Animate Venn Diagrams - Adobe After Effects Tutorial

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Venn Diagrams are rad. And in this week's *quality After Effects Tutorial we'll make them. And making them is as simple as drawing two circles and colouring. But in after Effects that can be a little tricky. But don't worry, thankfully this can be found in the area where things you want to do overlap with things I know how to do and things that are tutorials now. See what I did there? It's a venn diagram joke. Now known as a Venny! As in, that was a wicked venny!
Either way it's not that tough to make in after effects. It's a lot of parenting, pick whips, duplicating, and precomping. My god the pre-comps. You won't believe how many precomps you need to make this venn diagram... well a lot more if you are making a lot more intersections because of the limits of the alpha track matte and the stencil alpha blending mode... but that'll make sense when you do the tutorial.
Anyway, if this has been taxing go get the project file here: evanabrams.com/...
If you want to suggest a tutorial topic please do so here: docs.google.co....
If you have any questions just let me know in the comments.
Evanabrams.com
/ ecabrams
/ ecabra. .

[@ECAbrams]

well thanks. I did write a book on it once. Here's an excerpt: "I am the Alpha and the Luma, the Layer and the Composition, the Storyboard and the Render." - ECAbrams 22:13

[@ECAbrams]

Glad you like it. It's always a delicate balance with speed v watchability. Everyone's at a different pace so I'll never make everyone happy :)

[@EWColaCanada]

What makes a good tutorial: - "relatively" short video - detailed steps - humorous commentary

[@nateido]

I like that you're getting a little faster with each one. It's a nice progression for us as a bunch of us continue to follow you. It's now to the point where I know a lot of your initial workflow. Another great video bty.

[@cris2117]

I started to skip this tutorial, but I'm glad I didn't. This was good exercise in parenting, pre-composing, and expressions. Thanks a Thousand.

[@Wessam12345678910]

my first time using after effects and found it straight forward and manageable to follow :) thanks for the comprehensive explanations

[@Vova3iLvova]

mind=blown man how one even figures it out in the first place

[@FlavioTrillo]

Good one, again! BTW, I think you're getting faster and faster with these - I don't really mind, but I guess some people could be a little overwhelmed by some of the things you do rather speedily. But then again, there's no reason one couldn't pause the video, go back and follow every step. So all of what I just said is neither here nor there. Well done.

[@ECAbrams]

Any time. I'm glad you like what I do.

[@aiwubf]

I like to go along with your videos to make sure I'm matching up. I put the video on full screen on my second monitor so its almost a mirror of my AE window. I like the challenge

[@ECAbrams]

Linking videos in comments is tough but if you have a peruse of the ol tutorials playlist it's back there.

[@davidp158]

Outstanding tutorial, as usual. Evan, I nominate you for Patron Saint of AE Tutorials!

[@aiwubf]

Great tutorial. I love the way you go about explaining things, but I have to say I had to pause and restart a few times to catch up. I need to get faster with my editing! Thanks for the tutorial.

[@plummerdrummer2010]

Yeah, and the end result came out the same as yours and all the alpha channel "holes" worked out perfect! Im Beggining to understand the importance of expressions

[@luisvb24]

I just did it with five circles, and still working using your explanation, Again Thanks a lot!

[@ECAbrams]

Fantastic! So happy to hear that!

[@andresramirez487]

OMG, 2021 and saved my life, ty!

[@ECAbrams]

so it's like the text is made of bouncing jello? Can't say that's a thing that can be done with the text animation properties unfortunately.

[@ECAbrams]

But I'll put it on the list of tutorial suggestions. Mayhaps I will get to it in time.

[@michaelschmidt6106]

That’s good parenting Lol Great Video!! Thank you

[@ECAbrams]

No worries. Enjoy.

[@dylanoliver6028]

Insanely good. Didn't understand half of it but was able to follow along (just)!

[@ECAbrams]

Thanks great! If you have any questions please do let me know!

[@alistairdaynes8973]

beautiful tutorial, thanks Evan, you're a legend

[@nateido]

Love this one. I learned stuff. I'm still not sure, because it's still settling in, but I'm pretty sure I learned stuff.

[@ECAbrams]

I do have a tutorial where I talk about shape layers. Is that something you're looking for?

[@Johnkkke]

Thanks for the tutorials man! Huge fan!

[@__dogdeer]

you saved my life

[@ECAbrams]

Well.. maybe you don't have it linked up right before that step happens. If one property goes off the other should go off too, if you have them setup similarly no?

[@luisvb24]

Great Video!!!! Thanks a lot!!

[@beibbomap7510]

You've save my miserable student life twice. Much appreciated!

[@ECAbrams]

That's great. Glad you like it.

[@alexbarnet6982]

just an update, you can do this a little easier without precomps if you just want flat colours or gradients (not tetxures) by using merge paths with intersect mode. It worked for me with a triple venn .

[@Kutkop345]

Yo evan, could you make some advanced or more diverse text transitions that still look simple, but look better, the text bounces from left to right, stops and only the top will bounce around a little.

[@kuunami]

I don't mind the speed because although it is a bit fast at some parts I just kept going back until I caught on to what you were doing.

[@Kutkop345]

Yeah exactlyl, thats unfortunate, but other ways to transition text or do some funny stuff with the letters?

[@ECAbrams]

That would be quite the project. I'll see what I can do though.

[@Towelmaker123]

How do we add images as your end result shows: the last frame in the video. That look is sophisticated. How does it differ from solid colors?

[@ECAbrams]

It's about the same. Since we're using matte layers, you can apply the same methods to any layer really. Does that make sense?

[@Towelmaker123]

ECAbrams this would imply selecting place file ? I’ll watch it a few more times I suppose that would also clear any doubts I may have. Thankyou for answering my question.

[@ECAbrams]

solids are nothing special. Just a layer that's a solid colour of a size. Nothing more to see there. I did a tutorial on gradient backgrounds. Maybe that can help?

[@ECAbrams]

Would you usually edit and watch at the same time? that seems like an unreasonable strain to put on yourself.

[@plummerdrummer2010]

At 9:56 i cant get passed this spot in the tutorial, after the pre comp it never looks like whats on your screen and the cat eye looking shape never pops up in the other comp. My error message after clicking ok to pre comp says the same thing for Error occurred, comp. and layer.. but the property pops up as position on mine and yours as size. thanks for this cool tutorial and i hope i get to finish it!

[@KumarMadhur7]

Rasterizing the 'center' pre-comp does not render the mask correctly. Am I missing something here or is there any solution to it.

[@zdf1000]

Why are you so awesome?

[@ECAbrams]

Well you are welcome.

[@alexisdevo41]

Great tutorial! This is exactly what i need to make. But I’m new at AE and this video goes too fast at time. At 10:00 he says “Now in this layer, when we look at all of the things in here”, but he doesn’t explain how you get “all of the things” to appear. I cant figure out how to make that editable text show up to follow the tutorial.

[@ECAbrams]

In this case I pressed e e to bring up the expressions. I hope that helps.

[@davidp158]

...and on the 7th day, he looked upon his final render, and it was good.

[@aneesa09]

@ecabrams - how do I add a photo in the middle part? do you have a video to complete the rest of the venn diagram?

[@ECAbrams]

Any layer can have an alpha matte. It's just a matte of combining shapes with other shapes. Since this tutorial came out though I would recommend a method using the "set matte" effect. No such video tutorial exists from me at this time. but it could be a good idea for a follow up.

[@CommandLineHero]

Google docs link is down?

[@Bloodklot]

@ 3:25 I keep getting an error. It says: "After Effects warning: layer named 'B Lines' is missing or does not exist. IT may have been renamed, moved, or deleted, or the name may have been mistyped. A Property expression referencing it was disabled." 'Size' (line 1) of layer 3 ('B Fill') in comp 'Venn' I'm using CC 2014. I don't know why it's saying that. I named everything the same.

[@KingsGroupTraining]

Thank You!!!

[@WhiteLightVFX]

In-depth tutorial on Blending Modes? :)

[@plummerdrummer2010]

i just went through with the tutorial and it works, i guess i should have done that to begin with lol sorry bout that, but it still didnt look the same... thanks though!

[@kuunami]

You should also be in a movie called "The Book of Adobe" co starring Mila Kunis!!

[@agathaflorentino4010]

hi, the tutorial is very well made made but I want to ask you how can I do it if I don't want the outline of the circle and just the fill color instead? I am making an animation of the RGB venn diagram. Hope you'll help me, thank you!

[@ECAbrams]

you could just remove the stroked shapes, or just remove the strokes from the shapes.

[@jkirsh2857]

Hey Evan, great tutorial. Its helped me out on a project I'm working on. Question for you is what would you do if you wanted the interaction to cause a transparency to occur when two circles come together?

[@jkirsh2857]

Jon Kirsh Actually I think i answered my own question. Thanks!

[@ECAbrams]

Jon Kirsh i would imagine so. Since we are making shapes by combing shapes that will leave you with one shape that you can use to define the visible space of things/

[@jkirsh2857]

ECAbrams Yeah. I Pre-Compted the two circles and then used Silhouette Alpha to knock out the space where they came together. This has been a very helpful tutorial today.

[@JimboHamster]

in 6:42 how you move to the correct position C lines?

[@ECAbrams]

Vugar Ashrafov you can click and drag or maybe use the arrow keys to nudge the layer. Basically just move the layer the same way you would move the layer usually.

[@ECAbrams]

Sorry, what?

[@ECAbrams]

I make a lot of promises.

[@pursuingthesilent]

you promised dragons

[@ECAbrams]

Faustian bargain.

[@pursuingthesilent]

you never explain how to make dragons...

[@kogrekogre4149]

This is ridiculously fast.