After Effects CS4 – Essential Training

Introduction

Before we get started, let’s take a look at what we’ll be facing in the Essential Training series

which is intended to teach all beginners the basics of After Effects.

In this first part of the extensive and hopefully useful Training we’ll learn many features of After

Effects CS4. The three sections in which I split this Training, are:

Part 1 – Getting Started

Part 2 – Effects & Animation

Part 3 – Advanced techniques

Part One – Getting Started

In this section we will go over, how to import and organize footage, create new compositions,

how to handle all the adjustment and project settings and how to save and export our projects. In

the chart below you can see a listing of the steps explained in this Tutorial:

1. Interface

Before importing any footage, creating a composition or explaining any features of After Effects

we’ll need to open After Effects. After that Iíll start showing you the interface. There are three

main fragments:

Menu bar

Toolbar

Panels & Frames (Standard)

Menu bar

At the top-left-corner you can see the menu bar. The menu bar is similar to all other menu bars in

different programs. Some features are stored in the same menu items as in other Adobe products.

I numbered the menu items to say one or two words to each of them:

1. In the second part of this line you can see the currently open project file name.

2. Here you can open, save, import and export your projects and files.

3. An important feature in this section is the preferences area and of course all the undo,

redo and editable features.

4. We’ll use this menu item to create a new composition but you should definetly check out

the other features listed in this section.

5. As many other Adobe products After Effects works with layers. You can use this to

create, edit or arrange your layers.

6. Similar to Photoshop you can choose and edit your effects and presets from here.

7. Since we want to create animations in After Effects you should check out this menu item

and explore all the features in here.

8. Everybody who already worked in Photoshop knows that rulers, grids and guides are very

useful. Here you can find them.

9. Later in this tutorial I’ll talk about panels, frames and workspaces. Here you can enable

or disable the panels.

10. As a matter of course this Tutorial doesn’t cover all the functions and features After

Effects is capable of, so you should check out the Help file for more information.

Preferences

If you want to change the appearance of After Effects you can go to Edit > Preferences >

Appearance and then change the Brightness. If you have any problems with the performance you

can change some memory settings and optimize After Effects to your needs.

Toolbar

Also at the top-left-corner you can see the Toolbar. The Toolbar contains all the tools which can

be used to work in After Effects. Some of the tools hide their related tools. By clicking and

holding the little triangle on the bottom-right-side you can reveal the other tools. Another way to

pick a hidden tool is to press the Shortcut several times. By doing that the Toolbar will switch

through the tools. Some tools also gain access to new functions as you can see at the far right.

Panels & Frames (Standard)

When starting After Effects for the first time the Workspace is set to Standard. The After Effects

Workspace consists of many Panels (1.). Every Panel has its own name and function. As you can

see in the image below there is an Info, Audio, Preview and Effects & Presets Panel. All Panels

are separate except the Info and Audio Panel. In case two or more Panels are connected they are

sitting in a Frame (2.). You can pick a panel and move it to another panel to combine them to a

Frame. We’ll talk about that throughout this training.

2. Footage

Import possibilities

Organizing footage

Search footage

Right-click options

New Composition & Project Settings

Import possibilities

Before creating a composition which holds our media like videos, images or audio files, we need

to import those files to our project which you should always save after the first changes. Create a

new Project

File > New > New Project and save it using File > Save As. Now that you’ve named and saved

your project we’ll learn how to import our files. There are several ways to import them to the

project window.

1. File > Import > File

2. Ctrl+I

3. Double-click on the project window

Importing single or multiple files

Use one of the possibilities listed above to import a new file. The Import File window appears.

Now you can select single or multiple files and import them by clicking Open.

Import folders

After Effects is also capable of importing folders which contain acceptable files. Select a folder

and then click on Import Folder (1.).

Project Window

Now our files are imported to our Project Window. The files are ordered by name. As you can

see After Effects gives us information about the name, file type, size and more.

Renaming files

You can change the name of any file listed in the project window by clicking on it and pressing

the Return key. Changing the name in the project window does not change the files real name.

The original files aren’t imported to our project, they are just linked. I’ll talk about this later in

the course of this tutorial.

Organizing

Keeping the project organized is very important. Unless you are working on very short projects

with just a few files its ok but as soon as the project is getting extensive it is very important to

keep everything organized and named. When working with co-workers you want them to be able

to understand what you’ve done so far. To do that you can create Folders (1.) where you can

store your files.

Moving files

You can select single or multiple files in the project window and move them to a folder.

Hiding files

The files stored in a folder can be hidden by pressing the little triangle which collapses the folder

they are in.

Searching files

Since our project doesn’t contain many files it is manageable. Once we have many files it gets

unclear which means we need to search for a file. The best way to do this is using the search bar.

Type in the file you are looking for and as you type in After Effects sorts out the files which

contain the same letters.

Right-click Options

You should always right-click anything to explore the capabilities of any product. In After

Effects there are some interesting features like being able to replace a file with another updated

version of that file. After Effects will keep all settings and replace the old one with the new one.

Create a Composition

We imported our files and now we have to create a composition which will later contain our

files. To do that you can either click on the button (1.) and then changing the composition

settings by clicking on the button next to it (2.) or you can go to Composition > New

Composition.

3. Composition

Adding footage to a composition

Adjustment & Project Settings

Pre-comp

Composition Settings

When creating a new composition by going to Composition > New Composition the

Composition Settings will appear. You can change the Size of the composition, the type of

Resolution, Aspect Ratio, Frame rate, Duration and so on. In the Advanced section you have a

few extra options. Apart from your projects you should try out different settings to see what they

look like.

Adding footage to composition

There are several ways how you can add footage to your composition or Timeline. You can drag

& drop your files from the Project Panel to the Composition Panel (2.), the Timeline (3.) or to

the area where the layers are sitting (4.). When dragging & dropping a file to a certain area

named above After Effects creates a composition itself but I think it’s better to create a

composition (1.) and then add files to it since you have more controls.

Pre-comp

Pre-comp is a terrific feature of After Effects and one of the various reasons why you should use

this feature is that it simplifies your main composition and makes your work more effective.

There are many considerable advantages when using the Pre-comp function. Imagine how

effective it would be to create a master movie clip with a complex composition which you can

use in multiple locations throughout your main composition. Now let’s talk about the different

operations of Pre-compositions.

Pre-comp Options

You can select single or multiple layers and create a Pre-comp by going to Layers > Pre-Comp

or by using

Ctrl+Shift+C. The Pre-compose window will appear. When that happens you have two different

options and one extra checkbox.

Leave all attributes:

This creates a new composition which contains only the source file and leaves all effects,

masks and other changes applied to the Pre-comp layer.

Move all attributes to new composition:

This creates a new composition which creates a duplicate of the master composition and

moves all applied effects, masks and other changes to the new composition.

Open new composition:

By checking this checkbox After Effects will open the recently created Pre-composition.

The new composition will dock on the Panel where the other compositions sit. You can

also Alt+double-click on the Pre-comp Layer to open the new composition.

4. Projects, Save and Export

Information about Projects

Saving possibilities

Export composition

Project Files

When we create a project and save it, all of our work is being saved in a Project file with the file

extension .aep which is a shortcut of After Effects Project. This file keeps track of everything we

do in After Effects. As mentioned before when we bring in files to the project panel the files

won’t be stored in the project, the original files are only linked to our project. This means that we

have to be careful with the original files and their directories where they are stored in. When we

move the files, rename them or delete them we won’t be able to complete our project. The

benefit of this, are the low After Effects Project File sizes. Since you can’t work on two projects

at the same time you always need to save the project when switching to another one.

Saving Projects

A good habit is to save in short intervals. There is a possibility to let After Effects save in given

intervals. To do that go to Edit > Preferences > Auto Save. Here you can set the interval and the

project variations till it overwrites the first file. Another cool function in After Effects is File >

Increment and Save. By clicking this saving method After Effects will save your current file as

Filename_01.aep and the next time it will save a new copy called Filename_02.aep. This way

you can always go back if the project isn’t going in the direction you like.

Export Composition

There’s 2 ways to get your project exported or rendered. To Export your project go File > Export

and choosing the File type. Choose this method if you wish to output to any of the formats

available in this menu. Otherwise, the best way to export your projects is to render them using

the render queue. You can “queue” many compositions to queue at once then let After Effects

process or “render” them all at once. Rendering time can vary from a few seconds to many hours

depending on the complexity of your compositions.

5. Render

Render Settings

Output Module Settings

Compression Settings

Render

The last step when working in After Effects is rendering the movie you’ve created. As mentioned

above you can use the Export function but now I’ll explain the Render Queue. Other than the

Export function the Render Queue gives us total control of our composition we want to render.

In this section we’ll talk about the different settings and options we can modify, codecs and types

of media.

Add to Render Queue

I memorized the Shortcut Ctrl+Shift+/ of the Render Queue since this way I can find it very fast.

But you can also go to Composition > Add to Render Queue. Make sure to select a composition.

Render Queue Panel

After selecting the Render Queue the proper panel will appear somewhere in your workspace.

Normally at the bottom where the composition Panel sits. You can retrieve information about the

current settings of your composition by clicking on the little triangle next to Current Render (1.).

As you can see we have three fragments which are modifiable before rendering the movie. You

can set the Render Settings (2.), Output Module (3.) and the directory where you want your files

to be saved (4.). The Output Module is the main fragment we will take a look at since this is

where we tell it what settings to use.

Render Settings

To change the Render Settings you need to click on the text in orange. By clicking on the

dropdown menu you only select which Settings you want to use. Usually Best Settings is the best

choice.

Output Module

The Output Module works the same way. You can select the Output Module by clicking on the

triangle next to the orange text which would open the actual settings window.

Render Settings window

After clicking on Render Settings the Render Settings will appear and you’ll have a few options

to modify. For the most part the settings are self-explanatory. We’ll leave the settings for now.

Output Module window

By clicking on Output Module the Output Module Settings will appear. This is where we will

make some changes. For example change the Format to QuickTime Movie (1.). At the bottom

you can also enable audio rendering by clicking on the checkbox Audio Output and modify some

settings.

Formats

While we want to select the Quicktime Movie format you can see that there are plenty of formats

which contain the word Sequence. That means the movie will be based on still images. You

should always consider what you will use the movie for. For example Adobe Flash Video is

good for web usage. You can render your movies to DVD, CD, FLV, SWF and more:

Compression

After choosing the format you like, the Compression Panel will appear. Compression (codecs) is

very important and you need to be careful when choosing one because the codec you use to

compress your files will be the same codec your viewers need to decompress your footage, to

watch it.

Codecs

This dropdown menu can vary on different computers. Different DVD Player softwares install

their own codecs like Divx. You can go with Animation if you can work with big file sizes. An

interesting compression type is Photo-JPEG which renders your movie in JPEG images. You can

change the output quality with the slider. Its not necessary to set it to 100%. To reduce the output

file size you can set it to 90%-100% achieving good results.

Output To

To set the directory where you want your files to be saved you have to click on Output To (1.).

The proper window will open where you can select the directory, give the file a name and click

save.

Render

After setting your Render Settings, Output Module and the directory where you want to save

your files to, you are ready to render your movie. Click on the Render button (1.) and the

rendering will start.

Rendering process

You can see the File name (1.) and the rendering process (2.) in form of a orange bar. You will

hear a beep when the rendering process is done.

Part Two – Effects & Animation

In this section we will learn how to add effects to our footage from the effects & presets panel,

use the effect controls, how to animate some basic shapes using different types of keyframes and

some important features like parenting and motion blur. In the chart below you can see a listing

of the steps explained in this Tutorial:

1. Effects & Presets

Searching Effects & Presets

Applying Effects & Presets

Effect Controls Panel (Settings)

Searching Effects and Presets

The best way to find an effect or preset is the Effects & Presets Panel. By using the search bar

you can find and apply Effects and Presets.

Applying Effects & Presets – Drag&Drop

After you found one in the Effects & Presets Panel you can simply drag and drop (1.) it to the

footage in the Composition Panel (2.).

Applying Effects & Presets – Right-click

Another way of applying an Effect is by Right-clicking the Layer and then going to Effect to

choose the Effect.

Applying Effects & Presets – Menu bar

This time go to Effect > and select an Effect you like. Various features in After Effects are

selectable via this three ways.

Effect Controls Panel

After applying an Effect the Effect Controls Panel will appear next to the Project Panel. In this

Panel the Effects you choose will be listed. You can modify the values like the Histogramm (1.)

or the Input and Output Colors. Every Effect comes with its editable values and you should

experiment until you find something pleasant. The outcome will change when changing the order

of effects. The little fx-Sign enables or disables the applied effect.

2. Animation

Creating an Animation is the main reason why we use After Effects. In this step we will learn the

basics of the following:

Essential Transform Controls (Position, Opacity, Scale, Rotation, Anchorpoint)

Keyframes

Keyframe Settings

Parenting

Motion Blur

New Solid

Create a new composition and then create a new Solid Layer. Right-click in Layers area > New >

Solid. The Solid Settings will appear.

Settings

Give it a name (1.), set the size of the Solid Layer or choose Make Comp Size and give it a color

you like (2.). Click on OK.

New Solid Layer

Now you can see a new layer called “Red” and the Rectangular Shape in the Composition Panel

(1.).

Position

One of the Transform Controls in After Effects is the Position. By selecting a layer and hitting P

the Position will pop up. The numbers next to it are the X and Y values which relate to the left

and top of the composition. The values show the distance between the Anchor Point of our

Square and the left and top of the Composition. You can actually let After Effects calculate by

entering, for example: 360/2.

Opacity

By selecting a layer and hitting T the Opacity will pop up. It’s the only Shortcut which is not

beginning with the first Letter. You can change the Opacity from 100% which means the footage

is opaque to 0% which means the footage is transparent.

Scale

Another Transform Control you should know is the Scale which is selectable by hitting S. The

Scale is also modifiable between 100% which means full size and 0% which means its gone.

Rotation

By hitting R the Rotation will pop up. The value on the right side is the degree you rotated your

footage. After rotating more than 360 degree the left side will change to 1. Which shows a full

rotation. By entering 3 the footage will rotate 3 times.

Anchor Point

The Anchor Point is selectable by hitting A. It is the geometric reference and rotation center

point of a layer. You can change the anchor point to the corner of a rectangle or wherever you

want it to be. By doing that the Rotation will change since it normally rotates around the Anchor

Point. As you can see the values are the same as the Position values of our Square.

Selecting multiple Transform Controls

Often times you want to change more than one of the Transform Controls. For example the

Position, Scale and Opacity at the same time. When hitting P the Position will pop up as we

know. By hitting S the Position will disappear and the Scale will pop up. To select them and be

able to change their values at the same time you have to hit the Shortcuts combined with the

Shift key (hold it). Shift+P+A+T will do the following.

Keyframes – Scale

We’ve learned how to open up this controls and now we want to animate our Square. Select the

Layer > hit the letter S > change the value to 50% (1.) and hit Return.

Keyframes – Overview

This is how our Square looks after scaling it down to 50%. In the center of our Square you can

see the Anchor Point. If you take a look at the Position values you can see that although we

changed our size the position didn’t change since it refers to the Anchor Point.

Keyframes – Stopwatch

Now we will set our first Keyframe. It holds the information about the adjustments we made at

this point (Frame 1, 0 sec). You can animate all of the Controls we discussed so far. To set a

Keyframe you need to click on the Stopwatch. This creates a Keyframe, a yellow diamond.

Keyframes – 2nd Keyframe

Grab the orange CTI (Current Time Indicator) and drag it to 1 sec. Once you change the values

After Effects will create a new Keyframe. Another way to create a new Keyframe is by clicking

on the diamond on the left side (2.) and not on the Stopwatch (1.). By clicking on the Stopwatch

all the Keyframes will be deleted.

Keyframes – 2nd Scale

Now change the Scale value to 65%.

Keyframes – First Shape

This is our Rectangular Shape at 50% at the beginning of our Timeline.

Keyframes – Second Shape

This is our Rectangular Shape at 65%, at 1 sec.

Keyframes – Easy Ease Keyframe

A very interesting assistance of After Effects is the Easy Ease Keyframe. By choosing it the

animation will come to a smoother end. It will slow down a little bit before stopping at the new

size or position. You can either select a Keyframe and hit the Shortcuts or you can Right-click >

go to Keyframe Assistant > Easy Ease. You can also choose between Easy Ease In or Out.

Keyframes – Easy Ease Keyframe Symbol

When selecting Easy Ease Keyframe the little diamond will change its appearance to a symbol

similar to a sand glass.

Parenting

A very cool and useful feature is the Pick Whip. You can select it and drag the line to another

Layer, value or other controls (1.). This process is called Parenting. It defines the Layer you

choose as the Child (2.) of the Parent, in this case the Layer above. You can also select a Layer

from the Drop Down Menu (3.) on the right side of the Pick Whip.

Parenting – Example

A second ago we parented our two red squares to each other. The upper square is the Child and

the lower square is the Parent. When we change the position of the lower square the upper square

will imitate our changes.

Parenting – Example

Change the position of our square to the right of our composition and watch what happens. Make

sure you select the lower square since its the parent. If you select the upper square you won’t see

the parenting effect we want to achieve.

Motion Blur

Most of the time when creating animations they look too sharp and not flowing. Therefore we

have a very important feature called Motion Blur. You can select Motion Blur for each layer

seperately (1.) and then enable (2.) Motion Blur for the whole composition. By combining the

Easy Ease Keyframes and Motion Blur your animations will appear very smooth and flowing.

3. Keying

We use Keying to composite characters on different Backgrounds. Each time you want to record

footage including a person you should use a Green Screen. There are three different Screen

types: Red, Green and Blue like the RGB-Colors. Since the human skin contains Red tones it’s

not a good idea to use a Red Screen because of the low contrast. What After Effects does is, it

selects all the green tones in the footage and makes them transparent. There are a few built-in

tools which we will talk about in a second.

Built-In Keying tools

Garbage Mask

Preview Panel

Keying Example

Other Keying tools

After Effects Keying tools

You can find the Keying tools in the Effects & Presets Panel or by clicking on Effect > Keying

or any other way we’ve learned so far. I listed some of them below:

1. Color Difference Key

2. Color Key

3. Color Range and

4. Keylight

Garbage Mask – The Pen Tool

Sometimes its useful to create a garbage mask before keying the footage. This is a Mask which

makes the keying process easier. By creating a Garbage Mask we cut out some obvious objects

which interfere with our scene. In the next section you’ll learn how to make Masks with the

Shape tools but this time we want to use the Pen Tool which is also available in After Effects.

Select it from the Toolbar and let’s get started.

Garbage Mask

After selecting the Pen Tool we start to draw a shape around the characters we want to keep

visible. As you can see there are the lights at the top and some cuttlings at the bottom which we

can easily cut out with our garbage mask. You have to be careful to make the shape big enough

since the characters will often move and the mask could interfere with the characters. You can

make it either big enough or you can animate it using keyframes.

Garbage Mask 2nd

After you complete the Shape everything outside our Garbage Mask will be covered by Black

which means it will be transparent. You should preview your Footage to make sure the

characters are visible during the whole scene. You can render and watch the whole clip but you

can also play it Frame by Frame.

Preview Panel

At this point I want to bring in a very important panel which you will use all the time, the

Preview Panel. I’ll shortly explain how it works. I think all of you know what the buttons do but

some of them are interesting and not obvious at the first moment. The button on the far right is

the Ram Preview Button (2.) which renders and plays whats on the Timeline. The Button right

next to it on the left side is the Loop Button (3., 4. and 5). You can choose between Loop, Ping

Pong and Play once. The Resolution affects the rendering process. You can change the resolution

which makes rendering and previewing faster. If the resolution is set to Auto (7.) it will consider

the information of resolution given below the Composition Panel (8.).

Keying

I’ll explain shortly how the Color Key Tool works. Unfortunately I don’t have Keylight at the

moment. It is the most powerful Keying Plug-In which comes with After Effects. Normally it

should be in the Effects Panel but if not you can install it at a later time. To start keying select the

Layer go to Effect > Keying > Color Key. As you can see the Effect Controls Panel opened.

Select the Eyedropper (1.) and click on an average green area (2.) to set the Key Color. After

clicking on the Green Screen After Effects will start to cut out the green area. To improve the cut

out you need to play with the values in the Effect Controls Panel. By playing with the Tolerance

and Edge values you can achieve a good outcome.

4. Masks, Transfer Modes & Transparency

Masking

Mask Settings

Transfer Modes

Transparecy

Setting up Composition

I prepared a composition with two Layers. The first Layer is a Shape Layer called eraser and the

Layer below is the Background which is an image of a city skyline I found on sxc.hu. You can

go ahead and create a composition with a Background you like and a Rectangular Shape. A little

tip at this Point: If you select a layer you’ll create a Mask but if you don’t select any Layer you

will create a Shape Layer. In the next step you’ll see how the arrangement looks like.

Composition Arrangement

The Rectangular Shape is arranged on the left side above the Backround Layer.

Mask – Rectangle Tool

Select the Background Layer and go to the Toolbar. Select the Rectangle Tool or hit Q until the

Rectangle Tool is selected. Now select the Background Layer to create a Mask and draw a

Rectangular Mask approximately the same size such as our Shape.

Mask – Mode

Our Background image disappeared (1.). Only the Mask Shape you created will let us see whats

on the Layer. Shortly after you let your mouse go the Mask controls will pop up. You can also

click on the little triangle or hit the letter M. By changing the Mode from Add to Subtract (2.)

we’ll achieve the effect we want.

Mask – Controls

Now we can see the Background except the area where our Mask Shape sits. Our Mask Shape

was a little bigger than our blue Shape. the Mask expansion control expands or shrinks the Mask.

I set it to -9 pixels (1.) to hide it behind the blue Shape (2.).

Rectangular Shape – Animation

Now set a keyframe on the beginning of our timelime, move the CTI (Current Time Indicator) to

the right (2 sec). Select our blue Shape and move it from the initial position to the right. By

holding Shift you’ll be able to move the Shape in a straight line.

Mask – Animation

After animating our blue Shape we want to animate our Mask. Since we want to create an eraser

we want to hide everything our blue Shape passes over. Go back to the first Frame, set a

Keyframe at the Mask Path (1.) and go to the second position at two seconds.

Mask – Shape size

When approaching the Mask Shape your mouse will change to a black cursor. Double-click >

select the side and drag it to the right until the blue Shape hides it again (2.). Double-click again

to save the new Form. Preview our little composition to see what we’ve created. The eraser

should delete the Background image while it moves to the right. Done. This effect is very simple

but you can use this simple effect to create interesting compositions.

Mask Controls – Ellipse Tool

You can use Masks to create the cool shades at the corners by selecting the Background Layer >

choosing the Ellipse Tool and creating a Mask Shape.

Mask Controls – Feather

We already changed the values of the Mask Expansion but this time we want to change the Mask

Feather (1.). This gives us the Gradient from Black to Transparent (2.).

Mask Controls – Overview

This is how it will look like. It’s a little bit overdone but you can adjust it to your needs.

Transfer Modes

I imported two images to a new composition. The first image is a texture which I downloaded

from the Freebies section from PSDTUTS.com and below I placed the city skyline Background

(1.). Now we want to change the Transfer Mode, respectively Blending Mode as we say in

Photoshop. To do that we need to Toggle the Mode (3.) and Track Matte (4.) Dropdown Menus.

Either click on the Button: Toggle Switches / Modes (2.) or hit the key F4. The Wall texture is

100% opaque and since After Effects works with layers we can only see our texture and the

background is hidden.

Transfer Modes

Click on the little triangle to open the Transfer Modes and choose one you like. The most

common Transfer Modes are Multiply, Overlay, Screen and a few other. You can try them out

and take a look at what they do. Multiply would hide everything black and show through the

areas where it is white, Screen the opposite. In our case we did a little mixture choosing Overlay.

Transparency

The Track Matte allows us to add Transparency to a Layer which doesn’t already have a

transparent Track. If you want to check whether your image has transparent areas or not you can

click on the Transparency Switch in the Composition Panel noticeable by the chessboard-like

button. By setting the Track Matte it will use the Layer above it as the Transparency Source.

Choosing Luma Matte will make the black areas transparent and the white areas will show

through.

Transparency

By choosing Luma Inverted Matte the opposite will happen. This time the white areas are

transparent and the black areas are showing through. Feel free to try out the Alpha Matte and

Alpha Inverted Matte.

Part Three – Advanced Techniques

In our final part we’ll go over how to set our workspace, use several types of motion tracking,

like stabilizing a shaky shot and we’ll cover the basics of 3D in After Effects. Another

interesting Part of this tutorial is the Expression section. Expression is the scripting language of

After Effects. In the chart below you can see a listing of the steps explained in this Tutorial:

1. Workspace

Change Panels & Frames

New Workspace

Choose Workspace

Delete Workspace

Discard changes

Change Panels & Frames

Now we’ll learn how to customize our Workspace. To change the size of the Panels you can go

to the positions I marked with numbers. If you locate your Mouse between two Panels (3.) your

cursor will change and you’ll be able to click, hold and move your mouse to left and right. You

can do the same in Y direction (4.) or even changing the siz.JPGe of more than two Panels at the

time (5.).

Adding a Panel to a Frame

To disconnect or connect Panels from each other you can click, hold and drag&drop.JPG your

panel to another position. In this example we drag the Info Panel out of the Frame where it sits

with the Audio Panel and drop it in the purple area (1.). This will separate the Info Panel and

connect it to the Composition Panel.

Separating Panels

We can also separate a Panel from a Frame. To do that you can drag and drop the Info Panel to

the top, left, bottom or right side of the Composition Panel (1.). This time the Panel will be

placed between the Composition Panel and the Audio, Preview and Effects & Presets Panel as a

seperate panel. Hold down Alt and drag a panel to open a floating panel.

New Workspace

After changing and customizing our Workspace by resizing and dragging & dropping the Panels

and Frames we are ready to save our Workspace as a reusable Workspace. After Effects already

comes with some pre-made Workspaces which can be useful. To create your own click on the

triangle next to Workspace and then on New Workspace.

Name the Workspace

You can give it a name you like. For Example your own name to recognize it fast. Your co-

workers or other persons who use your Computer can easily create their Workspace too. Every

time someone uses your Computer the Workspace can be changed.

Choose Workspace

Your Workspace is saved and you can select it. There are many different Workspaces you should

try out.

Delete Workspace

If you want to delete a Workspace you can only do that when you are not using it momentarily.

Choose another Workspace, go to Delete Workspace > Select > Delete.

Discard Changes

Imagine you are working on a project using your lovely Workspace and you just left your desk.

Your little brother comes to your desk and closes all the panels or changes all the sizes and

positions. You come back and realize that your Workspace is messed up. Don’t panic, just go to

Reset “My Workspace” where you can discard all the changes and reset your Workspace.

2. Motion Tracking

Types of Motion Tracking

Settings and Target

Null Object

Motion Tracking

As the name says the function of this feature is to follow an object as it moves around from

frame to frame in a piece of footage. Maybe this sounds complicated but it’s not that difficult to

learn. To start tracking a footage we need to open up the Tracker Panel. In previous versions of

After Effects it was called Tracker Controls. The Tracker Panel should appear somewhere on

your workspace.

Viewer

The Motion Source is set to none (1.) since we are in the composition panel. We can’t motion

track our footage in the Composition Panel. We have to double click on the footage to open up

the Viewer. Immediately after double-clicking on the footage the Motion Source will select our

footage. You can also go to the Motion Source dropdown menu (2.) and select the footage you

want. The Viewer will open.

Motion Tracking Types

After selecting the footage, we want to track it. There are two motion tracking types: Track

Motion and Stabilizing Motion.

Stabilizing

By selecting Stabilizing Motion a Track Point will appear in the Viewer. It consists of the Inner

Square and an Outer Square. By clicking on the Inner Square you can move the Track Point

around. It is the area, what to search for in each frame. The Outer Square is the actual search

area. To make sure not to get out of place you must select a high contrast area for your tracking

area. When grabbing and moving the Track Point it will zoom in for better view.

If you have slightly rotation in your footage you should enable the second Track Point to achieve

a better effect. Click on the Rotation checkbox to open up the second Track Point. Make sure to

select a high contrast area.

After setting up the Track Points we are ready to analyze our footage. To do that click on the

analyze forward button (1.). you can analyze the footage frame by frame (2.) or by clicking on

analyze forward/backward (1.). After Effects will analyze the footage and add information to the

layer. After choosing our Target (3.) the only thing we need to do is click on Apply (4.). The

Motion Tracker Apply Options will appear and you’ll need to select the Apply Dimensions, X

and Y and click on OK.

After applying the information to the layer, After Effects will set keyframes which move the

layer in X and Y direction to stabilize the footage, causing a little problem. We’ll see black bars

at the sides of our composition.JPG since the footage moves in X and Y direction while

displaying a stabilized movie. To correct this problem you can scale the footage or reflect the

edges if its not too shaky.

Motion Track

The only difference in choosing Motion Track is that the information won’t be applied to the

same layer. This time we’ll create a new solid layer which will receive our tracked information.

Click Edit Target > Select the Layer > hit OK > and then Apply. Everything else is modifiable

the same way.

Null Object

We already applied our tracking data to our layers but there is one more interesting feature in

After Effects. We can apply our tracking data to a Null Object which actually doesn’t do

anything except retaining our tracking information. You can create a Null Object by Right-

clicking in a blank area in the Timeline Panel, selecting New > Null Object or by going to Layer

> New > Null Object.

Target Null Object

Now select Track Motion, track the footage and apply the information to the Null Object by

clicking Edit Target > Select the Null Object > OK > Apply. Since the Null Object doesn’t do

anything at the moment we can turn its .JPGvisibility off by clicking on the eye checkbox on the

far left. By turning its visibility off the square won’t interfere with our objects in the

composition.

Parent to Null Object

Now the Null Object contains our tracking data but what can we do with that. Now we’ll notice

the real power of this tool when we parent another layer to the Null Object. We could have

applied the tracking data to the layer but once we want to move more than one layer the Null

Object is the best way to go since we can parent (1.) multiple layers to the Null Object (2.).

3. 3D

3D Layer Switch

Moving in 3D space

3D Light

3D Camera

3D Space

First it is important to say that you can’t create 3D objects in After Effects. 3D, in our case

means that we are working in 3D Space. In this section you will understand how the X, Y and Z

axis are working.

X – Left and Right

Y – Up and Down

Z – Forward and Backward

3D Layer Switch

The first thing we need to do is turn our layer 3D. Before clicking on that checkbox hit P for

bringing up the Position values (1.). We are looking at the X and Y values (X and Y). Go to the

checkbox (4.) for this layer and turn it to 3D. Now After Effects added another value (2.) which

is the parameter for the Z axis (Z) since we are in 3D Space now.

3D Z-axis

We’ll now select the layer and move it backwards, away from us by grabbing the Z arrow in the

center of our Layer and pushing it backwards. It looks like we are scaling it down but we are

actually moving it back in Space.

3D Rotation

Let’s take a look at the Rotation options. It’s not only one anymore but four. We will focus on

the Rotation values not the Orientation (1.) value since it only sets where an object exists, it

orients it. We’ll only animate the Rotation (2.). By changing the values you will realize that

changing the X Rotation value seems to be rotating up and down and not to the left and right as it

should since it is the X axis. When we rotate our Object it will rotate around the axis. If you take

a closer look you will realize that we are rotating around the X axis. To rotate around a axis

select the Rotation Tool or hit W and go to the X, Y and Z arrows.

3D Layer order

Another important thing you need to know about 3D layers is the stacking order. The purple

Layer in the Timeline is below the green layer and it will also stay below the purple layer in 3D

Space. But if you have two layers like here which are on the same position and you change the Z

value from one layer it will move back in Space and disappear behind the other layer, even if it is

on top of the other Layer in the Timeline. This is the second time I’m mentioning this and you’ll

see what I mean in the next step where we’ll take a look at Lighting and Camera.

3D Layer order

Select the green layer, hit Shift+P+S to open the Transform options and change the values to

120% for the scale and 650 for the Z-position value. The green layer which was in front of the

purple layer will now move behind it.

Lights

Using 3D Lights you can make your composition look better and more realistic. You can add

highlights and shadows and determine how the light affects your layers. The Light not only has

its position but also the point of interest. To move a Light you can use the Selection Tool (V).

You can move the Emitter (2.) which produces the light or you can select the Point of Interest

(1.) and move it. We’ll create a little composition where we play with the Light and Camera to

create a very simple animation.

Composition

For this section we need to prepare a composition with two Layers. One white background layer

and a text layer on top of it. Now its time to select the Text Tool from the Tool palette. Type in

AETUTS.com or anything you like. You can also Right-click > New > Text and then type in

your text. There are a few new things you need to know. After creating the Text Layer the

Character Panel will appear where you can modify your Text. I think you already know how to

use the options there. Since the Anchor Point of the Text is on the bottom-left corner you need to

change the position settings considering this.

Light Settings

Go to a blank area in the Composition Panel and Right-click > New > Light. You can also go to

Layer > New > Light in the Layer menu. In the Light Settings, give it a name (1.), set it to Spot

Light (2.) and check the checkbox where it says Cast Shadows (3.). We want to create a Spot

Light which lightens a Text Layer and the Text Layer casts shadows. Since lights only work in

3D Space we definitely need to turn our Layers 3D.

Settings

If you click on the triangle on the background and text layer and go to Material Options (1.) you

will see that the layers are set to Off (2.), not to cast shadows. Since we want them to cast

shadows we need to turn that parameter on for both of them. Also we need to make sure that the

options Accept Lights and Accept Shadows are set to On (3.).

Layer order

After changing the values we should see the shadows but we don’t. The reason why we can’t see

them is because our background layer and text layer are on the same Z-position (1.). We need to

select the background l.JPGayer and move it backwards on the Z axis. To make sure the

Background layer fills the whole composition change the Scale to 150%.

Camera

Now we achieved our shadow casting effect. To make it more interesting I would like to

introduce the Camera. We’ll animate the camera to make a cool movement from left to right to

“film” the text layer with its shadow on the wall. I imported a wall texture to make the wall look

more realistic. I selected the Background layer, pre-composed it (Leave all attJP.JPGributes) and

added the texture to the new composition. I used the same techniques from the second part of this

tutorial to blend this texture with our background layer. If you missed that tutorial make sure to

check it out. Below you can see some steps.

Camera Tools

Like everything else the Camera has its own special tools. If you check the Toolbar or hit C on

your keyboard you’ll find four different tools. The Unified Camera tool, the Orbit tool which

rotates the Camera’s view around the point of interest, the Track XY tool which moves both the

camera and its point of interest in each direction and the Track Z tool which moves the camera

and its point of interest forward or backwards along the Z-axis.

Camera Settings

To create a Camera you need to go to a blank area in the Timeline Panel and Right-click > New

> Camera. You can also go to Layer > New > Camera in the Layer menu. The Camera Settings

will appear. There are different Presets with different virtual camera lenses you can choose from.

We will select the 35mm Preset.

Camera Animation

Now we will apply our knowledge of the previous tutorial where we’ve learned how to animate

basic Shapes and Layers. We’ll use the Position of the Camera and the Stopwatch to create some

Keyframes, consequentially our cool animation. Use the tools explained above to move the

camera in 3D Space. You should be able to do that but if you need some assistance take a look at

the images below.

Click on Stopwatch

Select the Camera layer, hit P to open up the Position control and click on the Stopwatch to set

the first Keyframe.

Select Tool

Select the Orbit Camera Tool to move the Camera around.

Move Camera

Move the camera to the left, where our animation will start.

Move Camera

Now drag the CTI (Current Time Indicator) to the right to 5 seconds or wherever you want your

animation to stop. Move the camera to the right.

4. Expressions

Basics

Wiggle Expression

Learn more

Expressions

Using Expressions we can modify or set values like Position, Scale, Opacity and the other ones

we’ve learned. All controls which have a Stopwatch are programmable. Create a composition

with a Solid Layer, name it and hit T to open the Opacity control (1.).

Step 1

To open the Expression text field, Alt-click on the Stopwatch (1.). After Effects will create a text

area (6.) where we can type in our Expression. As you know you can easily change the parameter

of each Transform control. Ignore the existing text (6.). There are four options we can enable or

disable (2. – 5.) The first one switches the Expression off but the Expression in the text field will

stay there. By Alt-clicking the Stopwatch again it would delete the Expressions and Keyframes

you’ve set so far. The diagram gives you more controls but we won’t use it this time (3.) We

already know the Pick-Whip (4.) and we’ll be using it in a second. The little triangle (5.) opens a

palette of many Expressions you can use if you already know what they do.

Step 2

Now go to the text field and type 50, hit return (1.). This "Expression" sets the value of the

Opacity to 50 (2.) which means 50%.

Step 3

You can also let After Effects calculate some values. Type 50 + 25, hit return and watch what

happens (1.). You can do alot more so try some mathematical formulas and see what they do.

Positive values beyond 100 will set the Opacity to 100% and negative values will be treated as 0.

Wiggle Expression

Here we have a little Expression: wiggle(25,50) (1.) which will make our footage flicker since

we are applying it to the Opacity control. The first value inside the parenthesis is frequencey

which means the value of the opacity will change 25 times in a second (1.) by the second value

which is the amount of change in this case 50 (2.)

Changes

A few frames later you can see that the value has changed. It will wiggle 25 times a second by a

maximum value of 50.

Wiggle duration

This Expression will be enabled throughout the whole duration of our composition. Since we

don’t want that to be enabled the whole time we need to change a few things to make it possible

to animate. We’ll replace the second value in the parenthesis (1.).

Slider Control

First thing to do is: go to Effect > Expression Controls > Slider Control, to apply that Effect to

our Layer with the Expression.

Slider Controls

The Effect Controls Panel will appear if its not already there. Now we have the Slider control

which gives us a few values to play with. By sliding to left or right we can set a value between 0

and 100.

Parenting

Now delete the second value and place the cursor at the position after the comma (1.). Select the

Pickwhip (2.) and drag it to the top of the screen where the Slider Control is and let it go over the

word Slider (1.).

Slider Control code

After doing that After Effects creates the following code. Lets split the code and see what it

means. Effect is self explanatory. In the first parenthesis the Expression addresses the name of

the Effect, in this case Slider Control. The second part addresses the Slider value. It will inherit

the value and place it at the position where the value 50 was before.

Wiggle – Animating

Now its time to animate our Slider control (1.). We can click on the Stopwatch in the Effect

Controls Panel or we can click on the little triangle to open up the Slider Control at the layer.

Wiggle – Keyframes

Set the Slider value to 0 and move forward a few Frames. Set the first Keyframe and change the

value to 30. Move forward again, set another Keyframe using the diamond on the far left not the

Stopwatch button. Move forward 2-3 Frames and set the Slider Control value to 0 again. The

Slider Control will start at 0, bounce to 30 after a few Frames, stay at 30 for a few Frames and go

back to 0 at the third Keyframe.

Learn more

If you want to learn more about Expressions you should definitely check out the Help file of

After Effects and their Website for more information. Below I listed some websites you can take

a look at:

Adobe Community Help

MotionScript.com

AEnhancers.com

CreativeCow.net

Conclusion

I hope you’ve learned everything you need to start working with After Effects. Thanks for

working through this Essential Training.