All language subtitles for COURSE 5 - 2. Basic Expressions 2

AFTER EFFECTS COURSE 1

LESSON 2 Basic expressions

If I change this layer to another side
of my composition, the drawing changes.

Like normally a layer that has Wiggle,

we are hardly ever going to
need you to do a specific thing,

nothing happens because what helps us
is if I now duplicate this layer ...

the other layer make
another drawing when moving.

If I keep duplicating the layer
they will all make a different drawing.

We are going to do a Wiggle.

We have this layer moving.

What if I want the time to stop?

Something we haven't talked about Wiggle is
that if I animate the position on my layer,

Wiggle will continue to do so
but will respect the animation.

Wiggle is going to do the
animation around my path.

That will help me if I want to
give you a little randomness ...

maybe I'm going to take 10% or 20% ...

I just want to give a little
randomness to a trajectory,

I can do it simply with Wiggle.

I can add more frequency, for example.

It's making my path but
it's adding randomness to it.

What if I want it not to at first

and in the end do it a lot?

I can't change the numbers
here, I can't animate these numbers.

For that, there is a thing
called Expressions Controls.

They are put in the effects
and basically they are controls

that allow us to put numbers
to expressions in After Effects.

If I have a Slider Control,
this is basically a number,

is a Slider with a
number that does nothing

but we can change his
name, we can call him ...

We can right click on the value

and say Edit Value, say that
the Slider goes from 0 to 100,

0 to 1000, whatever.

I'm going to do it from 0 to 50, for
example and the Slider goes from 0 to 50.

If I write 100 here,
it will leave me ...

If I click and drag on the number,

It will also let me pass the Slider,
it is to have more or less control.

If it's a 0 to 1 Slider, it's a
bit awkward doing it from 0 to 100

because you have to be
working nothing more than here.

What are we going to do with this?

Instead of amplitude,
give it a fixed number,

with the Pick Whip we are
going to choose this number.

Be careful in After
Effects, getting ready

and removing the last
parenthesis, we need it.

Right now the amplitude is 24.

If I upload it, I can see it
directly on stage as it changes.

What has allowed me
is to add, put a number

that I control externally from here.

That has an advantage and that
is that I can encourage this,

I can come to the
Slider, make this 138,

I give the U to get the keyframes ...

and we're going to make it start at 0.

It's going to start at 0, it's
not going to have almost a Wiggle,

at some point the Wiggle will go
up and in the end it has a lot.

This allows me to control a
lot of properties of my things.

Could I get another Slider
Control for the frequency.

No matter what name you give
it, it is for us to find out.

Instead of having a 2 on the
frequency, I'd pick up here on the Pick Whip,

It is not the title
but the Slider, there.

Right now the frequency would be 0
but I could give it directly here,

put the one I wanted ...

even cheer him on,

leave controls for another
person to configure the movement.

Let's go back to make a
simpler example of relating a thing

which needs a Solo
value, which is rotation,

with one thing that is giving us
two values, which is the position.

If I take a
rotation, I do Alt, click ...

and I directly relate
this to the position in X ...

directly going to take this
value to put it in my rotation.

I could do a
multiplication, for example, by 0.8,

so that the rotation was not so
exaggerated and rotates a little less.

Tighter to rotation with X motion.

What you are doing is
taking "transform position, 0".

If I take "transform
position, 1", the 540 will take me.

If I take "transform
position, 0", X, 735, will take me.

Another thing that is going to be super
useful in After Effects are the loops.

Right now we have a series of
animations and we want it to be repeated.

We will be putting the different
types of loops to explain them.

Let's see how we
can loop an animation.

I come here, I hit Alt, click ...

I'm going to remove this ...

pulse in Alt, click ...

and I come here to the
Expression language menu.

I come here and at
Property we have a lot of loops.

In general, the loop
that we will use more often

going to be loopOut, type,
cycle on a keyframe of 0,

you will see that it is "type, cycle".

The loopOut type cycle, what it will
do is that when I finish my animation,

going to start over again.

You will do the animation
as many times as necessary,

until the movie is finished.

If I come to the Timeline,
I will see the Value Graph.

To see what an expression
is doing on my Timeline,

I have to activate this,
Show Post-Expression Graph.

It will show me on the
Timeline how the values are

after my expression.

It will also show it in the paths.

We are going to try not to do it
much because it sucks enough processor,

it makes our project go quite slowly.

We will show it whenever
we need it, nothing more.

Ping-Pong, let's do the
same, I'm going to hit Alt ...

It puts the expression down here, I
will activate what to see in the path,

I'm going to put the expression here.

I come here and I
say Property, loopOut

and instead of "cycle", we are
going to write exactly what it says,

pingpong

What you are going to do is ...

Ping-Pong.

You are doing the
animation and then undoing it,

going forward ...

to forward and to backward.

That is what Ping-Pong does,
the name is quite descriptive.

Next up and let's remove this.

When I activate Show
Post-Expression Graph,

many times this will activate me,

to include this property
in the Graph Editor Set.

If I select another
property, this one keeps showing me.

I can remove it and that only the
property I need is shown, which is this.

Let's do the next
one, which is Offset.

We will explain what
Offset is, we can do the same.

We put Alt, click, we come to
Property and we put the loopOut,

be careful not to
put any of the others.

Instead of "cycle",
I will put "offset".

I'm going to come to my Timeline, I'm
going to activate Show Post-Expression Graph

and what Offset is going to do is ...

I'm going to zoom in a little
bit, and when the animation ends,

here it looks great, the
next animation will start

but hooking where I
was, where I was before.

What it will do is keep
bouncing indefinitely.

What if I put it
higher in the Y position?

You will see that it is
doing like a few steps.

As soon as I put the Show
Post-Expression Graph thing,

it already prevents me from
modifying the trajectories in the view,

in the composition window.

If I put it back, you will see
that I can edit again directly

as I used to edit my charts before.

If I put it back, it allows me to
see what the expression is going to do

but it doesn't allow me to
touch the handles and so on.

You will see that it
takes exactly the animation

and hook the new animation
where the previous one ended.

The last one, which is a
little different, is Continue.

If I do what we have
done in all the others,

I come to Property, loopOut ...

and I write "continue" directly ...

I'm going to remove this Graph Editor
Set and it is going to give me an error.

You are telling me you
don't have an argument.

When loopOut sets "continue",
there is no second argument.

We can't put a comma,
or a keyframe, nothing.

We just have to put "continue".

We can't give you an
argument, we're just going to put ...

the curve and it's
going to make my cloak speed

in the last keyframe, it will
continue indefinitely to the end.

I'm going to remove this.

For example, in the last
keyframe, I make it do like this

and go up, what it is
going to do is it will shoot up

with the speed it took
in the last keyframe.

If in the last
keyframe, the speed is 0,

I put an F9 so that the
speed is 0 or practically 0,

it will stop and it will not continue.

Speed, in this case, I
come to the Speed Graph,

it was practically at 0.

It stops because it had no speed.

If I put a little more speed,

it will continue indefinitely
at the speed I told you here.

If I activate the Show
Post-Expression Graph, it keeps the speed undefined.

Things we can do with loops.

I'm going to
duplicate this composition.

You will see that all this,
we can do instead of loopOut,

we can do a loopIn.

loopIn is going to do
the exact same thing

but before our keyframes.

Instead of doing it later,
you are going to do it before.

Before my animation these
layers are going to do that

and then they stop.

What if we want it to do
the loopIn and the loopOut?

All we have to do is add
it, "loopIn + loopOut".

What we are going to do at
the end is to subtract "value".

With this, "loopIn + loopOut -
value", what we are going to have is,

that before my scene, he
will be doing the "continue" ...

after my scene, it
will do the "continue" too

and in the middle he
will do the animation.

Obviously we can use anything else.

We can tell it to be
an "offset" ahead ...

and the back one is a "value",
this will give us a lot of flexibility

when looping in front of my animation

and behind my animation,
another different loop.

Another thing that we have not commented,
for example, we will do it in Ping-Pong,

is the "numKeyFrames" thing.

If we set "numKeyFrames" to 0,
I'm going to do it with a loopOut,

the loop will do it
for the entire animation,

I'm going to put this on my own.

You will see that it is
looping all my animation.

If I put "numKeyFrames" to 1 ...

will do the animation and the loop
will do the last stretch of keyframes ...

of this last step.

If I put 2, the loop will do
it for the last two keyframes.

Imagine if I had
another keyframe here,

where at first it was
a little bounce up ...

and then do the animation.

You will see that with
"numKeyFrames" in 2, it does not repeat all.

If I set "numKeyFrames" to 0, the
animation in Ping-Pong would be this.

I would do this
twice and then come back.

If I put "numKeyFrames" to 2, it's going
to do that little bounce from the start

and then he will be doing
that last part all the time.

If I put the trajectory display,

you will see that
what it does is that.

These two keyframes are
the ones you are repeating,

this and this, you
have to repeat from here.

These are being skipped.

So far the loops.

I have left you a document with
a lot of expressions and recipes

in the additional course
materials for you to download.

There are a lot of
things and there is a project

with many of these
expressions applied.

Expressions in After Effects
can be used for a lot of things.

and they are going to
help us go much faster.

If you want to delve much deeper into the
subject, there is a course at Domestika,

"After Effects.
Expressions for Motion Graphics",

given by Gabriel
Suchowolski "microbians"

and it's super recommended.

To see how more complex
expressions are used in a real project,

we will see a "Behind the
scenes" in the next lesson.