Ease and Wizz
Version: 2.0 Sign up to be notified by email when a new version of this script is posted
Announcing Ease and Wizz 2.0 — now with Curvaceous!
This new version lets you apply the expressions to curved motion paths and mask shapes.
Introduction
Ease and Wizz is a set of expressions for After Effects that give you more ways to interpolate between values. The obvious use is in motion, but they can be used on animated properties of any kind. They’re applied with an After Effects-ish palette that can be docked, so it’s very easy to use.
A while back, Flash guru Robert Penner created a suite of extremely useful easing equations that have been used to build thousands of websites worldwide. I’ve adapted these equations to work as expressions in After Effects (for an introduction to After Effects expressions, check out Dan Ebberts’ excellent site).
One advantage of using an expression for easing is that the keyframes are editable. You can drag objects in the comp viewer, or move keyframes in the timeline, and the easing will be updated immediately.
Ease and Wizz has been reviewed by these good folk:
- Alan Shisko on Motion Graphics ‘n’ Such
- Chris Meyer on Provideo Coalition: Creating Motion Graphics
- John Dickinson on Motionworks
Usage
An Introduction to Ease and Wizz:
Simply select the properties that you wish to add expressions to, choose the type of easing from the popup menu, whether it should be “in”, “out”, or both and click Apply. As of version 1.1 it’s possible to apply the expression to all keyframes instead of just the first two.
You can choose any number of properties (including different kinds), on any number of layers, and the script will add expressions to everything that’s selected.
Note: If there are already expressions on the properties that are selected, they’ll be replaced when you click Apply.
Types of easing
Regular easing (from most to least dramatic)
- Expo, Circ, Quint, Quart, Quad, Sine
Special types
- Back, Bounce, Elastic
FAQ
How do I get more control over the bounce or elastic expressions?
- These expressions are pretty speedy to apply, but don’t offer too much in terms of customising. For that, I recommend checking out Dan Ebberts’ motionscript.com. The Physical Simulations is a great jumping off point.
After Effects CS4 crashes every time I quit. Coincidence?
- It’s an After Effects bug that’s been acknowledged by Adobe. But don’t fret, it’s been fixed, all you need to do is upgrade to version 9.0.2 (Mac | Windows)
Can I use this with After Effects 7?
- I never had any joy getting the palette to work in AE7. However, you can always just copy and paste the expressions directly into the property you’re animating … if, for example you wanted an expo in-out tween on a position property, keyframe it as usual then open the file “inOutExpo-easeandwizz-all.js”. Copy the contents, add an expression to the position property, then paste it in.
Why do I need to enable “Allow Scripts to Write Files and Access Network”?
- The expressions themselves are separate files in the “easingExpressions” folder. The main script figures out which one you intend to use, opens the relevant file, and the applies the expression to all the properties you’ve got selected. In a pinch, you could also do this manually (but it’s pretty laborious).
What’s with the name?
- It’s a pun on a song title by UK band Pulp: “Sorted for E’s & Wizz”.
Are these questions really “Frequently Asked”?
- OK, you got me. They have, literally, never been asked.
Version history
2009.02.11 – Version 2.0
- [NEW] Curvaceous. Allows you to apply easing expressions to curved motion paths, and to mask or shape layer paths.
2008.12.01 – Version 1.12
- [FIXED] After Effects CS4 compatability.
2008.03.24 – Version 1.1
- [NEW] Tooltips added to the palette
- [NEW] Popup menu added so you can select which keyframes to affect (all, first two and last two, or just the first two)
- [CHANGED] Replaced the “type” radio buttons with a popup menu
- [CHANGED] Eliminated need to choose easingExpressions folder path (thanks to Jeff Almasol)
- [FIXED] Fixed colour of text in popup menus – thanks to Jeff again
2008.03.21 – Version 1.0
- Initial release
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The one thing E&W is missing is AE’s normal exponential scaling. The closest is Exponential+EaseOut, but it’s not exact.
http://vimeo.com/4295286
Other than that, it’s just about perfect! I use it all the time!
Man, I’m loving this script. I used Penner’s methods all the time; I love having them in AE. Nicely done, man!
I made a video demonstration on how to install the script on Windows,it might be useful:
http://www.bluefx.net/blog/127/
its ousum
its ow sum
Pretty usefull tool, especially when you are in a hurry or are just lazy. Perfect for me! Thanks!
how do i download and save the script
@james – To download scripts you need to add the to them cart first (Add to Cart), once you’ve added all the scripts you want you can checkout (View Cart) and the script will be immediately available for download
i downloaded the script and installed it correctly, but i can’t find it under the Windows panel in AE CS3 for mac. help!
@michael – have a look at the bottom of the “Window” menu, it should appear as “Ease and Wizz.jsx”. If it’s not there, double check that it’s in the correct location (“/Applications/Adobe After Effects CS4/Scripts/ScriptUI Panels” on Mac) and that the “ScriptUI Panels” folder doesn’t contain any typos.
thanks @ian, i had the folder reading ‘ScriptsUI Panels’.
Hi there,
I didn’t really understand what the Curvaceous is about, how does it affect motion paths?
Any tips..??
Joe
Hi Joe, I’ve made a screencast that should help to explain what Curvaceous is all about:
http://blip.tv/file/2794220
There used to be a screencast for Curvaceous on my site, but it fell off at some point – and wasn’t really that great to being with – so hopefully this will prove useful.
Ian
Is there a way to have the camera moving very slowly on an easy easy keyframe, instead of stopping completely?
Joe
I find that by parenting the camera to a null, and having *that* move very slowly, you can achieve some subtle effects that would perhaps be difficult otherwise. Let me know if a screencast would be useful – if so I’ll put one together soon.
Hope this helps! Ian
Hi Ian,
Thanks a lot man.
Jeah is preatty obvious now what the Curvacenous does.
Is very sUPERcOOL !!!
About the second question, I thought as well about a null, but it was just to have everything on 1 layer, it not really easy when you are doing a long camera sequence with lots of rotation movements in 3d.
.. …You think we gonna see this feature in a future version?
Joe.
Hey, glad the screencast was useful!
The second question is trickier. When you need several kinds of movement on one layer, I find it helps to do away with expressions and drop into the graph editor – you can get a great deal of control by tweaking the curves (particularly if you choose “separate dimensions”, so you can edit the XYZ axes independently). It’s not too difficult to build curves that resemble expo, sine, circ and so on; bounce and elastic are harder.
But yeah, building up more complex combinations of motion often require parenting. You can also “bake” the keyframes: choose Animation > Keyframe Assistant > Convert Expression to Keyframes. This calculates the expression for each point in time and freezes it so that it’s a regular keyframe, you can then edit delete unnecessary frames and animate manually.
If anything occurs to me that would improve Ease and Wizz in this department, I’ll be sure to implement it and post it up on aescripts.com.
Thanks, Ian
Hi Ian, maybe I am blind, but I don’t see download button, where is it?
Hi John – you actually have to use the “Add to cart” button up the top there. When you checkout (“view cart”) the script is immediately available for download.
Ian
Ian Thank you so much!
hey guys! i’m an after effects rookie yet, but i’m really into it and i want to know all about it. i just started visual communication at university.
can someone explain me in a easy way for what this scrip is usefull? for creating motion without any stocking?
also i would love to get some good tutorial pages, message boards where i can connect with other AE people! i left my email here, so you’re welcome to write me if you have any inputs for me.
thank you so much, this page is great.
Love this, but I use AE7 and have to copy/paste the expressions in manually. Its a pain. Is there any other plugin that accomplishes the same thing? Thanks, Ian
Sorry but I’m not aware of another plugin that does the same thing. You could make the expressions into presets, that would make them a lot easier to apply.
Copy and paste the expression into a property *without keyframes*. Then choose “Animation > Save Animation Preset…” and save it into a folder in the “Presets” folder next to the After Effects application. Then it’s just a matter of selecting the property you’d like to apply it to and either choosing “Animation > Apply Animation Preset…” or double clicking the relevant preset under the “Effects & Presets” palette.
Hope this helps, let me know if you get stuck.
Ian
@nico, sorry I tried replying earlier but my comment didn’t show up for some reason. I think the best way to get a feel for what the script does is to watch the tutorial screencast (under “usage”, above). There are a lot of AE resources online; check out http://ae.tutsplus.com/ and http://www.motionworks.com.au/ for tutorials, and try http://mograph.net/ for a great community of motion graphics professionals.
Ian
Hi there, everywhere I look it says it is free but I can’t download them unless I pay. Has anything change?
Thanks all,
A.
Hi Antonio, to download for free you just have to type in “0″ when you add it to the cart – five bucks is a suggested amount, but you can type in anything.
Thanks, Ian
Hey Ian!
How about adding a function that emulates AE’s Exponential animation assistant? I’d like the flexibility of using your script, but would like it to match the velocity of AE’s exp scale.
I posted a link to a video a while back. Here it is again: http://www.vimeo.com/4295286
Hey Navarro,
I’ve looked into it and think I have it figured out – I’ll fix it up and post an update soon. Thanks for your feedback!
Ian
Hey Ian!
just wanted to say thanks for this great script.
just bought it and it’s already all over the project i am working on.
from Miami
cheers! man
Thanks Juan! Glad to hear it’s useful
ian
Hi,
I am very much enjoying using your scripts and I use them all the time so thanks!
However I am finding that if I, say, animate an image in 3D from far to
near using the Expo script, it animates towards the camera smoothly but the last frame of the animation seems to ‘snap’ forward to the last position, quite abruptly. i.e. it never slows down gracefully – always a little jump to the final position. Can you shed any light on this?
FYI the quality on all layers is best and I am working AT 1920 X 1080 (although it happens at all resolutions/sizes).
Cheers,
Chris
Hi Chris, I tried it out and get the behaviour you describe. I’ll have a look and see if I can figure out what’s causing this. Thanks, Ian
That’s great, Ian – thanks a million
It doesn’t seem to happen on the other algorithms as far as I can tell – just Expo.
Hi Ian,
Nice script !!!
Just a question
When i use elastic on a object scale i’ve some negative scale on some frame in the begining of the animation.
Don’t know why
Thanks
Yves
Hey Yves, thanks for your comment. Sometimes the scale will go negative in order to give it an elastic appearance. If it’s a problem perhaps you can post an example and give me some detail as to what’s happening.
Thanks, Ian
Hi Ian,
Thank you for your quick answer.
Please find here a little test.
http://www.vimeo.com/9373978
Just a basic scale from 0% to 100%. I clic on the “100%” keyframe. Add the elastic script.
Settings are in+out / all.
Got some strange negative scale on the first second.
Thanks
Yves
Hey Yves
I think it’s happening because the easing type is “in+out”, rather than just out. The “in” part of the equation means that it will look elasticky (if you’ll pardon the neologism
at the beginning, so the expression uses negative values to achieve this. Try it with just “out” easing and see if you get the effect you’re after.
Ian
Hi Ian,
Awesome AE tutorial and video. Will have to play with this one sometime.
What’s the music you used? I’d love to download it if I can. Thanks!
Hey Corinne, thanks for your kind comments! The soundtrack is actually just one of the default settings in the Garageband application (“Jazz”, under “Magic Garageband”). I’ll email you the MP3 directly.
Ian
Hey Ian,
I can’t seem to get this to work on mask points – is it supposed to?
Cheers and thanks for your help so far!
Chris
Hey Chris, have you tried turning on the Curvaceous checkbox? That’s a hack that should allow mask shape tweening to accept the expressions. Note that the special types elastic and back won’t work with Curvaceous, as they actually overshoot the destination value.
Here’s a screencast I made about this very topic: http://blip.tv/file/2794220 (a screencast that, inexplicably, doesn’t appear to be linked from anywhere … mea culpa
Cheers! Ian
Great. thanks again Ian!
I actually think I was originally trying to use it with Elastic as i was trying to create a rubbery animtion using mask points. Given it will be work using ‘Curvaceous’ but Elastic and Bounce aren’t available with these algorithms I’m still a bit stuck I suppose. Hand animation here I come!
Cheers
Actually, \i think there are several ways around it using filters. The only there is that any filters that scale the image past 100% tend to lose quality – hence the need to animate the mask points.
Hello Ian,
Thanks for very useful script!
Is it possible to adjust bounce amount? I have found back and elastic parameters in expression but can’t find for bounce.
Best,
Alex
Hey Alex, sorry but bounce is one of those tricky-to-tweak ones. I’m working on a script that will provide more realistic bounce and elastic motion, but in the meantime I’m afraid I don’t have anything to offer.
Ian
Just wondering if the script will work in the new AE CS5?
Hey Gyorfi,
Good question. I have no reason to think that it won’t, but I won’t know till I can test it. I’ll download a trial when it becomes available and give it a shot.
Ian
yes, it works on AE CS5! just tested it. everything is fine
Hey Florian, thanks! I’ll update the info page on my site.
Ian