After effects: lesson 1

 

This clock was simple to animate. The individual assets were given to us in a compressed folder e.g. the clock face, number, hands etc. 

On creating a new composition I named it and saved it straight away. Then imported my files by double clicking in the project window. I then dropped them into the timeline, rearranging layers to make sure all the assets were visible.

Here all that needed to be animated was the hands. This involves rotating and moving the pivot point from the middle of the minute hand layer(for example) to the bottom. With all layers in after affects, the pivot point/ anchor point with always be in the middle unless you want it otherwise.

I added different numbers of rotations for the different hands e.g. 5 rotations in 2 seconds for the second hand, 2 rotations in 2 seconds for the minute hand and 1 rotation in 2 seconds for the hour hand. This way they move at different speeds.