DECEMBER 02, 2003
After Effects Project: Squiddies
Using Wave Warp to add a swishing tail.
 by Stephen Schleicher
Page 2 of 3

Create a New Composition and name it Squiddy. Since I am really only showing you how to set up the animation, you can make the length as long as you like. Also, change the Background Color to something other than Black so the mic and cable stand out better.

[an error occurred while processing this directive]Add the Microphone and Cable objects to the Timeline. These elements are quite large as they were captured at 1600x1200 to allow for scaling of the objects.



Parent the Cable layer to the Microphone layer by using the Pickwhip.



Now that the Cable is parented to the Microphone layer, select the Microphone layer in the Timeline and press the S key on the keyboard to bring up the Scale property for the layer.

Scale the Microphone layer to a useable size. In this exercise I started at 20%, but you can use different sizes to give a sense of depth to your composition. Because the Cable layer is parented to the Microphone layer, the cable also shrinks in size.



Now position the Cable layer behind the end of the mic.

To the Cable layer apply the Wave Warp effect. Wave Warp distorts your layer in a wave pattern. Many users may have never used this effect because when applying it to a full screen layer, creates less than desirable results.



However, if you apply this to a masked layer, or to a layer with a straight line, the results change dramatically.

In this image, a white cropped solid turns into a wavy line.




Source: Digital Media Online, Inc.
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