After Effects Crash Course What is After Effects? Professional standard for motion graphics, compositing, and visual affects for video With After Effects, you can work with video, audio, still images, or illustrator files You can manipulate in 2D or 3D space with After Effects You can animate in After Effects Interface

Workflow Overview Bring in assets from Hard Drive into the Project Panel

From the project panel, assets become layers of a composition. We adjust layers in the timeline panel.

We view the results of our work in the composition panel

We can add effects from the effects and presets panel

When we are finished, we render the animation into a format that others may view AEP Project Files

All work in After Effects saved as AEP project file .aep file keeps track of your work in After Effects When you bring items into the project panel they are not stored in your project, only a link to the original file is in your project You have to keep track of where your files are After Effects can only open one project at a time Importing Files File Import File Or Right click in the project panel Or Just double click within the project panel

You can organize assets with folders. To create a new folder, click the folder icon at the bottom of the project panel. Once your assets are in the project panel, you can start using them in a composition Compositions Like a container. Can put any type of file into them Independent Timeline. For each composition, there is a separate timeline. Like a mini-movie Nesting – put a composition into a composition To create a new composition:

Press new composition button at bottom of project panel or go to Composition New Composition Preset: NTSC DV National Television Standards Committee Will create a project for a standard television set 1920 x 1080 pixels is HD Pixel Aspect Ratio Pixels on TV are not exactly square Select “square pixels” Frame Rate Frames/Second Video is a series of still images Still images = Frames Frame Rate = how fast frames play back 29.97 frames per second = video Resolution Full Duration Default is 30 seconds You can set duration to whatever you want After created, compositions show up in timeline panel OR To create a composition, you can simply drag footage into the timeline panel. After Effects will create a new composition that has the same aspect ratio, frame rate, resolution, and duration of the clip. Dragging Assets into the composition

You can use the eye to toggle layer visibility on and off. You can see visible layers in the composition panel.

The Composition Panel

Magnification Fit – Footage will fit within panel when you change the size Fit up to 100% - Stops reszing when footage reaches 100%

Go To Time- Go to specfic places in time on your footage

Resolution- Size stays the same, but quality changes. Can lower this to preview faster.

Region of Interest. Preview a small part of your composition. Click and drag to select area on your composition. Click again to remove.

Transparency Button- Make background transparency

Used to preview 3-D Timeline Panel Indicates the beginning and end of our composition Compositions are boxes, layers are the stuff inside Layer Stacking Order- As you stack layers on top of each other they will cover up the view of the layers beneath them

Colored bar indicates duration of the clip Control click within timeline panel to bring up layer menu

You can physically move and re-size layers in the composition panel by clicking with the move tool You can rotate layers by clicking the rotate tool You can change the anchor point location by using the pan behind tool Hold Shift Key to constrain proportions while you are scaling layers

Current time indicator You can change composition settings at any point HOME: Go to beginning of timeline END: Go to end of timeline

Click timecode at upper left of timeline to “go to time”

Use page down key to preview frame by frame Editing Layers Click on eye icon to toggle the visibility of the layer Each layer is represented by a bar. Each bar represents the layerʼs duration

To edit beginning of clip, click and drag beginning to point where you would like it to begin. Same with the end point. This is nondestructive. You can always pull these back out You can then adjust your clip by clicking and moving it within your timeline To split footage: Hi-Light Layer. Go to time you would like to cut Go to Edit Split Layer Transforming your Layer:

Method 1: In the timeline panel, click on the arrow to the left of your layer. This will reveal the word Transform. Click on the arrow to the let of Transform; this will reveal all of the Transform properties for this layer. Notice the numeric values next to each property. Place your cursor over one, then click and drag while watching the Comp panel to see the effect of editing these properties.

Anchor Point = “a” Position = “p” Scale = “s” Rotation – “r” Opacity = “t” Hold shift down to reveal multiple animation layers

Position = you can animate X (left, right) and Y (up,down) coordinates Opacity = Opposite of Transparency. 100% is completely there, 0% is completely not there

Scale= Size, making things bigger or smaller X and Y axis- can be linked to constrain proportions or unlinked to move independently of one another

Rotation= Left Number = Revolutions Right Number = Clockwise/Counterclockwise Degrees

Anchor Point = Use pan behind tool to move anchor point

Click “reset” next to transform to return these values to their defaults. To Copy a Layer (Edits will be included): Edit Copy Edit Paste Previewing your work Two ways to preview Spacebar Preview- After Effects needs to load this into ram before it will play preview in real time. The green bar represents real time. No audio with spacebar preview. For audio preview and RAM Preview you have to hit the 0 key on the numeric keypad. Animation The way we animate a simple object is the way we animate everything in after effects KEYFRAMES – “Tweening” – Interpolation between important key parts Interpolation- the way that After Effects gets from Point A to Point B We set the keyframes, After Effects does the tweening

Press stopwatch to activate keyframe

This diamond is a keyframes. Remembers the Value and the Time Press spacebar to preview animation Press spacebar to preview animation and press again to pause preview- the priority is to play as

much of the animation as possible. Frames may be skipped Press 0 on numeric keypad to preview in real time. Will allow you to hear audio as well. Disadvantage: Once system runs out of RAM the preview will stop. How to move keyframes: Click and drag Animating Anchor Point = “a” Position = “p” Scale = “s” Rotation – “r” Opacity = “t” Hold shift down to reveal multiple animation layers

Position = you can animate X (left, right) and Y (up,down) coordinates Opacity = Opposite of Transparency. 100% is completely there, 0% is completely not there

Scale= Size, making things bigger or smaller X and Y axis- can be linked to constrain proportions or unlinked to move independently of one another

Rotation= Left Number = Revolutions Right Number = Clockwise/Counterclockwise Degrees

Anchor Point = Use pan behind tool to move anchor point

Work Area – Drag to Constrain

Keyframe Navitagor – Click left and right to scroll through keyframes on your timeline. Click center to create a keyframe at current location. Editing Video Slip Edit:

Hover mouse over part of footage that isnʼt showing. Then move footage within the time parameters you have created. To change speed of video footage:

Open in/out/duration/stretch panel Scrub strech to speed up/slow down footage Transform videos to change their position and size in the composition. Add rulers and guides if necessary To time reverse video Layer Time Time Reverse To slow down or speed up video Control click Columns Stretch Blending Modes Blending modes for layers control how each layer blends with or interacts with layers beneath it. Blending modes for layers in After Effects (formerly referred to as layer modes and sometimes called transfer modes) are identical to blending modes in Adobe Photoshop.

Darken Modes

Each of these blend modes gives the effect of darkening the image. Youʼll notice that the darken modes tend to work better for the simple photo / complex texture combination.

Lighten Modes Each of these blend modes gives the effect of lightening the image. Youʼll notice that the lighten modes tend to work better for the complex photo / simple texture combination.

Contrast Modes Each of these blend modes both darken and lighten aspects of the image, boosting the contrast.

Comparative Modes

Each of these blend modes compare the two layers looking for areas that are identical in both.

Composite Modes

Each of these blend modes will effect either the color or luminosity of the image Masks To create a mask Select a layer and use the shape tool. Click and Drag. Change mode to your specifications

Add: Everything within the mask will be added Subtract: Everything within the mask will be subtracted To Change Mask Size: Use the selection tool to select nodes Double Click Edge to scale up and down

To animate Mask: Keyframe the Mask Path Masking: a way to cut out sections of a specific layer. Select Rectangular Mask Tool and draw a mask. The background layer will be revealed.

Click M to reveal the mask. You can change it properties, invert, etc. You can also use the pen tool to make more specific masks

Photoshop and After Effects In order to bring layers into After Effects save as a PSD Import as Footage- Can select import kind. If footage, you can select merged layers to flatten. Or you can select one specific layer. Composition – Will bring photoshop document with all layers intact in same stacking order. Will bring in a size of entire document Composition Cropped Layers- Will bring photoshop document with all layers intact in same stacking order. Will bring in every layer at itʼs original size Importing Multiple Files in Sequence File Import Multiple Files JPEG Sequence Effects After Effects ships with over 200 effects Effects do everything from correcting color to distorting layers Use the Effects and Presets panel to find effects Highlight the layer and double click the effect to apply it Brightening/Darkening Footage- Levels Changing Colors- Color Balance Distort Effects- will distort an object You can animate any effect property with the effect controls panel Creating a Layer for Effects Create a new composition You need a layer to apply an effect to

Right Click in timeline. Go to New Solid Choose Color A solid is just a layer of pixels Generate Category has a lot of effects that can be applied to solid layers You can click and drag an effect from the effects and presents panel to the composition panel or highlight the layer and double click the effect For today, use “lens flair” The beam effect will completely replace the layer Creating Animated Digital Paint First, letʼs create a solid that is the comp size To use a paint tool, we must be in the layer panel. You can get a layer into the layer panel by double clicking that layer. Grab the brush Refer to the Paint Panel The paint will become an effect under the layer. You can reveal its transform properties and animate them. Under transform, you can change scale (will always look good because vector based) You can change start and end times too Practice animating end point – can make the affect that you are paining on If you change duration to “write on”, your animation will occur in real time Practice “writing on” Cloning Footage Option click to sample Click to paint over with the pixels you sampled Keying Green Screen – helps composite characters on a different background Why Green? – human color has a lot of red, contrasts nicely with green

Keylight Find Keylight in Effects Tell Keylight which color to get rid of. Select in “Screen Color”. Click eyedropper tool and select your green screen.

Change view from final result to status

Black is transparency White is opaque Grey is in-between Open screen matt and increate black value / decrease white value Text To create text. Either:

-Select Type Tool. Click and Drag to Create Text Box. Type and hit enter on numeric keypad to accept text. The benefit of using Text Box is that you can resize the box at any time. The text will update automatically.

-Select Type Tool. Click once and start typing.

-Hold Command Option Shift and the letter “t”. You will get cursor in the middle of the screen and you can start typing. To Format Text:

After text is created, activate the character and

paragraph panels The Character Panel:

Font

Fill and Stroke Color

Text Size

Set Leading – change distance between lines in a paragraph

Tracking – The space between characters on a line

Resize the Stroke

Stretch Text Vertically

Stretch Text Horizontally

Animating Text: Go to text layer and drop down transform options

Choose animate menu to select what you would like to animate

Use Range Selector to isolate certain letters/areas Add additional range selectors by re-selecting your animation from animate menu Text Presets: Use Adobe Bridge to browse and Select Text Animation Presents Animation Browse Presets

Parenting

The Puppet Tool Using the Puppet Tool Use the puppet pin tool (push pin) Click on areas where joints would be Put cursor over yellow circle…your cursor will change to a move icon. Move your mouse and preview how it changes. Once you apply the effect, look under the layer for the puppet properties. Open up mesh 1 and then deform, and you can see the puppet properties. To animate all you have to do is move in time and add keyframes Rendering We have to convert/render the .aep file to a recognizable file format Select your composition Composition Menu Add to Render Queue (Command Shift /)

Render Settings: Best Settings Quality : Can change to wireframe for fast preview, Use best for final Resultion : Full will retain maximum pixels

Output Module: Lossless Format: Default is Quicktime Format Options Compression Type: Use MPEG-4 Video Check Audio Output if Audio is Included

Letʼs wait for our animation to render and then bring it back in to After Effects. Now letʼs duplicate it and animate a triptych- Have each square start on a different color.