Making an Animated GIF: Adding Easing & Motion Blur

Topics covered in this After Effects tutorial:

Adding easing to slow down parts of the animation, Adding Motion Blur to simulate rapid movement

Exercise Preview

Exercise Overview

In this exercise, you’ll continue to create the IN A DAY animated GIF. We’ll animate the remaining elements and learn to create smooth, realistic-looking animation using easing and motion blur.

Re-Previewing the Final GIF

1. You should still have yourname-classes-in-a-day.aep open in After Effects. If you closed it, re-open it now by going to File > Open Project then Desktop > Class Files > After Effects Class > Classes in a Day GIF. We recommend you finish the previous exercise (1B) before starting this one. If you haven’t finished it, do the following sidebar.

   If You Did Not Do the Previous Exercise (1B)

   1. If a project is open in After Effects, go to File > Save, then File > Close Project.
   2. Go to File > Open Project and navigate to Desktop > Class Files > After Effects Class > Classes in a Day GIF > Finished AE Projects.
   3. Double–click on classes-in-a-day-Ready for Animation.aep.
   4. Do a File > Save As > Save As. Name the file yourname-classes-in-a-day.aep and save it back into the Classes in a Day GIF folder.

2. If you don’t still have the final GIF classes-in-a-day.gif open in your browser, re-open it in a web browser (it’s found in Desktop > Class Files > After Effects Class > Classes in a Day GIF > Final GIF).

3. Notice the following:
   • The class names slow down as they land.
   • This motion is a little blurry, mimicking how fast moving objects move in real life.
   • After viewers have time to read the list, it moves over to the left, to join the icons that are associated with each class’s app or topic. These icons start off transparent and fade up in opacity over time.
   • Once the large blue IN A DAY panel slides in from right to left, everything stops moving at the same time.

4. Keep the browser open so you can refer back to it as needed.

Adding Easing to Slow Down Parts of the Animation

Diamond-shaped keyframes such as signify linear motion: the object moves at a constant speed throughout its animation. These are what we have. Currently the text starts animating, moves at a constant speed, and abruptly stops. Most objects in real life don’t move like that, so After Effects gives us the option to add easing. Easing defines where in the sequence the animation should slow down. Let’s add some easing, so the animation slows down (goes easy) at the end.

1. We need to select all the layers so we can show their keyframes. Make sure the Timeline panel has focus (it has a blue highlight around it). If it doesn’t, click in an empty area of the Timeline.
2. Press Cmd–A (Mac) or Ctrl–A (Windows) to select all the layers.
3. Press the U key to show the keyframes for the selected layers.

4. Hold Shift and click on the end keyframe for each layer, so you have the 7 end keyframes selected (as shown below).

   TIP: Instead of clicking on each keyframe, you can drag a selection box around keyframes. Be careful to start dragging in an empty space of the Timeline, and make sure you do not include the start keyframes. You won’t be able to select all the end keyframes in one drag. To add keyframes to a selection, hold Shift while dragging.

   

5. Ctrl–click (Mac) or Right–click (Windows) on any of the selected keyframes and choose Keyframe Assistant > Easy Ease.

   NOTE: The end keyframes should now be an hourglass shape instead of a diamond, which indicates they have an easing applied. You’ll learn more about easing later.

6. With all the layers still selected, press the U key again to hide the keyframes.
7. Move the playhead to frame 0.
8. Press the Spacebar to preview the animation, paying attention to the speed. The names slow down a bit before they stop. It’s a subtle change, but we think it looks better.

9. Press the Spacebar again to stop the playback.

   Feel free to scrub through the animation using the playhead to get a better look at what’s happening.

   TIP: You can reset an Eased keyframe to a Linear keyframe by Cmd-clicking (Mac) or Ctrl-clicking (PC) on the keyframe.

Sliding Over the Entire Class List

1. At the top left of the Timeline, switch back to the PSD Layout composition tab by clicking on its name as shown below:

   

2. Let’s hide the other elements so we can focus on the class names. In the Timeline, hide the Class Icons and In A Day layers by clicking the eye to their left.

3. This is where we want our class list to end up, so again we’ll set our final keyframe first. Move the playhead to frame 50. Instead of dragging the playhead, you can jump there directly as follows:

   • Click on the Current Time Display at the top left of the Timeline.
   • Type 50
   • Press Return (Mac) or Enter (Windows).
4. In the Timeline, expand the Class Names layer (by clicking its triangle).
5. Expand Transform.
6. Click the stopwatch next to the Position property to set a keyframe at frame 50.

7. Move the playhead to frame 43.

   NOTE: Why frame 43? The class names are done sliding down on frame 33. We want to wait a moment before moving them left. We thought waiting until frame 43 was enough time.

8. Hover over the first value of Position (x-axis position) and drag right so the text is almost centered in the frame (around 400).

9. Let’s add easing. Ctrl–click (Mac) or Right–click (Windows) on the end keyframe (at frame 50) and choose Keyframe Assistant > Easy Ease.

   This will make the class names slow down near the end of their animation.

10. Press the Spacebar to preview the animation. The classes fall in the from the top and then slide left together. Nice!
11. Press the Spacebar again to stop the playback.

12. Collapse the Class Names layer in the Timeline.

Animating the Icons

1. Move the playhead to frame 50.
2. Show the Class Icons layer by clicking the box in the eye column.
3. Expand the Class Icons layer, then expand Transform.
4. Click the stopwatch next to the Position property to set a keyframe at frame 50.
5. Move the playhead to frame 43.
6. Hover over the first Position value (x-axis position) and drag left until the icons are out of the frame on the left side (around 230).
7. Ctrl–click (Mac) or Right–click (Windows) on the end keyframe (at frame 50) and choose Keyframe Assistant > Easy Ease.
8. Next we’ll add a fade-in for the icons as they slide into place. Click the stopwatch next to the Opacity property to set a keyframe at frame 43.
9. Change Opacity to 0%.
10. Move the playhead to frame 50.
11. Change Opacity to 100%.
12. Preview the animation. The icons fade in as they slide right to meet the classes. Nice!
13. Collapse the Class Icons layer.

Animating the “In a Day” Title

1. Move the playhead to frame 50.
2. Show the In A Day layer by clicking the box in the eye column.
3. Expand the In A Day layer, then expand Transform.
4. Click the stopwatch next to the Position property to set a keyframe at frame 50.
5. Move the playhead to frame 43.
6. Hover over the first Position (x-axis position) and drag right until the blue square with text is out of the frame on the right side (around 620).
7. Ctrl–click (Mac) or Right–click (Windows) on the end keyframe (at frame 50) and choose Keyframe Assistant > Easy Ease.
8. Preview the animation. Looks great!
9. Collapse the In A Day layer.

Adding Motion Blur to Simulate Rapid Movement

The animation is looking good, but when objects move in real life, our eyes usually perceive a bit of a blur. After Effects imitates this movement with the Motion Blur feature. Let’s add it as a finishing touch to help it look more smooth and natural. Enabling it is as easy as flipping a switch on!

1. Near the top of the Timeline, click the Motion Blur button to enable motion blur for the composition.

   

2. Even though we enabled motion blur for the entire project, we must also enable motion blur on each layer. Double–click on the Class Icons layer to open the composition.

3. Each layer has a motion blur switch we need to check on. As shown below, click the motion blur switch for the first layer (seo-icon). If you don’t see the button, see the note below.

   

   NOTE: Don’t see the button? At the bottom left of the Timeline, click the Expand or Collapse the Layer Switches pane button .

4. We also have to turn motion blur on for the other layers, but instead of individually clicking the button for each layer, drag down across the empty motion blur boxes for the other layers to enable motion blur on them all with a single drag!
5. Switch back to the PSD Layout composition (by clicking on its name at the top of the Timeline).
6. Double–click on the Class Names layer to open that composition.

7. Drag across the empty motion blur boxes for all the layers to enable it.

   Don’t see the motion blur button? At the bottom left of the Timeline, click the Expand or Collapse the Layer Switches pane button .

8. Switch back to the PSD Layout composition.

9. One more to go! Double–click on the In A Day layer to open that composition and:

   • Enable motion blur by dragging across the empty motion blur boxes.
   • Switch back to the PSD Layout composition.

10. Preview the animation using Spacebar. Smoother!

Trimming Off Extra Time

We have just one more change. The animation is currently 500 frames long which is longer than we need for this animation. Our final animated GIF will loop, so we need enough time for people to read the text after the animation finishes. Leaving about 4 seconds after the action ends, puts us at frame 170.

1. In the PSD Layout composition, go to Composition > Composition Settings.
2. Next to Duration type 170 (it will become 00170).
3. Click OK.
4. This animation is complete, so do a File > Save.
5. Leave this project open to use in the next exercise.