The pins are in place. Now you can change them to animate the crab. The Starch pins keep specific areas (in this case, the carapace) from moving too much.
When you placed the pins, After Effects created initial keyframes for each pin at 1:27. You’ll animate the pins so that the crab waves its pincers, legs, and antennae, and then returns to its original position.
- Select the crab.psd layer in the Timeline panel, press U to display all the keyframes for the layer, and select the Puppet effect to make the puppet pins visible.
- Select the Selection tool in the Tools panel. Then go to 4:00, and select the Advanced pin on the left pincer. Drag the ring around it to the left to rotate the pincer outward, and then drag the center pin so that the pincer is almost vertical. Repeat the steps (but dragging the ring to the right) for the right pincer.
- Go to 5:00, and move the Left Pincer and Right Pincer pins so that the pincers are further apart and turn them outward. Then drag the small rectangle on each ring outward to bloat the pincers slightly.
- At 6:19, turn the pincers back inward. Then, at 8:19, position them so that they’re roughly vertical again. At 9:29, reduce the pincers’ scale back to their original size, and move the pincers so that they’re fully turned inward.
- Move the current-time indicator across the time ruler to see the pincers wave.
Next, you’ll move the antennae closer together. The first keyframe already exists, so you need to create only one more. - Go to 7:14, and pull the pins on the antennae closer to each other.
Now you can animate all the legs. You want them to start moving even before the pincers do, and they should wave around a bit. - Go to 1:19, and move the pin on each leg so that each leg is slightly longer and curved outward. Use the Bend pin on each of the swimmer legs to scale each leg slightly larger.
- Make changes to each leg at 2:01, 4:00, 6:17, and 8:10 so that the legs move slightly upward or downward, in and out as the video progresses. Move each pin about the same amount each time, in whatever direction you choose. At 8:10, use the Bend pins to return the swimmer legs to their original size.
- Hide the properties for the crab.psd layer. Then press F2 or click an empty area of the Timeline panel to deselect all layers. Then, press the Home key or move the current-time indicator to the beginning of the time ruler.
- Press the spacebar to preview your animation. Press the spacebar again to stop playback. If you want to change the animation, adjust pins at each keyframe.
11.Choose File > Save to save your animation.