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Use still images as keyframes?
I know I’m a n00b, but I’ve been tearing out clumps of hair trying to figure out a way to use a sequence of still images (created in Photoshop) as keyframes that AE will then create the tweening for. I’m trying to animate distortion of a logo image timed to some music.
Now, in an attempt to forestall a hailstorm of responses to things I’m not trying to do:
1. I do not want to create an anim in Photoshop and import that into AE for very good reason: I need to have certain keyframes linked to beats in a piece of vintage rock’n’roll (about 45 seconds worth), and the tempo drifts. Therefore, I can’t create an evenly timed measure’s worth of animation and loop it in AE, no matter how carefully I compute frames, because the tempo drifts.
2. I do not want to attempt to use the basic logo image, and animate it in AE with effects. I’ve spent days trying to get the exact kind of motion I want using every AE effect I can find, and there simply is not enough control with any of them (that I can find) to get the exact kind of motion I can create (and have created) in Photoshop. (I won’t beat it to death, but I really did spend days trying that approach, and cannot get the same distortion that I can in Photoshop. And yes, I did try the puppet tools.)
3. I do not want to put the seven keyframe images on different layers and animate their opacity sequentially to the beat; that creates the right motion—but makes them fade in and out over each other in the tweens. (That ripping sound is merely another clump of hair being torn out.)
I have the downbeats of the music as keyframes in AE, so if I simply could find a way to place my keyframe images in relation to those in the sequence I want, and have them animate, I’d have it. But I can’t figure out any way to do it!
Any ideas?
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1 Reply
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Dave LaRonde: You’re confusing the traditional notion of keyframes with AE’s very different notion of keyframes.
Hi Dave. Thanks for your response. I don’t think I was confusing any disciplines or notion; just wanting to bend AE to my will. 🙂
Dave LaRonde: There is NO SUCH THING as automatic in-betweening of still images. in AE.
Hm. Well, as it turns out, since my original post I’ve discovered that by using Effects/Distort/Corner Pin in AE, and keyframing each major “pose” that I want of the logo graphic, AE is doing a yoemanlike job indeed of “tweening” (by whatever notion), and making that sucker dance very fluidly. In fact, it’s more “organic” than what I originally had created in Photoshop, and I like it better.
I took the vintage rock audio into Digital Performer and added kick and snare parts using MIDI, then adjusted the tempo measure-by-measure to match the original audio, then exported just the added kick and snare and pulled those into AE. Now with their waveforms I’ve got very clear markers of the major beats, which line up perfectly with the original audio file, and currently am in the process of animating the logo in AE to those beats using Corner Pin distortion. So far, I’m very pleasantly surprised with the results I’m getting.
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