we have our spacing but it still looks a little bare and that's because we don't have any stars. Of course we need some stars to create stars. We're going to use a solid layer and an effect. So go create layer new solid and make it white. And I don't know if you remember this but a while ago when we were learning about solids, I talked about using them with effects and this is an example. Find the Sisi star burst effect in your effects and presets and drag it onto your white solid automatically the solid turns into this sort of star like field with all these little circles. But if you play through it you can see that the stars are actually moving. So if I turn off all these other layers, play through this. You know this is a cool effect in itself but I actually don't want our stars to be moving because we already have a camera move that will make it look like we're moving in space. So there are some settings that we want to play around with one is the speed. So I'm going to set the spe...

ed to zero. So now these dots just stay still the next. I want them to be smaller. So with the size I'm just gonna make them really small, Something like 20, it doesn't even let you go below 20 but 20 is perfect. Next I'm going to put this behind all of our other layers. Now this is cool but if I play through this it doesn't necessarily look that good because the stars would probably be moving a bit while we're zooming out from the sun. So what we can do is just a quick scale animation. So bring up the scale for this solid At the end we will set it to 100%. And then at the beginning we'll make it like 120 or so. And by doing that it looks like it's shrinking or it looks like you're sort of zooming out. There's a different way. We could have done this by putting it in three D. Space which will show you in just a second. But just that simple scale animation I think looks fine. So let's actually delete that key frame that both of those key frames and turn on three D. For this layer, you'll notice when I do that it disappears and that's because it won't be seen until at the very end when we see the Earth because it's on the same sort of plain as the Earth have the same point in Z. Space. So if we bring up our position for the Earth and for our white solid which I'll rename stars. Well see we're at zero Z. Space, we want our stars to be behind the sun. So if I go forward or even if I stay at the end and I drag this down or if I type in behind the sun which is what 20,000. So let's just put it at 21,000. So it's behind the sun but now we don't see it. If we go to the start of the composition we see it but at the end it's so small it's only stars in this little rectangle. So let's bring up the scale, press s to bring up scale, drag it up all the way until it's filling the complete frame at the end of our scene. So now you have your stars and you can see them from the beginning to the end of the composition. Both ways looked pretty good. I actually liked the first way that I added the subtle motion with the scale animation just because the stars are a lot further back than the sun and I'd want them to look like it's animating a little bit different. Here are both options. Here is the one with the original scale animation. I like the subtlety of it. There's not too much motion even when we're zoomed in on the sun we know those other stars are really, really far away and so they should be moving more slowly compared to the other option which we did with the three D. Layer. There's no right or wrong and you can kind of see which way you like better. But this is also a good example of how you can use both three D layers and non three D layers in a single composition. And just to clarify. So if I have the other stars, the non three D. Stars, The 3D layer, this layer doesn't get affected by the camera motion at all. What's being animated is the scale with key frames, but none of the other camera animations with the null object or anything will affect what this layer looks like. Only layers that are enabled for three D are affected by that. Alright. I hope you liked this section of the course about three D animations. Now you can use these techniques and all of your other motion graphics and projects. We will be diving into using lights and building out even more advanced 3D compositions in a future lesson. But for now, you know the basics and we're going to move on to some other effects that are important and just kind of understanding how you can work with more effects from the effects and presets tab. Thanks for watching and have a great day.

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Create Stars in After Effects

Create Stars in After Effects

Lesson Info

56. Create Stars in After Effects

Lessons

Class Updates & My Favorite CC 2020 Updates

Understand the After Effects Workspace

Starting a New Composition

CC 2018 Update - Starting a New Composition from Footage

Adding Media to Your Project and the Timeline

Using the Basic After Effects Tools

Create a Perfect Circle, Alignment, and Shape Colors

Working in the Timeline

Layer Properties

Quiz: After Effects Basics

Animating in After Effects

Position, Scale, and Rotation Animations

Tips to Make Your Animations Look More Nautral

Using the Graph Editor

Challenge - Bouncing Ball

Solution - Bouncing Ball

Quiz: Animating with Keyframes

Working with Solid Layers and the Ken Burns Effects

Working with Shape Layers, Strokes, and Paths

Adding Layer Styles like Drop Shadow, Bevel, and Gradients

Shape Effects - Trim Path Animations, Wiggle, and Zig Zag

Quiz: Shapes and Solid Layers

Track Matte Animations - Make Layers Appear and Disappear

Using Pre-Compositions to Group Layers

Easily Reverse Complicated Animations

Playing with Time

Blend Modes

Stabilize Shaky Footage

CC 2018 Update - Previewing and Favoriting Fonts

CC 2019 Update - Responsive Design Time

CC 2019 Content Aware Fill

CC 2019 Create Motion Graphic Templates

Quiz: Important After Effects Skills

Intro to Motion Graphics Projects

Clean Lower Third

Logo Reveal Animation Bumper

Colorful Transition

Text with Mask Path Animation

Text Bubble Animation

Weather App 1

Weather App 2

Weather App 3

Quiz: Motion Graphics Projects

Flat Animation Challenge

Phil Designs his Flat Animation Scene

Animating Fireworks with the Repeater Effect

Removing Green Screen Background

Adding a Background that Matches the Foreground

Adding Motion to a Still Image with the Puppet Tool

Adding Movement with the Ripple Effect

Quiz: Flat Animation Challenge

Intro to 3D

Swinging 3D Text Animation

Build Out Your 3D Composition

Animating Our 3D Scene

Create Stars in After Effects

Quiz: Green Screen (Chromakeying)

Using the Rotoscope Tool

Cleaning Up Your Edges

Finishing Our Rotobrush Animation

Quiz: 3D Animations and the Camera Tool

Easy Screen Replacement with Masks

Replacing a Screen Version 2

Screen Replacement with Mocha

CC 2019 Update - Native Mocha AE Plugin

Quiz: Rotoscoping

Using the Puppet Pin Tool

Animating Your Puppet Pins

Animated Blinking Eyes

Adding Perspective with Animated Clouds

CC 2018 Update - Advanced Puppet Pin Tool

Quiz: Screen Replacements

Applying Text Animation Presets

Create a Page Turn Effect with CC Page Turn