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Now these After Effects techniques that I love 
fall into two categories; quick and quicker.

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So let's not mess about if it fits the style this 
can add a lot of extra movement and depth to  

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your animation these are made by creating four 
similar brush Strokes with the textured brush  

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in Photoshop then looping them in After Effects 
so they change every four frames or so and then  

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applying them where the Shadows or highlights 
might appear in your design and using a map or  

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a mask to confine them to just that layer now 
you'll have to do this a few times depending on  

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your design but good things come to those who in 
the olden times printers used to mess up sometimes  

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not like the reliable bastions of Technology 
they are today if I want a retro printed feel  

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I like to misalign the line art of an animation 
first we need to separate them so we'll take  

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our finished animation add the extract effect 
and drag the histogram over from the left to  

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remove the dark colored line art and just leave 
the colors remaining then duplicate that layer  

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with controller command D and then on that layer 
adjust the histogram in the opposite direction to  

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believe just the line art then we can select 
any of these layers and move its position about  

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and misalign it as much or as little as we want 
and some looping texture over the top for good  

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measure too here's an animation I made with 
some fancy gradients but I like the ball to  

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really feel shiny and reflect the colors on the 
other layers so we can do that by duplicating  

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the layer we want to reflect dragging that over 
closer to our object a little bit and adding the  

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set matte effect to it then we're going to take 
the mat from our Circle layer and add a gaussian  

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blur and we'll pump that up a fair bit now you can 
put the gaussian blur above the set mat and that  

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creates an interesting more stylized effect but 
if you want it to look more realistic we'll drag  

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that below our set matte effect and to remove 
the blur that is going on outside of the circle  

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we can just duplicate that set matte effect again 
with controller command D and drag that below the  

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gaussian blur to restrict it just to that Circle 
again and now if we increase the blurriness and  

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maybe just move the shape back a bit we can 
see it isn't as visible on the very edges of  

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our Circle which creates a nice realistic effect 
and looks like it's wrapping around a 3D sphere  

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now you'll probably be fading things on and 
off a lot by keyframing its opacity so let's  

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spice it up by animating its color at the same 
time so to do that we will add a fill effect  

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and where that layer is transparent let's keyframe 
its color then move it along to where it is fully  

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visible and change that fills color to white 
so now it changes color as it fades on and  

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it's a little more interesting that same spice 
pairs very well with gradients too and I'll do  

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this by adjusting our gradient fill so instead 
of going from black to white or any other two  

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colors we'll add a new color in the middle which 
would normally be a 50 Gray but we can make it a  

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bit more interesting just by adding a slightly 
warmer gray into the mix and you can do this as  

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subtle as you want and I think it works better 
the more colors there are so we can even add a  

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darker cooler color to the darker gray and keep 
the lighter gray a bit warmer it won't work for  

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every project but if you want to add a tiny 
bit more life and color to your artwork that  

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is barely perceptible this is a great way to 
do it okay we're halfway through I hope you're  

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finding these techniques helpful if you're up for 
it living a like really does help these videos and  

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me out a lot and if you're new to motion design in 
After Effects for the last year I've been creating  

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the ultimate beginner's guide to motion design 
called motion Foundation which is coming out next  

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month that is all I can share at the moment but uh 
please stay tuned for updates about that shortly  

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you want to transition from a circle to a square 
or rectangle don't mess about editing the path and  

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getting yourself all tied up in bezier handles 
just create a new shape with the rectangle tool  

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open its rectangle properties its path and then 
animate its roundness and you can go from Circle  

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to square seamlessly shake your animation around 
a bit not too much like a camera Shake but like  

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the subtle shake that I've been using on all of 
those titles now I love this because it reminds  

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me of Legacy Media like a film spool not perfectly 
aligned or a tape head in the VHS I'm not 100 sure  

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why but all the stuff shakes around a little bit 
so on a new adjustment layer on top of everything  

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we can add the transform effect and alter option 
click the stopwatch next to position to enter in  

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the wiggle expression and we're going to add in 
a frequency of 12 and an amplitude of one so that  

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12 times a second it will randomly move one pixel 
in any direction and we get a tiny subtle Shake  

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we can see more if we zoom in this will shake 
your layer away from the edges though so let's  

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increase the scale just by one percent to cancel 
that out I also love the blooming highlights of  

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film and old media that you can replicate by 
stacking some glows in After Effects but they  

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can very easily overpower the image and be kind 
of finicky to a shelves using the threshold and  

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the radius properties and you can't always get a 
good result reliably very quickly so what I like  

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to do is add a glow effect to an adjustment layer 
on top of everything we can keep the default glow  

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I'll duplicate it increase the radius a little 
bit more then duplicate it and increase the radius  

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again and I'm not worried about how ludicrously 
bright the image is I'm just looking at how nice  

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and realistic the fall off is how the glow kind of 
dissipates then I like to add a curves effect over  

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the top of all of those glows and then drag the 
brightness down so the glow is starting to look  

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a little more like what I want now if we toggle 
that adjustment layer on and off we do see that  

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it is losing a lot of the contrast of the image 
so if we do want to keep that we can change the  

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blending mode of that adjustment layer to 
screen so this is just adding glow on top  

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and now we can just adjust this curves effect 
to decide how bright our glow is and what the  

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threshold is which areas of our image how bright 
it needs to be to glow and I just find this a  

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little more intuitive to to adjust then trying to 
balance a handful of different properties across  

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three different glow layers to tweak around now 
putting eyes on anything instantly turns it into  

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a character is this a cheap trick absolutely 
is it overused impossible I use it because it  

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creates a connection between the audience and 
the character I'd mainly do it to get a bit of  

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strangeness or humor to the scene a pencil is 
a little bit interesting but when it becomes a  

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living thing and they're visibly loving it it kind 
of makes you think what kind of perverse sentience  

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is happening within this universe and that's the 
kind of question I think we should all be asking

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not everything has to be an optical Sugar Rush 
with flashing colors and shapes zipping around  

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hijacking your dopamine to keep you glued to 
your screen for that sweet sweet engagement  

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as our ability to focus shrivels up and 
turns into dust in the gutter now I've  

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animated plenty of work like that and when 
I do it's usually compensating for a lack  

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of substance now I'm finding Stillness more 
and more refreshing and having that contrast  

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will make your intense motion more impactful 
now I love this three minute sequence from  

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Ghost in the Shell it doesn't move the plot 
forward it's just establishing shots of the  

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city setting the tone most of the shots have 
very subtle animation and some are just stills

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of course fantastic design Sound 
and Music help enormously with this

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and obviously in motion design we're working to a  

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brief where we often have to capture 
attention quickly but it is helpful  

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to remember that more animation isn't 
your only tool to make better animation

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tomorrow