Extended/Studio Practice: After Effects Sessions

My first venture into the After Effects world. I've been told its "photoshop with moving stuff" which sounds like a dream. I've had a bit of experience doing basic editing videos and photos with iMovie and upon opening Ae the interface layout is kinda similar, as in you can drag and drop audio or images into various panels for editing, so I'm looking forward to get in to grips with it -especially after having a quick look online to see existing examples of what can be done using Ae.

Document set up

Useful shortcuts

P > Postion

A > Anchor

R > Rotation

S > Scale

T> Opacity (transparency)

Shift + R = add rotation

i > Inpoint (start of selected layer)

O > Outpoint (end of selected layer)

B > Beginning

N > end of work area

U > Selects all the animated properties of layer

Double U > Selects all modified properties of layer

Select all layers + P, click on stop watch which activates key frame on all layers.

CHANGING MULTIPLE PROPERTIES AT ONCE

Horizontal button > click and drag time shapes, they keep relative position.

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In order to import a psd with editable layers to a bit of this...

Instead of Footage, select Composition from the drop down menu

Or Composition - Retain Layer Sizes

Once in your Project panel, double click the composition button and

it will appear in the Compostion panel.

If some, or all of your image files are missing or have bee moved to another folder since you last edited your Project then they'll be replaced with colour bars.

To replace with the re-located files, right click > replace footage> select desired file.

The lesson of this little problem is to save all the files used in your Ps & Ae project in the same folder so you'll always have the correct imagery when you open your composition in After Effects.

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• LAYER EFFECTS •

SHY Switch

Select the small Shy icon on your layer/s of your choice, then click the large icon above - it turns blue, hiding all the selected layers leaving you to work on just the layers you want, when things start getting a bit busy in the layers pallete.

When using vectors brought in from Ai then click the icon next to shy -this allows your images to remain as sharp, scalable vectors which won't won't lose resolution quality and start pixelating once imported into Ae.(continuously rasterise)

Upon import in Ae

After enabling the continuously rasterise button

The quality & sampling button lowers the image resolution helping

you to work faster when the composition size starts getting a bit big.

Motion blur, does exactly what it says on the tin - simulates shutter duration, making a shape look like its moving really fast! Click the larger icon above to enable.

• ADJUSTMENT LAYERS •

This is the equivalent to Photoshop's layer presets.

Type in a key word in the Effects & Presets search bar.

Drag and drop onto the specific object or layer in the layer pallete.

The effect will then appear in the Project panel up top, click and drag on blue numbers to change parameter, or use drop down section to make your alterations. Click the stop watch icon to create key frames featuring your effects alterations.

• ADJUSTMENT LAYER •

Layer > New > Solid > Make Comp Size (which makes it the same dims as your composition). Place on top of your layers, or under the layers you don't want to affect.