AE makes super bright logo animation

Step 1th: Draw graphics in illustrator

Open illustrator, and the canvas size is set to 800x600px size. Create a graphic, here I use the bridge logo, you can also use your favorite graphics, and then create a new layer, with a pen on the edge of the graphic animation path, the following figure:

You also need to create another 5 paths, which will be used to make dynamic effects. The number of paths is not fixed and you can create as many as you want.

2nd Step: AE synthesis

Turn on AE and you will see the following interface.

Next Press (CRL+N) to create a new synthesis. "Compositing" is like a PS file with layers, you can add masks and various effects to the layers, and you can animate the effects on the timeline with keyframes.

Note: KeyFrames are used to move objects. For example, we have to do a fade effect, only need to use two keyframes, the 1th key frame transparency set to 0%, 2nd keyframe Transparency set to 100%, so the effect comes out. This is the most basic operation of AE.

Create a new synthesis and set the following figure. The size is 800x600, the duration is 5 seconds, and the other default settings are available.

3rd Step: Illustrator turn to after Efect

Now that you are in the composition, create a new solid layer (crl+y), and the layer color can be customized.

Switch to illustrator, "copy" one of the paths, and then switch to after Effect, select the newly established solid-state layer "paste". The path may be too large to be seen by narrowing the view. Double-click the path and zoom to the appropriate size.

You need to create a new solid layer for each path in the illustrator and use the above method to copy the path to the solid layer. You can also try to copy all the paths together in a layer, but do not have the desired effect, so make sure a path is a solid layer.

The same is also to prepare a solid layer for our logo. As in the front, you can also use your own graphics.

4th Step: Special Effects

First select the path of a layer, add a "stroke" effect, as shown in the following figure:

In this tutorial I use only one layer, the actual number of layers is determined by the number of paths, but each layer is similar to the way, you need to each layer of the path to add "stroke" effects.

Your effect should be this, of course, depending on the number of layers you have.

Now we're going to start animating.

Select the layer and open the stroke effect you just added (you can select the layer first and press e).

First set the drawing style to "on transparent channels." This step will remove the background of the solid layer, leaving only our stroke path.

The Translator note: Many people will illustrator the path copy to AE, discovers the position and the size is very difficult with the logo fitting. Setting each layer's drawing style to "on a transparent channel" is a good adjustment.

In the stroke effect you will see "Start" and "End" two attributes.

Next, move the time pointer to the position of 2 seconds. A small button with a diamond shape on the left of the stopwatches. Click on them to add keyframes and change the "start" and "End" values to 100% (try to drag the start value from 0% to 100%, and you'll see a line moving along our path until it disappears). Move the pointer to the position of 00:00. Change the start and end values to 0%. The values for start and end in the 00:00 position are 0%, and the values for "start" and "End" at 2s are 100%.

Finally, just stagger the location of the star and end keyframes. can refer to the following figure:

Now try to drag playhead to move between 0-2 seconds, you can see the following effect (the original image is missing, the picture is added by the translator)

Other path animations are made in the same way, and there is no specific explanation.

5th Step: Debugging and optimization

Slow motion

Adding easing effects will make your activity look more natural. There are many types of easing in AE, there are many ways to set up the ease, and no trouble at all, AE will do it for you. Right-click the key frame, you will see a menu, select the key frame auxiliary > Soft slow curve (F9), when the diamond Keyframe will change the shape, indicating that you add complete ease effect.

If you want to preview the animation effect, you can use the memory preview (0 keys) so you can see the animation effect in real time. This is the only way you'll be testing the animation effect of normal time. The preview also requires rendering time, which you can observe from the green progress bar.

Add Brush size Animation

Before we add the animation as long as the addition of two different value keyframes can be, the same can be applied to the brush size changes above. In this case, I added 3 keyframes for the brush thickness, from 2 to 12 and back to 2. Of course you can also customize it.

Debug your Timeline

I finish after the timeline panel is like this. You can see in my action that each animation does not occur at the same time, but it is staggered. There is no uniform standard, and you can do more research on the timeline.

Add a small animation

To perfect the animation, I added some small animations to the top of the layer. The production of these small animations is the same as the previous method, all through the "stroke" effect.

To add a small animation like the one above, you need to create a new synthesis. The advantage of synthesis is that you can use it over and over again, and if you modify the source synthesis, you can change all the sub compositing, which sounds very convenient.

After making the synthesis, I drag them to the timeline panel, put them in different positions, and then resize them.

6th step: Output

When all the animations are complete, you can render them. Before you do this step, make sure you are in the compositing you want to render, and then select Image Compositing > Add to the Render queue.

Next, in the Render queue panel, you need to specify the file location, or you can make other output settings. Here I will output a video of the. mov format.

Click the Render button. The sound of "Ding" was completed. Now we have a QuickTime movie that can be opened in PS and then "stored in the web format." In the pop-up dialog box, select the GIF format, and then select "Loop" below.

Translator Note: You can also select the output format directly in AE. gif test results.

Other than that

Attach a translator's work. Because did not seriously, the effect is not very good, but the basic use of above knowledge points and skills. We have problems to communicate with each other in the comments and make progress together. The translator uses the software: Ai CS6 and AE CS4

Thank you for reading, the production of friends can be submitted at the bottom of the job Oh!