe appear ont hetimeline just undert he one for 'Position'. Now movetot he
end of your movie, you can entert he 'end' keyto dot his in one step, and enter some revolutions
for your ball. Int he 'Rotation' setting you seet hehighlighted values '0x+0.0' with a degree sign.
You can increase or decreaset hese values by clicking and sliding with your mouse. The '0' on

the leftr epresents whole revolutions so if you moved it to 1, that would be one revolution. If yo


movedt he '0' ont he right to '180't hat would be ahalf revolution. You are working with a 360 degree circle revolution setting. Int his exercise simply increasingt he left valueto 4 or 5 is fine. We're visualizinghow many times your ball will rotate while rolling down the hill.N o w hit the 'Home' key,start your movie. Your ball rolls downt he ramp ora c r o s s your ramp because wehaven't created its slope yet. But something isn't right. Your ball wobbles with a focuspoint away from its center. This is because the default'a n chor point', the center point and focal point of attribute adjustmentis n 't the true center of our ball. For reasons deemed byt he After Effects designers, the anchorpoint of all shape layers ist he center oft he layer.

We can fixt his. Next tot he shapetool ont hetop toolbar ist he 'Pan Behind Tool'. This will let us
movet he anchorpoint for our ballto itstrue center. With time at the beginning of our movie,
choose your ball shape, then chooset he 'Pan from Behind'tool and click int he center of your
ball. Thepath followed by your 'Position' settings is displayed and you can uset he first keyframe

point of your 'Position' path as your 'Pan Behind Tool' center.This will place the center of action, the center of rotation or center of scaling at the true center of our ball instead of the composition center.

Now try playing your movie and you will your ball roll acrosst he ramp, turning on its own axis just like a wheel on a wagon. Usingt he 'Rotation' setting for our ramp, adjust it visually. Make it look like what it wouldtake for a nice roll. At thispoint, there is only onet hing left andt hat is, when you shift the slope oft he ramp, you can seehowt he animatedpath oft he ball doesn't
match now. All we needto do is set the beginning and endposition of our ballto match the slope oft he ramp

The path of the ball is set completely bytwopoints, its beginning and endposition so adjusting these to the heightat the beginning and end of our newly sloped ramp will correct this. Now our ball rolls, it rolls on its own axis, and it rolls downhill, just like a rolling ball should! Full Moons, Dogcreek, think globally, act locally. Web Designer Tom Womack uses Adobe Creative Suite 5 and Cinema4D creating dynamic sites with rich media
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