How To Animate Hair In After Effects

Let's make the virtually of the new Waves and Tapered Strokes features in After Furnishings!

Animating in After Effects is easier one time you understand the tools that the software provides. If you're fighting to make organic waves or stylized environments, it's probably because yous don't know all of the abilities bachelor to you. One time you learn to work inside the program, you'll be amazed at what you tin can create.

Today, we're going to be looking at the new Taper and Wave stroke options available for Shape Layers inside After Effects. You won't need any plugins or extras to follow along, which means you can become started correct away. In this tutorial, nosotros'll show you:

• How to create wavy pilus for your characters
• How to animate waves and curves in After Effects
• How to utilize the Tapered Stroke tool

Getting Started with Wave and Taper in After Furnishings

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How to utilise Wave and Taper in Later on Effects

To examination out some of these new tools, nosotros'll be drawing bones shapes and creating unproblematic animations. Once you have those down, y'all can hands apply the same techniques to more than complex creations.

For this example, pretend a customer has asked you to create a character with hair waving in the breeze. Sure, we could draw a ponytail with a path and breathing the path and...ugh, I'thou tired just thinking nearly it. Or...we could merely use the new Stroke tool.

MAKE A PONYTAIL

To get started, nosotros demand a single shape layer with a person'southward head.

With the Contents Group selected, I'll grab my Pen tool and draw a simple ponytail. Click+Elevate to grab those Bezier handles until you have the shape yous want. Make sure Stroke Width is set to 100%. I know information technology looks funny now, but just you await.

Twirl downwards in the group and delete the Fill and then you lot simply see the Stroke. In the Stroke grouping, twirl down and select Taper. Below that, you'll run across Wave, which nosotros will get to in merely a minute.

Alter Line Cap to Round Cap to remove the harsh edges of the ponytail. At present go dorsum to Taper and set Start Length to threescore% and the End Length to 40%. Y'all'll notice that if you overlap these numbers, your shape shrinks rather chop-chop. You lot can adjust these to your liking, only permit's stick with my numbers for now.

You can also adjust your Start Width and End Width to your liking besides. Now this ponytail still looks a little sharp, which is where our Ease comes into play. With First at x% and Stop at 30%, my ponytail is looking a lot better.

ADD A Wave TO A PONYTAIL

Now information technology's time to twirl open our Wave settings. The Amount is how much wave nosotros'll be adding to our Stroke. Equally I increase the number, you can see the waves appear.

Wavelength is going to exist how long the waves are. Drag those numbers up and down and discover the number that works for you.

Finally, we get to Phase, which is what we'll exist animating to get that ever-present wavy look. In the negative, the waves move abroad from the head. In the positive, they'll wave toward the head. So permit'south set a cardinal at the start of our timeline, move the Phase in whichever management we want, and add a key at the end. At present we preview the look!

Now that you have the animation gear up, y'all can mess around with some time() expressions, conform your Stroke width or positioning, and add in environmental details to really sell the wait.

How easy was that?

How to create a growing fern leaf

At present we're going to use all the techniques we just practiced to create a fern that grows new leaves as nosotros sentinel. Growing animations are very popular, and clients love to meet these types of animations. While you lot may non be asked to create this exact project, these skills translate to a number of real-world briefs we've seen.

CREATE A GROWING STEM FOR YOUR FERN

First, very merely, grab your Pen and create a stem.

Delete your make full, simply like last fourth dimension, and set the color to a nice dark-green. Suit your width to about 25% and we'll move to Taper.

I'thou going to set up End Length to 100% and Stop Width to around 60%, since I don't desire the tip to just disappear at the peak.

Now add a Trim Path. Set up the Start to 0% and the End to 100%. Add together a keyframe, move forward twenty frames or so, and add together some other keyframe. And voila.

Now it's time to add some leaves!

Add LEAVES TO YOUR FERN

We'll start in much the same way we have this unabridged tutorial. Grab that Pen, depict your leaf's spine, and delete the fill. I'm as well going to adjust the colour so it is a little brighter than the stem, merely so things look a bit more interesting.

Next, we'll pull the Stroke group out of the Leaf Group.

This manner, when we duplicate the leaves on the left and correct side, those Stroke settings utilise to everything.

Accommodate your taper and easing until the leaf looks correct, and adjust the ballast point and then it really lands nigh the stem.

Before we start animative, let'south duplicate with CTRL+D (CMD+D on Mac). In Transform, change the scale to -100%, which will create a perfect re-create in the opposite direction.

Now considering we took the Stroke group outside of these leaves, we tin now control them both. Just equally nosotros've done earlier, add a Trim Path, and let's make these leaves grow forth with their stem.

Gear up the Get-go to 0% and the End to 100%. Add a keyframe, motility forrard twenty frames or and so, and add together another keyframe. I retrieve we'll as well demand to animate that Stroke Width, since the leaves don't seem to exist growing organically. With a few quick adjustments...

We're about done. Now it'south time to utilise a smashing little tool in Afterwards Effects.

CREATE NULLS FROM PATHS IN After Furnishings

You'll notice this tool in the Window Menu.

Go to your Stalk Group and Select Path. Y'all'll now have three options. Points Follow Nulls volition create points at the start, cease, and where there are Bezier handles. Nulls Follow Points reverses the data for creating a path. Finally, and what nosotros'll exist using, volition be Trace Path. Select that, and a new layer will be created.

Delete the keyframes that are automatically created, but you can run across under Progress how the new layer moves forth with the growth of the Stem. Let'due south start at a spot early on, say 13%. Now we agree Shift and drag Parent from the Leaves to the Trace layer.

Nosotros'll have to rotate the leaves to have them face correctly, but nosotros'll get there in a moment. First, allow'southward indistinguishable this trace layer 4 more than times (we need a lot of leaves). Then indistinguishable your Leaves layer 4 times besides. Hold Shift and pick whip each new leaves layer to their corresponding Trace Path.

Now select the new Trace Paths and, in the search bar, blazon Progress. This will make information technology easier to quickly adjust the start points for each leaf pair. I'm going to space these evenly along the growth path of the stem. Since the path is connected to the Stem, these leaves will appear to abound from there instead of from thin air.

Uh oh, these leaves are growing wrong! We still need to fix the rotation. Likewise easy.

Select all of the leaves layers, hit R, input xc degrees, and voila.

At present the leaves all starting time growing at the same time, which doesn't work. Another easy fix. All nosotros need to practice is elevate the animation on the the timeline to match the frame where the stalk and leaves intersect.

Now all we demand to do is a few fine touches. Nosotros'll adjust spacing, gear up the size of the leaves so they accept some variation, and nosotros've just quickly made a growing fern!

Now that you lot accept these new tools in your belt, what else can yous create?

WANT TO LEARN More?

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Blitheness Bootcamp teaches you the art of beautiful movement. In this course, you'll learn the principles behind smashing animation, and how to apply them in After Effects.

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Tutorial Full Transcript Below 👇:

Sarah Wade (00:00): Hello everyone today, I'm going to show you all of the magic tucked downwards inside the shape card with the new wave and tapered strokes features and aftereffects.

Sarah Wade (00:xix): I'thousand Sarah Wade. Welcome to some other schoolhouse of motion tutorial. You won't demand any plugins for this. We're going to use all things that already exist inside your after effects. So this is going to be actually fun in this tutorial. Nosotros'll cover how to utilize the shape carte du jour and after furnishings, how to create taper stroke furnishings, how to create moving ridge stroke effects, how to automate a strokes wave, using a simple expression and how to animate faster with the create notes from by script, don't forget to catch the free project files in the link below and then that yous tin follow along.

Sarah Wade (00:57): What I'm looking at here is a single shape layer with a person's head, right? So allow's say you lot've got this person and they look kind of similar just a stylized human and your client comes and says, you know what? We want this person to have a ponytail and could you make information technology wave in the wind and but sort of flutter? And you're going to think, oh gosh. Okay, sure. I could frame by frame that I could depict ponytail with a path and I could breathing the path. And that's going to take a while, or you tin can use the awesome features tuck downwardly inside the shape menu to add a wavy waving tapered stroke. And then I've got this one shape layer here. I've got a hair group in information technology already. Uh, I'g just going to brand a new grouping really. And we'll only telephone call this ponytail.

Sarah Wade (01:xl): In fact, I'm only going to go on this layer selected content selected. Catch my pen tool. I'g simply going to depict, but click dragging to pull out those busier handles. She's got to make a ponytail like that. And then I've got a stroke in that location and a fill. I don't really need, uh, the fill up at all. I'chiliad just going to use the stroke. So allow'south rename this by hitting the enter key. And I telephone call this ponytail and let's go downwardly in hither. Permit'south but delete this fill. All I need is the stroke. And it just looks like a line, not a big deal, correct? Nosotros're going to brand it look like some flowy wavy hair with simply a few things. Now, if I dig downwards into the stroke menu, yous'll see that in here beneath dashes, at that place'southward a taper section. We're going to utilise that. And then beneath that in that location'southward a wave section, which we are going to utilise in a infinitesimal to get our fun flowy motion.

Sarah Wade (02:33): So showtime let's make the stroke the same colour every bit the Herricks. That would wait funny if it was a little bit different. Okay, we've got our struggle. Nosotros've got our color. That's the basic start shape of our ponytail. Now I'm going to go into this taper section and start playing around. Uh, it'southward not going to show up with a four point stroke with, so let'south go ahead and make that bigger. Uh, I remember I similar nigh a hundred hundred works. That's going to be a nice thick ponytail on the window. Information technology looks a little funny, right? But nosotros can alter that really hands by going to round cap. That looks a little less funny, but at present it looks kind of like a worm coming out of this person'due south head, correct? Not quite the event we're going for. That'south where the taper comes in. So if we go downward here, we've got these length units under taper.

Sarah Wade (03:16): This tin be a little scrap confusing. So there's kickoff links. And that is basically maxim how far yous want the taper to get. So every bit I'chiliad dragging this up aught up to 100 tapers from the start to a hundred percent of the stroke, we're going to go to near, permit's say 60. Okay. So that's our start taper. Now nosotros also have an finish taper. And so the end length is how far from the stop we're going to taper. So if we drag that up, observe it's shrinking our start because nosotros're overlapping at present, right? Then we're going a hundred percent from the terminate and information technology'south making everything kind of skinnier. We're going to only go, allow'due south say xxx% from the end. And so we've got a little fleck in there that sort of overlap. Well, it doesn't overlap. It'south kind of in-between. So we go sixty%, one mode xxx% the other style.

Sarah Wade (04:10): And and so we've got like a 10% of tapered right there. Um, that'due south kind of looking a footling bit crude on the air. So let's attempt taking this all the style to 40. Okay. Not quite the look I'g going for, just information technology's starting to expect like a ponytail. Right. And information technology'southward merely a stroke. If we didn't accept to draw a path around this whole thing, we didn't take to do whatsoever of that stuff. It's simply already starting to wait similar hair. Okay. At present we've got start with and cease with, and those should be pretty straightforward. That just tells me, okay. I want my start to be. So remember our stroke with is a hundred and we want our kickoff with, to be, let's say, oh, allow's see what looks right. Let's but drag this and meet, you know, I think that 26% permit'southward go to 25 just crusade I like even numbers.

Sarah Wade (04:56): I think that looks virtually right. Okay. And the cease with, I don't know, I kind of like it to a indicate, but that overnice soft. If we but elevate information technology up a piffling, information technology gives that nice soft sort of round cap there. That'due south kind of fun likewise. Okay. We've nonetheless got the center, not looking quite similar nosotros want. Right. Nosotros've got a meeting at a point hither and that'southward where these eases come in. You can actually ease the amount of the taper, which gives you a lot of ability. So for the start ease, let'south keep it pretty low. And then actually let's keep information technology at cipher because that's basically how fast it's going to ramp up. So a actually big ease and so it'due south actually quickly going from, it'due south basically easing along the length of that. So if this is zero and this is 60, where nosotros had that start length of the commencement taper, if we ease it to 50%, information technology's basically going to get to total width virtually l% through that length.

Sarah Wade (05:52): Remember that length is like the first 60% of the stroke. I know these numbers tin get a bit confusing. We don't desire it to be quite that big, but we don't want information technology to be zero either. Let's get with about ten and then the finish ease. That'due south where we're going to start to get rid of that kind of lump there in the middle. In fact, let'due south fifty-fifty drag this back a little bit to maybe 30. And so remember when we had that little bit of straight in the middle, it didn't look quite correct before, but at present if we start playing with this ease at the stop and ease at the commencement, we're going to get that looking a lot better. So allow's go that end, ease upwards a niggling chip to kind of shine that out. And we might keep dragging these numbers around a trivial scrap.

Sarah Wade (06:37): Correct? And so I don't want quite that much point. I desire to just sort of adjust the length of the commencement and end taper until it looks just well-nigh. Perfect. In fact, if I overlap those tapers a footling bit, that's smoothing it out really nicely. Okay. Information technology'southward starting to wait pretty cool. I'm not super happy with that end ISA. Let's elevate that upwards a bit more than. We'll brand the ease actually large and then permit's make that cease with a little flake smaller. And then information technology's not quite so fatty. Okay. It looks like a ponytail, right? We still haven't met our client's goal of this ponytail sort of waving in the wind. So that's when nosotros become into the wave part right here, nosotros've got moving ridge amount, the units, the wavelength and the face. So the units, that's just how yous're computing it. We're but going to leave that set pixels.

Sarah Wade (07:31): The amount is how much wave we're going to add to this. And then when I showtime dragging it up, take a look at that ponytail. Now this person has got curly hair, right? Nosotros tin can become upwardly here with the stroke wit and make it bigger. And information technology's like getting super stylized and fun. Right? I'm going to accept that stroke with dorsum down a little bit. In fact, let's gear up it at 150. I call up that's going to give united states the thickness nosotros need. That's what the wave amount does. Nosotros just want to subtle, subtle kind of thing here. So let's cutting that downwards to let'southward endeavour 30%. We'll see how that looks wavelength again. That's going to be how long the waves are. And so if I drag it back, lots and lots of waves. If I elevate information technology out, that's going to exist a little more subtle.

Sarah Wade (08:xiv): Right? And you can see, as I'm dragging this, it starts to look like what your client asked for. Correct? I want this ponytail to just sort of wave in the breeze. And then we become into the fun. Here is the phase. So the phase is what you want to animate to become that e'er nowadays wavy sort of motility. And you lot'll discover if I'one thousand dragging it left to the negative, that's actually making it kind of wave away from the head. If I drag information technology to the correct into the positive, it's kind of waving toward the head. So I wanted to wave sort of away from the caput. So that's the way I'm going to go as negative. I can breathing this. I could cardinal it, right? And then I can set a central here. Let's set up this at zero and then I could set key all the way at the stop of my comp to permit's say allow's just drag it a little chip and so allow's press space to preview.

Sarah Wade (09:06): That looks pretty good. Right? Okay. That's one manner to do it. I could also, this is, let'south just get rid of these keys. Let's go back here and set this back to zilch. Uh, I could animate this with an expression and expressions are not that scary. If yous're but, you can use expressions a little bit or a lot. And if y'all're just dipping your toes in, this is a really quick fashion to do this. I tin striking the alt key click on the face. And and so here I tin type time times allow's say negative 20. Okay. I'm going to click off of that. No errors. All looking skilful. No, I'1000 just going to play. Okay. That's a picayune too slow. And then allow'southward go down here and permit's increase this to, let's say negative a hundred and we'll run into what that looks like. And basically when you're doing this expression here, you're, you're telling it to change the phase over time times, negative a hundred.

Sarah Wade (x:01): So the negative only makes it go down instead of upwards. And you're just saying change it over time. And so at present if I press the space bar, that'southward looking pretty good, correct? I'm going to make a few more adjustments to this, but overall, I think this is kind of what my client was looking for. Now. There are a lot of things you can practice subsequently the fact, right? So this is animated. It'southward wavy. Peradventure the base of operations is a little bit, it's a piffling besides thick. We can just go up here and change that. Start with, to make that a little flake smaller. Perchance not quite in that small let's terminate that preview.

Sarah Wade (10:37): Do something like that. And maybe nosotros want to edit the path a lilliputian scrap. At present that we see it waving, maybe we should have started with a straighter path considering the wave is giving information technology some of that flowy kind of gooey feel that we want. And then we can easily edit the path, the path editing stuff here tin be a little scrap disruptive if you don't understand how it works right off the bat. And then ponytail, I'm going to open this path up. And if I click on this path and I want to edit it, you'll find that it, information technology moves the whole affair. That'southward not what I desire. If yous want to just motility points, go on your option tool selected so click off of the path, click on the path group, but not the path itself. And now y'all can offset moving around. Those handles 1 point at a time and it's not going to edit the entire thing. So let'south, permit's try and pull on this handle out. Mayhap we'll get a real kind of fun, like, you lot know, eighties style ponytail, right? Large hair kind of stuff going on here.

Sarah Wade (11:forty): That'southward given me a little bit of a funky effect there. And so y'all can get funky effects when you're using the tapered strokes and you accept paths that are actually kind of bendy and stuff. And then you just desire to be mindful of that fact. Peradventure if nosotros pull this back, it's going to be a little scrap better. Cause we're getting a footling bit of points there. So if yous adjust the path like right hither, you might desire to go back in and adjust the tapering, or you can just keep playing with the path until that goes away. But run across correct there, that'south not that little sort of jump there. It's not something I want. And so I'k an adjusted by just changing this path a little bit and now let's press space bar to preview and make sure that nosotros're not getting any weirdness. That's looking pretty skilful.

Sarah Wade (12:24): Right? Okay. I'm, I'thousand pretty happy with this. Then let'south say yous desire to just attempt out some other things again with the path and the shape stuff. You've got a lot of flexibility. Let's say we desire the ponytail to be fat at the start and skinny at the end, I tin merely go up here to this little button here and opposite the path. And now we've got a completely different ponytail, right? So the i click it'south waving the other way and nosotros desire information technology to still wave away. We just go downwardly to that expression and nosotros just take out that negative. And now we've got a whole agglomeration of animation. At present this taper needs to be adapted hither, merely you can offset to see the power of this, right, with but a few clicks and just one teeny tiny itsy bitsy beginner expression. You've got a whole bunch of animation that if you were to have animated this path, that's going to be a whole bunch of path keys, correct?

Sarah Wade (13:16): I hateful, animative paths is cracking for some things, only if you can jump ahead and not accept to ready all those path keys, that's going to put you lot alee in the finish. So nosotros did a lot of stuff hither really quickly. I'm going to become back to that other shape ponytail because I like it ameliorate. And that's what I want you lot to go far this file. If you cull to download this file. So over again, to reverse that direction, I'thousand just going to get upward here, opposite the path magic, right? That's a lot of blitheness for very little work. Some other thing I can practise here, if I want to add even more variation is I can still work with all those other fun things that yous're probably familiar with with the strokes, similar trim paths. So let'south add a trim path here. So let's say I want the end of the trim path to but sort of get a little fleck longer and a little chip shorter.

Sarah Wade (14:04): And then let's see this key out here was set at a hundred and let's set this kickoff key back to 86 or 85. We'll go to the end of our comp command C control V. I merely went to the end because in case I wanted to loop this, that'due south one sort of drawback of using that quick time expression that nosotros use down here. If you want it to loop this, I think the most easy way to practise that is to go rid of this expression and only key information technology, do the phase from, y'all know, let's say zero to negative, whatsoever, and and so dorsum to nothing and that's going to requite you something nice and looping, uh, the same way that we did for this trim path. And so now the trim path is kind of getting little longer and a picayune shorter. And that'south only giving us a petty bit more variation on tiptop of that wave.

Sarah Wade (xiv:53): I'm notwithstanding not super happy with that at that place. And then let'southward go back into those taper settings and let's make that offset taper to get rid of that bump. So run into how that bump gets bigger if I shorten the commencement taper. And so if I make it a little longer, information technology's going to smooth that out of it. So that takes care of that little lump. Let's press our play, make certain information technology'southward totally taken intendance of. That'southward looking pretty good. Now, if you wanted to brand more of these, you can accept all of these taper settings, all of this stuff out, a couple more strokes, and you lot've got, you know, even thicker multi stranded ponytail. And so if we want to do that, nosotros've got our stroke here. We've got our path upward here. Then all this stuff is applied to the path, correct? We've got a trim path, got stroke.

Sarah Wade (15:38): This is still all in i shape layer. In fact, information technology'due south all in the layer of the head. And then if I move this layer around, everything's going to go with it, right. I can but, you know, motility the position. It's still a person I don't fifty-fifty accept to worry about, you know, doing all this separate linking layers, parenting, none of that stuff. Okay. Then we're going to add a couple of other strands here. Nosotros'll select that ponytail grouping. When I grabbed that pen tool, permit's come across, add i hither. And again, permit's go back to that path considering it didn't work out why I didn't elevate when I was cartoon information technology. So it made a sharp point. I'm just going to alt click that to brand information technology dainty and smooth. And then because I wanted this path to have all the aforementioned stuff that the other path has in the ponytail, all I've got to do is grab path 1.

Sarah Wade (16:31): I'thou going to command X and I'grand going to drop it in here and elevate it above that term path and above that offset path. And now look at that. It'south got nevertheless stuff. So everything in this ponytail group that is above the trim path and the stroke again, the stroke is where we fix all that stuff for the, the taper and the wave and the animation, whatsoever stroke that I've put at present in here, every bit long every bit it'south above the term path and the stroke, whatever path I put in here is going to become all that stuff. So I can over again, edit this, make certain I'grand but selected on the path and non the actual path that the path group that's looking pretty cool. Okay. Let's see what that looks similar now. Lots of complexity, right? Just a petty bit of work. Stop that and elevate this downward. That's similar a pretty cool, not very much fourth dimension for a whole lot of value.

Sarah Wade (17:26): Okay. Now we're going to use those same techniques that we merely use to create that ponytail, to create a Fern leaf that grows one foliage at a time. So first thing I'm going to do, I'm going to grab that pen tool. I'm going to make a stem, just going to all drag it. There. Allow's go ahead and work that for text so we can make information technology just a little more bendy at the top. Okay. That is going to be our stem layer. I'm going to drill down into this, into the contents, and so delete the fill up because I don't need it. Uh, I'm going to set this to but pick a nice green that's going to piece of work out well. Then permit'south go ahead and quickly set up our stroke stuff. And so let's go with the stroke would have, let's say 25. That'southward going to look good.

Sarah Wade (18:15): Getting back into that taper. We're gonna go alee and practise a taper from the finish, all the manner to the start. And then I'yard going to make sure that terminate with is set to a little more than nix because I don't want it to disappear at the top. I'm going to ready that to the round cap and we've got a institute stem to make it grow. I'thou going to go ahead and add a trim path to that. Opening that up. I'm going to set a key for the end. Go frontwards. 20 frames, set some other key for the finish, dorsum to the offset, make it zero and our stems growing. Okay. At present we desire to make some leaves for this stalk. Let's close upwardly that stalk layer and select it, and nosotros're going to brand a new shape pencils already selected. So permit's go alee and just brand a direct line.

Sarah Wade (nineteen:07): Now that I've got this in hither, I'chiliad going to drill down. This is shape ane. We're going to call information technology leaf, correct over again, I'm going to set that stroke color. Let's open up upward the stem and brand sure that we match the color here. Really permit'southward not match the color. Let's make a footling expression control so that we can command the color from that. I'm going to go up hither to layer new knowledge object. I'm going to call this control in that I'm going to add two expression controls. Actually, we'll just do one and indistinguishable information technology. So we've got one expression control chosen color. I'm going to telephone call this stem colour and I'm going to duplicate it. And I'm going to call the next i leaf color. And now I'k going to connect these to that. Okay. So this is our leaves. Go ahead and drag that.

Sarah Wade (20:04): Whoops. Okay. We forgot to lock that. So this is what happened. We were looking at this and and then we clicked abroad and it went away. So what I tin can do to make that not happen is just toggle this little lock push button hither on your effect controls. And now I can click away, go into the leaf colour, drag that up to there, close that up and go to the stalk of color. Drag that to there. Now I tin modify the color by setting this ane. So that'south not quite the stalk color. Let's get with a darker stem color, perchance something around like this, and permit'southward make the foliage colour for at present. Nosotros'll practice it nearly the same. And nosotros'll just make a picayune bit lighter. Okay. Now let's get into getting our leaves growing and looking like leaves. And so let's close upward that stem get back into that leafage, right?

Sarah Wade (twenty:58): And beginning permit's delete this make full. We're not going to need it. Let'south take the taper and well, let's take all the stroke stuff and we'll pull information technology outside of leaf. So this means when nosotros duplicate this foliage, right, to create a left jump, the stroke stuff that we set here will employ to both of them. I'm going to go alee and make that with something a little bigger that looks most right. I'g going to go ahead and arrange that taper. So permit's exercise a first taper up to there. We'll do an terminate taper as well. And so we're going to play with the easing of both of those and so that they await a little flake more natural looks pretty proficient.

Sarah Wade (21:41): Okay. That'due south looking pretty good. I've got a leaf looking leaf. Let's go ahead into that leaf. Likewise unjust adjust the anchor indicate a piddling bit so that it matches correct there. The center in that layer, information technology doesn't have to be exact, but pretty close considering of what nosotros're going to do with this, to attach information technology to the stem. Um, and you know what, that looks a little scrap foursquare there. So I'yard going to go alee and adjust that in length. Just a little bit more. Mayhap that start length a little longer. Okay. That's looking pretty good. Now. I want to brand this abound. Uh, really let's duplicate it first and so we'll make them both abound the aforementioned mode. Then we've got our leaf, right? I'thousand only going to control D and that's going to create my leaf left. And all I'thou going to practice is go down in here to the transform.

Sarah Wade (22:36): I'm going to unlock the scale and scale it to negative 100 X. At present they're attached at the eye. They're not lined upwards with the stem. Nosotros don't have to worry about that correct now. Okay. We've got 2 leaves and because we moved that stroke outside of them, information technology'due south affecting both of them. So now I tin can go into that stroke and I can add a trimmed path and permit's once again, animate that trim path. Let'due south get, we'll set it to zero here and and so we'll get. Let'due south just go 10 frames and we'll fix it to a hundred. Okay. That's going to look pretty good, only it looks kind of funny at the get-go, correct? I call back we need to likewise breathing that stroke wit so permit'due south go ahead and prepare a key hither. So forward 10 fix the key there, and so we'll start it at. Possibly let's say 10. I think 10 is going to do information technology.

Sarah Wade (23:33): Okay. I retrieve that's looking pretty good. All right, now that we've got our set of leaves and our stem path, we are going to use a nifty fiddling tool and after effects create Knowles from paths and that'southward going to help the states to attach these leaves to the farm. So mine is already here to become to it. Yous'll go to window. And so when you scroll down here, you lot start to go into, uh, all of your kind of scripts and add ons create. And from past is going to be right here. So past the first 2 lines and you will get to information technology. So how we're going to apply this is we're going to become to the stalk, select the path. And so, so there's iii options hither. You can create points that will follow the Knowles. So meaning it volition brand a start point and an terminate indicate or an at a eye indicate, it'll physically do it at the Bezier points.

Sarah Wade (24:25): Um, you can conform that accordingly so you tin can either make information technology so the points follow the Knolls. Significant if you breathing the noesis, the path animates accordingly, uh, you lot can brand it so that the Knolls follow the paths. Permit'due south say yous are attaching something to the stalk, like the leaves, and you want the Knowles to follow the points. That's how you would do it, or how nosotros're going to do it. We're going to use trace path because this is a absurd lilliputian trick. So path selected. I'm going to hit that trace path. And it's made this new layer here. If I had the you to expand that, I see that information technology's got some keys here on progress. And now what that is is it's taking it from the get-go of the path to the cease, right? That'due south what that progress indicator is. I don't demand the keys on this.

Sarah Wade (25:05): And so I'one thousand going to get ahead and select them and delete them. But I want this to be about that far upward the path, correct? So that'south where my first foliage is. If I go to where my stem has grown, this will aid me to see it a picayune better. Okay. So I've got ane at xiii% and let'south see where information technology was. Our leaf or foliage is right here. And I am going to shift parent this leaf to that and run into how it snapped right into place. It's not rotated correctly. That's okay. We can set up that by just rotating it. But before nosotros do that, I'm going to go ahead. And I'm going to indistinguishable this 4 times and I'm going to duplicate this 4 times. And again, I'one thousand going to shift hold shift while I selection what to attach each of these leafage duplicates to the corresponding trace path. And they're still all showing up in the same spot, simply that'southward because I take not changed that progress indicator. So to practice that quickly, I'm going to select those four layers and I'thou going to blazon in progress and that's but going to make it a footling easier to find each progress fix, and then drilling downwards through them. I want to put this one almost at the top. This one a trivial bit beneath it. Merely roll downward a little to see the side by side two information technology's about there.

Sarah Wade (26:37): Okay. So those are all about evenly spaced. We don't have to be super particular about this. Okay. Now, when we abound our leaves, they're all growing at the spots where nosotros put those knots. Now the leaves are rotated a little funky. So we're just going to grab them all at the archi, prepare those each to xc, that's going to get them direct. Boom. We accept a Fern leaf and every leaf is growing. At present, the leaves are growing before the stem. That's an like shooting fish in a barrel fix. I tin just wait until the stalk gets to each point. And so this is where the first i should grow. And this is where the second one should offset to grow.

Sarah Wade (27:20): And I didn't even use this. That's okay. You would desire to add your easing earlier you fourth dimension it out like this. Okay. Merely this is going to wait pretty good. Right? So it'due south growing leaves are coming out. Permit'due south see if nosotros do control a control. You let'southward just easy ease all of these really chop-chop. I can't use the key code for easy ease while I'thousand recording in the software. So we're going to have to do it the erstwhile school style. Okay. Now that we've done that, nosotros're going to go back in here and only cheque that it's still lining upwards and that none of the leaves are growing before they're supposed to. So nosotros can probably put some of these a little bit sooner. Maybe we beginning this one a little bit sooner and we beginning this one a little sooner.

Sarah Wade (28:12): And I think this last one is going to be able to start sooner as well. Okay. Let'south play that through. That's like pretty absurd. The last matter I want to do hither is I want to make these scales a little bit different as information technology goes up. And then I'm only going to do this manually. The top. I'm going to make that one, the smallest next, smallest. Side by side smallest. We'll exit that ane at a hundred and nosotros'll brand that lesser one. Maybe a little bit bigger. Let'due south move the 2d leaf up. I'm going to get in at that place and I'one thousand going to find that effect, trace path progress. I'm just going to movement information technology upwardly a picayune bit. Then it looks a footling scrap more spaced properly, and actually let's brand information technology even a little bigger. Okay. I'm pretty happy with the fashion this looks now. So I've got my leaf growing.

Sarah Wade (29:02): The next thing that I desire to practice is, um, just to illustrate how flexible this kind of matter is, correct? We've very quickly made a growing stone with a bunch of firmed leaves and nosotros can affect the colors by only irresolute the color upwardly hither. Right? I want pink leaves with blue stems. I've got it right? Like this is pretty cool. This is pretty flexible. And then let's disengage that. I'm going to stick with green. Now you're starting to see the power of this. Y'all've prepare this up with a controller with some colour effects. You've got all of your leaves controlled by that. You've got trim paths, making them abound. This is awesome. If you want to take this a step further and hook those colors up to the essential graphics panel, making it easy for y'all to duplicate and edit this leaf, download the project file where you lot'll become to see Fern leaves, where I've just speedily duplicated this eight times and every leaf is growing so that I tin very rapidly drill down into those essential properties for each of these leaves. And I can make all of the leaves different colors. Then permit'southward say I want some of them to be pink with Pinker leaves. I can speedily exercise that. I accept not changed my Fern leaf comp, which if I click on it, go into it here. It's still light-green. But now it's ready with essential graphics. So click to download the projection file and so y'all can run into how that is set up. And I promise you've enjoyed this tutorial, exploring all of the wonderful flexibility available to you lot in the shape layer stroke settings.

Music (30:34): [outro music].

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Source: https://www.schoolofmotion.com/blog/wavy-tapered-strokes-after-effects

Posted by: eldercovis1990.blogspot.com

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