animating a title?

[southwestform]

I want to take a title made in illustrator, import it, and animate it similar to a movie title so it scales from small to big. How is this done? Which tools do I need to look into?

thanks.

[alank99101739]

Create the file in Illustrator, import it into CH which will turn it into a puppet, then use the Transform behavior Scale property to adjust its size (you can delete all the other behaviors on the puppet if you want to).

Use a blend for the scale. That is,

1. Put the puppet in a scene and set the Scale property of the puppet to the initial size. (Do NOT arm the property - we are setting the default value for the puppet in the scene.)
2. Arm the property (click the red dot) and adjust the scale to the final size you want.
3. Record that for a few seconds then stop the recording.
4. Grab the right edge of the recording and drag it out past the end of the scene - it will use the last recording value for the whole take now.
5. Adjust the left edge of the take (the blue rectangle in the timeline)  for where you want the scaling to start.
6. Create a blend by grabbing the little square at the top left cornder inside the blue recording of the take and drag it over to the right. You should see a diagonal line now growing from left to right (instead of a solid blue rectangle). This is a blend, going from the old value (the puppet default) to the new value (the final scale factor you want.)
7. Finally, right click on the take and adjust the “ease” value - the default is to ease in and out which slows near the ends of the take - if you want it linear, turn off the ease.

[DanTull]

Thanks, Alan!

The only thing I'd add is that (for step 3) if you want a fixed value (to blend to/from) is to enable the work area and set it to the length of take you want and then use the "Record Take for Work Area" command in the Timeline menu.

DT

[southwestform]

I'm finally getting around to trying this

- I import my .AI made title/puppet into the Timeline

- I go to the Properties and set the scale to 0%

- I click the red dot next to scale and enter 200%

1. What do you mean by "Record that for a few seconds then stop the recording." What is it recording? do you mean to simply leave it alone for the duration you want it to tween and click on the red dot next to scale again?

2. I've keyframed in Premiere where you add a starting keyframe and go to the end and transform the item and it tweens it, does it not work this way?

Thanks.

[alank99101739]

CH is a “performance based recording” tool, not a key frame approach. E.g. you turn on the web cam and it does real-time recording of head positions etc. (Or you grab a draggable hand and just move it around as appropriate.)

Blends can be used to *fake* keyframing. You basically make a recording of the end value, but the recording is actually a jump to a new value.

So, the exact sequence is:

• Have the red dot disabled for everything.
• Set Scale to 0%.
• Turn red dot on for Scale property.
• Set Scale to 100% (or whatever).
• Press CTRL-R to start recording.
• Wait a second or two.
• Press CTRL-R to stop recording.
• Find the blue bar in the timeline.
• Adjust the right edge of the blue bar to extend it out as long as required (its fine to go too far)
• Grab the little square in the top left corner of the blue bar, and drag over to where the scale up should stop.
• Right click on the bar to change to adjust the blend mode (easing) if desired.

To make a recording, you press CTRL-R or press the record button to start and then later stop recording. You can grab the scale value and fiddle it during a recording and it will remember exactly when you make the changes. We are not doing that - we are setting the initial value then not changing it during the recording (so it feels a bit weird).  For most properties, the last value in the underlying recording will be extended when you grab the right edge of a “take” and extend it. It basically fills the values in. (This does not work for all properties, but does work for most.) What that means is you don’t have to create a recording *exactly* the right length - you just need a recording to start from then trim the edges as desired (which is easier to control).

If you want a simpler to understand approach, you can record for the full duration of the transition then trim it shorter. I just have got so used to start record / stop record and extend that it has become second habit for me. There is also a “record 1/2 frame” in the menus, but I find I need to zoom in before I can grab the edge of the recording. So I just manually hit record, wait a second or two, then stop the recording, and extend the take. If there was a ”record 1 second” shortcut that would be convenient - it would save me one key press. 😉

Oh! Maybe that is what Dan is referring to - there is a new capability I have not used yet. You set the Work Area settings and the recording will automatically stop at the end of the work area... I have not tried that before.

Oh, note you can record changes in X and Y position as well, if you want to to fly up during scaling as well.

[alank99101739]

Oh, here is a screen recording that shows some different things - it eventually shows blending etc. Fast forwarding might be useful! 😉

Project Wookie, Episode 7: Titles and Captioning - YouTube

[southwestform]

Here is where I am confused. After following the steps nothing animated.

1. What is the point of setting scale to 0 and then pressing red dot next to it And then set scale  to 100% before recording? Or am I misunderstanding?

2. Im assuming I misunderstanding, so I did this still with no luck:

- kept red dot disabled

- set scale to 0

- hit record

- waited a few seconds

- set scale to 100

- hit record again

this also didn’t work...

thanks for for your patience!

[alank99101739]

If the red dot is not on, then that property will not be recorded in the scene. If the red dot is on, then when recording starts it will create a “take” (a recording) that includes that property value.

So disarming the property first changes the default value for that property. So I start it at 0. I find that less confusing. If you then arm the property (red dot on) and change the property value, you do not change the default - you are setting the property to the initial value it will use for the recording. If you then start the recording, it will record that value for the property from the beginning. I wanted a recording of the same 100% value for the full recording because we are going to use a blend to adjust from the default value (0) to the recorded value (100).

If you record without changing the value like you described and then later while recording adjust it to 100% then if you play back the recording, it will start at 0 and then later go up to 100%, time synced with when you made the changes. Remember CH is a performance based approach. It remembers each change you make and when you make it.

So you need to set default to 0, arm the property, set it to 100, then start recording. You will then have a recording of the property at 100%. Then you have to use the blend to smoothly transition from the default to the recorded value (which will go from 0 to the recorded value of 100).

For example, instead you could by hand slowly drag the scale value up while recording, but I find it hard to get it perfect. It comes out jerky for me. So to get a smooth transition I find blends work better.

Normally blends are used just at the start or end, to smooth the transition between two takes that don’t exactly line up. I am using this by going to an extreme and doing a long blend from the start of the scale to the end of the scale.

The video link I shared uses short blends at the start and end of the opacity recording I did. It shows it fade in and fade out with shorts blends at the start and end. It then goes on to show full scaling blends towards the end. It is a screen recording of every step I took, skipping nothing. So that might be worth viewing and following along on.

You just have to remember there are no keyframes. It records the current value of armed properties each time interval. Blends allow you to quasi fake key framing, which gives you smooth transitions. That video has a series starting from a photo of a toy wookie, each episode building on the previous one. So if you are new, it may be worth starting from the beginning to learn the basics. That might help the penny drop. Once you “get it”, things go much faster.

[southwestform]

Thanks so much for your patience. I guess I am having a hard time because I am use to the concept of keyframing and it is difficult for me to grasp this performance style. I finally got it to work, though I am still not clear on a few things.

1. My title clip also recorded the Eye Gaze, Face, and Lip Synch sub layers. Is there a way to not record these, or should I just delete them?

2. When I right click on the bar, I do not get any blend mode options? Where specifically are you right clicking on the bar?

3. I also want to add some movement while it is scaling; so maybe it starts from the bottom of the screen and moves up while scaling up. I tried adding a dot to position Y at the very beginning of the clip, changed the y value, hit record for a few seconds, stopped it, though it didnt work and now it is no longer displaying the scale effect. What is the right way to add a position effect along with the scale?

Thanks for your help!

[alank99101739 · Accepted solution]

The eye gaze etc in the properties probably had the red dots armed next to those behaviors. You can disable the red dots next to all of them except the Transform behavior, then only select Scale under Transform (make sure the others are all off). It will record everything that is armed (red dot on) at the same time, in sync. That allows you to synchronize everything more closely.

The blend options on the blue take bar is new I think to v2.0. If you are running and older version it might not be available. Here is the section from the docs: Record and playback scenes in Adobe Character Animator (look for the section titled “Blending a behavior’s parameter’s take”). (That whole page may be worth reading through for an overview of how to do recordings.)

The wookie video I shared shows an example of moving the title as well, combining Scale, Position X, and Position Y. You can record all 3 together, or record them one at a time (but make sure you disarm things you don’t want to record over). For example, you can disarm everything first, set all the defaults as wanted. E.g. set the initial position by adjusting X/Y, then adjust Scale down to zero. (Setting scale to zero makes it invisible, so I would do that last! ;-). Then set the red dot on next to Scale, Position X, and Position Y properties inside Transform behavior. Scale it up to the desired size, change Position X and Y, get it right for the final position. Then record the 3 properties together for the length wanted (you can adjust the length later by grabbing the edge and dragging). CTRL-R to start recording, CTRL-R to stop recording. All three recorded properties will be selected immediately after the recording. As before, grab the little square in the top left corner and drag over to the right. When you playback now the title will grow larger and move from the initial position to the new position.

If you look at https://extra-ordinary.tv/2018/10/22/project-wookie-a-beginner-youtube-playlist/  it includes a link to the Wookie channel on YouTube plus a list of other episodes. E.g. Moving A puppet Linearly might be interesting to you. Its the same concept - the title text is your puppet in your case.