Unit 5: Communications Technology Grade 10

Unit 5: Animation and Motion Graphics

This unit will introduce students to a universal motion graphics application, Adobe After Effects which specializes in design graphic motion effects and found in most media that we use daily in our lives.

Course Units and Descriptions

Use this table for an overview and navigate to each of the course unit pages.

Unit	Description
Review course outline for more details
1	Careers and Safety- Intro, organization, software, and careers
2	Vector Production- design, create, and edit illustrations
3	Raster Production- design, create, and edit photo images
4	Audio Production- design, create and edit audio files
5	Animation- design, create, and edit vector animation

Unit Content Activity Quick Links, Click to Jump to Specific Activity!

Unit 5, Act. 1: Logo Motion

Challenge, Motion Graphics, Ae, Storyboards, Create GIF, Work flow, Resources, Background Accents,
Basics Tut, Logo Tut, Custom Logo, Eval

Unit 5, Act. 1: Logo Motion

Situation:

Having worked with graphic still images, with vector and raster images, bringing motion into the fold, adds a whole new and exciting aspect of Communications Technology. This is where all the magic happens when you can create motion graphics with a lot of cool effects and creativity can result in some great dynamic motion output. Adobe After Effects can do it all and it's strength is for creating short dynamic, animated, and special effects to visual graphics with related audio.

Problem/Challenge:

To familiarize yourself with Adobe After Effects (Ae), you are to complete two tutorials: After Effects Overview & Basics and Animate a Logo. With each tutorial completed, make notes in a supplied Google Doc, summarizing in point form the process and key information for reinforcement. Next you will make some of your own additional modifications and effects with-in the scope of the tutorial, report on them, and export out your custom animated GIF.

Having familiarized yourself with the basics using Ae, you are to create an animated intro to your logo, you recently designed and created in Illustrator. Prep your logo, using the vector shapes, adjusting size, and organizing layers, to import into Ae, to get ready for animating your logo intro. Sketch a storyboard of ideas for your logo motion intro motion video. You will be required to stage a complimentary dynamic background, have your logo move (animate), "build itself", scale, change opacity, and use a minimum of three effects. File setup will be a 1080 format for 5 to 8 second web or video splash intro medium. With the graphic element and type from your logo, you will have lots to work with to creatively introduce and motion build your logo intro.

Investigation/Ideas:

Motion Graphics

Motion Graphics is animation but with more of a focus on text as a major part, so you could think of it as animated graphic design. It is a way for the viewer to get more depth to a story through ads, title sequences, and/or splash introductions. It is graphics that is in motion over time and almost everything that moves and involves a graphic and/or text element is motion graphics. It was as early as the 1940's that motion graphics was started and is seen everywhere now in media such as Internet, TV, Cinema, mobile applications, video games, etc. There is a fine line between what Animation is vs Motion Graphics are. Animations tend to be more artistic sending deeper messages with entertainment in mind rather than a practical message by taking static visual design work and adding movement.

Adobe After Effects

Adobe After Effects is an application used for animation, visual effects, and video picture composting. It is used in post production phase usually to manipulate graphics and text with a ton of effects using a time-line layer design to combine video, images, and text into the same scene. Checking out the the Wikipedia, you can see the history (1993 and on) and more info about Plug-ins, Scripts, and Extensions. The workspace has three main panels, the Project area, Composition area, and the Time-line area. The Project area is where you keep all of your related assets such as images, video clips, and sound. The Composition area is where you view your work output area or resulting image/video, while the Time-line is where you control your layer modifications such as position, scaling, rotation, opacity and also add hundreds of special effects such as blurring, lighting, patterns, to your media. Preparing and making a logo will require some steps and know-how using layer and effect controls. Using common shortcuts can help speed up your workflow.

Sample Animations and Logo Work

Storyboards

The storyboard is an important part of the motion design planning process. This is where you can show, pre-visualize the narrative of your final motion graphic. You want to think of camera viewing angles, building up of your stage and subject, movement, scale, colours, effects, and transitions of your compositions (comps for short).

Should have already written a script for your composition scene(s)
Look at what is already out there, view some competitive/similar types of motion animations
Created mood boards for all possible samples and ideas to support and build from
Create a storyboard (sketching on paper is the easiest) your graphic element and include a quick description for each of your thumbnails capturing/communicating your ideas/storyline/motion over time, etc.

Storyboard Resources

How to Export Animated GIF From Ae

Instead of exporting to a video file, sometimes you may want to make your animation into a animated GIF. Here are the steps you can do in Adobe CC, using the included Media Encoder App.

Composition>Add to Adobe Media Encoder Queue
In Media Encoder search for GIF in Preset Browser, drag up to your file in the Queue, click on Preset and in new window ensure Source Range is Work Area End, adjust quality and size if needed to reduce file size, click OK
Click on output file to save to your organized main folder location
Click on green triangle top of window to render/export to final output file format - in this case GIF

Ae Work Flow for Your Animated Logo Intro

Work flow is a process or steps you take to accomplish your task(s) to accomplish your goal. Ideally, taking the right steps will expedite and smooth out, getting to your goal quicker and usually with a better product. Taking the right steps usually comes from experience and knowing what to do efficiently and get the best product output. Following instructions, checking out video resources, and absorbing demonstrations are all helpful. Listed below are some key points/steps to help you with your custom animated logo intro

Research/view other similar animated logo's
Review what kind of layer modifications/effects you can do in Ae
Familiarize and practice with Ae tools and process (tutorials)
Consider motion design standards - composition, rule of thirds, elements/princples of design
Use storyboard to solidify your animation motion design steps
Separate your logo in Ai, save in similar size composition to target Ae
Create top level Ai layers for all wanted animation elements
Name your layers appropriately
Create organized folders for organization, put your assets into related folders
Import your organized folders into Ae
Create a practical and usable workspace in Ae
Import your Ai updated logo file into Ae
Using your storyboard, create your time-line layer mods and effects

Resource Links

Adobe After Effects has a lot of support resources online. Below I have found some helpful links to support you with After Effects tools and process:

Backgrounds and Accents

There are a lot of ways you can spice up your background with animated textures, gradiants, patterns, and shapes acents using Ae. Careful to not over power your logo intro by keeping the accents subtle. Here are some different ideas that you can checkout.

Create/Construct:

There are three major components to this After Effects project starting with the Intro and Basics tutorial, next reinforce your experience with a Logo tutorial, and then show your knowledge and creativity by creating your own customized logo animation.

1) Ae Intro and Basics Tutorial and Customization

In the Learn panel (Learn Workspace), complete the short and quick After Effects Overview tutorial, then fill in your supplied Google Doc outline with the key points learned, Note no saves required during tutorial steps.
Again inside the Learn panel, start The Basics tutorial, completing each of the five major parts learning the basics
Fill in the same supplied Google Doc outline with each of the tutorial steps recording points learned - info, commands, tools, and/or steps experienced
With the last tutorial step opened up, save your project to your main file save location, reduce your "Work Area End" to 5 seconds, Composition>Trim to Comp Work Area, then add 2 additional custom layer modifications and/or effects to each of your layers in the time-line
Finish with a placement of your 100 pixel high PNG-24 logo as top layer in your time-line, as a watermark 40% opacity, located bottom right of your composition
List with quick explanation each of your customizations you did for each layer in your supplied Google Doc outline
Export your customized project to a 30 quality 600 wide GIF, and insert into your supplied Google Doc outline,
Double check instructions, ensure you have completed all of your required work, then submit

2) Ae Logo Tutorial and Customization

Inside the Learn panel, for the After Effects Tutorial (click All at bottom, if not there), click on "+" symbol where it says New tutorials available, and download the Animate a Logo tutorial
Start the Animate a Logo tutorial, completing each of the five major parts learning the logo animation basics
Fill in the same supplied Google Doc outline with each of the tutorial steps recording points learned - info, commands, tools, and/or steps experienced
With the last tutorial step opened up, save your project to your main file save location, reduce your "Work Area End" to 4 seconds, Composition>Trim to Comp Work Area, then add 2 additional custom layer modifications and/or effects to each of your layers in the time-line
Place your 100 pixel high PNG-24 logo as top layer in your time-line, as a watermark 40% opacity, located bottom right of your composition
Trim the unnecessary top and bottom background of your composition using the Region of Interest tool icon in your composition window, then on your menu Composition > Crop Comp to Region of Interest
List with quick explanation each of your customizations you did for each layer in your supplied Google Doc outline
Export your customized project to a 30 quality 600 wide GIF, and insert into your supplied Google Doc outline,
Double check instructions, ensure you have completed all of your required work, then submit

3) Ae Custom Logo Animation

Take a look at the different workspaces, review workspace resources, then create a custom workspace that will work well for creating logo type animations, to later save your workspace after importing your logo and submit a JPG screen capture showing it in step 6
Sketch a storyboard (6 graphic and description thumbnails) pre-visual of your design-flow for your logo build intro, keeping mind previous page layout, setup, and sketching techniques
Open up your recently created colour logo display in Illustrator (just your logo, not your guides), marque (select) to copy to a new Ai file (film standard) 1920 wide by 1080 high pixels. Your Layers will transfer over, then organize future planned animation parts of your logo on their own named layers, scale to fit, align centre of artboard, then save file to be used as an asset in Ae
Create a organized folder and sub-folder area in your main save location for your project to use in Ae
In Ae, create a new composition, named d-joe_logo-intro, with a preset HDTV 1080 24 for a duration of 8 seconds
Import your logo Ai file in as an asset, then add to your time-line layer (vector vs shape layers) to start working on animating it through layer modifications, shape builds, and effects - time to screen capture your workspace and logo import
Your logo is required to have layer modifications with movement, build, scale, opacity with both your graphic and type of your logo, along with three layer effects for a 5 - 8 second duration

Create a dynamic composition background to compliment and contrast with your logo in foreground
Use your Google Doc header/footer template with a main title: Logo Intro, sub-titles with Logo Animation Build Summary, Layer Modifications & Effects, and Learning Conclusion to be filled in on your steps, accomplishments, and learning
Export your customized project to a 30 quality 600 wide GIF, and insert into your Google report at the end
Submit a JPG showing your final workspace, all of your collapsed layers & full time line, expanded project folder and files, and end of logo composition
Submit zip file of your project files using: File > Dependencies > Collect Files, to save to a folder and then zip the folder, files, and project assets, to be submitted with completed Google Doc
Export your customized project to a 30 quality 230 wide GIF, and insert into JamBoard Class showcase

Evaluation:

Double check instructions in each of the chunked assignments before submitting work. Remember to use the proper file naming convention for work submitted.

After Effects Tutorials	Marks
Always double check that you have completed all components for full marks.
Intro and Basics - Tutorial completed, Google Doc notes, customize, and exported GIF	45
Logo - Tutorial completed, Google Doc notes, customize, and exported GIF	50
Custom Logo
Ae Workspace & Setup - JPG of your custom workspace and logo imported from Ai	20
Sketched Storyboard - Layout, sketching, graphic ideas and descriptions	20
Animated Logo Intro - Organization, mods/FX, background, design, JPG workspace, & report	80
Logo Showcase - Logo GIF posted and shared on JamBoard	10

Com Tech