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When you import a Photoshop file as a composition, any vector masks convert to After Effects masks. You can then modify and animate these masks within After Effects. After Effects also supports any blending modes applied to the file. Photoshop adjustment layers affect the appearance of all layers below them.
When you import a Photoshop file containing one or more adjustment layers as a composition, After Effects directly converts the Photoshop adjustment layers to After Effects adjustment layers. Continuously rasterizing an Illustrator file When you import a vector file, After Effects automatically rasterizes it. You can continuously rasterize an Illustrator file or any other vector file at any time while designing your project.
Continuously rasterizing causes After Effects to rasterize the file as needed based on the transformation for each frame. A continuously rasterized file generally produces higher quality results, but it may preview and render more slowly than a rasterized image. When you apply an effect to a continuously rasterized layer, the results may be different than when you apply the effect to a nonrasterized layer.
This is because the default rendering order for the layer changes. By default, nonrasterized layers are rendered in the following order: masks, effects, and then geometrics transformations.
The default rendering order for a continuously rasterized layer is masks, geometrics transformations , and then effects. You can change the default rendering order. Make sure to check the results of the effect before continuing to work on your project. Whether or not you continuously rasterize, if you view and render a composition using Best Quality, After Effects anti-aliases smooths the art.
For general information about rasterizing, see Illustrator Help. However, you can apply a paint effect by copying and pasting or using the Favorites menu. You can set the default Artboard Size to match your most frequently used After Effects composition size. In addition, you can customize the contents of any palette. You can use templates to create frequently used documents that differ from your customized new document profile.
Open a template using the same methods you use to open a document. Answers 1 A parenting relationship between layers synchronizes the changes in the parent layer with the corresponding transformation values of the child layers.
That is, when you make changes to the parent layer, the child layers also change. Lesson 6: Animating Layers Lesson 6 introduces students to the Layer panel, which they use to remap time, and to the Graph Editor, where they edit Time Remap keyframes. About the Graph Editor To view and manipulate all aspects of effects and animations, including effect property values, keyframes, and interpolation, use the Graph Editor. The Graph Editor represents changes in effects and animations as a two-dimensional graph, with playback time represented horizontally from left to right.
In layer bar mode, on the other hand, the time graph represents only the horizontal time element, without a visual representation of changing values.
There are two types of graphs available in the Graph Editor: value graphs, which show property values; and speed graphs, which show rates of change of property values. You can view and work on one property at a time, or you can view multiple properties simultaneously. The gray numbers to the right of the Graph Editor indicate the values for the reference graph. Panning and zooming in the Graph Editor To pan vertically or horizontally, drag with the Hand tool. To invoke the Hand tool momentarily, press and hold the spacebar.
To pan vertically, spin the mouse scroll wheel. To pan horizontally, press the Shift key as you spin the mouse scroll wheel. To zoom in, click with the Zoom tool.
Auto Zoom Height toggles Auto Zoom Height mode, which automatically scales the height of the graph so that it fits the height of the Graph Editor. The horizontal zoom must still be adjusted manually. Fit Selection adjusts the value vertical and time horizontal scale of the graph to fit the selected keyframes in the Graph Editor. Fit All adjusts the value vertical and time horizontal scale of the graph to fit all of the graphs in the Graph Editor.
Answers 1 The Solo switch isolates the layer or layers, making other layers inactive. Soloing layers can speed animating, previewing, and rendering, as well as make it easier to focus on particular layers. You can use it to stretch, shrink, skew, or twist an image, or to simulate perspective or movement that pivots from the edge of a layer, such as a door opening. They learn to create masks in After Effects using the Pen tool.
Students can also use Illustrator to help them create and use masks in After Effects. Enhancing animation In a video production workflow, Illustrator has much more to offer than a role as a specialized application for still graphics. The pen tool and Bezier paths that are fundamental to drawing in Illustrator are also used in video production applications to control motion paths and timelines. You can use Illustrator paths not just as source graphics, but also as motion paths in After Effects.
You can also use the warping, blending, and layer features in Illustrator to prepare shapes for morphing and tweening. Creating motion paths in Illustrator The path-drawing features in Illustrator are well-suited to any task that involves drawing a path. Motion graphics typically depend on motion paths, and you can draw motion paths more quickly and precisely in Illustrator than you can in After Effects.
In After Effects, you create a motion path by animating the Position property and setting a different position for each keyframe. You then refine the path by dragging handles on the path.
As students saw in lesson 5, this method works well for freeform paths, but it can be time-consuming to edit a motion path into a regular shape, such as a perfect circle. Instead of building a motion path from two original points, in Illustrator, you can draw a path using the tool that most efficiently creates the shape you want. For example, consider animating a layer along a perfect semicircular arc.
For a quick alternative, draw the shape you want in Illustrator and copy and paste it into After Effects. The path becomes a motion path, and After Effects adds start and end keyframes to the layer in the Timeline panel. If a motion path was already present, pasting a path replaces the previous motion path.
To change the duration of the animation, drag either keyframe. Answers 1 Add is the default mask mode. It combines the transparency values of any masks that overlap on the same layer. In Lesson 8, students use the Puppet tools to animate a character slipping on a banana peel. These notes give you additional information about the Puppet tools and other distortion effects. About the Puppet tools Use the Puppet tools to quickly add natural motion to raster images and vector graphics, including still images, shapes, and text characters.
Instead, use the Puppet tools in the Tools panel to directly apply and work with the effect in the Layer or Composition panel. The Puppet effect works by deforming part of an image according to the positions of Deform, Overlap, and Starch pins that you place and move.
About the Puppet Pin tool With the Puppet Pin tool, you place and move Deform pins, which determine how much deformation takes place in particular areas of an image. About the Puppet Overlap tool With the Puppet Overlap tool, you place Overlap pins, which determine which parts of an image appear in front of others when distortion causes parts of the image to overlap each other.
You apply Overlap pins to the original outline, not to the deformed image. Each Overlap pin has the following properties: In Front—The apparent proximity to the viewer.
The influence of Overlap pins is cumulative, meaning that the In Front values are added together for places on the mesh where extents overlap. Extent—How far from the Overlap pin its influence extends. The influence ends abruptly; it does not decrease gradually. Apply Starch pins to the original outline, not to the deformed image.
Each Starch pin has the following properties: Amount—The strength of the stiffening agent. The influence of Starch pins is cumulative, meaning that the Amount values are added together for places on the mesh where extents overlap. If you notice image tearing near a Deform pin, use a Starch pin with a very small Amount value less than 0.
Extent—How far from the Starch pin its influence extends. The influence ends abruptly; it does not decrease gradually with distance from the pin. You do not use it to place pins; instead, you use the Puppet Sketch tool to sketch the motion path of Deform pins in real time, or at a speed that you specify.
In fact, if your composition contains audio, you can sketch the motion path of the pins in time with the audio. To configure settings for recording, click Record Options in the Tools panel. The following options are available: Speed—The ratio of the speed of the recorded motion to playback speed. Smoothness—Determines how smooth the motion is. Creating fewer keyframes makes the motion smoother. Use Draft Deformation—Ignores Starch pins in the draft distortion displayed during recording.
This can improve performance for a complex mesh. To use the Puppet Sketch tool to record animation, select the Deform pin or pins you want to animate and go to the time at which to begin recording motion. Recording begins when you click to begin dragging, and it ends when you release the mouse button. The color of the outline for the mesh for which motion is being sketched is the same as the color of the pin. Using the Puppet mesh When you place the first pin, the area within an outline is automatically divided into a mesh of triangles.
To show the mesh, select Show in the Tools panel. When you move one or more Deform pins, the mesh changes shape to accommodate this movement, while keeping the overall mesh as rigid as possible.
The result is that a movement in one part of the image causes natural, life-like movement in other parts of the image. You can have multiple meshes on one layer. This is useful for deforming several parts of an image individually— such as text characters—as well as for deforming multiple instances of the same part of an image, each with a different deformation.
The original, undistorted mesh is calculated at the current frame at the time at which you apply the effect. If a layer has none of these things, the Puppet effect uses Auto-trace to create paths from the alpha channel. These paths are used by the Puppet effect only to determine outlines and do not appear as masks on the layer.
For a complex image, or to configure Auto-trace settings, use Auto-trace before using the Puppet tools. To encompass a stroke within a mesh, increase the Expansion value. The default value of 3 pixels encompasses a stroke that extends 3 pixels or less from its path. If a mask overlaps a text character or shape, outlines are created for the entire character or shape, for the portion that is inside the mask, and for the mask itself.
Other distortion effects In addition to the Puppet effect, After Effects provides several other distortion effects. Invite students to experiment with some of the following effects: Bezier Warp—The Bezier Warp effect shapes an image using a closed Bezier curve along the boundary of a layer. The curve consists of four segments. Each segment has three points a vertex and two tangents. Bulge—The Bulge effect distorts an image around a specified point, making the image appear to bulge toward or away from the viewer, depending on the options you select.
Displacement Map—The Displacement Map effect distorts a layer by displacing pixels horizontally and vertically based on the color values of pixels in the control layer specified by the Displacement Map Layer property. Liquify—The Liquify effect lets you push, pull, rotate, enlarge and shrink areas in a layer. Several Liquify tools distort the brush area when you hold down the mouse button or drag.
The distortion is concentrated at the center of the brush area, and the effect intensifies as you hold down the mouse button or repeatedly drag over an area. Magnify—The Magnify effect enlarges all or part of an image. Mesh Warp—The Mesh Warp effect applies a grid of Bezier patches over a layer, which you can manipulate to distort areas of an image. Each corner of a patch includes a vertex and two to four tangents points that control the curvature of the line segment that makes up the edge of the patch.
By moving the vertices and tangents, you can manipulate the shape of the curved line segment. Mirror—The Mirror effect splits the image along a line and reflects one side onto the other.
Offset—The Offset effect pans the image within a layer. Visual information pushed off one side of the image appears on the opposite side. At Best quality, the offset is performed with subpixel precision. This effect produces unusual and surprising distortions that can vary greatly depending on the image and the controls you select. Reshape—The Reshape effect transforms one shape into another shape on the same layer, dragging the underlying image with it.
The image is distorted to fit the shape of the new area. Ripple—The Ripple effect creates the appearance of ripples in a specified layer, moving away from a center point in concentric circles. The effect is similar to dropping a stone in a pond.
You can also specify that ripples move toward the center point. Smear—Using the Smear effect, you define an area within an image and then move that area to a new location, stretching, or smearing, the surrounding part of the image with it.
Use masks to define the area you want to distort. Spherize—The Spherize effect distorts a layer by wrapping a region of the image onto a sphere. Best quality samples the displaced pixels to subpixel precision; Draft quality samples to the nearest whole pixel. Turbulent Displace—The Turbulent Displace effect uses fractal noise to create turbulent distortions in an image.
For example, use it to create flowing water, funhouse mirrors, and waving flags. Twirl—The Twirl effect distorts an image by rotating a layer around its center. The image is distorted more sharply in its center than at the edges, causing a whirlpool result at extreme settings. Warp—Use Warp to distort or deform layers. Wave Warp—The Wave Warp effect produces the appearance of a wave traveling across an image.
You can produce a variety of different wave shapes, including square, circular, and sine waves. Specifying more triangles results in smoother animation, but can also increase rendering time. Lesson 9: Using the Roto Brush Tool Lesson 9 introduces students to the process of rotoscoping, which is commonly used in video production to remove the background of a clip so that you can place the subject in another environment.
The Roto Brush tool makes rotoscoping much faster than the method of manually drawing Bezier masks on most frames individually. In most cases, the Roto Brush tool is also a more efficient alternative to traditional keying methods. After students use the Roto Brush tool, you may want to show students other methods for removing the background and compare them to the Roto Brush tool.
The Roto Brush tool isolates the foreground pixels from the background pixels and creates an alpha channel that defines the transparent background. The resulting alpha channel can be included in certain video formats, such as FLV, for use in other applications. For example, draw a stroke through the middle of the boy, rather than along the edges. The Roto Brush tool defines representative regions; After Effects extrapolates from those regions to determine the boundaries.
Instead, draw additional strokes to teach Roto Brush how to recognize the region. You can also use adjust the matte using other features in After Effects, such as by painting on the alpha channel.
Freezing Roto Brush segmentation Click the Freeze button in the lower right corner of the Layer panel to cache and lock segmentation for all Roto Brush spans for the layer within the composition work area. Frames with frozen segmentation information are represented by blue bars in the Roto Brush span view in the Layer panel. If you click Stop in the Freezing Roto Brush dialog box, After Effects stops adding frames to the cache, but Roto Brush segmentation is still locked with the segmentation information cached up until the point that you clicked Stop.
When Roto Brush segmentation is frozen, the pointer for the Roto Brush tool has a slash through it. The rest of the time bar for the layer disappears in the Timeline panel. All that remains for the layer is the freeze frame icon at the point you froze the frame. About color depth Color depth is the number of bits per channel bpc used to represent the color of a pixel.
Channels contain color information: RGB images have channels for red, green, and blue. The more bits per channel, the more colors can be represented. In After Effects, you can work in 8-bpc, bpc or bpc color mode for each project.
Many effects support 16 and 32 bits per channel. Even if your output is 8-bpc Millions Of Colors , you can obtain better rendering quality by having the project or render color depth set at bpc or bpc because of the added precision achieved by calculating color values at higher bit depths. The headroom provided by working in 32 bpc prevents many kinds of data loss during operations such as color correction and color profile conversion.
Transitions between colors are smoother with less visible banding, and more detail is preserved than with 8-bpc color though less than with bpc color.
You can import bpc images, including those from Adobe Photoshop, and composite and color-correct footage in bpc mode. Take advantage of bpc color when performing most After Effects tasks, including layer adjustment, frame blending, 3D compositing, and Cineon file import. The Info panel displays bpc color values with exact precision. For example, an image displayed on a computer monitor may look different from the same image displayed on a video monitor or projected onto a movie screen.
Colors shift because different devices use different methods to create color and produce different ranges of colors. In After Effects, you can compensate for color output between different display devices by first calibrating and profiling your monitor and then specifying color profiles for use with the project. For in-depth information about color management, refer to After Effects Help.
After your monitor is calibrated, the profiling utility lets you save a color profile. The profile describes the color behavior of the monitor—what colors can be reproduced on the monitor and how the color values in an image must be converted so that colors are displayed accurately. Before you calibrate and profile your monitor, make sure that your work environment provides a consistent light level and color temperature.
For example, the color characteristics of sunlight change throughout the day and alter the way colors appear on your screen, so keep shades closed or work in a windowless room. Make sure your monitor has been turned on for at least half an hour. This gives it sufficient time to warm up and produce more consistent output. Make sure your monitor is displaying millions of colors or bits-per-pixel or higher.
Remove colorful background patterns on your monitor desktop and set your desktop to display neutral grays. Busy patterns or bright colors surrounding a document interfere with accurate color perception. In general, using a measuring device such as a colorimeter along with software can create more accurate profiles because an instrument can measure the colors displayed on a monitor far more accurately than the human eye can.
Color tab. Most profiling software automatically assigns the new profile as the default monitor profile. For instructions on how to manually assign the monitor profile, refer to the Help system for your operating system. Answers 1 The gamma values between a computer monitor and a broadcast monitor vary greatly. What may look good on a computer screen may appear too bright and washed out on a broadcast monitor. In Lesson 12, students also work with 3D elements, adding them to a video using the 3D Camera Tracker.
These 3D image files contain red, green, blue, and alpha RGBA channels, as well as auxiliary channels with optional information, such as z depth, object IDs, texture coordinates, and more. After Effects can also import baked camera data, including focal length, film size, and transformation data, from Maya project files as a single composition or two compositions.
That data is incorporated into camera layers that After Effects creates in the Timeline panel. Camera settings You can set up cameras in After Effects to simulate the capabilities of real-world cameras.
Use camera settings to configure the camera view to match the settings you use to record video footage or to look at the footage from a new perspective.
Name—Specifies the name of the camera. By default, After Effects assigns the name Camera 1 to the first camera you create in a composition, and all subsequent cameras are numbered in ascending order. Choose distinctive names for multiple cameras to make it easier to distinguish them. Preset—Specifies the type of camera settings you want to use. Cameras come with several presets.
The presets are named according to focal lengths. Each preset is meant to represent the behavior of a 35mm camera with a lens of a certain focal length. The default preset is 50mm. You can also create a custom camera by specifying new values for any of the settings. Zoom—Specifies the distance from the position of the camera to the image plane. Angle Of View—Specifies the width of the scene captured in the image.
A wider angle of view creates the same effect as a wide-angle lens. Using these variables, you can manipulate the depth of field to create more realistic camera-focusing effects. The depth of field is the distance range within which the image is in focus. Images outside the distance range are blurred. If you need to change the values and want the values to remain locked, then use the Camera Settings dialog box instead of the Timeline panel.
Aperture—Specifies the size of the lens opening. The Aperture setting also affects the depth of field; increasing the aperture increases the depth of field blur. When you specify new values for Aperture, the values for F-Stop change dynamically to match it. F-Stop—Represents the ratio of the focal length to aperture. Most cameras specify aperture size using the fstop measurement; thus, many photographers prefer to set the aperture size in f-stop units.
When you specify new values for F-stop, the values for Aperture change dynamically to match it. Blur Level—Controls the amount of depth-of-field blur in an image. Lower values reduce the blur. Film Size—Specifies the size of the exposed area of film, which is directly related to the composition size.
When you specify new values for Film Size, the Zoom value changes to match the perspective of a real camera. Focal Length—Specifies the distance from the film plane to the camera lens. When you specify new values for Focal Length, the Zoom value changes to match the perspective of a real camera. In addition, the Preset, Angle of View, and Aperture values change accordingly.
Units—Specifies the units of measurement in which the camera setting values are expressed. Measure Film Size—Specifies the dimensions used to depict the film size.
These preview modes reduce the amount of data displayed in a 3D layer, so the screen redraws faster. You can also use OpenGL for faster previews of 3D layers. Answers 1 The Material Options properties determine how 3D layers interact with lights and shadows.
If you want the effect to perform more precise tracking, you can save time by selecting Detailed Analysis in the Effect Controls panel before After Effects completes its initial analysis.
Attaching content to track points Invite students to explore the track points and the planes they can attach to before they settle on the plane that is parallel to the record. Note that there are several subtle possibilities for the plane over the record, and ask students to identify the plane that most closely mirrors the flat plane of the record on the desk. As you right-click or Control-click to create the camera, the selected plane may shift. Advise students to be alert in case they need to abandon the context menu and reset the plane before trying again.
As students work through the lesson, point out that you must select the 3D Camera Tracker effect for the layer either in the Timeline panel or the Effect Controls panel before the track points are available. Note that the 3D Camera Tracker effect for the initial layer is different from the 3D Tracker Camera layer that also exists in the Timeline panel. As you drag from the center, horizontal arrows appear to indicate that you can resize the target.
In addition to affecting how easily you can see the target, the target size also controls the default size of text and solid layers you create using the context menu. Working with more complicated footage The project in this lesson intentionally contains only stationary objects; the camera is the only thing that moves in the original footage. To help solve the camera, delete inaccurate or unwanted track points: 1 Select the track points you want to delete.
The camera is solved again. You can delete additional points while the 3D Camera Tracker effect is working, even while the semi-transparent banner appears. Shot Type—Specifies whether the footage was captured with a fixed horizontal angle of view, variable zoom, or a specific horizontal angle of view. When Render Track Points is enabled, the points are displayed in the image so you can see them when you preview. Horizontal Angle of View—Specifies the horizontal angle of view the solver should use.
Render Track Points—Controls whether the track points are rendered as part of the effect. Track Point Size—Changes the size of the track points. Target Size—Changes the size of the red orientation target indicators. Advanced section: Solve Method—Provides hints about the scene to help in solving the camera.
You can have it try to automatically detect the scene type, or specify the scene as typical movement those not purely rotational or mostly flat , mostly flat planar , or purely rotational tripod or nodal pan. Average Error—Displays the average distance in pixels between the original 2D source points and a reprojection of the 3D solved points onto the 2D plane of the source footage. You can use this value to tell if deleting points, changing the solve method, or making other changes is lowering this value, and thus improving the track.
Detailed Analysis—When enabled, makes the next analysis phase do extra work to find elements to track. The resulting data stored in the project as part of the effect is much larger and slower with this option enabled.
The value is based only on the available track points, not on the ones that were removed. Auto-delete Points Across Time—With this option enabled, when you delete track points in the Composition panel, corresponding track points i.
For example, you can delete track points on a person running through the scene, whose motion should not be considered for the determination of how the camera was moving in the shot. Roto Brush and Refine Edge tools O. Puppet tools When you hover the pointer over any button in the Tools panel, a tool tip identifies the tool and its keyboard shortcut. A small triangle in the lower right corner of the button indicates that one or more additional tools are hidden behind it.
Click and hold the button to display the hidden tools, and then select the tool you want to use. Then, in the Character panel docked on the right side of the screen , change the text size to px and the tracking to — Animating text with animation presets Now that the text is formatted, you can apply an animation preset.
Then type fade up words in the search box. The words fade in, so that they are all onscreen by About timecode and duration The primary concept related to time is duration, or length. Each footage item, layer, and composition in a project has its own duration, which is reflected in the beginning and ending times displayed in the time rulers in the Composition, Layer, and Timeline panels.
The way you view and specify time in After Effects depends on the display style, or unit of measure, that you use to describe time. Note that the figures are separated by semicolons in the After Effects interface, representing drop-frame timecode which adjusts for the real-time frame rate , but this book uses a colon to represent non-drop-frame timecode.
In and Out points are the points at which a layer begins and ends in the composition. Many of the Timeline panel controls are organized in columns of related functions. Current time B. Composition name C. Timeline panel menu D. Layer switches G. Time navigator start and end brackets B. Work area start and end brackets C. Time zoom slider D. Time ruler E. Composition marker bin F. The duration of a composition, a layer, or a footage item is represented visually in the time graph.
On the time ruler, the current-time indicator marks the frame you are viewing or editing, and the frame appears in the Composition panel. The work area start and end brackets indicate the part of the composition that will be rendered for previews or final output. When you work on a composition, you may want to render only a portion of it by specifying a segment of the composition time ruler as a work area.
To move to a different time, drag the current-time indicator in the time ruler—or click the current-time field in the Timeline panel or Composition panel, type a new time, and press Enter or Return, or click OK.
After Effects adds the Channel Blur effect to the layer and displays its settings in the Effect Controls panel. The Channel Blur effect individually blurs the red, green, blue, and alpha channels in a layer.
It will create an interesting look for the title. The text will be blurred as it first appears. Keyframes are used to create and control animation, effects, audio properties, and many other kinds of changes that occur over time. A keyframe marks the point in time where you specify a value, such as spatial position, opacity, or audio volume. Values between keyframes are interpolated.
When you use keyframes to create a change over time, you must use at least two keyframes—one for the state at the beginning of the change, and one for the state at the end of the change. Getting to Know the Workflow 7 Go to in the timeline. Changing the opacity of the background 1 In the Timeline panel, select the Ellipse 1 layer. You can preview your composition using the Preview panel, which is in the stacked panels on the right side of the application window in the default workspace.
E Tip: Verify that the work area brackets include all the frames you want to preview. The number of frames played depends on the amount of RAM available to the application.
Often, the preview will play in real time only after After Effects has cached all the included frames. In the Layer and Footage panels, the preview plays only untrimmed footage.
Before you preview, check which frames are designated as the work area. When all of the frames in the work area are cached, the preview plays back in real time. Until all the frames are cached, the playback may be slower and the audio may drag.
You can control the amount of detail shown by changing the resolution, magnification, and preview quality of your composition.
Optimizing performance in After Effects How you configure After Effects and your computer determines how quickly After Effects renders projects. Complex compositions can require a large amount of memory to render, and the rendered movies can take a large amount of disk space to store. The rocket icon at the bottom of the Project panel is dimmed when GPU acceleration is disabled. By default, After Effects enables GPU acceleration for effects, layer animations, and other features that can take advantage of the performance enhancements.
Adobe recommends enabling GPU acceleration. As you modify a workspace, After Effects saves those modifications, so the next time you open the project, the most recent version of a workspace is used. You can save any workspace configuration, or use any of the preset workspaces that come with After Effects.
These predefined workspaces are suitable for different types of workflows, such as animation or effects work. Using predefined workspaces Take a minute to explore the predefined workspaces in After Effects.
Different panels open. The Info, Preview, Tracker, and Content-Aware Fill panels give you easy access to the tools and controls you need to focus on tracking objects in your compositions. Saving a custom workspace You can save any workspace, at any time, as a custom workspace. If a project with a custom workspace is opened on a system other than the one on which it was created, After Effects looks for a workspace with a matching name.
Getting to Know the Workflow Controlling the brightness of the user interface You can brighten or darken the After Effects user interface. Changing the brightness preference affects panels, windows, and dialog boxes. If you use the default UI brightness, your panels and dialog boxes will appear darker than ours. You can click Default to restore the default brightness setting.
To access them, select Learn in the Workspace bar. An overview of the interface and essential features is available in the Learn panel, as are several interactive tutorials.
The Home window that appears when you open the application provides quick access to the tutorials in the Learn panel as well as more advanced tutorials online. Additionally, it provides links to other information to help you get the most out of After Effects. You can return to the Home window at any time by clicking the Home icon in the Tools panel.
For complete and up-to-date information about using After Effects panels, tools, and other application features, visit the Adobe website. To search for information in After Effects Help and support documents, as well as on other websites relevant to After Effects users, simply enter a search term in the Search Help box in the upper right corner of the application window.
You can narrow the results to view only Adobe Help and support documents. For additional resources, such as tips and techniques and the latest product information, check out the After Effects Help And Support page at helpx.
Review answers 1 Most After Effects workflows include these steps: importing and organizing footage, creating compositions and arranging layers, adding effects, animating elements, previewing your work, and rendering and exporting the final composition.
An After Effects composition has both spatial and temporal time dimensions. Compositions include one or more layers—video, audio, still images—arranged in the Composition panel and in the Timeline panel. Or type Missing Footage into the Search field in the Project panel. After Effects allocates enough RAM to play the preview with audio as fast as the system allows, up to the frame rate of the composition.
You can drag panels to new locations, move panels into or out of groups, place panels alongside each other, stack panels, and undock a panel so that it floats above the application window. As you rearrange panels, the other panels resize automatically to fit the application window. You can use them to create great-looking animations quickly and easily. You will animate the travel show ID so that it fades to become a watermark that can appear in the lower right corner of the screen during other TV programs.
After Effects opens to display a blank, untitled project. However, you can also use Adobe Bridge—a powerful, flexible tool for organizing, browsing, and locating the assets you need to create content for print, web, television, DVD, film, and mobile devices.
You can drag assets into your layouts, projects, and compositions as needed; preview your assets; and even add metadata file information to assets to make files easier to locate.
Adobe Bridge is not automatically installed with After Effects. If you receive a message about enabling an extension to Adobe Bridge, click Yes. Adobe Bridge opens, displaying a collection of panels, menus, and buttons.
Click the arrows to open nested folders. You can also double-click folder thumbnail icons in the Content panel. Information about the file, including its creation date, bit depth, and file size, appears in the Metadata panel. Alternatively, you can drag the ParisRiver. Creating a Basic Animation Using Effects and Presets Creating a new composition Following the workflow you learned in Lesson 1, the next step is to create a new composition. This preset automatically sets the width, height, pixel aspect ratio, and frame rate for the composition to NTSC standards.
This folder contains the three individual layers of the Illustrator file. Click the triangle to open the folder and see its contents if you like. You should now see both the background image and the logo in the Composition panel and in the Timeline panel.
The composition opens in its own Timeline and Composition panels. After Effects applies it to the text you typed. Leave all other options in the Character panel at their defaults. You may need to expand the width of the panel to see the eyedropper. The guide moves to the position you specified. The effect you create next will be applied only to the logo elements, not to the background image of the river.
You can customize the effect using the Effect Controls panel, which appears in front of the Project panel when you apply an effect. You can set each value by clicking the field and typing the number or by dragging the blue value. By default, when you apply an effect to a layer, the effect is active for the duration of the layer. However, you can make an effect start and stop at specific times, or make the effect more or less intense over time.
Note, however, that when you apply an effect to an adjustment layer, the effect is applied to all layers below it in the Timeline panel. Effects can also be saved, browsed, and applied as animation presets.
Then click the triangle next to Stylize to expand the category. The Color Emboss effect sharpens the edges of objects in the layer without suppressing the original colors.
The text appears, letter by letter, until the words Travel Europe are fully onscreen at Precomposing is a way to nest layers within a composition. Precomposing moves the layers to a new composition, which takes the place of the selected layers.
When you want to change the order in which layer components are rendered, precomposing is a quick way to create intermediate levels of nesting in an existing hierarchy. Then click OK. This new, precomposed layer contains the three layers that you selected in step 1. E Tip: To locate the The Dissolve — Vapor animation preset includes three components—a master dissolve, a box blur, and a solid composite, all of which appear in the Effect Controls panel. The default settings are fine for this project.
Press the spacebar to stop playback at any time. Adding transparency Many TV stations display logos semitransparently in the corner of the frame to emphasize the brand. Click the stopwatch icon to set an Opacity keyframe at this point in time. After Effects adds a keyframe. When you place your composition in the Render Queue, it becomes a render item that uses the render settings assigned to it.
The Render Queue panel opens automatically. By default, After Effects uses lossless compression to encode the rendered composition into a movie file, which is fine for this project. But you need to identify where to save the file. After Effects displays a progress bar in the Render Queue panel as it encodes the file, and issues an audio alert when all items in the Render Queue have been rendered and encoded. In Bridge, you can search for and preview image assets.
When you locate the asset you want to use in an After Effects project, double-click it or drag it to the Project panel. This lesson will take about two hours to complete.
You can animate text layers by manually creating keyframes in the Timeline panel, using animation presets, or using expressions. You can even animate individual characters or words in a text layer. As you start the application, restore the default settings for After Effects. This makes After Effects an incredibly powerful application for compositing and motion graphics work.
About text layers In After Effects, you can add text with flexibility and precision. The Tools, Character, and Paragraph panels contain a wide range of text controls. You can create and edit horizontal or vertical text directly on the screen in the Composition panel, and quickly change the font, style, size, and color of the text. You can apply changes to individual characters and set formatting options for entire paragraphs, including alignment, justification, and word-wrapping.
In addition to all of these style features, After Effects provides tools for easily animating specific characters and properties, such as text opacity and hue. After Effects uses two types of text: point text and paragraph text. Use point text to enter a single word or line of characters; use paragraph text to enter and format text as one or more paragraphs. In many ways, text layers are just like any other layers in After Effects.
You can apply effects and expressions to text layers, animate them, designate them as 3D layers, and edit the 3D text while viewing from multiple angles. As with layers imported from Illustrator, text layers are continuously rasterized, so when you scale the layer or resize the text, it retains crisp, resolution-independent edges. The two main differences between text layers and other layers are that you cannot open a text layer in its own Layer panel and you can animate the text in a text layer using special textanimator properties and selectors.
After Effects opens the Adobe Fonts page in your default browser. Animating Text 3 Type Snorkel Tours in the sample text field, and move the slider to decrease the sample text size so you can see the full title.
Using your own text as the sample text lets you get a feel for how a font will work in your project. Then, on the left side of the page, select Sans Serif in the Classification area.
In the Properties area, select the buttons for medium weight, medium width, medium x-height, low contrast, and standard capitalization. Calluna Sans, which is probably on the second page, will work nicely. Adobe Fonts displays sample text for all the fonts in the selected family as well as additional information about the font. The text you enter appears in a new text layer.
The small line through the I-beam marks the position of the text baseline. Then exit text-editing mode by pressing Enter on the numeric keypad or selecting the layer name in the Timeline panel. The text layer is selected in the Composition panel. Using the Character panel After Effects displays sample text for each font. If text is highlighted, changes you make in the Character panel affect only the highlighted text. If no text is highlighted and no text layers are selected, changes you make in the Character panel become the defaults for the next text entry.
If a type layer is selected, the text in the Composition panel is formatted with the newly selected font. For point text, each line is a separate paragraph. You can use the Paragraph panel to set formatting options for a single paragraph, multiple paragraphs, or all paragraphs in a text layer. This aligns horizontal text to the center of the layer, not to the center of the composition. This scales the layer to fit to the width of the composition. Press Shift after you start dragging to constrain the movement and help you position the text.
After Effects adds a new Scale keyframe at the current time. Although the composition is 13 seconds long, you need to preview only the first five seconds, since that is where the text animation occurs. The scale animation ends shortly before The movie title scales to a smaller size.
In nature, nothing comes to an absolute stop. Instead, objects ease into and out of starting and stopping points. The keyframe becomes a leftpointing icon. The keyframe becomes a rightpointing icon. Using a text animation preset Currently, the title appears when the video begins. The easiest way to do that is to use one of the many animation presets that come with After Effects. After applying an animation preset, you can customize it and save it to use again in other projects.
After Effects applies animation presets from the current time. Adobe Bridge opens, displaying the contents of the After Effects Presets folder. To help you choose the right animation preset for your projects, you can preview presets in Adobe Bridge. For more information, see page 2. Adobe Bridge plays a sample of the animation in the Preview panel. After Effects applies the preset to the selected layer, which is the Snorkel Tours layer, but the layer no longer appears in the composition.
Customizing an animation preset After you apply an animation preset to a layer, all of its properties and keyframes are listed in the Timeline panel. Press the spacebar again to stop the preview. Animating Text The letters appear to ripple into the background.
The Randomize Order property changes the order in which letters appear on the screen as they ripple into place. But in the real world, you may need to ensure brand and style consistency among multiple projects. Fortunately, you can import text from Photoshop or Illustrator. You can preserve text layers, edit them, and animate them in After Effects. The imported file is added as a composition to the Project panel; its layers are added in a separate folder. Click OK if you see a warning about missing fonts.
Now the text layer can be edited, so you can customize the tour location. Leave all other settings as they are. This is because the original layer name was created in Photoshop. The easiest way to do this is to use another text animation preset. At that point, the title has finished scaling to its final size. This effect works well to reveal the text gradually.
Characters In preset changes the color of the text, which is fine for this project. You should see two keyframes for Range Selector 1 Offset: one at and one at Press it once to see the animated properties; press it twice to view all modified properties.
Drag the current-time indicator across the time ruler from to to see the letters fall into place. Then save your work so far. By animating tracking, you can make words seem to expand outward as they appear onscreen from a central point.
In the Paragraph panel, make sure Center Text is selected. The animation should also occur more quickly. The letters expand, and stop animating at the last keyframe. Then click the stopwatch icon to set an Opacity keyframe.
After Effects adds a second keyframe. Now the letters of the company name will fade in as they expand onscreen. The logo is centered on the screen, but you want it to enter from the left and move down to replace Blue Crab Charters. Then click the stopwatch next to each property to create initial keyframes. After Effects creates keyframes for the properties. The logo moves into position, but you want it to swoop in, rather than moving in a straight line. Animating Text 11 Go to , and press the spacebar to preview the animation.
Press the spacebar again to stop the preview, and then hide the layer properties. Applying an animation preset The logo swoops in. Using a text animator group Text animator groups let you animate individual letters within a block of text in a layer.
Then press Enter or Return again to accept the new name. Animating Text Each animator group includes a default range selector. Range selectors constrain the animation to particular letters in the text layer.
You can add additional selectors to an animator group, or apply multiple animator properties to the same range selector.
Now, any properties that you animate with the Skew Animator will affect only the characters that you selected. About text animator groups A text animator group includes one or more selectors and one or more animator properties. A selector is like a mask—it specifies which characters or section of a text layer you want an animator property to affect. Using a selector, you can define a percentage of the text, specific characters in the text, or a specific range of text.
Using a combination of animator properties and selectors, you can create complex text animations that would otherwise require painstaking keyframing. Most text animations require you to animate only the selector values, not the property values. Consequently, text animators use a small number of keyframes even for complex animations. The other words in the line of text remain steady.
After Effects adds another keyframe. Animating Text 7 Click the Skew property name to select all of the Skew keyframes. To remove only one animator, select its name in the Timeline panel, and press Delete. For a simpler effect, you can animate the Transform properties for a text layer, just as you can any other layer. Set the Font Size to 48 px.
Leave all other options at their default settings. Click the stopwatch icon to create an initial keyframe for the layer. Press the Shift key as you drag to create a straight path. The text moves in from the right side and stops in its final position beside the logo.
Adding motion blur Motion blur is the blur that occurs as an object moves. After Effects automatically enables motion blur for the composition when you enable it for any layer. You just completed some hard-core text animations. Animating Text Review questions 1 What are some similarities and differences between text layers and other types of layers in After Effects?
Review answers 1 In many ways, a text layer is just like any other layer in After Effects. You can apply effects and expressions to text layers, animate them, designate them as 3D layers, and edit 3D text while viewing it in multiple views.
Text layers consist entirely of vector graphics, so when you scale the layer or resize the text, it retains crisp, resolution-independent edges. You can animate the text in a text layer using special text animator properties and selectors. Adobe Bridge opens and displays the contents of the After Effects Presets folder. Navigate to folders containing categories of text animation presets, such as Blurs or Paths, and watch samples in the Preview panel.
Text animator groups contain one or more selectors, which are like masks: They let you specify which characters or section of a text layer you want an animator property to affect. You can animate shapes, apply animation presets, and connect them to other shapes to intensify their impact. You can customize and transform an individual shape or its entire layer to create interesting results.
In this lesson, you will use shape layers to create a whimsical animation. As you start After Effects, restore the default application settings. In the scene, night turns to day as the sky lightens and the colors brighten. Press the spacebar again to stop playback. When you draw a shape directly in the Composition panel, After Effects adds a new shape layer to the composition.
You can apply stroke and fill settings to a shape, modify its path, and apply animation presets. Shape attributes are all represented in the Timeline panel, and you can animate each setting over time. The same drawing tools can create both shapes and masks. Masks are applied to layers to hide or reveal areas or as input into effects; shapes have their own layers.
When you select a drawing tool, you can specify whether the tool draws a shape or a mask. If you draw a shape when no layer is selected, After Effects creates a shape layer. The shape appears in the Composition panel, and After Effects adds a shape layer named Shape Layer 1 to the Timeline panel. Working with Shape Layers Applying a fill and stroke You can change the color of a shape by modifying its Fill settings in the Tools panel.
Clicking the word Fill opens the Fill Options dialog box, where you can select the kind of fill, its blending mode, and its opacity. Similarly, you can change the color and width of the stroke of a shape by modifying its Stroke settings in the Tools panel. Click the word Stroke to open the Stroke Options dialog box; click the Stroke Color box to select a color.
Because the operation is selfanimating, you need to change only a few properties for the entire shape to move on its own. Then change the Size to 2. When you enable Motion Blur for a layer, After Effects enables it for the composition. Working with Shape Layers 7 Press the Home key or move the current-time indicator to the beginning of the time ruler.
Duplicating a shape The sky should have more than one star, and they should all shimmer. After Effects adds a Star 2 layer at the top of the layer stack. It is identical to the Star 1 layer, including its position. Then adjust the Rotation and Scale properties for each layer to create variation among the stars. Working with Shape Layers 9 Press the spacebar to preview the animation. The stars twinkle and fade as night turns to day.
Press the spacebar again to stop the playback. Then select the Star 1 layer and Shift-select the Star 7 layer to select all the star layers again. You can continue to edit the star layers by opening the Starscape composition, but precomposing the layers keeps the Timeline panel organized. Creating custom shapes You can use the five shape tools to create a wide variety of shapes.
However, the real power in using shape layers is that you can draw any shape and manipulate it in a myriad of ways. Click again in the initial vertex to close the shape. When you create the first vertex, After Effects automatically adds a shape layer— Shape Layer 1—to the Timeline panel.
Press Enter or Return to accept the new name. Select the None option, and then click OK. Working with Shape Layers 8 Click the stopwatch next to the Color property to create an initial keyframe.
Press F2 or click an empty area in the Timeline panel to deselect all layers. Draw the shape a little bit above the base of the pot. Also, a layer must be visible to snap to it. The flowerpot layers currently have no relationship to each other in the composition. When the Snapping option is enabled, the layer feature that is closest to your pointer when you click becomes the snapping feature.
As you drag the layer near other layers, features on other layers are highlighted, showing you where the snapping feature would snap if you released the mouse button. When you select a layer in the Composition panel, After Effects displays the layer handles and anchor point. You can use any of these points as the snapping feature for a layer. As you drag the layer, a box appears around the handle you selected, indicating that it is the snapping feature. Animating a shape You can animate the Position, Opacity, and other Transform properties of shape layers just as you animate them in other layers.
But shape layers provide additional opportunities for animation, including fills, strokes, paths, and path operations. Path operations are live, so you can modify or remove them at any time. You used the Wiggle Paths path operation earlier. You can animate the degree of pucker or bloat over time.
After Effects adds a Shape Layer 1 layer to the Timeline panel. After Effects automatically changes the stroke options from None to Solid Color when you change the stroke color.
Working with Shape Layers 9 Go to , and change the amount to The star shape becomes a flower. After Effects creates a keyframe.
Animating position and scale The star becomes a flower, but it should be falling as it changes. You may need to deselect Snapping in the Tools panel to position the flower where you want it. After Effects creates a Position keyframe.
Increase the Scale value so that the flower is about the width of the flowerpot. The value you use depends on the original size of the star and on the width of the flowerpot. The star falls as it becomes a flower, but its trajectory is straight. You want it to fall in a slight arc. If you want to change the path, you can add Position keyframes at other points in the time ruler.
Animating fill color Currently, the star remains yellow with a red stroke as it becomes a flower. Animating using parenting When you parent one layer to another, the child layer adopts the attributes of the parent layer. You can simply parent the leaves and stem to ensure they move together. It will have a slightly thicker stroke than the flower, but no fill, and it will rise to meet the flower.
Change the Stroke Width to 3 px. Before releasing the mouse, drag the Bezier handle to create a subtle curve in the stem. Then click the stopwatch icon to create an initial keyframe at its final position. Press Shift as you drag to move it straight down. Working with Shape Layers 11 Press F2 or click an empty area of the Timeline panel to deselect all layers. Before you release the mouse, drag the Bezier handle to create a curved leaf.
Then rename Shape Layer 2 Leaf 2. The Leaf 1 and Leaf 2 layers will move in relationship to the Stem layer. Select the Leaf 1 layer and Shift-select the Leaf 2 layer. Creating a parenting relationship between layers synchronizes the changes in the parent layer with the corresponding transformation values of the child layers, except opacity.
For example, if a parent layer moves 5 pixels to the right of its starting position, then the child layer also moves 5 pixels to the right of its starting position. A layer can have only one parent, but a layer can be a parent to any number of 2D or 3D layers within the same composition. Parenting layers is useful for creating complex animations, such as linking the movements of a marionette or depicting the orbits of planets in the solar system.
Sometimes you want to connect a single point to another layer—for example, the top of the stem in your animation to the flower itself. The Create Nulls From Paths panel lets you do just that. A null object is an invisible layer that has all the same properties as other layers so that it can serve as a parent to any layer. The Create Nulls From Paths panel creates null objects based on specific points, which you can then parent to other layers without having to write complex expressions.
Nulls From Paths panel works only with masks or with Bezier shapes shapes drawn with the Pen tool. To convert a shape drawn with a shape tool to a Bezier path, expand the shape layer contents, right-click the path e. You must select a path in the Timeline panel in order to create a null using the options in the Create Nulls From Paths panel. After Effects creates two nulls, corresponding to the two points on the stem path.
The null objects appear in gold in the Composition panel, and as layers named Stem: Path 1 [1. You only need the null for the top point. Then go to , and click the stopwatch icon to create an initial keyframe at its original rotation. Animating layers to match audio You can time animation to match the beat of an audio file. First you need to create keyframes from the amplitude of the audio which determines loudness , and then sync the animation to those values.
After Effects adds the Audio Amplitude layer. After Effects creates keyframes that specify the amplitude of the audio file in each frame of the layer. Expand the channel you want to use. Then Alt-click Windows or Option-click macOS the stopwatch icon for the property whose animation you want to sync with to add an expression; with the expression selected in the time ruler, click the pick whip icon on the Expression:[property name] line, and drag it to the Slider property name in the Audio Amplitude layer.
When you release the mouse, the pick whip snaps, and the expression in the shape layer time ruler now means that the property values for the layer will depend on the Slider values of the Audio Amplitude layer. Review answers 1 A shape layer is simply a layer that contains a vector graphic called a shape. To create a shape layer, draw a shape directly in the Composition panel, using any of the drawing tools or the Pen tool. Then click next to the handle or point you want to use as a snapping feature, and drag the layer close to the point to which you want to align it.
After Effects highlights the points to which it will align when you release the mouse button. Animating a Multimedia Presentation 4 In the Sky. Through Creative Cloud Libraries, you can also use Looks, shapes, and other assets you create with Adobe Capture and other mobile apps. Even Adobe Stock images and videos are available in the Libraries panel: Search and browse assets within the panel, download watermarked versions to see how they work with your projects, and license the ones you want to keep—all without leaving After Effects.
The same search bar you use to search Adobe Stock makes it easier to find specific items in your Creative Cloud Libraries, too. Animating a Multimedia Presentation 3 Drag the Sky. The balloon will float across the Sky. The far right of the image contains the canvas-wrapped clouds that appear at the end of the scene. Adjusting anchor points The anchor point is the point around which transformations, such as scaling or rotation, are performed.
With the Pan Behind tool, you can move the anchor point without moving the entire layer in the Composition window. Parenting layers This composition includes several layers that need to move together.
Balloon from the pop-up menu. This establishes both the Head and Upper arm layers as child layers of the Balloon layer. When the Balloon layer moves, the other two layers will move with it. Head from the pop-up menu.
The forearm should move with the upper arm as well. Upper arm from the pop-up menu. Now you need to ensure that the fire video travels with the balloon. The Fire layer should be between the Yellow Canvas layer and the Eyes layer. To see the flame in action so you can position it correctly, drag the current-time marker across the first second of the time ruler. Precomposing layers moves them to a new composition, nested inside the original composition.
The four layers you selected in the Timeline panel are replaced by a single Canvas composition layer. You may need to change the magnification. Increasing the width of the composition and then moving the canvas to the far left side will give you room to animate the canvas layers later. You moved the canvas to the far left side of the Canvas composition, revealing the uncovered balloon in the Balloon composition.
At the beginning of the animation, though, the canvas should be on the balloon. Balloon from the pop-up menu so that the canvas will follow the balloon. The layers appear in the same order they were when you copied them, and they retain all the properties they had in the Balloon composition, including parenting relationships.
Placing initial keyframes The balloon will enter the scene from the bottom, drift through the sky, and eventually depart from the upper right corner of the frame.
We used Position values We used 19 degrees. We used We used the following values: Position You can use the values we used or create your own path, as long as the balloon stays fully visible on the screen until a little after 11 seconds, and then slowly makes its way offscreen.
We used Position We used 9. Save your work so far. Using Bezier handles to smooth a motion path The basic path is in place, but you can smooth it out a bit. Each keyframe includes Bezier handles that you can adjust to change the angle of the curve. Then move the current-time indicator to a position where you can clearly see the motion path in the Composition panel. Between 4 and 6 seconds is probably good. Our final path is shown below in the image on the right.
Animating a Multimedia Presentation 6 Preview the balloon on the path by moving the current-time indicator across the time ruler. Make any adjustments you want.
Animating additional elements The balloon swoops and swirls through the sky, and its child layers go with it. But the character is currently static in his balloon. Use the Hand tool to adjust the image in the Composition window if you need to. You may need to deselect the layers so you can see the action clearly in the Composition window. You may need to zoom out to see the animation. Animating a Multimedia Presentation 5 Repeat steps 1—4 to copy the Upper arm Rotation property keyframes.
Now the character tilts his head up each time he tugs the cord. Then preview the animation. Positioning and duplicating a video When the character tugs the cord, flame should emerge from the burner. The Fractal Noise and Directional Blur effects will work well. Adding a solid-color layer You need to apply the effects on their own layer, which will be a solid-color layer. About solid-color layers Use solid layers to color a background or to create simple graphic images.
You can create solid images of any color or size up to 30, x 30, pixels in After Effects. After Effects treats solids as it does any other footage item: You can modify the mask, transform properties, and apply effects to a solid layer. If you change settings for a solid that is used by more than one layer, you can apply the changes to all layers that use the solid or to only the single occurrence of the solid.
The Fractal Noise effect will create the gust of wind. The Directional Blur effect will create a blur in the direction the canvas flies. Double-click the Fractal Noise effect to apply it. Now you need to add the Wind composition to the Balloon Scene composition. Animating precomposed layers Earlier, you precomposed the four canvas layers, creating a composition called Canvas. You then positioned the Canvas composition layer to match the balloon, and parented the two.
Animating a Multimedia Presentation 5 Go to All four canvas layers become nearly horizontal. Vary their motion paths to make them more interesting. You can add intermediate rotation and position keyframes between and , edit Bezier curves, or just drag the canvas layers off the edge. You can use an adjustment layer to apply an effect to all the layers beneath it at once. A new adjustment layer is automatically added to the top of the layer stack.
Then click the stopwatch icons to create initial keyframes for each of them. Animating a Multimedia Presentation 1 Go to Animating the background The movie should end with the revelation that the canvas from the balloons has been draped on the clouds. But right now, the canvas flies off and the balloon floats away. You need to animate the sky so that the canvas-covered clouds are centered at the end of the scene. Our values are — The canvas should be completely offscreen before the canvas-colored clouds appear.
The bare balloon should float in front of at least a few of the canvas-colored clouds before it disappears. Then, double-click an empty area of the Project panel to open the Import File dialog box.
The music changes just as the canvas flies off the balloon. Expand the Soundtrack. For more substantial edits, use Adobe Audition. Audition is available with a full Adobe Creative Cloud membership. You can use Audition to change the length of an audio file, alter its pitch, or change its tempo.
You can apply effects, record new audio, mix multitrack sessions, and more. Then, make your changes in Audition, and save the file. The changes you made are automatically reflected in your After Effects project.
Review answers 1 When you animate the Position property, After Effects displays the movement as a motion path. You can create a motion path for the position of the layer or for the anchor point of a layer. A position motion path appears in the Composition panel; an anchor-point motion path appears in the Layer panel. The motion path appears as a sequence of dots, where each dot marks the position of the layer at each frame.
A box in the path marks the position of a keyframe. After Effects treats solids as it does any other footage item: You can modify the mask, transform properties, and apply effects to the solid layer. Use solid layers to color a background or create simple graphic images. This lesson provides more practice animating the layers of a Photoshop file, including dynamically remapping time. In this lesson, you will import a layered Photoshop file of a theater marquee, and then animate it to simulate the marquee lighting up and text scrolling across its screen.
This is a stylized animation in which the motion is first accelerated, and then reverses and moves forward again. You may delete the sample movie from your hard disk if you have limited storage space. When you begin the lesson, restore the default application settings for After Effects. When prompted, click OK to delete your preferences file. After Effects opens to display an empty, untitled project. Importing the footage You need to import one source item for this lesson.
Animating Layers 4 Click Import or Open. Before continuing, take a moment to study the layers of the file you just imported. Resize the Name column to make it wider and easier to read, if necessary. In addition, there is one layer representing the initial marquee with plain light bulbs Unlit marquee and a second layer that represents the final marquee with the bulbs brightly lit Lit marquee.
Preparing layered Photoshop files Before you import a layered Photoshop file, name its layers carefully to reduce preview and rendering time, and to avoid problems importing and updating the layers: Organize and name layers.
If you change a layer name in a Photoshop file after you have imported the file into After Effects, After Effects retains the link to the original layer. However, if you delete a layer in a Photoshop file after you have imported the file into After Effects, After Effects will be unable to find the original layer and will list it as missing in the Project panel. Simulating lighting changes The first part of the animation involves lighting the marquee.
However, you want the marquee to appear dark and then lighten. To accomplish this, you will make the Lit marquee layer initially transparent, and then animate its opacity so that the lights appear to turn on over time. Now, when the animation begins, the Lit marquee layer is transparent, which allows the Unlit marquee layer to show through. The bulbs around the marquee transition until they are brightly lit.
You can use the pick whip to create expressions that link the values of one property or effect to another. When you release the mouse, the pick whip snaps, and the Depth property is red. Animating Layers 7 Drag the current-time indicator from to Notice that the Opacity value for the Lit marquee layer and the Depth property for the Starburst layer match.
The area around the starburst and the marquee light bulbs brighten in sync. About Photoshop layer styles Adobe Photoshop provides a variety of layer styles—such as shadows, glows, and bevels—that change the appearance of a layer.
After Effects can preserve these layer styles when you import Photoshop layers. You can also apply layer styles in After Effects. Though layer styles are referred to as effects in Photoshop, they behave more like blending modes in After Effects. Layer styles follow transformations in the standard render order, whereas effects precede transformations. The layer style properties are available for the layer in the Timeline panel.
You work with expressions in the Timeline panel or the Effect Controls panel. You can use the pick whip to create expressions, or you can enter and edit expressions manually in the expression field—a text field in the time graph under the property. You can create expressions using the pick whip, by using simple examples and modifying them to suit your needs, or by chaining objects and methods together.
For more information about expressions, see After Effects Help. Using a track matte to confine animation Text should scroll across the bottom of the marquee, but only in the black field.
Animating the text The text should start scrolling after the marquee lights up, and it should continue scrolling until the end of the clip.
Only the first character of the text appears in the black ticker area. The last character in the text is visible in the ticker field. Press the spacebar again to end the preview. Creating the track matte The text scrolls well, but it overlaps the rest of the marquee, and even the lights on the left side. The alpha channel of the layer above Scroll area 2 is used to set transparency for the Scroll text layer, so the contents of that layer appear only within the area defined by the Scroll area layer.
Animating Layers About track mattes and traveling mattes When you want one layer to show through a hole in another layer, set up a track matte. You can animate either the track matte layer or the fill layer. When you animate the track matte layer, you create a traveling matte. If you want to animate the track matte and fill layers using identical settings, you can precompose them. You define transparency in a track matte using values from either its alpha channel or the luminance of its pixels.
In both alpha-channel mattes and luminance mattes, pixels with higher values are more transparent. In most cases, you use a high-contrast matte so that areas are either completely transparent or completely opaque.
Intermediate shades should appear only where you want partial or gradual transparency, such as along a soft edge. After Effects preserves the order of a layer and its track matte after you duplicate or split the layer. Within the duplicated or split layers, the track matte layer remains on top of the fill layer.
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