Now we have officially started to use the timeline to create animations. This is very different from our previous frame-based animation, but in comparison, the timeline method is more intuitive and simple, and it will also be our main production method in the future.
Following the content of the previous lesson, start setting up the animation of "coming and going quietly". Expand the animation project of this text layer in the Timeline palette, as shown in the figure below. Make sure the current time is 0:00:00:00, and note that the time mark at the red arrow should be at the far left, which means it is at the starting time.
Then use the move tool to move "Quietly Come and Go" to the right end of the screen. Then click the stopwatch button at the orange arrow
, which means that the "Position" animation project is started, and the current position of the text layer (the rightmost end of the screen) is recorded at the starting moment. The yellow diamond that appears in the timeline area is a sign that the record is contained there. This is also called a key frame, which is a key frame of the timeline. It is different from the transition frame animation we learned before.
Pull the time marker to the far right and use the move tool to move the text to the far left of the screen. At this time, you will see a keyframe automatically generated at the marker on the timeline. As shown in the picture below, and notice that there is a diamond-shaped "Delete/Add" button at the red arrow
, if this button is pressed at this time, the established keyframe at the time mark will be deleted. If there is no keyframe at the benchmark, click to create a new frame.
It should be noted that here our time benchmark can only be pulled to the right at most 04:04, not 05:00. This is because 05:00 is the moment when the animation finally ends, which is the moment of "the end of the last frame", but what we need to set now is the state of "the beginning of the last frame", and the last frame itself will stay for a while time. So the benchmark will not be at 05:00. Remember that frame is the smallest unit.
Through the above settings, we have completed the position movement setting of the "Quietly Come and Go" text. Next, set its transparency change. Let's make a simple one first, which is to fade in from the beginning, fully appear halfway through, and then fade out until the end. This requires 3 keyframes to set. Set it to 0% at the beginning, 100% at half time, and set it to 0% at the end. Approximately as shown below. Note that transparency changes cannot be achieved by hiding layers in timeline mode.
After we set keyframe 1 to 0% in the first step, if we pull the time marker backwards, we will find that the transparency is 0% at all times. After setting keyframe 2 in the second step, you will find that there is a transition effect between 12, but after keyframe 2 until the end, the text is always displayed. This brings out a very important property of the timeline: the keyframe settings at a certain moment will affect all times after that moment. Therefore, the setting of key frame 1 causes the text layer to be 0% for all subsequent periods (between 12 and 23). When key frame 2 is set, a transition is formed between 12 and 23, and the entire process between 23 and 23 becomes 100%. Until key frame 3 is set, a transition is formed between 23.
In terms of setting order, it is not necessary to completely follow the above order. "Come and go quietly" is originally 100%, so we can create keyframes at half the time without setting the opacity, because it should be set to 100% at this time. Then create keyframes at the start and end moments and adjust them to 0%.
Undo the previous settings and follow the new order, that is, change the order from 1, 2, 3 to 2, 1, 3. Since the opacity of the start and end moments (1 and 2) is the same, we can do this by copy-pasting the keyframes. First create these two key frames. After setting the starting time, mark the key frame in the timeline.
Right-click on it and select "Copy Keyframe", then right-click on the end moment mark and select "Paste Keyframe", thus copying the settings of the former to the latter. The order can also be reversed. This method works across all existing keyframes.
Recall the fade-in and fade-out mentioned earlier when learning transition frame animation production. You will know that the effect of the current 3-frame setting is not ideal. The fade-in and fade-out processes should be shortened to allow the text to move during the movement. Remain fully manifest most of the time. Now we will modify it based on the previous 3 frames.
You may want to add two more frames before and after the original frame 2, as shown at the top of the figure below. In fact, just move the original frame 2 as shown below, and then add a new frame. Its settings can be copied from the original frame 2. In this way we have completed the fade in and fade out modifications.
From the above operations, we can summarize a basic feature of timeline animation, which is to separate each animation project independently, and modifications to one of the projects will not affect other projects. For example, when we modify "Transparency", we don't need to consider the "position" set earlier. In addition, the keyframe settings of each project are allowed to be different, so there is no need to worry about unifying the number of keyframes.
There is an issue that needs to be noted about adding keyframes, and that is the difference between automatic addition and manual addition. When clicking the stopwatch button of an item Then, the project will establish a keyframe at the time benchmark and automatically track changes in the project in other time ranges. This means that if you move the time marker to a new location and make changes to that item on the layer, a new frame will automatically be created at the current marker. If you have not made any changes and want to create keyframes, you need to manually click the button (note that clicking on an existing frame will delete the frame). Click on the previous frame
and next frame button to jump between keyframes. You can also directly right-click on the keyframe and select delete the frame.
Generally speaking, we click the stopwatch button at the beginning of the animation Establish the first keyframe, then move the marker to the appropriate moment, make corresponding changes to the layer, and get a new automatic keyframe. Complete the entire setting process over and over again. Relatively speaking, there are not many opportunities to manually create frames, because they are all for setting, and the effect is not much different from automatically added frames. In later lessons, manual addition of frames will be used when creating acceleration and deceleration effects.
In addition to a single project, multiple animation projects can also be set at the same time, and they will be automatically tracked. Now we move the time benchmark to the starting moment, as shown in the figure below, start the corresponding animation projects of "Go and Stay" and "Shape 1", then pull the time benchmark to different moments, change the position and opacity accordingly. Frame marks will be left wherever there are changes.
It should be noted that since "Shape 1" is a vector mask layer, to record its position movement you must use the "Vector Mask Position" item instead of "Position".
Another thing to mention is the render buffer indicator mentioned in the previous lesson. You may have discovered that when playing and pulling the time benchmark, the render buffer indicator in the corresponding area will be filled, which means that Photoshop has The specific content of the animation is stored in the system cache, which can improve the speed when playing again. But if changes are made to the animation, the render buffer will be cleared. The animations we are making now are relatively simple, so buffering or not is the same. But if you make some more complex animations in the future, especially when there are multiple images mixed with each other in the animation, the difference in buffering will be reflected.
In this lesson, we learned the main ways to create animations using the timeline method. Compared with the frame transition method we learned earlier, the timeline method is not only faster to create, but also extremely convenient to modify. From now on we will do the vast majority of animations this way. So far we have explained the basic knowledge of animation production. The following courses will explain some more advanced techniques and how to create animations suitable for different media such as web pages and mobile phones.
In the next section we introduce how to use layer styles to create animations .