Shooting Star in After Effects

Download Project Files here.

Intro

Bezier handles! What are they? What does that name even mean? And of course, what do they even do?

In this tutorial, we’ll be covering this simple but extremely useful aspect of After Effects with this cool shooting star animation project. Bezier handles are basically those lines with dots on the end of them that appear when using the Pen tool, working with vector images (which is what the Pen tool does), and motion paths. Points on a line can be manipulated and shaped using these handles to make more fluid and interesting shapes and paths. They’re very efficient and a great tool to use!

Overview

Okay so, the first thing we’re going to do is actually just animate some keyframes for the star shapes. After that, we’ll Easy Ease them in, of course. Then, the main point of this tutorial; we’ll be adjusting their paths to be more interesting with the bezier handles. No extra frames needed!

Then we’ll have to turn on some switches that were off so we could animate, and finish up the whole thing!

Star Animation

1. Okay, first navigate to the right layer by double clicking the stars layer.
2. That takes us into the Precomp. Click on the left star layer.
3. Hit P on the keyboard to open up the Position tool for this layer.
4. Hit the stopwatch to start keyframing.
5. Change the Position values to -95,580.
6. Move the Playhead to 0;00;01;24.
7. Change the Position values to 165,210.
8. Shift-click both keyframes.
9. Right click on any keyframe.
10. Navigate to Keyframe Assistant > Easy Ease.
11. Now, bezier handles. Click on the leftmost point of the star’s motion path. A line should appear out of it.
12. Click and drag the dot on the end of the line, far out to the right and a little up.
13. Now click on the second, topmost point on the motion path.
14. Click and drag on the bezier handle’s dot, down and to the left a little. This should make a loop-the-loop motion for the star.
15. Okay, now let’s move on to the second star. Click on the mid star layer.
16. Move the Playhead to 0;00;00;24.
17. Hit the stopwatch to put down a keyframe.
18. Hit P to start the Position tool.
19. Change the values to 1846,509.
20. Move the Playhead to 0;00;02;02.
21. Change the values to 608,121.
22. Shift-click both keyframes.
23. Right click on any keyframe.
24. Navigate to Keyframe Assistant > Easy Ease.
25. Click the first point on the motion path, the right one.
26. Click and drag the bezier handle dot out to the left and down.
27. Now click the topmost point on the motion path.
28. Click and drag the bezier handle dot to the left, and just a tiny bit down to make a c-shaped curve.
29. Last one! Click the right star layer.
30. Move the Playhead to 0;00;01;13.
31. Hit P to start the Position tool for this layer, like before.
32. Change the Position values to -105,637.
33. Okay, now move the Playhead to 0;00;02;16.
34. Here, change the Position values to 1131, 216.
35. Shift-click both keyframes.
36. Right click on any keyframe.
37. Go to Keyframe Assistant > Easy Ease like the others.
38. Click the first, leftmost dot of this motion path.
39. Drag the bezier handle dot up and to the left.
40. Finally, click the rightmost point on the motion path.
41. Click and drag the bezier handle dot down and to the right.

Last Touches

bezier handle dot down and to the right.

1. Alright, we’re basically done! Shift-click all the star layers.
2. If all the layer switches aren’t showing - that is, if we’re looking at Layer Modes in the layer stack and whatnot, hit Toggle Switches/Modes on the bottom left of the layer stack.
3. Find the Motion Blur switch at the top of the layer stack. It looks like three overlapping circles.
4. With the star layers still selected, hit the Motion Blur switch in any of the selected layers. This will add some cool blur to the layers as they zoom around the piece.

Conclusion

So that’s it!

Bezier handles are one of those things that aren’t really talked about much when it comes to After Effects but they’re really everywhere. As seen in this tutorial, they can be used to make the simplest of keyframes a whole lot more dynamic and fluid. Knowing how and where to use them is a great skill to have, as it will clear up a lot of otherwise complicated keyframing projects and give designers a lot more flexibility and efficiency when animating.

Keep practicing with bezier handles and keep putting them to use!

Happy animating!

Credits

Background vector created by pikisuperstar - www.freepik.com

Background vector created by upklyak - www.freepik.com

Design vector created by freepik - www.freepik.com

Motion Blur switch in any of the selected layers. This will add some cool blur to the layers as they zoom around the piece.

Video Transcript

Everyone is supportive and all desktop. Today we're going to be learning how to use fuzzy handles in this shooting stars tutorial. And what busy handles are. If you ever use the PEN tool, there are you see these handles that appear out from our shape and you see them on motion paths, you see them on vectors and in part because they are an important part of vectors and they're actually nobody really talks about them much but they can be kind of tricky for people who've never really been introduced to the concept.

So in this tutorial, we're going to be going over a couple of different ways to use them. So the first thing that we're going to be doing is we're going to be finding in the file that you're given, you're going to be finding the layer called stars. You're going to double click that. Then let's make sure that it's all the way at the beginning.

Now, we don't actually see the stars right now because they're off the screens, these purple boxes, but we're going to be animating them so that they appear on the screen. So the first thing that we're going to be doing, we're going to be going from left to right with these stars we're going to click on the left most star right hit P four position.

And let's see, we're going to want our values to be at -9 five and 58, which they have to be over here. If they're not, then you type these in and hit the stopwatch to start keyframe. Now, the second thing that we're going to do is let's move our playhead to about one minute and 24 seconds and keep going Sorry about that.

Now let's hit the you can either hit the diamond shape here to another keyframe or we can just input new values here that automatically sort of keyframe. I'm going to add my new values to be 165 and another one. It's going to be 210. So it's a pretty direct line. If you play it back, you'll see it pretty direct.

You can also click and drag the star to set that keyframe. But I'm just going to be using exact values for this and you'll see that there's already like some effects apply to this server. Don't worry about that. For the purposes of this tutorial, we're really going to be focusing on how to use Bezier handles. Now, it's not a very interesting passive motion, you know, just kind of like going back and forth like that.

So the great thing about busy handles is that they can make Paths of motion. One of things they could do much more interesting and all you need are just two keyframes. Now, I don't want this to be an easy sequence. We're going to shift. We're going to drag Mark or both. We could shift, click on both right click on any selected keyframe and go to give consistent easy reason.

So that'll kind of give us a bit more of a smooth motion. But I really want this path motion to be interesting. So I'm going to click on the left. Most point of my busy handle, I happen to like, let's see a move the star there just so I could see it. So it's already selected. I'm going to click on the left.

Most body, like the leftmost point, you can either do that by selecting one of those keyframe or the most busy point on the stars, most motion path. And you see this dot over here that's going to actually be what we're manipulating in order to move our busy handles around. So I'm going to click on the stop and go click and drag and I am going to let's see, I want it to move.

Really, how far to the right? A little bit. I a little bit up, you know, and then I'm going to let go. So I've got that one. Then I'm going to click on this point. The next point in the star's motion path, which is the only point left, and that's over here. See that? So by manipulating this, I can change where the star is going to go I want this one to be a little bit like that.

So I kind of have a backwards C shape and it boomerangs out and around. So let's play this back whoa. So after effects that a skip did skip a couple of frames that happened. So not just in the playback, but it will be fine once you render it out there you go. See? Yeah, sometimes it's finicky like that.

And then, OK, so we have that one done. So you see, all we have is two key frames but that's all we need in order to get this done. So let's keep going. Let's go to the middle star route P for position after selected it and I'm going to want this to be 24 seconds. Let's get to over to 24 seconds about you're also typing in here and I want my position for this one to be 1846 P please listen to me.

Thank you. 1846 and five, nine. It was basically there but I want to be very exact, I hit stop I just said keyframe then let's see. So I'm going to move to 2 minutes and 2 seconds in almost there. We'll go further. There we go. And then I'm going to change my position to 608 and 121. OK, so again you see it's kind of got that very direct, very plain.

It just kind of slides into place but we could do better than that. I do want it to be smooth, so I'm going to select both. I drag my key over both, record shift, click both right click on any keyframe, go to Keyframe Assistant and there we go next. It's going to be a nice, smooth animation. Well, let's now let's make it interesting.

So I am going to click on Candy, select both of them, and then I'm just going to click on my first keyframe in the timeline. Or it could just click at that point over there, the beginning point over here, I'm going to click and drag on the start and I want this thing to go all the way to the left, kind of opposite direction that I first wanted did put down and then I can either click this keyframe in the timeline or I'm just going to click directly on the last point in this animation.

And I have as busy a dot right to this handle and right like before I move it around, it does what I want and then let's see, I want this to be a nice more of a smooth C shaped curve. So I'm going to move it out a little bit like that to the left and then let's hit playback.

Whoa. Very nice. Moves a little bit quicker than other one because there's less space between our two frames. That's just what we want. Last one, click the right star layer. Let's move our playhead back in time to 113 because I'd like this motion to be overlapping. We're going to hit key on the keyboard for position now. We're going to set a keyframe, and I want my values here to be -1, two, five and 673, which I do happen to have set over here.

But if that wasn't the case, you could just type in or you could drag it to the lower left just off the composition frame. Then let's see, I want let's go to 2 minutes and 16 seconds in 2 minutes. 6 seconds, then go go. And now I want my values here. Let's see. I think this one should be at 1131 and 216.

There we go. I like that and I'm going to drag a mark here both or could shift one well so I'm going to go right click either. There you go to keep consistent using nice middle it's nice move motion like before but again we could do better than this um let's see and let's grab the first fuzzy handle and I want this one to kind of do a squiggle like that.

Yeah, like a little bit of a heel shape and then let's grab the other dots, right? Because it's so visible. Let's grab the other dot other does a handle and let's say I want this one more of an escape like that. I like that better. And you know, if we play the whole thing well after effects to that bit of a jump, but don't worry, sometimes it needs to play the whole thing first before it plays the animation smoothly.

But should after effects be a little bit, you know, non compliant? We're just going to you can just scrub through the timeline and make it seem correct. And you can see, right, all of them slide together. That's exactly what we want, nice and smooth. All right. We're basically done now. There's one last thing we can do now. If you aren't seeing like we of switches, we're going to go down to toggle switches and modes like if this is what you're seeing with like the track that's in this mode, stand here, click on toggle switches mode toggle switches and modes and shift click all your star layers.

And this is motionless, these three circles. We're going to click on any selected layer in the motion blur box. And that will, as the name suggests, give us a nice bit of motion blur to our animation right there you go. Now, the reason why we do this at the end, because you can see After Effects is struggling a bit to keep up and look fine in the render but it's just hard for the program to constantly implement motion learn while we're animating.

So things like effects and stuff, those really should go on to the end. But yeah, this is what it looks like and that's what Bezier handles do. And now if you also look at like each of these layers, they only have to from each, which is great. So now let's go back to the top over here. And if we scrub through a timeline, we can see that, yep, our animation plays with our new starting animation now going in those very nice interesting motion paths and that's I hope you found this useful.