Welcome! I'm Hunter from Skillthrive and
in this tutorial you'll create this
profile card animation in After Effects.
Today's course is inspired by the team
at Algo. If you want to check out the
original work on Dribbble, there's a link
in the description, and if you want to
follow along with me in today's course,
make sure you become a free member on
Skillthrive.com. There's a link in the
description that'll take you to a
registration page where you can join.
So, with that said let's go ahead and jump into After Effects and get started on today's
tutorial. So once you create a new
project in After Effects come over to
new composition. Name this composition
'Row.'
Then set the width and height both to
1080, the Frame Rate to 30, and the
duration to 1 second and 15 frames, or a
second and a half. For background color, I
just went in here and picked the dark
color, that way we can see the circles
when we add them because I want to make
them white. But then I'm going to go and
click 'OK' to commit to that composition. Now, if you
don't see this dark background you might
have the transparency grid on, so make
sure you toggle that off in order to see
that background. Then I'm going to go
ahead and create a new Shape Layer. So,
let's come up to Layer, New Shape Layer.
Then I'm going to come over here and
select the Ellipse Tool, which is already
selected, but I can hold and click in
order to select the tool that I want.
Then I'm going to come over to my
composition. I'm going to click, hold
Shift, and then drag out in order to
create a perfect circle. Then we can come
into the ellipse and make some changes
here. Let's first come into the Ellipse
Path. Let's go ahead and set the circle
here to a size of 38.
Then I'm going to turn off the Stroke,
come into the Fill, turn that Opacity up
to 100%, and then come into the color and set this to like an off-white. You can
see here that I have the hex code of
'fafafa.' Then I want to click 'OK.' Then
I'm going to go ahead and just name this
Shape Layer 'Row 1." Then what I'm going
to do is I'm going to Command-Apostrophe in order to bring up the grid view.
I'm going to hold, switch to 'Z' to go to
my Zoom Tool, click, and drag, and then
that's going to make me just zoom into
this corner. Then I'm going to move back
to my Move Tool and then just place this
into a spot that is about two pixels
from the top and then two pixels from
the left. So right now I'm just using my
arrow keys to move that into a spot that
I like, so let's do this right here.
I think it looks good. And then what I can
do is come back to this row and in
Contents you'll see over here to the
right that I have this option to add, and
I can add a Repeater here. Now, if we zoom
out here and make this a Fit the
Composition, you can see that we just
have three right now. And those three
are coming from this Repeater. So, if
we expand this, you can see right now we
have Copies set to three. Now, let's go
ahead and set that to eight, and that way
we have six that are going to be in the
shot and then one to the left that's on
the outside and one on the right that's
to the outside. But right now these are a
little bit too close to each other, so
what we can do is come in to Transform
Repeater, come in to this Position, and
instead of a hundred, let's set that to
192. And that's going to space it out
there really nicely for us. Now what we
need to do is make sure that this first
one is actually outside on the left. So,
what we can do is come in and go ahead
and just collapse these menus. Then we
can hit 'P' to switch to the Position Tool,
and on this X-value I'm actually going
to go ahead and just round this up to a
whole number, so let's do this, and for
this we can go ahead and just
round this up to a whole number. Then we
can go ahead and subtract 192 from that
X-value and you'll see that this whole
thing is going to move over, and then the
second one is now in the place where
this first one originally was. Cool! So,
now what we can do is go ahead and
duplicate this row six
times in order to get those six rows
that you want. So what I'm going to do
though is when I Command-D to duplicate
and create Row 2, I'm going to go into
the Position, come into this X-value, or
excuse me, actually this Y-value, and then
add 192 to that, and then that's going to
move it down 192. Then I'm going to do
that for Row 3 and then now I'm just
going to add 192 to this 600, and then
repeat this process until I have the six rows.
So once you have those six rows, what
I'm going to do now is go and create the
columns, that way when we create the
Repeater the columns are going to not,
you know, move over to the left or the
right, they're going to be up and down.
But right now we have rows, so we need to
do a little bit of tweaking here. So the
first thing I want to do is just go
ahead and duplicate this Row 2. So I'm
going to come into the Project and do
Command-C, Command-V, or Command-D to just
duplicate that and then rename this to
'Column.' Then I'm going to double-click to
open that here so we can edit this. I'm
actually just going to go ahead and
delete row two through six and will come
into row one and let's go ahead and just
rename this to 'Column 1.' Then what I
want to do is hit 'P' to go to the
position I need to move this on the X-value 192 over and then I wanted to
start up here, so what I need to do is
subtract 192 on the Y and that's going
to move it here where I want the
actual column to start. But right now we
have the Repeater going still to the
right, and so we need to come in and
actually change this here. So, we come in
to Contents, Repeater, come in to the
Transform Repeater. Instead of on the X-value, let's go ahead and set that to zero.
Now on the Y-value, let's set that to 192. Now you can see that that Repeater is now
creating a column. Then what we can do is
do a similar process that we did for the
rows, so Command-D to duplicate that, then go to Position, and on the X-value, this
time let's go ahead and add 192 to this
and then we can repeat that process
until we have six columns.
Cool! So, now that we have that, what we
can do is go ahead and create a
composition that's going to hold both
the row and the column and this is going
to be the loop composition. So, to do that
we're going to create a new composition
here and the duration let's set that to
double of what both of these would be, so
that's going to be three seconds. Go
ahead and name this composition just
'Loop' and then go ahead and click 'OK' to
create that composition here. Then what
I'm going to do is just drag in the
Loop, I'm going to drag in both Row and
Column, and then let's go ahead and move
the Column here to where this one, the
Row, is ending. You can see if we
scrub through this that both of
these layers line up perfectly, which is
exactly what we want. So now let's go
ahead and start animating this so we can
actually get it closer to what we
actually want to create. So let's come into the row, on this Position I'm actually
going to select all the rows and come
back to the very start of this and go
ahead and set a keyframe. Then I'm going
to move to one second here, then set a
new keyframe, and then I'm going to just
 focus on Row 1. So I want this
one to move over to the right
192, so on the 'X' I can come in and say
move this over 192, and then that's going
to move over. Then I'm going to copy this
position '456' and then alternate that
here, and just paste it into each
alternating row. Now if you see every–the
first, third, and fifth row are going to
to move to the right. Then what I'm going to do is come over to the Row 2 and then on
this X-value I'm actually going to move
it negative 192. Then I'm going to select
this here, and then come into each
alternating one here and paste that in.
So, now if we look at this, you'll see
that each other, each, you know, row is
moving the opposite direction of the one
right under it or above it. Then what we
can do is make this a little more
interesting of an animation by selecting
these key frames, right-clicking, 'Keyframe
Assistant,' and then Easy Ease. Then while
they're still selected, we can come into
the Graph Editor and just tweak that
graph to make it a little bit more of an
interesting animation. So it's going to
start off fast and then it's going to
ease out, so it's a little snappy and
then kind of just smooths out towards
the end. So let's go ahead and play that so
you can see what it looks like. Cool!
Now what we can do is come into the
column and then I'm going to select these
and hit 'P' so we bring up the Position.
I'm going to come to the beginning, set a
keyframe, move to one second, so just
type that in here to our time, set a
keyframe, then let's go ahead and just
focus on Column 1. And in Column 1,
I want to move the X-value, you know, don't
want to move it down 192. So, to move it
down, I actually need to add to the Y-value,
and then I'm going to come into this one
and copy that into each alternating row
as well. Then in Column 2 I need
to subtract 192, and then go ahead and
copy this and do this for each
alternating row. Now if we play this,
you'll see that they're going to move like
that. Cool. Then again, go ahead and copy
those keyframes, Keyframe Assistant, Easy
Ease, go into the Graph Editor there, and
then tweak that graph like this. And I'll
go ahead and play this through. Very cool.
Now while we're still in the column,
let's actually turn this to the
transparency and then do the same thing
here for the row. Now if we look at this
I go to turn this on transparency as
well and then we can play this through.
You can see the circles, it might be a
little hard to see, but what we can do is
we can just go ahead and create a new
composition here and what I'm going to do
is go to New Comp,
I'm going to set this one to just be
about 8 seconds, call this one just like
'Profile Card,' Then I'm going to pull the
Loop composition into this one and what
I want to do is make this an endless
loop. So, right now it's just three
seconds, but I wanted to continue to
repeat. Let's go ahead and add a solid
background color layer here so we can
see this. So, to do that, I'm going to come to Layer, New, and then Solid. I'm going to
just go ahead and name this 'Background.'
Make sure it's 1080 by 1080, and I'm not
going to worry about the color right now
because I'm actually going to make sure
that if I come into Effects, and then
into Fill, I can go ahead and just drag
this effect called Fill onto the
background. Make sure that it's beneath
the loop and then change the color here
so it's a little easier to change.
And I'm actually going to use a specific hex
code here, so I'm going to do '1C1C1C'
and then click 'OK.' Now if we play this,
you can see that the circles are a lot
easier to see. Now let's go ahead and
make this into a repeating composition.
So to do that we need to make sure we
come in and say enable Time Remapping, so
I'm going to right-click, come in to Time,
and say Enable Time Remapping. Then what
I'm going to do is I'm going to come in, Alt-click here on the stopwatch, then you'll
see here I have this option to click
here. Then I'm going to come into
Property, then come up to this expression
that says 'loop out type cycle number
keyframes equals 0.'
And what that's going to do is
paste in this this expression that's
going to allow it to be a repeating loop.
So you can see if we drag this out to
our entire composition, that After
Effects knows that it can just continue
to do this until as long as we want.
Now you'll see too though at this
keyframe it goes away, and this
always happens when you do the, you know, enable time remap, but what you can
do is come just one keyframe
before it. You can set a keyframe and
then delete the one that it
automatically creates. Now if we scrub
through this you're not going to get
that transparent, you know, it's not going
to be transparent–you're going to be
able to have that consistent look all
the way through. Cool! So now you can see
that has now looped and now we can go
ahead and start building in some of our
other stuff.
So, the first thing we want to do is
bring in Bill Gates into this and
animate him in so we can feature him and
all of, you know, everything we want to
say about him. So we come into our course
files, come into image, and I have this
Bill Gates PNG. Then we can just drag
this into our composition here. Let's go
ahead and just reposition him about
right here. You can come to align and
center him to the comp if we want. Then
what we can do is come into Effects. I'm
actually going to type in 'HLS' and then
under this Color Balance I'm going to
come and drag this on to Bill Gates. Then
I'm going to come in to Saturation and just
bring that down to negative 100. Then
what I'm going to do is hit 'P' to bring
up the Position and I want him to
actually, you know, at one second I want
him to be in this position that he's in
now. And then I'm going to come to the
beginning, and let's come into the 'Y' and
just move him down a little bit, just
something really subtle. So this a really
simple movement, but I'm going to make
this a little bit more interesting by
turning this last keyframe into an Easy
Ease and then tweaking that into the
Graph Editor like we did for the circles.
So, let's go ahead and play that through.
Cool! So that's just, you know, something
really simple there. I might come in and
actually move him down just a little bit
more so it's like peekaboo
Bill Gates. There we go, cool! Now what we
can do is go to Composition, New
Composition. Now what I'm going to do is
just call this one like, you know, 'Render'
or whatever you want–this is going to be
our final, actual comp that we're going to
be rendering out. But for the width here
I'm actually going to set this to 1920,
have the height set to 1080, so it's a
nice 1920 by 1080 HD composition. Frame
Rate, let's set that to 30 and then
duration to 8 seconds and then we can
click 'OK.' And then what I'm going to do
is go ahead and come back into our
project here and then I'm going to pull
in this profile card and just drop this
in here. So now, if we play this through you'll
see that we get this card that we just
created now. What I'm going to do is hit
'S' to bring up scale and just scale this
down a little bit. Then I'm going to come up
to Layer, New, and then Solid. Go ahead and
just name this one to 'Background.'
Make sure it's 1920 by 1080 and then
click 'OK.' Drag that beneath the profile
card, go ahead and bring up and add a
Fill Layer to this as well. Then we can
come into this color and I'm actually
going to set like a minty green–he's
going to be minty green Bill Gates. So, to do
that I'm going to type in a hex code
here of T, excuse me, not T, '2CE3A0.'
There we go, minty fresh Bill Gates!
There we go, so let's go ahead and click
'OK' and you can see here we get this
little, cool, simple little animation
going on. Now what we can do is go ahead
and just move this profile card and
animate that a little bit. So, to do that,
I'm going to hit 'P.' I'm going to come in to
about one second here. I want the
position to be here at its final or end
of the animation and then I'm going to
come in to the 'Y' and just move this up a
little bit. Then let's go ahead and make this a more
interesting animation by making it an
Easy Ease and just tweaking it here in
the Graph Editor. So let's just go ahead and
watch that through. We can go ahead and
move this here so we're just previewing
what we want. So I'm going to come in and
just drag this out so it's previewing the
first two seconds. There we go.
So I might make it a little bit more, a
little bit higher up, so let's just move
it a little bit higher–it kind of
creates this effect to that it's kind of
like a parallax effects, or something
kind of makes it look like Bill Gates is
kind of like not animating up. He is kind of
like this square is kind of revealing
him, so it's kind of a cool animation I
think. But now let's go ahead and add a
little bit of an opacity here, so just
doesn't start off, you know, seen. So to do
that, we can hit 'T' to bring up the
opacity, come here, and then come just
like half a second in or even this, 10
keyframes. And then go ahead and create a
new keyframe and then come back to this
one and set this one to zero.
And then we can go ahead and Easy Ease
this one as well and now let's go ahead
and just preview this out. Cool. So, I'm
thinking that looks good. Now what we can
do is go ahead and animate the name that
comes in and says 'Bill Gates.' So, what we
can do is that we can Command-T to bring
up the Text Tool. I'm going to click
here and just go ahead and type in and
all caps 'BILL GATES.' Then I want to
select this and talk about the the font
that we're using. So I'm using
Montserrat, which is a free font. I have
it set to light, I have the text size to
71, and I have the tracking to 96, or the
spacing between each characters. Now,
right now I need to come into the color
here and I'm actually going to make sure
that this is also the '1c,' which is this
black here. Then I'm going to click 'OK.'
Then what I'm going to do is create a new
Shape Layer. So, to do that I'm going to
come up to Layer. New, and then to Shape
Layer. And then I'm going to switch to my
Rectangle Tool. Then I'm just going to
kind of eyeball a rectangle here that's
going to fit nicely with this name, so
something like that I think looks good.
Then we can come into Rectangle and turn
off the Stroke and then under Fill we
can go ahead and just bump that up to a
hundred percent. And then make sure our
color here is that off-white color that
we use before for the circles. Then we
need to make sure that the Shape Layer is
beneath Bill Gates. And then we can just
kind of eyeball it and get into a spot
that we like. I can also do a Command-
Apostrophe to get an idea of, you know,
the spacing. And I can see that, you know,
Bill Gates could come over there–the
actual name can come over just a little
bit, and we could also move it down just
a tad.
So I think something like that looks
good. Then let's go ahead and just select
Bill Gates and the Shape Layer and then
just move this into the final position
that we want, so I think I want it to be
right in the–the center needs to be
right to the bottom of this profile card.
So let's go ahead and just see what that
looks like. Okay, I think that looks nice.
And now what we need to do is–I'm just
going to animate this, this rectangle so
it comes in from the left to the right.
Now, the first thing I want to do is I
need to make sure that the Anchor Point
is set here to this left side. Now, if
you've watched my tutorials in the past,
I use this Reposition Anchor Point Tool here, that's a name your price tool
from, you know, AE scripts that you can
download, and I'll put a link in the
description. But if you click here on the
left and then click on 'Reposition,' you'll
see that the Anchor Point now is set
here to this. Now what that–why that
matters is that when I use the Scale
property, it's going to be scaling from
this side, therefore animating from here
to the right. So let's go ahead and get
out of this Graph Editor and come into
the Shape Layer. I'm going to hit 'S' to
bring up Scale and then I'm going to
make sure that this is no longer linked,
so it's not scaling proportionally. I'm
going to set a scale here and then about,
you know, one second and we can go ahead
and set another keyframe here and then
move back to this original. And for the 'X'
I want to set that to zero then I can go
ahead and Easy Ease this last keyframe
and tweak that in the Graph Editor.
And then go ahead and just watch this out.
Cool! So you can see how that animates
that name in nicely. Now let's use this
animation to reveal this Bill Gates. So,
to do that I want to duplicate this
Shape Layer, drag it on top, and then I'm
actually going to come in and expand
this and come in to Contents, Rectangle
and then the Rectangle Path, and I'm
wanting to uncheck this and then make it
just a little fatter because what I'm
going to do is add a Gaussian Blur to this
to kind of give it a a cool, like, smooth
transition reveal. But I want to make a
little taller because the Gaussian Blur
is going to kind of make some of the
edges come in, so to do that I'm going to
come to the 'Y' here and just make it a
little fatter. So, just a little bit, not
much, and then I'm going to come in and make
sure that I have Gaussian Blur added to
this. So let's come into our Effects and
Presets, type in 'Gaussian Blur,' come here
to under Blur and Sharpen, and then drop
that on to layer two. Then we can come into the blurriness and just crank this up.
I'm actually going to hold Shift quite a
bit and just crank that up. You can see
what I mean, so, how the edges are getting
soft, but what we can do is then still
come into the Contents here and just
maybe make this a little wider because I
want the Bill Gates to be hidden–there
we go.
I think that looks good, so just enough
there to kind of give it a nice–you see
how like the edges are a little softer?
They're not as hard. So now what we can
do is we can say 'use this as a track matte
for Bill Gates.' Now, right now you can see
my viewpoint doesn't give me the Track
Matte option, but if I come down to Toggle
Switches and Modes, you can see here that
Track Matte is now visible. And under
Bill Gates I can set this Track Matte to
'Alpha Shape Layer 2.' Now, when we play
through this, you'll see how, like, the
edges of this text that's being revealed
are nice and soft–it's a nice soft
transition and that's because we added
that Gaussian Blur. And I think it just
gives it a nice effect here. So let's just
go ahead and play this through and see that.
Cool! I think it looks good. So, let's go
ahead and just zoom out here and see
what we have. Excellent! Now there's one
more thing I want to do and that's to
just animate these three layers to kind
of come from the left a little bit and
then slide to the right. So, to do that,
what I'm going to actually do is create
a new layer here and I'm going to create a
Null Object, and I'm going to name this Null
Object just, like, 'Name Movement.' And then
I'm going to come into each of these
three layers that we just created and
under Parent and Link, I'm going to set that
to this Name Movement. Now I can just use this Null Object to animate both of
these. So let's come into this Name
Movement, hit 'P,' and we can set a keyframe
here. And then at one second we can set a
keyframe to be
this position. Then come back to this
start, and on the X-value we can go ahead
and just move that to the left a little
bit, not not too much, just a little bit.
And then go ahead and do the Easy Ease
for this as well and then tweak that
in the Graph Editor. Now let's go ahead and
just preview this out and you can see
now how it kind of–everything kind of
slides in from the left. I think it just
gives it a little bit of a nicer feel it–
kind of more of like a revealing effect.
Cool! And now what we can do is go ahead
and export our project. So to do that we
can come up to File, let's come to Export.
We can either add this to Media Encoder
or we can add it to the Render Queue,
which is within After Effects.
Then we can come into our output mode
and let's go ahead and change this to
QuickTime, but under format options let's
instead of setting that to 'Animation,'
let's set it to Apple ProRes 422. We can
click 'OK,' then we can go ahead and make
sure that we have the channel set to RGB.
Let's go ahead and click 'OK.' Then we can
output to a specific area, so let's go
ahead and pick our spot here. Name this
whatever we want, so let's just do 'example -3.' Click Save, and then we can go ahead
and click Render to preview our final
image!
