After Effects Workshop Continued

To help myself further my understanding of After Effects I took part in another workshop in which we were creating Neon Graphics:

1) Firstly we had to have a picture to base it upon so I went into Google and found an image I liked of a neon sign. I saved this and then imported it into a blank composition on After Effects. I made sure to set the background to black as this would add to the neon effect.

2) Next we had to take the pen tool which is in the top left hand corner and use this to trace over the shape in my case following the letters of the neon sign. I only did half the sign as it was taking a long time and It was only a practice. When you first do this it fills in the areas in between your lines which you don't want it to do so instead make sure you go onto fill option in the drop down menu in the bottom left corner and backspace when clicked on fill and it will remove this fill and just have the letter like so.

3) I then went again into the shape settings in the bottom left hand corner and this time to give my shape some more curviness I went into Stoke 1 and expanded this menu and found the settings called Line Cap and Line Join. To add the curviness I changed these two settings to Round Cap and Round Join.

4) I then removed the image which I had been using as my guide by clicking on the eye icon again in the bottom left hand corner. I could now focus on my own shape I had created. To make it look like more of a glow I duplicated this shape but went in to the colours setting of my duplication and changed it to a neon blue colour. I then expanded the options for my duplicated shape again in the bottom left hand corner and increased the stoke size so that I end up with white surrounding by blue.

5) I then went into the effects and presets menu which is on the right hand side of the screen and here I searched for a glow effect. Once I found one I applied it to both my original shape and my duplicated and then played in the setting to add luminosity to it as well until I was happy with the effect.

6) I then wanted to animate my writing so that it looked like it was being written out so to do this I clicked on add which was an option next to the shape tab in the bottom left hand corner again. I then in this menu clicked trim path. This then allowed me an option in the shape menu called trim path. I went onto this and using key frames I changed the values so that it started on a blank screen. I then moved on my timeline to where I wanted the writing to be written out by and increased the values up and this added a new key frame for me. This then meant it was written out for me.

7) Now I had achieved what I needed to I then began to experiment with other effects from the effects menu which added some really interesting styles to it. I particularly liked wiggle as it made it look like electric.

Here is the small animation which I created: