Apple Motion 5: ALL NEW Departure Board Tutorial

hi this is simon from tokyo productions and welcome to another tutorial for motion 5 and this time we're going to be looking at this new departure board project now if you've been following my tutorials for a length of time you will remember that we've already looked at creating a departure board but that was a little bit different and what we did in that project was to show how you could flick from one set of text to another and that was all well and good but with a real departure board or salary board as it's more correctly called what you get is a lot of flicks or flaps of the letters before they finally resolve into the final text and so that's what we want to try and address with this new project so let's dive in and get started on that I've got a new project here and I'm going to hit command J to show you my project properties I've made a slightly unusual project size here and the width is a hundred and fifty and the height is 200 and my frame rate and this is important is 24 frames and my duration is 228 frames and what we're doing with this project is to create a single flap unit that we're giving into pre-render and use in our final composite so our first step is going to be to add some text so let's click on the group hits T for the text tool and I'm going to type the letter A and let's come over here to the format and I like to use a fixed width font for this because I think that looks a little bit more plausible so you get less flicking around but you can really use any font that you like I'm going to choose Monaco that'll do me and I'm going to set the alignment to center here and let's just scale it up quite a lot and come over to its transform here and Center it up move it down on why just try to get it into the center of the frame next what I want to do is this would have beefed up the weight of that a bit so I'm going to come to the style tab here turn on outline and click on the color swatch and set that to white and you'll notice that just increases the outline a bit gives me a slightly chunkier bit of text next what I want to do is I want to mask off the top and bottom so I got two halves of my flap so I'm going to select the group and I'm going to hit alt aha for the rectangular mask tool and I'm going to start in the top left-hand corner come down to roughly the middle and drag out a mask like that that's roughly half halfway down and then I'm going to come over to the control points here and I'm going to set these values precisely so I'm going to have minus 75 50 75 50 75 minus 50 minus 75 and minus 50 and that gives me a masks that's the same width and half the height of the project let's just come to the mosque properties here and let's just Center it up and move it up to 50 pixels on Y come back to the mask itself that's f4 let's just increase the roundness to four just to round off the corners and f-14 the properties Ungar to reduce the scale down to 95 and then I'm going to duplicate it that's commands D I have one for its positioned I'm going to set that to minus 50 I'm just going to add a new group come on shift n come to the library command two generators color solid and bring that into that group move that group to the back that's command shift four square bracket and actually fact what I want to do is I want to bring this color solid into that other group at the bottom so we can see exactly what's happening with those flaps and on to leave that group I'm just going to leave that color set to blue for the time being but ultimately I'm going to switch that to black okay now what we need to do is we need to animate these letters and so I'm going to select the text and I'm going to come to behaviors and text animation then I'm going to add a sequence text behavior to that yes I Hey and then there are 26 letters in the English alphabet so I'm going to come to frame 26 and hit o on the keyboard and that will mean that my clip there is 26 frames long that's becomes in the preferences I've made sure that my friend numbering starts at one so if your frame rate numbering is starting at zero set it to start at one so now let's come to these sequence text behavior itself that's F 2 and what we want to do is add parameter format character offset and here in the character offset value we want to enter 26 because we've got 26 letters and then here under sequencing we want to select 2 now if we come back to the start you'll see that that flicks through all the letters of the alphabet ending on Zed 1 frames of time so I don't just want letters I wanted numbers as well so I'm going to duplicate that a and layer so that's command D and I'm going to turn off the first instance and I'm going to come over here to the textbox and I'm going to type up 0 and then what I'm going to do is come to frame 10 and hit Bo on the keyboard so now that's just 10 frames long and I need to hit f2 to come back to its behavior and the character offset we need to change from 26 to 10 so now we've got if we click through a sequence counting up from 0 to 9 so then I'm going to turn back on my characters my alphabet layer I should say turn that back on I'm going to hit command 7 for the timeline view I'm going to select that character's layer and I'm going to drag it along so it starts the frame after the numbers finish so count up from 0 to 9 and then we start cycling through the alphabet until we get to Zedd I'm going to come to frame 37 and I'm going to hit alter command o on the keyboard and that will set a range that finishes on this frame here because I also want a blank frame so I can do spaces between words if I want to so now we've got our basic element and what I'm going to do is I'm going to change the color here change that to black so now what we need to do is we need to render this out so I'm going to hit command 7 just to hide that Timeline view and I'm going to come to the share menu here and select export movie and I'm going to choose pro res 4 by 4 very important you choose that not one of the four to two versions because that is not going to give you an alpha Channel so select that and down here where it says duration I'm going to use play range next and we'll save this out as characters render so now what we're going to do is hit command 1 and we're going to navigate to where we've saved that character's render and we're going to bring it in to the project into a new group so I'm going to turn off the old group let's call that characters let's turn that off now what I want to do is I want to retain that I want to slow it all down so what I'm going to do is I'm going to take this character's layer f1 for its properties here I'm going to twirl open the timing pane and here under time remap I'm going to select the variable speed then I'm going to hit command 8 for the keyframe editor so now I want to make sure I've zoomed to the full length of the timeline there I'm going to hit alt X to clear the play range as well I'm going to select this second keyframe here under retail value and I'm going to hold down the shift key very important you hold down the shift key and then what I'm going to do is I'm going to drag it along all the way until I get to frame two to two now you need to look very closely at the display there and now I'm going to come to the end of the timeline with that layer selected and hit o and now if we play through you can see that that's flicking through at that much slower pace so each one of those is no 6 frames long and let's now render out this new slowed down version so I'll hit command E to come to the export movie option again let's make sure we've selected Perez 4x4 I'm going to make sure that's duration is set to entire project if you haven't cleared the play range for any reason I'm going to select next and this I'm going to call characters retime and I'm going to save that out okay so now what we need to do is save that project and let's make a new one so that's command n to make a new project and this time let's set it to 1080 24 frames a second and let's set the duration to 10 seconds and then let's look for our character's re time I hope you remembered where you've been saving these renders too and then we'll drag that into the new project okay so just so we can check what's going on I'm going to add a background here so commands to for the library generators and I'm going to add a gradient stick it in at the top there mf4 for the gradient controls I'm going to select here the grayscale option and I just want to smooth out that gradient by having a y-value Y start value of 540 and a Y end value of -5 40 that just spreads the gradient from the top to the bottom of the frame let's move it to the back just so we can see and there you are we've got our transparency and our two halves of our flap okay so my first step is going to be to duplicate this layer so command D I'm going to drag it out into another group and that base layer I'm going to move down behind the gradient just to hide it away so then I'm going to take this layer and duplicate it command D so now I've got a group with two of those stacked on top of each other and I'm going to call this group backing and then what I want to do is hit f1 for the properties here come to the crop show that turn it on and this top layer here I want to have a crop of 100 for the bottom and then I'm going to select the other layer again turn on crop and I'll have a crop of 100 for the top so then I'm going to take this top layer and down here on the mini timeline I'm going to slide it back by 5 frames so look at the number on the extreme right hand side of that display that's now saying minus 5 and I can release the mouse and I've got the offset that I require so minus 5 frames so then I'm going to take this group and I'm going to make that 3d and then I'm going to make a new group that's command shift n also 3d and I'm going to call this group flap and then I'm going to come down here to my original layer that's hidden behind everything hold down the Alt key and drag it into that flap group so select this layer f1 for its properties come down to the crop so what I want to do here is set a crop of 100 for the top and then I want to come up here to alipin the rotation and set an X rotation of 180 you must turn off that backing group so we can see what's going on ok then I'm going to duplicate this layer command D f1 for its properties here transform rotation X 0 0 that art let's 0 to the crop at the top there and set a bottom crop of 100 so now we've got a two part flap with one element on the front and the other element on the back and then what we want to do is we want to animate the movement of the flap and so let's select the flap group make sure we're at frame 1 on the timeline come to rotation X and let's set a keyframe then let's come to frame 6 on the timeline and we'll set a rotation X value of 180 and if we just play that you'll see that flaps down so let's just open up the keyframe editor so come on to eight and let's drag here on the zoom so we can see what's going on that's that bar at the bottom there let's come to frame seven so that's the frame after we've set a keyframe there and let's reset that X rotation to zero and now it flops down and it flops back up again instantly every one frame so now I want to do is come here to the rotation X to the right of it you'll see we've got a little disclosure triangle and we want to come down to after last keyframe and we want to set that to repeat and if you watch what that does in terms of the keyframe editor here you can see that that's basically repeating that same action over and over again so let's play that and you can see that that flap is now just flapping down every six frames and then I want to take the lower layer of the flap select that again come to my mini timeline here and I want to drag it back by three frames so again look at that value on the extreme right as I drag and there you go - three and now if I turn on the backing you'll see we've got our flap everything's working exactly as we'd like okay let's close up the keyframe editor command 8 and let's look at adding a light or two so come on shift L to add a light let's hit f1 for its position here let's set the Y position to 200 and let's duplicate that light command D gain for its position let's set that to minus 50 and I just want to reduce the intensity of this second lighter so it's illuminating underneath the flap like so just ask to give us a bit more realism and let's hit all to come and see to make a camera f-14 it's transform let's just rotate it around on Y to about minus 20 it's always a good idea to look at this from the side so you're getting much more value out of the the flap falling down you could see that we've actually done it for real rather than fudged it and we could also come to our first light here and come to its controls and turn on shadows you can see that gives us a little bit more realism I might come back to the second light and reduce that down to about five percent the intensity so just enough to illuminate the underside and obviously when we finally come to render it we're going to want to turn on motion blur so those flaps look like they're flapping down a little bit more photo realistically but let's turn that off for now and move on now of course what happens at the moment is that the letters flap over and then they just run out and there's no mechanism for actually stopping the animation let me just come to frame 175 and let's talk about how we're going to achieve that first of all I want to turn off the flap so we want to resolve on this T so how are we going to do that we're going to hit command two for the library come to behaviors retiming and then we need to add hold frame and we'll add it to that layer and we'll also add it to the bottom layer so now what happens is that those click over and they freeze on the T just need to come to the end of the timeline select the backing group and hit o and we also need to hit that select that top layer and hit o as well just so they both extend to the full duration of the project okay so that's all well and good if we turn on the flap though that keeps flicking despite the fact that our backing has stopped so what we need to do is to come to frame 174 and we need to select the flap group and hit o and that will trim that group to end at that point and now if we press play it keeps flapping keeps flapping it keeps flapping until we get to the tee and everything comes down so there you go that's the mechanism for stopping it so at the moment we've only got a single character so I'm going to close up the flap group in the backing group I'm going to select them both and I'm going to hit shift command G to make a new group and I'm going to call this group T okay so let's close up that group and let's duplicate it command D and let's call this o and hit f-14 it's a transform and I'm going to set an x position of 150 so let's hold down the Alt key and open up that group and that opens up everything inside it which is what we want what I'm going to do is I'm going to temporarily turn off the flap just so we can see what's going on and then I'm going to scrub through until I see the O resolved and that's frame one four five and at that point I'm going to come down to the backing group and I'm going to select the hold behavior and hit I select the other hull behavior and again hit I and I'll turn back on the flap group and I'll hit o having selected it so now that flicks through and resolves on the O so let's try one more of those just to get you into the swing of it I'll duplicate that oh and I'll call it okay and I'm going to hit f1 for its position each time we need to add a hundred and fifty to the exposition so 150 plus 150 is 300 let's hold down the Alt key open up the K group let's navigate to the point at which the K resolves first of all let's turn off the flap group just we need to see the exact frame we're talking about on the backing and at that frame let's trim Li hold frame behaviors by hitting I trim the other one hit i select the flap group hit o and turn the flap group back on again and there we go the K resolves let's just do one more I'm going to duplicate that okay and I'm going to call this Y and let's twirl up in the group helping down the Alt key f1 for its position let's set that to 450 now the difficulty here is that the K has already frozen before we get to the Y so all I'm going to do here is just going to turn off the visibility of those held frame behaviors just so I can click on through to the point at which the Y happens again turn off the flap in order to find it come back here find the y frame there select the hold frame even though it's invisible doesn't matter hit I hit select the other one hit I turn them back on again select the flap group and hit out and we've now got the Y resolving so if you find yourself in that situation where you want a letter that's later than the version that you've copied simply turn off the hold frames so you can carry on clicking through and find the points that you want so there's just one other thing I wanted to point out which is that those are all flapping down at the same time and that doesn't look very good so all you'll want to do there is simply grab the entire letter and just move it back move each group back just a little bit so that they're offset in a slightly more interesting way and that'll just make for a better looking animation the only thing you want to watch out for is the fact that they're going to run out before the end once you've moved them back so you'll need to do a little bit of trimming just to get them to run to their full durations so I'm going to the end of the timeline they're the groups selected and hit O and they'll all run to the right length okay so I'm going to leave you to build up whatever text you want and well we'll just have a quick look at what we might do to finalize the look of the project okay so don't I don't know how you got on but here I am I've built up all my text I've had to move my camera over just so I can see what I'm doing as I'm working because obviously I was starting from the center and moving right but now I want to sort out all my text and move it into the true center so what I'm going to do is select all my text layers and hit a shift command G to make a group and then hit f1 for there to transform of the group and I'm going to zero out the X and the y position now that text is all in the center let's just turn off the camera briefly and you can see how that's all working and my lights are in the center of my text is in the center so pretty important thing to be able to do is just say get yourself all lined up correctly okay so I need to get a slightly better spread of light across my text so I'm going to select both these light objects by command clicking them I'm going to twirl open their transform and I'm going to enter a Z value of 500 just move them away get a better spread of light I'm also going to select the second light the one that's down here and I'm going to move it down on y2 minus 150 and the reason for that is I want to just have it illuminate under these bottom flaps just a little bit more as they're coming down so let's just quickly look at a camera move I've zeroed out the camera let's just turn off the lights very quickly or we set this up I'm going to come to six seconds on the timeline and for the camera I'm going to set an exposition keyframe a Z position keyframe and a Y rotation keyframe and then I'm going to come to the first frame I'm going to set that x position to minus thirty the Z position to minus 2 - oh and the Y rotation to minus 20 and this will give us just a nice fall back to that final position there we can turn the lights back on again so that's pretty much it in my version I change the background color I added a couple of lens flares in the backgrounds just to give it a bit more interest but really I don't need to show you all that the main point of this was to show you how to build up the animation so thanks very much indeed for watching and I hope to see you again on the next one

Channel: Simon Ubsdell

Views: 9,597

Keywords: Motion (Software), Apple Inc. (Publisher), solari, departure, arrivals, airport, train station, animation, tokyo

Id: wgkzsdCKCgk

Length: 26min 58sec (1618 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 14 2015