Squash and Stretch in After Effects

in this tutorial we're going to learn how to create a squash and stretch effect with this square when I go to the rectangle tool color is going to white no stroke hold down shift and just make you know a square like that I want to move the anchor point to this top Center so I'm going to press Y I'm going to turn on the snapping tool if you don't already have it on grab this little thing with the top Center turn off the snaps a tool now I'm going to set the movement of the of the square I'm going to press P for position I'm going to right-click it I'm going to separate dimensions and we're just going to manipulate the Y so set a keyframe frame 0 and then go ahead 10 a holding shift command right arrow go down a little bit right there then we're going to go forward 3 more so hold command right arrow 1 2 3 put another keyframe right there and we're going to go ahead 10 frames which shift command right arrow copy the first one and then command V to paste press n to make the viewer the work area smaller and then preview a play the prison spacebar to control 0 you see that it's a linear movement that's not what we want we got to make it better so we do this by selecting all of the key frames and then pressing f9 [Music] that easy eases it we're going to manipulate it more let's just preview it now we have an easy ease standard ease ease we need to manipulate it so open up this graph editor I want you to note that there's different graph editors there's the speed editor it looks like this and there's a value editor we're going to be working with the value editor but we're only going to be doing it on the Y so click off of it and click the Y let's zoom in a little bit I just I hold alt and then the two fingers on the trackpad this is the movement of it many hours of playing around with it you'll get the movement but this is the shape that we want to create grab that pull it click on this one pull it down grab that one down like that pull this once almost looks like a tabletop so it does if we preview it it's going to go fast so it slow fast slow fast slow fast almost like it's falling now we need to add the squash and stretch we got the movement down though congratulations okay let's go out of it we're going to create our squashing rig basically so go to the point where it hits the ground and we need to add another controller at the base of the square so let's go to layer new null object put on snapping and let's move this null object to the bottom of the square and we're going to name this squash control controller squash controller and then we're going to what we'll name this square and we're going to parent the square to the squash controller and you will see why this works later but first we're going to do the stretch of the square so you're going to open up the scale you're going to unlink it I don't know if you have some link it we're going unlink it and then you're going to write a little expression so hold down alt press the stop watch and follow me here so we're going to get the pick lip we're going to say x equals get the pick lip 300 right there I'm going to do plus parentheses go inside the parentheses and do a hundred minus and pick with the the other hundred and then we're going to times the whole thing by point three semicolon set your x y equals and then just pick with the 100 semicolons and then left bracket X comma Y right benefit and click away from it what that does if I manipulate if I control the Y it kind of stretches it like that so our expression made it possible for this for this dynamic movement like this this will set out a hunger for now let's go to right here excuse me and we need to set the controller on the squash controller so it's going to be the same as this one but instead of the point three we're going to do one point eight so we'll put up the expression copy this paste it and then we're going to change it to one point eight we'll see if that works so what that does is well there's our squash all right now let's fit the movement for it so let's go to the beginning and let's set a keyframe for the scale let's press you to open up all of it and then when we get to the keyframe right before it hits the ground we want to stretch it all the way to the ground which is basically the top of our Knoll and then once we hit the ground we just want to add a hundred percent and then go up three keyframes and just same thing and now we're going to set the squash so put your scale on here put to that keyframe right there because lot scale and then go up a frame and we're going to move it and down like that because just hit the ground squashing and we're gonna give it some time just to we're going to go forward squash a little bit more so it's kind of feeling that tension throw another keyframe and then we're going to set it back to one hundred so right now we have you know it's going a little stretch stretch big time stretch and then boom hit the ground and feel the tension and then it's going to release but it needs to stretch so we're going to back to the square and we're going to manipulate the scale on the second number all the way to there again and we're going to go to the end frame we're going to put this back to 100 as you can see if we preview this it's almost there but the movements aren't there so we have to open up the graphic there again so we're going to start with the top one we're going to pick these two keyframes one right there and hold shift one right there and then you're going to press f9 and then open up the graph editor and make sure you're on the value editor we're going to highlight this one and we're going to press this button right here converts like the cubes to auto busy a for bezier busy a and then don't move where they are but just kind of pull the handles and make this shape like that hook out of it and then we're going to select all of these keyframes f9 it open up the graph editor again half gamma value editor for this one highlight the bottom one sometimes you have to manipulate that one then the handle that we need to like push that over there grab this handle bring it down like that grab press that key frame well they pull down and move this one we didn't get it dude right there and what's just pretty good so we're getting closer right cool I think we can just move the bottom scale and up a little bit there grab this let's see maybe yeah that's basically it squash and stretch rig if you want you can go around and play around with the graph editor to fix the movement I think that's basically it squash and stretch [Music]

Channel: Motifize

Views: 20,582

Keywords: after effects, motion graphics, how to animate squash and stretch in After Effects, squash and stretch, principles of animation squash and stretch, stretch in after effects, squash and stretch rig in after effects, graph editor in after effects, manipulating keyframes in after effects, keyframes, bounce

Id: 3RqoUMz3-8I

Length: 11min 38sec (698 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 22 2017