Title Details

Jerron Smith is an animator, editor, and educator. He has worked with Adobe technologies for more than a decade. He teaches web, interactive, and new media classes at American Graphics Institute. The AGI Creative Team develops and delivers training programs for creative, marketing, and communications professionals through the American Graphics Institute.

About Digital Classroom 1

Prerequisites 1

System requirements 1

Starting Adobe After Effects CS6 3

Fonts used in this book 3

Loading lesson files 4

Working with the video tutorials 6

Viewing the video tutorials with the Adobe Flash Player 7

Additional resources 8

Lesson 1: Understanding Motion Graphics Starting up 9

Defining motion graphics 10

Television and video graphics 10

Internet and mobile devices 10

Desktop distribution and presentation graphics 10

Digital video basics 11

Understanding video formats 11

Understanding frame rate and resolution 14

Understanding transparency 15

Self study 16

Review 16

Lesson 2: Understanding the After Effects Interface Starting up 17

Understanding and working with menus 18

Opening an existing After Effects project 18

Understanding the After Effects panel system 20

After Effects panels 21

Primary panels 21

Understanding the workspace 35

Viewing and hiding panels 35

Docking and undocking panels 36

Resizing panels 38

Saving a custom workspace 39

Resetting the workspace 40

Setting After Effects Preferences 41

Changing the default Undo levels 42

Enable Auto-Save 43

Self study 44

Review 44

Lesson 3: Media Management—Working with Images, Audio, and Video

Starting up 45

What is Media Management? 46

Projects, compositions, and layers: An overview 46

Creating a new project 47

Importing media files 48

Organizing the Project panel 50

Modifying the column displays 50

Creating folders and subfolders 51

Previewing footage 54

Previewing stills and video 55

Previewing audio 56

Trimming a video clip 57

Importing multiple files 60

Importing Photoshop and Illustrator files 62

Importing image sequences 65

Importing After Effects compositions 68

Locating missing files 70

Using the Interpret Footage dialog box 71

Looping an audio or video file 71

Using Remember Interpretation 73

Using the Collect Files command to consolidate files 74

Self study 75

Review 75

Starting up 77

Understanding the animation workflow 78

Creating and working with compositions 78

Creating a new composition 79

Understanding composition settings 81

Importing compositions from Photoshop and Illustrator 83

Working with layers 85

Understanding the layer switches 90

Understanding layer stacking order 92

Changing layer names 93

Creating Kinestasis by animating the Anchor Point 95

Animating rotation 98

Using layer parenting to ease repetition 101

Animating position 103

Understanding motion paths 108

Using layer motion blur 110

Adjusting Motion Blur settings 112

Using blending modes 114

Applying layer styles 117

Understanding nested compositions and precomposing 119

Adding nested compositions 119

Pre-composing layers 122

Creating a fade-in by animating Opacity and Scale 124

Self study 125

Review 125

Starting up 127

Working with masks 128

Creating masks with the shape tools 131

Selecting and manipulating masks 134

Animating the position of masks 137

Working with mask feathering 142

Setting the Mask Feather Property 142

Setting Per Vertex mask feathering 143

Creating freeform masks 145

Setting up the project 146

Animating the shape of masks 155

Understanding track mattes 157

Creating track mattes 157

Creating mattes from animated Photoshop files 159

Creating a chroma key 163

Creating a garbage matte 165

Creating a chroma key 167

Refining the matte 170

Self study 174

Review 174

Lesson 6: Working with Text Starting up 175

Creating text 176

Setting text properties globally 179

Formatting individual characters 182

Animating text properties 188

Saving an animator as a preset 194

Working with text animation presets 195

Modifying animation presets 198

Creating custom text animators 202

Creating a typewriter effect 202

Creating a blur-in effect 203

Creating text on a path 205

Self study 207

Review 207

Lesson 7: Working with Audio Starting up 209

Audio in After Effects 210

Previewing audio 211

Adding audio files to the Timeline 212

Viewing audio file metadata 214

Looping audio files 217

Animating audio levels 219

Working with audio effects 220

Using composition markers to set the beat 222

Naming composition markers 226

Refining the position of composition markers 228

Syncing animation to composition markers 229

Creating keyframes from audio files 234

Self study 237

Review 237

Lesson 8: Working with 3D in After Effects Starting up 239

Previewing animation with RAM preview 240

Working with After Effects 3D 241

Creating 3D layers 242

Using multiple viewports 243

Understanding 3D Transform properties 246

Understanding Material Options 246

Animating 3D layers 247

Creating and using lights 252

Understanding light options 258

Animating light properties 259

Creating and using cameras 262

Understanding basic camera options 265

Animating camera properties 265

Creating the depth-of-field effect 274

Creating a Rack Focus shot 276

Working with After Effects 3D Layers 280

Creating a Ray-traced composition 280

Extruding and Beveling Text 281

Creating Reflections 284

Self study 286

Review 286

Lesson 9: Advanced Animation Starting up 287

Animating with effects 288

Applying effects to layers 288

Animating effect properties 292

Saving animation presets 296

Applying and modifying effects presets 297

Time-reversing a layer 299

Using the Motion Sketch panel to capture motion 300

Controlling layer orientation 303

Using the Smoother panel to soften movement 304

Using the Wiggler panel to add frantic motion 306

Create acceleration and deceleration using Easy Easing 309

Changing spatial interpolation 309

Adding easing to keyframes 311

Using squash and stretch to enhance the animation 313

Animating with the Graph Editor 315

Create a strobing effect using hold interpolation 320

Self study 322

Review 322

Starting up 323

Understanding Video Stabilization and Tracking 324

Using the Warp Stabilizer 324

Using the 3D Camera Tracker 328

Attaching 3D layers to Track Points 333

Self study 337

Review 337

Lesson 11: Working with Expressions and Scripts Starting up 339

Automating animation with expressions 340

Finding expressions 341

Adding expressions to properties 341

Using the loopOut() expression 342

Using the random() expression 344

Using the Time property with expressions 347

Using the wiggle() expression 348

Working with scripts 350

Installing and running scripts 350

Creating scripts 351

Finding additional scripts 351

Using and running scripts 351

Using the Ease and Wizz Script 352

Self study 356

Review 356

Lesson 12: Outputting After Effects Projects Starting up 357

Rendering files for output 358

Understanding the Render Queue 359

Adding compositions to the Render Queue 359

Adjusting render settings 362

Duplicating jobs in the Render Queue 365

Creating render templates 369

Exporting a project file 370

Trimming and cropping compositions 372

Rendering an individual frame 376

Self study 378

Review 378

Appendix A: Adobe After Effects keyboard shortcuts General Keyboard Shortcuts 379

Working with After Effects Projects 380

Working with Preferences 380

Panels, viewers, workspaces, and windows 380

Activating tools 382

Compositions and the work area (keyboard shortcuts) 383

Navigating the Timeline 383

Previews 384

Views 385

Footage 387

Effects and animation presets 388

Layers 388

Showing properties and groups in the Timeline panel 390

Showing properties in the Effect Controls panel 391

Modifying layer properties 391

3D layers 393

Keyframes and the Graph Editor 394

Text 395

Working with Masks 398

Paint tools 398

Shape layers 400

Markers 401

Motion tracking 401

Saving, exporting, and rendering 402

Appendix B: After Effects secondary panels After Effects Secondary panels 403

Appendix C: Importable media formats Importable media formats 411

Still images and image sequences 413

Project formats 414

Appendix D: Understanding bit rate Understanding formats and codecs 415

Understanding bit rate 416

Understanding spatial and temporal compression 416

Appendix E: Understanding video displays Understanding Video Displays 417

Understanding aspect ratio and pixel aspect ratio 417

Progressive display versus interlacing 419