AE BASICS. Effect Controls. Selection Tool. Project Panel. Timeline Panel

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2 TABLE OF CONTENTS AE Basics...3 Global Color Change...4 Local Color Change...5 Changing The Shadow...6 Duration Control...7 Importing The Icons Into Your Project...8 Scaling...8 Rendering Video Files...9 Exporting to GIF...11

3 AE BASICS Open the AnimatedIcons-versionX.aep file with After Effects (AE). This is the screen that welcomes you. Please remember the names listed here as I will refer to them in the tutorial. Selection Tool Effect Controls Project Panel Timeline Panel 3

4 GLOBAL COLOR CHANGE 1. Open the MAIN_PERVIEW composition. 2. Left click on the Global Control layer in the Timeline panel. 3. Left click on Effect Control. This is your control panel where you can set your global colors and adjust the shadow for all the icons. 4. Using the selection tool (press V), click on one of the rectangles with the color you want to change (All colors have the same name as the color in the project). 5. In the window that opens, select your new color. 6. Follow this procedure with the other colors as well. 4

5 LOCAL COLOR CHANGE You can also customize the colors of each icon independently. It means that you can make exceptions from the global color rule and apply custom colors to any of the icons. Applying custom color to a specific icon. 1. Open an icon composition (Double click in folder ICONS). 2. Left click on the Local_color_control layer in the Timeline panel. 3. Left click on Effect Controls. 4. In the Effect Controls Panel uncheck the Checkbox. 5. Using the selection tool (press V), click on one of the rectangles with the color you want to change (All colors have the same name as the color in the project). 6. In the window that opens, select your new color. 7. Follow this procedure with the other colors as well. 5

6 CHANGING THE SHADOW 1. Open the MAIN_PERVIEW composition. 2. Left click on the Global Control layer in the Timeline panel. 3. Left click on Effect Control. 4. You can customize the direction, opacity and size (distance) of the shadow here. You can also apply soft shadow (Softness). 6

7 DURATION CONTROL 1. Select the icon (folder ICONS) or double click in the composition on the selected icon. 2. Press command + A for MAC or CTRL + A for Windows and set the length of the composition by pulling the right edge of the Timeline. 3. Left click on the "NULL **" layer and press U. 4. Select all keys and move to the desired position, the last key must match the end of the Timeline. Note: The duration of the icon close is 50 milliseconds. Note: Opening the icon is 2 seconds. Note: Your composition should not be shorter than 3 seconds 7

8 IMPORTING THE ICONS INTO YOUR PROJECT Importing them as a single After Effects project file: 1. In your own AE project, select File / Import from the top menu. 2. Find the Chart icons.aep on your hard drive and select it. 3. You now can see the Chart icons.aep folder appearing in your Project Panel. 4. Open it and find the ICONS folder, you can now simply drag and drop the chosen icons into your timeline. If you would like to import them as video files, first Render the icons (next chapter) and import them separately. SCALING The icons are within an 400 x 400px composition. If you would like to use smaller / bigger icons, you can scale them without losing quality. If you plan to scale them, remember to turn on the Continuously Rasterize option, this way the icons will keep their vector properties and they will be sharp even if they are scaled to whatever percent. 8

9 RENDERING VIDEO FILES Render settings / Output Module Set your preferred Render Settings / Output Module before adding any items to the Render Queue. 1. From the top menu, select Edit / Templates / Output module 2. At the settings panel, create a new Settings, then click on Edit and set your preferences (e.g. h.264 format, etc.). 3. Set your Movie Default to the template you have just created. This way when you add any icon to the render queue this template will be automatically selected. 4. Go to Edit / Templates / Render Settings 5. Here you can adjust parameters like Resolution and Time Span. 9

10 Rendering 1. Open the Render Queue (Window / Render Queue) which is the place in After Effects for creating your final videos. 2. In the Project Panel open the ICONS folder and select the icons you would like to render. Use ctrl (command) and shift + left click for faster selections. Drag and drop (or push ctrl/command + m) the selected icons into the Render Queue. 3. If you are done with selecting the icons, push the Render button on the right. Wait. :) If you turn CAPS LOCK on, the rendering will be faster. ;) 4. If you rendered them, but by any reason you would like to render them again (e.g. in different colors) you will find all the files you rendered in the Render Queue in an inactive state. It means that nothing will happen when you push the Render button. You have to activate them again. Select all of them (ctrl or command + A) and duplicate them (ctrl or command + D). Now you are ready to render them again. 10

11 EXPORTING TO GIF 1st part (After Effects) 1. After setting your colors, choose an icon and drag it onto the Render Queue. 2. Set its Output Module to Quicktime and Format options to PNG. 3. Uncheck audio output. (You can also resize here, make sure "Lock aspect ratio" is ON.) 4. Before rendering, let's save this output module (Make template), so that you can use it later again. (If you select multiple icons you can simply apply the template you've previously created to them.) 5. Hit render. 2nd part (Photoshop) 6. Open Photoshop. 7. File / Import / Video frames to layers. (You will see a black / white rectangle here since the animation has not yet started.) 8. Leave all settings unmodified. (You can also set a preferred range here, like selecting the looping phase, this way avoiding the build up part). 9. File / Save for web - select gif, set "looping options" to forever and uncheck transparency. 10. Hit save. 11