Exporting your animation

After Effects provides a variety of options for integrating an animation with Flash, such as video output, Flash video, and image sequences. You can also export a SWF file from After Effects. However, the 3D layers are not supported in the current SWF files exported from After Effects.

In this part you will export your 3D animation from After Effects as a PNG image sequence to preserve the transparency to Flash:

1. Choose File > Export > Image Sequence.
2. In the Export Image Sequence dialog box, set the exporting format to PNG.
3. Enter 30 as the Frames per Second value.

4. Click the Options button and choose Millions of Colors+ from the PNG Options dialog box so you can export the image sequence with an alpha channel (see Figure 6).

   

   Figure 6. Exporting the star animation as a PNG sequence

5. Name your image sequence Comp 1 and click OK to save your changes.

Animating the 3D layer

To give you a greater understanding of the 3D layer option, give your star some dimensionality by animating it in 3D space. Animation in After Effects is similar to animation in Flash; it depends on keyframes. To animate a layer with keyframes, you must first activate the stopwatch beside the layer property that you intend to change. By activating the stopwatch, you set the initial keyframe of the animation. The Keyframe Navigator icon appears next to the layer property.

Before you start animating your star along the z-axis, give it a 3D dimensional look by rotating it around the x-axis:

1. To rotate the star along the x-axis, set the value of the x rotation to -72.0 degrees.
2. Make sure that the current-time indicator is at the first frame of the Timeline.
3. Click the stopwatch next to the Z Rotation property to enable animation for that property and set the first keyframe.
4. Go to the last frame of the Timeline and rotate the star 360 degrees around the z-axis. You can either set the degree value of the z rotation to 360 or set the revolutions value to 1.

5. Drag the current-time indicator at the top of the Timeline panel to see how the star rotates in 3D space (see Figure 5).

   

   Figure 5. Star animation in the Composition panel

You can apply the above 3D properties and animation in the 3D space to other objects like text, shapes, images, or compositions

Converting a 2D layer into a 3D layer

After Effects uses two dimensions (x, y) to display the 2D layer. When you convert the layer to a 3D layer, After Effects adds a z-axis, which controls the position of your graphic in 3D space. After Effects adds the following layer properties to the 3D layer (see also Figure 4):

• Anchor Point (z)
• Position (z)
• Orientation (z)
• X Rotation
• Y Rotation
• Z Rotation

Figure 4. 3D layer added to the Timeline panel

Note: To help simulate three dimensions, the Material Options properties that are also added determine how the layer interacts with an arbitrary "light source" that you specify.

To convert the 2D layer to a 3D layer, click the 3D Layer switch in the Timeline panel or choose 3D Layer from the Layer menu.

Importing your work into After Effects

After Effects saves links to the project resources as footage items in the Project panel. Footage items are then used as layers in a composition.

To import your graphic to After Effects:

1. Launch After Effects 7.0. By default a new project is open. You can also choose File > New Project.
2. To create a new composition, select Composition > New Composition.

3. The Composition Settings dialog box appears. Set the composition settings as following:

• Insert Star Composition as the name of your composition in the Composition Name text box.
• Choose Custom from the Preset pop-up menu.
• Set the width to 640 and the height to 480 pixels.
• Choose Square Pixels from the Pixel Aspect Ratio pop-up menu (Frame Aspect Ratio: 4:3).
• Set the Frame rate to 30 frames per second.
• Set the Resolution to Full.
• Set the Start Timecode to 0;00;00;00.
• Set the Duration to 0;00;01;00.

4. Click OK to accept these settings (see Figure 2).

   

   Figure 2. Composition settings in After Effects

5. To import the graphic, choose File > Import > File.
6. Choose star.png and click Open.
7. Drag the star footage item from the Project panel to your Composition panel. By default, After Effects inserts it on a new layer in the Timeline panel.

8. Expand the layer properties by clicking the right arrow next to the layer name and examine the Transform properties (see Figure 3).

   

   Figure 3. Examining the 2D properties of the star layer

Exporting your work from Flash

Let's start out by first creating a simple 2D star in Flash:

1. Launch Flash Professional 8, create a blank document, and name it star_graphic.fla.
2. Click and hold the Rectangle tool and choose PolyStar Tool from the pop-up menu.
3. Click the Option button in the Properties panel, set the properties of the PolyStar tool to Star, and the number of sides to 5. Set the Star Point Size property to 0.5.

4. Draw a star in the workspace (see Figure 1).

   

   Figure 1. Drawing a 2D star in Flash

You can export your graphic from Flash in a variety of formats that After Effects will recognize, such as AI, EPS, and PNG. For this example, export the Flash graphic as a PNG image:

1. Select File > Export > Export Image.
2. In the Export Image dialog box, select PNG from the Save as Type pop-up menu.
3. Name the image star.png and click Save to save the image.