Character Creation and Rigging: Intro After Effects & Illustrator

this is some artwork i downloaded from freepix and this is just to show you how simple shapes are set up to make a quick walk cycle i'm going to be using the side view just a reminder i put my work in our class folder in the files folder in canvas art 228 virtual even though we're in person i gotta rename this folder then the cartoon character free picks this is the cleaned up character the walk cycle so for this demonstration i'm going to grab the side view i'm going to ctrl c to copy it close the window click hd tv ctrl v to paste and i'm going to grab the corner to scale up i'm holding down alt to scale from all four sides at once and i'm holding shift to contain my aspect ratio i'm keeping most of my action in the action safe area just be on the safe side now when i select it once you see the whole character is one giant grouped shape so i'm right clicking and choosing ungroup i'm going to use the arm for this demonstration you see the arm is grouped to the torso so i'm going to right click and ungroup one more time now i've got just my arm so i can click the plus button my arm is still selected there's my color icon i can drag that up now my arm is on its own layer so that's how you can start bringing your shapes onto their own layers i'm going to need to have this as an upper arm that goes down to this round join and then from this round join to the wrist then finally the hand so that's going to be three separate layers so i've got total flexibility over this character so i'm going to right click ungroup it again and it's perfect i've got my shoulder to the round join make a new layer drag it up there and i'm going to name it by double clicking i'm going to say run arm shoulder so i know it's the arm that's in the foreground now on the layer below this is still grouped together so i'm going to right click ungroup so now i've got this the way i want and i'm going to make a new layer drag it up there front arm forearm my forearm goes above the shoulder you'll see that when you're animating and this last layer down here is the hand so i can just rename that layer and the hand will be on the top so i'm doing that for each limb i would do it for the arms and the legs the legs would be from the thigh down to the knee then from the knee down to the leg i'll do one leg just to show you i'm going to right click ungroup now remember if i drew this myself i wouldn't have to go through all this this is only because i downloaded it thinking it'd save me some time i don't need to see this leg so that's the back leg i'm going to put it on a new layer and hide it by clicking the icon now i can focus on what i want more easily i'm going to keep the hips separate so i'm going to right click and ungroup that i'm going to put that on its own layer while i'm doing this just for simplicity's sake now i can hide that okay just like my arm i want to ungroup this into the upper leg the lower leg and the foot so i'm going to right click and ungroup it remember if i were drawing this from scratch i'd work it properly the first time i make my new layer we'll call this front leg thigh so i know what it is move it there i can hide it i'm going to ungroup these so now it's i'm going to put the sock with it too by holding down shift i'm gonna have to ungroup that one more time deselect it from the foot there we go now i've got the calf plus the sock because those are gonna move together the sock wouldn't move with the foot i'll make a new layer front leg calf drag my color icon up to it now that's there and i can just select this make a new layer and call it front shoe the front foot put those back on i'm going to put my calf above my thigh and my foot above my calf so i would do the same thing for the back leg and the back arm or the head let me split out this torso real quick and i grab my color icon move it up there now that's on its own layer the neck i'm going to right click to ungroup this and zoom in by pressing ctrl or command and the plus symbol this will all be one layer the neck and the shirt that's fine go drag up there caught neck hide it now for my face i'm going to want the hair on its own layer the ear and the skin on one layer the eyebrow the eyeball and the mouth on their own layers so i click once and i've got to ungroup this remember if i created from scratch i wouldn't have to be doing all this extra work i've got that i can call it face i know i misspelled it that's fine if i want i could do top hair and back hair let's do that here top top hair on its own layer hide it then the back here on its own layer the eyebrow i'm going to run on its own layer so i can animate it same with the eye so i'm just going to right click and ungroup that click close eyebrow drag the selection icon to move it up there same with the eyeball drag the little blue marker so now it's up there and lastly make a layer for the mouth so you're seeing how i'm splitting out the character to get the most amount of flexibility while working with it now i just fix my layer order here i want the face below all that and then i'm gonna put my hair back below the face and my hair top above the face okay so the neck is too high up and that fixes all of it so that's just an example breaking into layers gives you all that flexibility and remember save as save frequently you know i would have done more work than uh save as ai and the default settings are fine and we're good so now i'm going to bring this into after effects so if i go file import file i change import as footage to composition retained layer sizes click import here's my sequence double-click to open in my timeline remember when you're working with illustrator files you've got to continuously rasterize them that's under your switches remember you click here to go between your switches and modes there's my modes and track maps click switches again and i'm in my switches i'm going to put a color layer behind here by going layer new solid what's on top is the top most so i'm going to move it to the back and we can see our whole character right there now i'm going to parent this and then we'll do the walk cycle for another lesson coming up soon the hair i'm going to parent to the head you got two options you use this drop down menu or you can click and drag the pick whip i recommend using the pick whip because you're going to need it once we start tackling expressions the hair is parented to the head the back of the hair is going to be parented to the head the shoulder will be parented to the torso so the way this works it'd be like the hand is parented to the forearm let's start lower so if i find my hand my forearm right here i'm going to drag to the shoulder the hips are going to be parented to the torso the neck is going to be parented to the torso thigh will be parented to the hips calf will be parented to the thigh shoe is parented to the calf my back thigh is going to be parented to the torso my back calf is going to be parented to the back thigh and my back shoe is parented to the back calf and i sure have broken down the hand that's fine you know next we're going to do a walk cycle we'll do a quick simple one and then i'll show you how to take it from there and apply more of the 12 principles of animation to it always remember to save frequently and another thing here's a little tip as you're working edit purge all memory and disk cache i've already got 10 gigs just eating up space on my computer so you're going to need to do that every now and again to free up space on your computer so that's it for this quick intro we're going to be doing the walk cycle coming up soon

Channel: Mike Wroblewski

Views: 9,510

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Id: L8D6SVz8XGA

Length: 10min 13sec (613 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 07 2022