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There’s nothing quite as magical as being able to juxtapose images, scenes, and people into the composition you are creating. It is the key, pardon me, of creativity. While we associate keying with our modern film and digital composting, ‘chroma key’, ‘color keying’, ‘blue screen’ is actually a relatively old process dating to the very earliest movie and television productions.

In the 1930′s two techniques were created simultaneously that are fundamental and widely used for creating virtual video and animation, the use of ‘mattes’ and ‘keying’. The matte then as now is simply creating a scene to be projected ‘on top of’ the subject, ‘behind’ the subject. Concepts such as cut outs, literally painting a background onto glass that was placed before the camera during the video shoot and in our world of After Effects creating a ‘matte layer’, ‘mask matte’, create the illusion of this imagery as the true background of the video. This allows your actor to be in African jungles, atop great mountains, and standing before stampeding buffalo.

The companion technique is the ‘blue screen’, the keying. Whatever your subject is doing, he/she must be cleanly separated from their true backdrop to be realistically placed against the matte layer. The actor was photographed against a blue background. This blue or green background was chosen primarily because of the contrast to human skin color. These colors made it easier to separate the subject from the background. Subtle techniques of special film and filters, using black and white negative images were used to extract the subject as carefully as possible from the ‘blue screen’. As this technique was developed, much simpler more commonplace applications became popular. The ‘meteorologist screen’ uses the same technique to allow the weatherman to stand before his weather maps when he shares the weather news with us. He is filmed before a blue screen, then placed on a weather map layer.

In it’s most sophisticated stage, the older forms of keying required several steps of film development, processing the matte and blue screen extraction, synchronization of the two to produce a seamless product. Fortunately for us, After Effects has a category of keying effects that allow us to create very credible results in only minutes.

In recent days, it is not unusual to see Indian children chatting about mythological stories of Indian culture like Ramayana, Mahabharata and the legendary characters such as Lord Hanuman, Lord Ganesha, Lord Krishna and many more. This re-introduction to the Indian culture can be attributed to the enthralling animated movies that have summarized the good old Indian epics for our young generation. And who could forget the ever so famous characters Tom & Jerry, Mowgli, Stuart Little, Popeye, and many more that were brought to life by animation. In this world of animation, inert images are brought to life through diverse tools and techniques.

Animation finds its place in the filming industry and in television but there are several other areas that animation plays a large part in. The biggest scope for animation comes from the gaming industry. –
Animation hit upon its place in the film and television industry, however there are quite a lot of other areas that animation plays a vital role in. The leading scope for animation comes from the gaming industry. The archetypal roles for people hunting animation as a profession in computers, depending upon their skills, consist of digital film animator, visual artists, graphics designer, senior animator, web artist or web designer.

The essential prerequisites for animation as a career, despite knowing the essentials in computer education, engage an unusual skill and startling versatility in drawing. A person who takes pleasure in drawing and computers can simply make a winning career out of computer animation. Associate degree in Animation normally takes about two years, and most individuals can start working straight away after graduation.

Those animators who acquire a higher level of education are typically the ones who are proposed the superior positions as they come available. Salary can vary from employer-to-employer, but many animators are able to set their own working hours and prices for the work they do, if they decide to freelance. Career as an animator will be more than rewarding for a person who is full of creativity and it offers a real sense of fulfillment when you see how much others valued your work.

‘Things’ happening with their own will and momentum is probably at the heart of animation. Objects, characters, and images come alive, begin moving and seem to have a life and plan of their own.

This is one of the most popular techniques to highlight your logo, highlight your company or brand name and capture your audience attention with clever use of text and images that come alive.

The ‘stroke’ effect is perfect for having your special message appear, appear gradually with the mood and theme of your composition.

In a very simple illustration these step describe how to use After Effects tools to create a parchment ‘Spirit Writing’ that will add intrigue with subtle text animation to your web site.

This parchment reveals the mysterious spirit writing against a soft brown parchment. The mysterious appearance of the text is accompanied with an equally easy to apply effect, a light illuminating the text.

The light is quite easy, simply choose ‘new light’, give it a name that will help you associate it with it’s effect. For this simple animation, stick with the default ‘Spot’ light setting and other default settings but bring your cone angle down to about 30%. You want the light to be nearly closed at the beginning of your animation.

You are going to animate the cone effect, allowing it to spread more light against the parchment as the animated text appears. Experiment with the brightness, the ‘intensity’ setting but the default of 100% is probably just fine. To animate your cone opening, click the time clock for the cone angle setting, this will create a keyframe, then move toward the end of your timeline and open the cone to say, 80%, almost a fully opened light. When you enter this different value, it will create a second keyframe at that point on the timeline. As you scroll across you time line you will see this effect, the light opening up gradually and illuminating your writing surface, the parchment.

To use stroke, choose and place your text, in this case ‘Spirit Writing’. I chose ‘Montype Corsiva’ for my parchment text because of the Latin, ancient appearance of the font. Apply your stroke effect using the ‘start’ and ‘end’ parameters. Setting start to 0%, then enter clock for end setting to initiate the animation for this setting at the very beginning of the time frame. This will have start and end at 0 at the very beginning. Move down the timeline about ten frames, enter another keyframe with end still set to 0%.

This will be that first almost undetectable moment of anticipation where actually, nothing happens, but this anticipation is an important subtle effect in animation. Now move down the timeline and enter a value of 100% for ‘end’ about three fourths of the way through your composition. This 100% setting is where the stoke will be complete, will ‘end’ and the text will be fully written. Leaving just a few more frames at the end of your composition will allow the completed animation to pause.

As the light opens, your text slowly appears, lingering for the last few seconds after completely opening.

Using After effects text animation is one of the basic tools in logo animation. When it comes to media animation one of the first design decisions and which tool is best for the job depends on if your logo is primarily text and can be represented using a text tool the animations that are available for text.

Let’s first look at how you would go about animating your logo if it is primarily a text logo with some graphic highlights. One of the most powerful set of presets in the Adobe After Effects arsenal is the text animations. Just about everything you can imagine, everything you have seen from text tumbling out of the sky, to sliding in from one side or another, to changing colors and glowing is available as a text preset.

For a simple experiment, use the text tool to create your logo text, choosing your characteristic font. Create a simple backdrop that contrasts with your text. Directly across from the text ‘twirl down’ arrow is the ‘Animate’ feature with it’s twirl down set of animate features. Choose ‘position’ under animate. You will immediately see a new component under your text, ‘Animator 1′ with it’s own position component and a ‘Range Selector’. Twirl open the range selector to see ‘start’, ‘end’, and ‘offset’ options, each with it’s own stopwatch indicating that each property can be animated.

We know about ‘a picture says a thousand words’. For a quick illustration to see how simple it is to set up an animation using these basic settings, set the range selector to it’s default values of 0% for Start, 100% for End, and 0% for Offset. Set the range selector position 0,-200 (0 for x offset, -200 for y offset). This setting for y will position your text above your stage.

Click on the stopwatch at time ’0′, move your timeline to 3 seconds and move the Start value to 100%. Scrub the timeline then preview your animation. You will see your text falling ‘out of the sky’. For one simple setting that will add another touch of diversity with a single switch, look under the ‘Advanced’ section of your Range Selector for ‘Randomized Order’ and click this from off to on. Now when your characters animate onto the stage, they appear randomly. This is a very popular effect with movie and television introductions, commercials, and of course, web site logos.

Among the modern genres of painting, Geometric Abstraction stands as a purportedly simplistic and precise, non-figurative sect. Although, some schools of thought believe that it came into being around 1950, but actually, it has been there throughout various cultures, since ancient times. Islamic Art and architecture dating back to as early as the seventh century have shown the examples of prevalent Geometric Abstraction, which had some impact on the development of Western Art. In the twentieth century also, some of the contemporary art forms like Minimalistic Art, adopted Geometric Abstraction, partially or wholly.

The Details
The signature characteristics of Geometrical Abstraction were tightly patterned geometrical figures, vibrant colors, and an effective use of space. These abstractionists continued the work in two-dimensions to produce flat designs. Synthetic Cubism, characterized by abstract space, synthesized shapes, and constructional layout, became the defining influence on Geometric Abstraction. Other Cubist techniques of papiers collés and collage also had a profound impact on this style, where the inherent flatness of the composition and the interrelation of the various Geometric components ‘spoke’ a pictorial language. The ‘realistic’ existence of forms and spaces ceased to have relevance for the Geometric Abstractionists, who made conscious attempts to strip down their portrayal to the linear existence of the visible aspects. Like most of the Abstract Art genres, Geometric Expression put a primer on the color schemes. The themes of the works mainly drove the color choice.

The Artists & Artworks
Kazimir Malevichs ‘Black Square’ is a monochrome design, whereas Piet Mondrian’s ‘Composition No. 10′ (1939-42) is composed of the sections of fundamental colors – red, blue, and yellow. Among the leading names associated with Geometric Abstraction included Frank Stella, Josef Albers, Richard Anuszkiewicz, Frantisek Kupka, Ellsworth Kelly, Tony DeLap, Wassily Kandinsky, Ronald Davis, Kazimir Malevich, Sándor Bortnyik,Alexander Rodchenko, Theo van Doesburg, Sophie Taeuber-Arp, Piet Mondrian, Peter Graham, Victor Vasarely, Lajos Kassák, Peter Laszlo Peri, Max Bill, Nadir Afonso, Vieira da Silva, Kenneth Noland, Jack Reilly, Gordon Walters, John Levee, Thomas Downing, Burgoyne Diller, Leon Goldin, Sean Scully, Günter Fruhtrunk, Ilya Bolotowsky, George Johnson, and Larry Zox.

In 1965, an exhibition named ‘The Responsive Eye’ was held in the Museum of Modern Art, New York, which bolstered the cause of Modern Art, particularly Geometric Abstraction, greatly. According to the famous art curator William Seitz, the purpose of this exhibition was “….. to dramatize the power of static forms and colors to stimulate dynamic psychological responses.”

Conclusion
Geometric Abstraction, through its revolutionary expressions, became a strong influence on fashion, object display, commercial designing, and various other elements in the contemporary society.