a little trapcode form, some cool layers of bright spheres, a little bounce expression, to give it a little … well … and a little particular, to blow some smoke,
use AE reverse mapping to reverse your bounce layer, and a little subtlety …. about our recovery
Check out Marcus Geduld ‘After Effects Expressions’
for a really light, fun, goofy introduction to Expressions for young and old alike,
this is a great introduction and ‘behind the looking glass’ for some who think they might be beyond the simple introduction level that brings together many simple ideas and concepts and goes straight to production.
Using only ‘wiggle’ and expressions definitions for position, rotation, scale, and fill color,
you’ll be producing cool animations like this one,
before you can missspell expressions. Have fun!
Using nulls to apply expressions can be a great way to apply a ‘hands off’ method of using expressions to direct your object while leaving the child object free.
This gives you flexibility and freedom as you apply the expressions and greater control with the null object.
As I’m exploring expressions, what you can do, practical applications, and 3d space, I find myself seeking regular the ChrisTrishMeyer water fountain of youth and knowledge.
This link details a ‘dolly rig’ – an After Effects project that uses expressions, defining sliders to act as a camera on a track.
http://www.dv.com/article/10762
For a relatively simple project, there are many techniques that are illustrated here, including using a null object for your expressions.
There is a complete description and project to download at their link but I want to use this reference because it is such a great blend and their project is quite easy to follow.
When you want your expression to produce a sweeping arc, when you want your expression to imitate gravity, when you want your expression to portray a meteor streaming through the sky
the tool of choice is transcendental Mathematics because this superset includes everything from cones to parabola to ellipses to hyperbolas. In our everyday life this encompasses simple things like acceleration ( meteor streaming through the sky ), tossing a rock into a pond ( gravity ), or more precisely in our design work, the sweeping motion of a camera or a light.
How often do we see a camera span the area whether it be landscape or audience, or have a light span the arena whether it be a galaxy or the Rolling Stones. This behavior is even more simple in our daily metaphor because that is how we evaluate our presence, how we take in a new scene, at the park or at the office. We view the landscape zooming in on this and that object
the ability to imitate this behavior really is mathematical and while it’s not quite as easy as your multiplication tables, it is well documented and very straightforward. Once you get comfortable creating expressions drawing on these basic shape definitions you will be well on your way to applying them to the Life imitating nature of your compositions.
I have 2 here that have lights arcing over and under the object, a favorite random 3d object that comes from the After Effects templates. Focusing on the math, getting the motion to control the movement of the lights – once you have that down, then apply whatever you like, in this case I applied some interesting After Effects presets from their preset background library to contrast the differences.
while the Adobe expression language is rich, and based on javascript and other conventions widely used on Web,
the math functions and rather cryptic variable definitions offer enough of a learning curve. If you want to go beyond the ‘pick whip’ letting Adobe write your expressions for you, defining dependencies with a pointer, it is very helpful to keep your object design simple while focusing on the ‘meat’ of your expression.
There isn’t anything like a debugger, a monitor that will allow you to view your dependency variables as your expression plays out but you can see the variable you are defining display.
Maybe you want to tie a camera or light to a smooth funtion, an exponential sweep. This really will contribute mathmatical grace, no keyframes, a sweeping arc with all the point on ‘the circle’ but there is a lot more to applying simple Math concepts like this in After Effects expression language.
I added a light to my random roatation roatating masks that I borrowed from the expression template that ships with AE.
The playing field you are on needs to be taken into consideration. In a way, it’s upside down. As your object descends on the screen, it’s Y values is increasing.
I found this really cool application of a simple expression – on the Adobe site. Using the ‘bulge’ effect you have the image below bulge – appear large ( of course you can play with the parameters ) but it’s simplicity is you use a simple expression to map it’s center to the object you present to your audience.
They suggest a magnifying glass and since I’m pretty easy going guy, that’s what I used. Using AE’s drawing tools, draw your best rendition of a magnifying glass, use a mask to reveal what is inside the lens, and map the bulge position to your magnifying glass position.
Or view the same effect as we get close up of my Red Top Clover
‘artsy’ and ‘creative’ and ‘inspired’ and ….. OK ….
so who invited some Math to the party … anyway #$@%!
it doesn’t seem like expressions and javascript would be on the same team.
and certainly not on the same team with After Effects
but they actually play quite nicely together producing effects you simply couldn’t create by hand.
check out this nice introduction through the Adobe site:
http://tv.adobe.com/#vi+f15383v1045
Every introduction I see makes use of the ‘pickwick’ tool. This tool that let’s you link properties of one object to another while Adobe generates the code.
I like to code – the pickwick tool is easy to use but seemed like workPlus to me except -
what I don’t like about expressions is that there is a large vocabulary, lots of ‘house variables’ – that I’m sure are documented on Adobe’s
site somewhere but I haven’t found a nice place to place them on my desktop and have a handy reference.
That said, as you’re creating expressions, a ‘twerly’ … there I said it – a ‘twerly’ opens up when begin creating expressions and you can traverse the family of Global, Math, Layer, all the many predefined references. This just isn’t the same to me as having a document where you can go through, looking at various ones at the same time, getting a feel for the naming convention so you can begin to ‘guess’ them, and construct your own.
but I drift – the ‘pickwick’ took is good for just that, creating dependencies, and seeing what Adobe has done for you and what variables have been used,
a learning tool as much as a construction tool.
There are practically ‘right out of the box’, from the template ‘expression sampler’ and from the movie starters referenced above. Great stuff !
we’ll calm this down tomorrow. It’s Saturday and I haven’t completely figured out this gift from Dan Ebberts Motionscript ( http://motionscript.com ) but it is one of the ‘go to’ places for After Effects scripting and while he expects a fair amount of grasp of the front end, the payoff is worth it.
the fair amount of grasp is qualified in his ‘ground rules’ … no intro to After Effects, he dives staight into expressions and Dan is heavy on Math but ….. I guess that’s what expressions are all about.
He is also heavy on trig and geometry but .. shucks …math imiates Life .. when you see his ‘momentum balls and decaying spheres … it’s bit infectious
since I like simplicity, that’s a great place to begin expressions and illustration
cause to be honest, expressions are a bit cryptic for me with their own house language/variable and like anything a little practice, to cultivate familiarity is about the only way I know.
but … trails … yeah ….
Creative Cows
