Learn how to build a medical animation by combining assets from Photoshop, Cinema 4D, and audio sources to create a loopable sequence in After Effects. Understand the best practices for importing layered Photoshop files and managing group structures to streamline your workflow.
Key Insights
- The animation integrates various media: painted vein graphics from Adobe Fresco, a 3D red blood cell rendered in Cinema 4D, and heartbeat audio sourced from a free sound library.
- When importing layered Photoshop files into After Effects, grouped layers automatically become pre-compositions, which can complicate editing unless groups are removed beforehand.
- Noble Desktop's instruction highlights that while Photoshop is not required to use PSD files in After Effects, editing and updating source content—such as layer styles—may require returning to Photoshop depending on the changes needed.
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So in your after class files, there is one called medical animation. It looks like this. Okay.
So it has a sound, the bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump. That's a sound from one of the sites I gave you in the list. It's like freesound.org probably.
They have free sounds. The graphics here, all the blood vessel stuff is painted in Fresco, sent to Photoshop and then modified in Photoshop. Fresco is Adobe's like iPad painting program, basically.
Okay. The blood cell itself is a 3D model created in Cinema 4D. I think that's where I made it.
And then exported as a video with a transparent background. Okay, so that's it. Now, so this basically requires importing three things, the Photoshop file, which is actually why I wanted to open Photoshop to show you that.
So there's a video, a blood cell, there's a starter file because it has other things animated already brought in. So that is the red blood cell QuickTime file. That is a video with a transparent background.
In QuickTime, when you preview transparency, it's just black space. I don't know a way to turn on the transparency grid. I don't know if it even can, by the way.
So that's what that is. It is designed so it flips once so it can be looped. It's a loopable animation.
The audio file is just ba-bump, ba-bump. So it's all it is. And the Photoshop file is that.
Okay. It is top vein, main vein bottom, background vein one, two, three. And then it is a combination for background multi-veins or the ones that are horizontal in the back, like that, so they're all together.
And then there's a background graphic, which is like that. Okay. I guess I screwed that up when I was painting this.
I never noticed that before. Okay. So that's basically what it is.
Okay. So one note, for those of you who use Photoshop, if you ever group layers together like that, when you import the Photoshop file, the same way you're importing Illustrator files, a composition, any group will be turned into a nested comp. Okay.
So layers will come in as individual layers, but groups come in as nested comps. They come in as pre-comps. Okay.
Is that bad? I mean, not necessarily if you planned on it. Okay. I did not want that.
So by the way, it's Command-G or Control-G to group and Command-Shift-G or Control-Shift-G to ungroup, basically. So I did not want that. I didn't want a pre-comp, because while the program has a command for taking layers and turning them into a comp, it does not have a command for undoing, for like, separating them out again.
Okay. There is, on that free and name-known price add-on to After Effects, there's one called Unprecompose that does do it, but it's an add-on. Natively, pre-comp, you can undo, but if you want to get stuff out of a pre-comp, you've got to cut and paste it, which is annoying.
So just be aware. So one of the things a lot of people working in Photoshop to After Effects do, they strip out all the groups. So those come in as layer by layer by layer.
Okay. Again, depending on your workflow, depending on what you need, it's not necessarily a problem, but it's a very common practice amongst people when you do it. It was nice.
That's what that is. Okay. I'm not going to save this.
Don't save. I'm not supposed to Photoshop. So just like Illustrator, you don't need Photoshop in order to, in order to import a Photoshop document at all.
If you wanted to use that original command or make changes to the original source, then yes, you would need to know and use Photoshop. Okay. Usually, Photoshop is used to prep files or digital painting or whatever, which are then animated in After Effects.
Okay. But technically, you could go back into the Photoshop file and make a change to the layer and it would update. Well, some changes will update, others will not.
One of the things that does not update is layer styles. If you add layer styles in Photoshop, depending on your import options, that may not update. Keep that in mind.
Okay. But it's basically the same exact process of what the Illustrator file in as. Okay.
So this is 5A medical animation working with audio and video. Okay. Getting started has you open that starter file.
Okay. And then it has you save as. So give it a name and call it something else.
And again, like all the instructions, it has you open the file and save it into the same folder. So it's the medical animation folder. Okay.
