Sequencing and Layer Management Techniques

The next lesson! Ooh, next lesson! Okay, so we're only gonna do part of it because honestly, half of it is… The second half of it is the exact same thing as the first half of it. It's just to finish a lesson, okay? Um, so we're gonna do half of this. But basically, the next lesson is pretty much all about animating something that has the exact same type of animation.

So, selecting multiple layers and animating them as one. Which is pretty cool, by the way. For certain situations, it works actually pretty well.

And also for using a feature of the program that allows you to sequence layers at a set distance. When we manually sequenced this, um, second scene, we moved it around, okay? But what if you had… What if you wanted, like, 20 layers that all animate, or just even appear on screen, but you want them all to have, like, five frames between them? So you appear, you appear, you appear. You wouldn't want to manually move those, it'd be crazy talk.

Because the more of those you have, the more annoying it is. Which, I've died, by the way, that's something. So the program has a feature that can let it kind of spread these things out in time.

Um, it only works when you need a consistent amount of time. So, like, I need one second between each layer, start. Or I need 15 frames between each layer, start.

That's where it works. If you need, like, arbitrary times, then it's not a practical tool. That's all it is, okay? So, let me close this project.

Okay, so it is the folder logo animation? Is that the right one? Logo animation. Okay, preview movie. Logo animation.

Okay, that. So there's two parts of this. Noble Desktop, words animating in, and then the boxes, boxes, boxes, boxes, boxes, okay? Now, they use the exact same technique.

We're gonna do the Noble Desktop text, and, like, the rest of it is, like, the same as that technique. So you can, if you want to do it outside of it, it's fine, okay? But basically, this is an example of things that have the exact same motion. The Noble Desktop text kind of animates in by scaling and moving.

So it's sliding over and scaling up. It has three keyframes. So, again, it has an overshoot behavior.

So it kind of moves over, scales up, and then back down, okay? So it's got its initiating keyframe. It's got its overshoot keyframe. It's got its resting keyframe, plus three.

Every single letter in Noble Desktop is animating exactly the same way. It slides over by maybe 20,30 pixels, overshoots by about 10 or 15, and then back to where it's supposed to rest. And the scale does the same thing.

Zero, I think 115, back to 100%. So they're all moving exactly the same, okay? Now, in this case, one, you could animate one and then copy-paste. But it's also possible to animate multiple layers, if they're moving, if they do the exact same animation, exactly the same.

All at once. Just grab them all the layers and move them all at once. That's what we're going to do here.

Then, to get this one first, then that one, then that one, and that one, we're going to use the sequencing command. It basically allows you to stack layers out in time one after the other. One starts and stops, and then one starts and stops, and so on and so forth.

It's a pretty cool technique. Okay, so here's what we got, here's what we got, here's what we got, here's what we got. So the file for this, again, we're going to import an Illustrator file.

In Illustrator, all of those letters are on their own layer, which are conveniently named, like, for what they are. All the little square boxes and the noble icon and all that outline, they're all individual layers. So it was all set up, prepped for us, okay? But it's nice.

So the length for this one is supposed to be seven seconds. So again, I'll make my new dummy comp, and I'll make the duration seven seconds. For the record, if you feel more comfortable doing it along with me, that's fine.

Whatever you like is cool. Okay, some people like to watch and then do it during the practice time, some people like to do it with me. Either, whatever is convenient for you is fine.

Yeah, that, again, this is a dummy comp, so I'm not even naming it. I'm just making a side, the duration and the background color. Okay, it's this stuff.

Then I delete the dummy comp, because its only purpose was to set the defaults. I'm going to import that illustrator layer. Logo, animation, media, images.

Again, composition, retain layer sizes. That is the goal. So this is in the attributes class folder, logo, animation, media, images.

For the record, it's the only thing in here. So maybe I didn't need so many subfolders, but it's, I use a template, so that's why. You highlight it, import as, composition, retain layer sizes.

If you choose footage, you will get one of two choices from there. Bring it in flat, not helpful to us. Or bring in a single layer from it.

Okay, by the way, if you do bring it in flat, there is a command to turn it into the individual layers. But just make the right choice. Double click on the effect to get this.

Because again, to color code this, I'm going to make all of the shapes in the icon one color. And the instructions say blue, but whatever color you want is fine. It made all the other layers, like noble N, the desktop P, it made them yellow.

But again, whatever you choose is fine. I mean, it's up to you.