So inside After Effects with a Composition
open consisting of several 3D vector layers, first let's go ahead and create a Camera and talk
about the different Lens presets that we can use. So for that, I will go up to the Layer menu, New
Camera or you can use the keyboard shortcuts. Great! Now the default camera type is set to
two-node but you can also use the One-Node camera which is a camera that orients around itself, in
this case, we're going to be working inside the Two-Node camera which fixates on a single point of
interest that we can point it in different layers and orbit around those layers. Another thing is
that After Effects provides us with Presets to match up the camera with real-world camera lenses.
As you can see inside the Preset drop-down menu from the telephoto to a wide-angle lens. Now
the Camera, the default camera in After Effects it's using the 50mm Preset and this camera setting
does not change the appearance of our scene, it makes things look basically the way our eyes
see them in terms of the Zoom factor. Let me go ahead and switch to another view here, so I will
switch to one of these Orthographic views, in this case, I will use the Top Orthographic view, I
will double click inside Camera 1 to bring up the Camera Settings and I will use the wide-angle
lens, the 50mm wide-angle lens and then click OK. As you can see here what we need to do is we need
to move the camera forward since the camera has a very wide angle of view and smaller zoom and I
will do this on the Z-axis, like so. All right let me go ahead and undo this, double click again to
bring up the Camera Settings and as of a Preset, I am going to use the telephoto 200mm lens and
then click OK. In this case what we need to do is, we need to actually move the camera backward
since the camera has a very narrow angle of view but a very lengthy zoom to match and I am
going to do this again on the Z-axis. like so. All right, let me Undo this again go and ahead
and show you something else here. Now I'm going to open up the Camera Options, double click on
Camera 1 to bring the Camera Settings and this time around I will set this Preset back to 50mm.
Now before I click OK, what I'm going gonna do is, I am going to cycle through those Presets and
as I do, pay attention to the Zoom values here, this Zoom values will change as I cycle through
so I am going to use the Down Arrow key on my keyboard, as you can see now, these values are
changing which means, we don't have to use what After Effects provides for us these presets.
Let me go ahead and click OK. What I can do for example is, I can scrub this and create a wider
angle lens. We can create my own so we're not, we don't have to use what After Effects provides
for us, it's a good beginning but it's all up to you what you want to use, in this case since
I am very far away from the objects here, on the Z-axis I am going to move the camera, quite
close, right; and you can see here this gives us, we can see here on the sides, it gives us
a more lens distortion. So it all comes down to what you're after and how do you want
your 3D objects to appear through your lenses. So as we talked about earlier a Two-Node camera
comes with a Point of Interest (POI) so inside the Top Orthographic view, here's the camera
and here is the Point of Interest (POI), so in this case, I'm going to press the letter P on the
keyboard and I will move the camera on the X-axis, so I am going to scrub this and as I do the camera
moves to the left but also notice that the camera continues to point towards the center of the scene
and that is because the Point of Interest (POI) is not moving and that can cause some issues. So
I'll go ahead and Undo that, let me show you something else. I will create a couple of
keyframes, I will click on the Stopwatch to create the first (1st) keyframe, I will scrub
the Current Time Indicator to perhaps around here, and then create another keyframe, then I will use
one of these Camera Control tools here. In this case, I will use the Orbit Around Camera Point
of Interest (POI) and inside the Active camera I will go ahead and create a camera movement and as
I do, I am holding down the Shift key. All right, now look at what happens inside the
Top Orthographic view, the camera interpolates straight between points, creating a
path and gives the illusion of creating a perfect arc which is not the case. Of course, we can go
ahead and edit the paths bezel or handles but also it can be very tricky, instead let's go ahead
and first of all Reset everything here. All right, since both of these approaches can give us a lot
of issues, trying to animate the Camera through 3D space, a way around this is to attach a
Null object to the camera so in this case, I'm just going to right-click here and create a
new Null object. Great! Now what is a null object, well a Null object is nothing, it's just a red
box with an Anchor point in the upper left corner. What it does have, has all the same Transform
properties that a regular layer has, both in 2D and 3D. You see, we must turn this into a 3D layer
if we want to continue navigating through 3D space so what we're going to do is, we're going to
parent Camera 1 to the Null 1 which means, the Null object will control Camera 1 and we're
going to do this by using the Parent pick whip. Now we need to do this inside the Parent & Link
column. In the event that you don't have that, you just right-click on this empty space to get to
the Parent & Link column, since mine is visible I will go ahead and use the Parent pick whip to
parent the Camera 1 to the Null 1, all right?. So let's go ahead and press the letter (p) on the
keyboard, again I am going to do the same, I will change the position of the camera on the X-axis
and as I do that, as iI drag the X-value to the left it is moving the entire camera to the left
but actually, this is exactly the same behavior as if we had a One-Node Camera. So let me go ahead
and remove that and toggle off the visibility of Camera 1 which is a Two-Node Camera. All right,
click and create another camera, this time around the type is One-Node Camera, click OK, press the
letter P and I am going to scrub the X-value, and here is the exact same motion, so in this case,
I will remove this, I just wanted to show you. So another approach, so the question basically is,
what would we use a Two-Node Camera? First of all, let me go ahead and Reset everything here, and
another approach to using a Null object as we used earlier, is the Orbit Null and the reason
for that is to rotate move around the scene, and create a circular motion. It is quite
challenging to create a circular motion using a camera's Position keyframes so instead we can use
an Orbit Null and the way we're going to do this, right-click, Camera, Create Orbit Null.
This creates a 3D null, here is the 3D null, that automatically parents the Camera to that
Null object and puts the NUll at the Point of Interest (POI) of the camera, now we have the
null object that we can use as a controller. So we have the Camera 1 that has been parented
to the Orbit Null which is great, now it's time for us to go ahead and create a circular motion animation. Before I do anything I will double click inside Camera 1 to go inside the Camera
Settings and I will change the Preset instead of a 50mm preset I will go ahead and use a wide-angle
lens preset, in this case, the 24mm preset, and then click OK. You see I would like to have a
different Zoom factor because all of these layers are actually a little bit close in relationship
to each other so a wide-angle lens will help me to see those a little bit better. This is one
thing, another thing, still on the Camera 1, just going to bring this in on the Z-axis, before
I start animating I should say around here. All right, great! So on this Camera 1, I will
press the letter P for the position, I will click on the Stopwatch to create the first (1st)
keyframe, I will scrub the Current Time Indicator to perhaps one second and then bring the Camera on
the Z-axis, very close to these three layers here, and then for the RAM preview, let's go
ahead and drop the resolution to half so we do it a little bit faster, so we'll
press the Spacebar for the keyboard, here it is and that's the first animation.
So around here, I am just going to target now the Orbit Null, I will press the letter (r) on
the keyboard for the Rotation properties and I will animate the Orbit Null on the Y-axis. In
this case, I will click on the Stopwatch on the Y rotation to create the first keyframe, I will
move the Current Time Indicator to perhaps here and then change the degrees from 0 to 90 degrees,
like so. Great! Now for the next motion here, I would actually like to have a Hold before
I get to the next motion so in other words, After Effects will come here, will stay a little
bit then it will just move and do something else. So let me show you how we're going to do
this. So I will target again Camera 1, create a keyframe, move the Current Time Indicator
perhaps here, create another keyframe, move this again, and then just on the Z-axis bring
the camera quite close to these two (2) layers, like so. Great! As for this one we're going
to change the Interpolation from Linear, I am right-clicking here, to Toggle Hold Keyframe
which means, After Effects when it comes here it will wait all this long, and then it will move.
So let's do a RAM Preview, press the Spacebar, it waits then it moves in. Great!
OK, so let's do around here, let's create another keyframe, I will move the
Current Time Indicator, create another keyframe, and another one and this time I will back this
off, say around here and again we're going to select this keyframe, we're going to right-click
and we're going to Toggle Hold Keyframe as well. So it holds here but then it holds here
again, so let's see how that works. It holds a little bit, it backs off, and then
well, we're going to see what we're going to do next which is, back on the Orbit Null, I will
create another keyframe on the Y rotation and then I will scrub the Current Time Indicator perhaps
here and then just change the degrees to minus 90 (-90) degrees, there we go. So let's press the
Home key to go to the very beginning, press the Spacebar to do the RAM Preview, it backs off and rotates perfectly. Great! So, this is one thing, now let's fix the animation here because most
of these keyframes except this one and this one, the rest have Linear Interpolation so I will
Shift select this one, and this one too, I will go inside the Graph Editor and by the
way, as a Graph Type, I am using the Speed Graph, so from Linear Interpolation I will change
those to Easy Ease and since both of them are being selected, I am just going to move
the Influence handle to perhaps 100% or 90%, it doesn't really matter just you can play
with these Settings around on your end. So this is one thing, let's do the same
for Camera 1, I believe it's this one, this one, and this one, so Shift select all of
these keyframes, go inside the Graph Editor, use Easy Ease, and bring the Influence handle, and
by the way, I am holding the Shift key as I do. Great! Let's do another RAM Preview, press the
Spacebar, comes in nice animation, it waits, it zooms here, backs off, and rotates, perfect,
this is exactly what I was going for and if you actually look inside the Custom View 1, this
works very organically, you see no arcs, nothing like that, it just works the way it's supposed to
work and we can see this from the Active Camera, you see that you can see all these motion paths
from here and as I mentioned before, there's a lot you can do but this that's a great example how
to use Circular motion with using Orbit Nulls. So how about using multiple Nulls to create
a whole different animation? So inside is the Multiple Nulls composition, basically what I have
is those two (2) 3D layers as for this text layer, I will press the letter (UU) twice to show
the modify properties, only the thing I added is just a Drop Shadow with a distance of 10 and
size of 20 and I did this as a visual effect. As inside the Custom View 1, as you can see here
those two (2) 3D layers have been separated a bit so they're not glued to each other and the
only thing I did, just move this on the Z-axis. All right, I will go back to the View menu and
Reset this 3D View. Now let's go ahead and create animation so I will right-click to create a
Camera, again this is going to be a Two-Node Camera and as for the Preset, I am going to
stick again with the same preset the 24mm preset as a wide-angle lens, but of course feel free
to use your preset here. Now, this will help me with my animation here and that's why I am using
that preset. Then I will right-click to create a Null Object, this Null 2 is a 2D layer,
so I will convert this to a 3D layer, and I will parent Camera 1 to Null 2, and again
for that, I am going to use the Parent pick whip to do so. Great! So let's go ahead
and animate first the Null 2. So for I will press the letter (r) on the keyboard and
I will actually do that on the Y-axis which means the Y rotation. So I will set the Y
rotation to, let's see, 45 degrees, I will move the Current Time Indicator
around here and then set the degrees to minus 45 (-45). Let's go ahead and do a RAM Preview,
this whole thing we get, OK? All right, now I will concentrate here on Camera 1, for
that, I will press the letter (p) for the Position property, so click on the Stopwatch to
create the first keyframe, and now I am holding the ALT key or the Option key just to move around
on the Custom View 1. On the Z-axis I am going to pull back the camera quite a bit, I will press the
letter (k) to go to the next visible keyframe and on the Z-axis I am going to bring this closer
to those 3D layers, like so. All right, Great! OK, so let's go ahead and play this
animation, nice! OK, what else can I do? Well, I can actually create another Null object,
let me bring this on the top of the Layer stack, I will parent this time the Null 2 to the Null
3 but first I will turn this into a 3D layer, use the Parent pick whip to parent Null 2 to the
Null 3, this time around I am going to go back to the very beginning and on the Null 3 I will press
the letter (p) on the keyboard for the Position, set the first keyframe and on the Y-axis I
am going to bring this up here, all right, press the letter (k) on the
keyboard to go to the next visible keyframe and then I am going to do
the opposite, I am going to bring this back around here. So this is what we got, all
right? Now, the reason that I use this is, also to create another variation on the rotation,
OK So I will press the letter (r) on the keyboard and this time around I will
rotate it on the X-axis which is the X rotation, I am not going to set any
keyframes yet, first I will test that out, I am going to go for 25 degrees, not
bad, all right; so this is what we have, a nice angle here, perfect! So I would
bring the Current Time Indicator right here and on the Null 2 I will create a keyframe,
then I will scrub this a bit in time, create another keyframe, and then around here
create another keyframe. So for this keyframe, I am going to set this keyframe from a Linear
Interpolation to a Hold keyframe and the reason I am going to do this is that when the animation
hits this keyframe right here, it's going to pause, it's going to hold because I want to
have a bit of a pause here. So right-click, select that, right-click and
use Toggle Hold Keyframe. Let's play that, it holds and then, well we need
to do something, we're going to select this one and let's see, I am going to press the letter (j)
on the keyboard to make sure that I am right on top of this keyframe, and I am going to set this
back to zero (0) OK. So now another RAM Preview, it holds then rotates. Now
I want to have a bit of a more of a distance between the Hold and the next
keyframe so I am going to distance those a bit, all right? Great! So this is one thing,
another thing is, I will press the letter (j) on the keyboard to make sure that I am on this
keyframe and now on the X rotation I will set the first keyframe, press the letter (k) to go to
the next visible keyframe, set another keyframe, press the letter (k) to go to the next
visible keyframe, and set this back to zero (0), there we go. As for this keyframe, I
will right-click and use the Toggle Hold Keyframe to make sure that both of these keyframes are Hold
keyframes, it will stop and then rotate. Great! So, I will select this keyframe and
inside the Graph Editor and by the way, still, I am using the Speed Graph,
I will turn this into an Easy Ease, double click on this keyframe, and inside the
Incoming Velocity, I will set the Influence to let's say 90%, and I will do the same
on this keyframe inside the graph editor, Easy Ease, double click on this keyframe set
the Influence to 90%. OK, so let's play that, there we go, maybe it's a little fast here,
I will Shift select those two, just a bit, perfect, see, this is what I was going for. So
basically combining Nulls with the camera is an extremely powerful tool inside After Effects
I would suggest you kind of plan this ahead and think about the motion that you would
like to have, then use similar techniques that will bring you smooth and organic
animations for any of your, own projects. I would like to thank each one of you for visiting
my channel, watching the inspiring lectures and project tutorials, do not forget to subscribe
and share the knowledge! Elias Sarantopoulos.
