Jacquelin Vanderwood
September 2004
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In this lesson I want to show some techniques for creating background effects. As you can probably see from viewing television and movies, the variety is infinite. I'm here to give you knowledge in technique and hopefully allow you to become more creative. So I created this simple setup using shapes from Photoshop on separate layers and then imported the into After Effects as a comp. |
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Once you've imported the file into After Affects, you would then double-click on the file to open it up and reveal the actual layers. From this point you can select individual layers and animate plus apply effects. You would not, however, after imported the file, drop it onto the timeline. The reason is that you would not be able to see the layers. This is very important that you keep this in mind. |
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This animation will be 4 seconds long as we really want to animate something that would be only seen in the background and not be the focus of the actual animation. Basically it's stuff that you see moving in the background but your mind doesn't register it.
To begin this project I have selected the green background layer which was imported with the Photoshop file. Making sure to be at keyframe 1, I applied a Lens Flare filter.
I spaced the keyframes evenly and copied the first keyframe and pasted into the last position so that the animation would not be jerky.
On the second and third keyframes I moved the flare center to opposite sides of the background layer so there would be movement.
I moved the value of the Blend with Original up and down per keyframe so that it would be visible and then practically disappear. |
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On the circ yellow layer which is the yellow circle, I applied the Shatter filter.
I wanted it to be fully Rendered and so selected that.
I chose Eggs as the pattern.
The eggs were extruded to a depth of 2.50.
Under Force 1 I moved the position of the shatter to the left and slightly lower. |
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For the pink layer I applied and animated a Gaussian Blur.
For keyframe 0 I set the blurriness to 94% and then onto keyframe 2 I set it to 44%. |
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For the grid layer I only set a Rotation to of 3. |
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For the aqua layer I applied a Scale to using the first frame to enlarge the piece to fill the screen and then onto keyframe 1 where I reduced it to almost 0. |
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For the purple circle layer and changed it Mode to Classic Color Burn.
A Noise filter was also applied and set to 13%. |
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Bar 2 was set to a mode of Classic Color Burn.
Motion Blur was set to by clicking the big M and checking the little M.
I then a applied Rotation by hitting the letter R and setting it's rotation to 10. |
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For the bar above it I set it's mode to Color Dodge.
Applied Motion Blur.
Set a rotation of -5 to it. |
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For the seed layer which is the last layer or first however you look at it, I applied Scale to it. For the first keyframe I enlarged it quite dramatically until it was almost off the screen and left the last keyframe at it's original size. |
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At this point you would press the spacebar and watch it to see what necessary changes you wanted to make to it.
Now select all of the layers, Control+A. |
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Name the composition and check Move all attributes into the new composition and check Open New Composition. |
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Double-click on bars.psd and you will see a single layer animation. |
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To this single layer pre-composed composition I applied the Glow filter set to 85.5% Glow Threshold.
From this point on you run text through the piece, create another pre-composed piece, or any number of effects. |
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Below is the beginning of the Glow effect and the end keyframe result. |
Copyright © 2004, Jacquelin Vanderwood, All Rights Reserved
