Updated: 29 November 2018
Preface
This tutorial series has two main goals. The first is to provide you with ways in which you can build controllers right on your After Effects composition panel, making often-used controls such as blinking and speaking easy to access. These controllers can be moved around anywhere within the composition panel so you can keep them out of your way while you work. By placing often used controllers on the composition panel, you eliminate having to select layers to get to the controls in the Effects Control panel. Also, you can place images within these controllers, such as a row of lip phonemes and positions to power switch layers for a mouth, making it easy to select the mouth position you need.
Secondly, controllers are useless without expressions. I’ll be introducing some expressions that I’ve found to be extremely useful. If you’re building puppets beyond a simple armature, I guarantee you’ll find many of these scripting tools invaluable. If you’re new to expressions, check my JavaScript Primmer page for a kick-start to diving into After Effects expressions. Also check out the expressions section of the Off-Site Resources page where you’ll find some excellent (and free) resources which will span from beginner to advanced concerning expressions.
Download Project Files
Downloadable work files: This 14 MB zip file contains all the files needed for the entire series.
This download contains three folders and the following files (folder numbers reflect the range of videos covered):
- Folder: 02-03 Rigging a Simple Door
- 2D Horizontal Controller.ai
- Simple Door 02.ai
- Folder 04-09 Rigging Angie’s Head
- Angie Head v3.ai
- Horizontal Controller Centered.ai
- Switch Controller.ai
- X Horizontal Controller 200px.ai
- X Y Controller 200px,ai
- Folder: 11-13 Icon grid for Lip Synchronization
- Angie 3.1 Icon Grid.ai
- Angie Head v3.1.ai
- I’m Hungry.mp3 (audio file)
Understanding Linear Interpolation
Linear Interpolation & the Linear() Expression
Before jumping into creating our first Composition Panel controller, I wanted to present this five and a half minute video about the linear( ) expression because the concept behind it is critical to understanding…
Rigging a Simple Door
Rigging a simple door, part 1 of 2
The first project I'm going to show you will be presented in two videos. In this first video, I'm going to show you how I constructed a horizontal slider that can sit on After Effect's composition panel. I'll be introducing…
Rigging a simple door, part 2 of 2
I'm going to finish the Simple Door project by connecting the door to the composition panel controller. This video goes in depth about the linear( ) expression in context of the project.
Rigging Angie's Cheek Blush
Angie’s blushing cheeks, part 1 of 2
In this video we start rigging a puppet's head named Angie. The original Angie was introduced in The Angie Tutorials, but this file has been modified for this new series, and the rigging will be completely different for the original series. The first…
Angie’s blushing cheeks, part 2 of 2
Starting from where I left off in the previous video, I'm going to connect the blush control to the opacity property. This will require a couple of linear( ) statements as well as an if/else expression, which is a conditional expression that I will introduce in this video.
Rigging Angie's Eyes
Rigging Angie’s eyes, part 1 of 5
This video begins a five part project where we're going to rig Angie's eyes (doesn't include the eyebrows). The work files are available below for download if you want to following along. This video will focus on preparing the…
Rigging Angie’s eyes, part 2 of 5
In this video we're going to place the eye parts in separate compositions and prepare them for rigging. I'll be introducing the Checkbox Control, which will be connecting to Angie's pupils, along with some sliders, so we can manipulate their size.
Rigging Angie’s eyes, part 3 of 5
In this video we're going to connect the eyes to the Eye Control (X Y Controller handle) to give life to Angie's eyes. Then we'll add a couple of slider controls so that we can modify the eye's positions in interesting ways.
Rigging Angie’s eyes, part 4 of 5
In this video we're going move on to the eyelids. The first step will be to import and put together the 3 controllers we'll need to give us the option to have Angie blink or wink with either eye. This will involve…
Rigging Angie’s eyes, part 5 of 5
In this video we're going move on to the eyelids. The first step will be to import and put together the 3 controllers we'll need to give us the option to have Angie blink or wink with either eye. This will involve…
Creating an Icon Grid
Creating an icon grid for lip synchronization, part 1 of 3
In this video we're going move on to the eyelids. The first step will be to import and put together the 3 controllers we'll need to give us the option to have Angie blink or wink with either eye. This will involve…
Creating an icon grid for lip synchronization, part 2 of 3
This video completes the icon grid project with just 6 lines of code. However, this series is about leaning some JavaScript so it goes into an indepth explanation about how and why each line of code is used. You'll see how you can easily convert that code to fit any size icon grid you decide to create for your puppet.
Creating an icon grid for lip synchronization, part 3 of 3
Welcome to the final video in the Controllers & Expressions Series. In this final installment, I going to show you how to lip synchronize your puppet's mouth to a audio track using the icon grid built in the last two videos. This will also show you how keyframes…
