After Effects- Video & Post-Production
Notes from this morning's software workshop session- and my first induction into Adobe After Effects.
Create visuals within the software (importing other Adobe documents- layered also, independent-
available to manipulate)
"Photoshop for video"
Green screening also possible through After Effects
Opening screen on After Effects... cross out through this and follow the screen through to 'Composition' to create a new composition for your project.
Specific data and effects can be found around the frame- such as effects, RGB, and Audio info- type into the highlighted text bar to search for a specific effect.
Make a new composition for a project- try out multiple ideas.
Can also use compositions to simplify more creative outputs.
Label your file- so as not to get confused- making various compositions of the same project can easily result to getting your files confused, so it's important to be organised.
Choose the correct file type for your region- PAL is the United Kingdom standard, NTSC is the standard used in After Effects for the United States- the main difference is 29.97 seconds (NTSC) to 25 frames per second (PAL). 24 frames per second is the rate of traditional film animation.
Today we are using PAL D1/DV Widescreen Square Pixel- by choosing this, it will amend and alter other specifications and presets within the composition.
Choose duration of your composition, and choose your background colour (standardised Adobe colour picker is used to help define specific colours).
The opened file- now with additional specification content.
If you wish to alter any of the specifications go to 'Composition Settings...'.
Layer > Solid Layer.
With the addition of our 100 pixel x 100 pixel shape, this is added to the layers panel at the bottom of the screen with a solid red time bar.
To zoom in and out of the time line, drag the yellow bar on the left across- it will travel through seconds to frames in terms of time duration.
Temporarily can edit the time frame that an image is on view on screen by increasing or decreasing the length of the red time bar along the bottom of the screen- the current time indicator will show whether or not the object is on the screen during that second/frame.
Can also use the mouse cursor to move the image around temporarily.
Creating a new object within a solids layer- the same shape, but this time, a different colour.
Press the spacebar for the video to play- and the time effects indicator to move along the composition clip.
In order to play back more complex files in realtime (with audio, etc)- use the RAM Preview Options to playback your composition. This will buffer up and then play back in realtime.
Clicking the home keys (above left, right, up and down cursors- diagonal arrows) will take the time indicator back to the beginning or end through the composition.
If you're working with really high-quality compositions you can reduce the resolution quality (as you would in print in the InDesign software)- this doesn't affect your final outcome, but it will allow the software to run far more smoothly.
Altering time bars (beginning and end) to vary the time in which objects are viewed in the composition.
Drop down tools in 'Transform' will reveal different editing tools for the objects on particular layers- can change scale, opacity, etc.
Changing the opacities and positioning of the objects on my layers.
In the 'transform' options, click on position and the stop watch icon to create a keyframe. Drag your time adjustment tool to another point and drag your object onto a new position on screen. Playing this back will show the animated motion shape as it moves across the page.
Consider the motion and speed of your motion graphics- the closer the keyframes are to one another, the faster the motion will be- the position of the keyframe will make a great difference to the overall look of the design.
Bezier curves are created in the keyframes- like you would find on the Adobe Illustrator software- these affect the fluidity of the motion- not all motion is in a straight line!
If you shorten the time frame duration, but not the keyframe details, you will loose this content.
If you highlight the keyframes, this will move the keyframes (click and drag highlighting)- it changes the positon in the time frame, but not in relation to one another if you hold down the Alt key and move the last keyframe, this will keep it's relation to the keyframe by the side of it.
Select over keyframes- copy and paste from highlighting. Copy and paste across keyframes.
If you click the tilda key (between shift and 'Z') will be see the composition widescreen- much easier to work with and understand your multiple layers.
If you click 'P' position alone will drop down in the transform menu.
'R' for rotation
'A' for anchor point
'S' for scale
'T' for opacity ('O' is used elsewhere!)
If you click on 'I' and 'O' (whilst clicked on a selected layer) it will jump to both the beginning and
the end of a layer.
If you Cmd+highlight all of the layers, clicking on the drop down menu will be selected for all of the layers.
Clicking the 'U' key will reveal all animated and motion material- demonstrating where all the key frames are located (pressing 'U' again will turn this off). Pressing 'U' twice quickly will show all modified properties.
'Cmd + D' will create multiples of the same layer.
the shape of the curves and lines.
When you drag and drop an effect onto a layer you will see it pop up in the effects box- expanding this effect, you can alter it further (above, increased blur).
When exporting your file, ensuring that you only add the time duration needed (increase/decrease duration bar)- as you will, otherwise, just be left with a blank frame/screen at the end of the animation.
To export> Composition> Add to Render Queue
This will alter the time duration bar, output module> choose your type of module output (click on lossless)> format options>H.264>output movie to>SAVE IT!
Now you will have to hit render to export the file.
Search in your saved location, and you will have your exported, rendered file.
A self-contained piece of video.
Really useful tips- especially as coming from a complete lack of knowledge, it's really interesting to discover how much I can learn in a short space of time. Of course, it's just the complete basics and fundamentals at the moment, though Im sure it's going to be a process I enjoy- quite methodical- and it will allow me a good chance to be quite creative and think differently to any other process I have created in the past through
University/course modules.
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