After Effects has fairly limited capabilities when it comes to editing audio; however, it's perfectly capable of basic audio-editing work, such as creating loops. In this tutorial you'll learn how to trim and blend audio using the Audio Levels properties. You'll also discover some great keyboard shortcuts that will speed up the editing process.
In this chapter you'll put together the background for the animation. In doing so you'll learn lots of useful techniques, such as how to work with markers in the After Effects Timeline, preview audio, create loops, add effects that animate in time with audio, and use expressions to link values together.
Working with Audio
In this video you'll see what we're going to cover in the following series of tutorials. You'll also be introduced to the song we will interpret in the kinetic typography art piece we are about to create.
This is a short video to bring your attention to some of the warning dialog boxes you may encounter during this course. These dialog boxes are nothing to worry about but may appear if you don't have the correct fonts or plug-ins installed. Here you'll find out how to correct such problems.
After Effects provides lots of useful ways of visualizing and previewing your audio. In this video you'll see all the options for listening to audio files, including menu items, keyboard shortcuts, and the Preview panel. You'll also learn how to use keyboard shortcuts and label colors to make viewing waveforms in the Timeline easier and more efficient.
Listening to audio files repeatedly to determine where animation events should take place can be tedious and time-consuming. In this video you'll see how adding layer markers to audio files can help you to avoid having to do this as often. You'll find out how to attach markers to both layers and compositions and see how they can be renamed to provide visual references to both spoken words and audio cues.
After Effects has fairly limited capabilities when it comes to editing audio; however, it's perfectly capable of basic audio-editing work, such as creating loops. In this tutorial you'll learn how to trim and blend audio using the Audio Levels properties. You'll also discover some great keyboard shortcuts that will speed up the editing process.
Time remapping can be used in conjunction with a simple expression to endlessly loop your audio without requiring you to duplicate your layers, further bloating your compositions and projects. This video takes you step by step through the process of applying time remapping and then adding the expression used to control it.
There are hundreds of effects available to you in After Effects, each one providing something unique. But the real power comes when you learn to combine these effects in creative ways. In this section you'll learn how to combine effects creatively to come up with interesting solutions to common design requirements. You'll also learn how to combine these effects with masks, keyframe assistants, and expressions to bring a whole new dimension to your work.
Audio Effects
A common task asked of motion graphic designers is to animate colors or other properties so that they change in time with music, and After Effects has some built-in effects that will automatically generate graphics that change in time with the audio levels of a selected layer. In this video you'll learn about the Audio Spectrum effect and how it can be used in conjunction with channel effects and blurs to create an abstract animated background that changes in time with the music.
This lesson teaches you an advanced technique that uses a combination of the Convert Audio to Keyframes assistant and expressions to create animation from audio levels. This is used to animate a color effect on an adjustment layer which is then masked so that it only affects a specified area of the screen.
You can use either Illustrator or Photoshop to create source text files for import into After Effects. Illustrator offers better tools and controls, but Photoshop has the advantage of creating text that remains editable in After Effects. In this chapter you'll learn how to use both.
Preparing Source Files
Illustrator is generally the better choice for typography work because it offers better tools and more responsive controls than Photoshop does. However, we will not be using it in our project because Illustrator text cannot be edited once imported into After Effects. Even so, there are some great Illustrator features that are very useful in this type of project, and we will look at them in this section.
Preparing Illustrator Files
In this video you'll create a new file from Illustrator's preset document profiles and then add some basic shapes with the Rectangle and Line tools. You'll also start to build layers for animating in After Effects.
The Transform effect in Illustrator is a very powerful tool for creating grids and other repeating patterns. In this lesson you'll learn how to use it in conjunction with the Appearance panel to create easy, flexible, and editable grids.
In this video you'll learn about the basic text formatting options in Illustrator. We'll look at the differences between editing text with the Control panel and the dedicated Type panel.
Align and Distribute options can be used to even out spacing between words and lines of text when they exist on separate layers. In this video you'll see how these controls are used and learn workarounds to some gotchas!
Sometimes it can be hard to select or modify an object if it is obscured or overlapped by other objects. Fortunately, Isolation mode allows you to isolate an object or layer so that you can focus on it while dimming and locking other objects temporarily. In this lesson you'll use Isolation mode on groups of objects.
In this lesson you'll learn how to convert vector-based text into paths. These paths have several potential uses. They can be copied and pasted as masks in After Effects, where they can control effects or determine shape layers. Outline text can also help to avoid problems with missing fonts when transferring artwork to different systems.
Computer fonts are amazing and give you lots of design options, but there's nothing that compares with handwritten text in terms of originality and uniqueness. In this video you'll learn how to create vector artwork from handwriting and how to tweak shapes to fine-tune the letterforms.
In this chapter we'll look at using Photoshop to prepare text files for import into After Effects. Photoshop's text features are fairly limited, but you'll see how to make the most of them.
Preparing Photoshop Files
Photoshop provides presets to help you design elements for a variety of different media. Using presets ensures that your settings are right before you start to design your projects and can help avoid the confusion associated with cross-media production. In this video you'll see how to use presets and learn about the options available when choosing them.
It often makes sense to start your motion designs in Photoshop, particularly if you're going to be animating the layers in After Effects and want to maintain editability. In this video we'll look at Photoshop's basic typographic controls and ever-so-slightly clunky text features. You'll also learn about some gotchas and workarounds for saving commonly used settings for text.
Photoshop actions can free you from tedious tasks by allowing you to record a series of commands and then play them back on selected layers. In this video we'll look at the predefined actions that are included with Photoshop, as well as how to create your own, more useful actions based on your own unique workflow.
Variables are an often-overlooked feature of Photoshop but are very useful and time-saving, particularly if you design text for onscreen graphics. In this tutorial you'll see how to use variables to automate the processes involved in placing items from a text document into individual Photoshop layers. This technique will save you tons of time!
Photoshop's Align and Distribute options can help ensure that design elements are spaced evenly or evenly balanced. However, it can be puzzling to work out the order of distribution that Photoshop uses. In this lesson you'll learn how to control this so that your layers stay in the correct order.
Planning an animation project properly in Photoshop can save you lots of time later in After Effects. In this video we'll use rulers and guides to create a multi-screen layout for our text that can be used once it is imported into After Effects.
Photoshop's layer groups are translated into nested compositions when imported into in After Effects. With a bit of advance planning, you can use this to set up a project structure in After Effects before you've even opened the application! Watch this video to learn how.
When working on large projects it's good to set up your project and composition structure early on to avoid confusion. However, it can be difficult to know what that structure should be without experience working on large-scale projects. In this chapter you'll learn about several options for setting up a comp structure for kinetic typography animations.
Structuring Your After Effects Project
It's important to know all the options for setting up text before you plan your project. This section will help you understand the pros and cons of each technique so that you'll be better equipped to make these decisions before embarking on your own projects.
Setting Up Text
There are lots of great scripts available for After Effects that can make life a whole lot easier. One of them is the wonderful crg_Text_from_File script, which will convert your text document into After Effects layers. In this lesson you'll learn how to apply the script and then sort the layers into a logical comp structure, ready for animation.
In this video you'll get some great tips and tricks for creating a solid composition structure before you start animating, which will help keep things logical and manageable.
Text layers can be designed and set up in Photoshop and then imported into After Effects for animation. In this video we'll look at some of the different approaches to doing this and discuss when it's better to design in Photoshop and when it's better to dive straight into After Effects.
After Effects has very powerful typographic controls built right into the software, so there's really no need to format your text before importing it. All the changes you need to make can be made in After Effects. In this section you'll see how Photoshop text layers can be converted to fully editable text and how you can use the Character and Paragraph panels to format that text.
Formatting Text in After Effects
In this lesson you'll learn how to convert Photoshop text to editable vector-based text in After Effects. This not only allows you to edit the content and formatting of the text, but also provides options for per-character animation of letters and words.
In addition to importing text from other applications, you can also create text layers directly in After Effects. In this tutorial we'll recreate some famous graphics so that we can then animate them as individual elements.
In this video we'll take a look at the After Effects Character panel and use it to format our text, as well as to create more interesting and dynamic shapes and designs from the letterforms that make up the lines of the song.
This tutorial takes an in-depth look at the Paragraph panel, where you can set your alignment options for text layers. The alignment options can directly affect how a text layer will animate, so it's very important to understand how it all works.
Not only can you create vector-based shape layers directly in After Effects, but they can also be resized to any dimension without losing resolution, making them perfect for creating truly flexible shapes and patterns. In this chapter you'll learn how to create complex shapes, add operators, and animate them over time.
Working with Shapes
After Effects allows you to create vector-based shape layers directly within the application. These shape layers sport a whole host of controls, making them creatively flexible but also quite confusing for newbies. In this tutorial you'll recreate some famous graphics using shape layers and get comfortable with the basics of shape building.
This video will teach you how easy it is to create shape layer animation to really bring your graphics to life. A few keyframes are all that's required!
There are times when a hand-drawn look is called for but you just don't have the time to create artwork by hand. Computer-generated fonts are extremely convenient but can look very mechanical and rigid, so in this chapter you'll see how to use effects and path operators on text to give it a more handcrafted appearance.
Creating Distressed Text Effects
Text layers offer many options for creating interesting and dynamic animation. There are times, however, when you may want to create outlines from your text layers. In this video we'll create shape layers from text so that we can deform and animate them using path operators.
You can adjust shape layers and animate them by adding shape attributes such as paint operations and path operations. Path operations add procedural controls that make it easy to deform and animate the paths that control the shapes. In this video you'll see how to use path operations to add a more handmade, distressed look to a standard, well-designed font such as Helvetica.
There's no substitute for photographing and designing your own textures. In this tutorial you'll learn how to use your own photographs to create transparency and texture, distressing the font-based text to make it look less mechanical.
After Effects includes hundreds of effects for a variety of different uses. In this chapter we'll take a look at some of them, finding out how to understand effects, experiment with them, combine them and animate them over time.
Working with Effects
There are several really good third-party plug-ins that will help you create convincing film damage effects. Or, if you can't afford to buy these plug-ins, you can still create your own effects by combining several other effects together. It'll take a little longer but you'll learn more along the way as you follow the exercises in this chapter.
Creating Film Damage Effects
Solid layers are indispensable in After Effects. They are the basis for effects used for backgrounds, textures, and additional design elements, as you'll see in this video.
Turbulent noise is one of the most versatile and creatively inspiring effects in After Effects. You can use it to create water, fire, smoke, and other elements, or to create geometric patterns. In this tutorial you'll learn how to combine multiple instances of this effect to create your own Old Film effect.
Adjustment layers apply effects to all layers below them in the composition. You can apply any effect to them and even add a mask to target the effect. In this tutorial you'll learn how to use an adjustment layer and a mask to create a vignette.
After Effects makes it easy to animate handwriting as it's drawn on screen. In this chapter you'll copy and paste hand-drawn text created in Illustrator into After Effects, where you'll animate the strokes using the Stroke effect.
Animating Handwriting Effects
Adobe Illustrator is a fantastic tool for drawing complex vector shapes. You can copy and paste shapes drawn in Illustrator into After Effects for all sorts of uses, but there are some preferences you need to set up in order to do this successfully. In this tutorial you'll learn how to copy masks created from handwritten text.
Applying the Stroke effect to paths is a good way to create animated handwriting and drawings. In this tutorial you'll learn how to apply and animate this versatile effect.
In this section we'll create the background for our kinetic typography animation. In the process you'll learn about using particle effects to simplify animation of multiple objects and natural phenomena such as water.
Compositing Backgrounds
There are lots of different particle effects in After Effects. In this tutorial we'll concentrate on the Mr. Mercury effect, which is specifically designed to create liquid particle effects.
Glow effects can add light and shine to your animations and are often the ideal finishing touch to apply to effects. In this video we'll look at After Effects' built-in Glow effect.
In this chapter you'll see how to make the most of the After Effects preferences and learn other ways of speeding up your After Effects workflow, including proxies and some hidden features.
Optimizing Performance
You can improve the performance of After Effects by adjusting some of the preferences to suit your own specific system setup. In this movie we'll look at the disk cache and multiprocessing preferences.
Proxies are an often-overlooked feature of After Effects that can really speed up your workflow. In this lesson you'll learn when and how to use proxies by rendering low-resolution movies or images to temporarily replace completed nested compositions.
There are a few switches and buttons hidden in various corners of the After Effects interface that can help speed up your workflow if used correctly. This video will tell you where to find them and how to use them.
There are scores of techniques for animating text in After Effects, but this chapter will focus on the use of text animators. You'll see how using free animation presets can save you lots of time and how to build up your own library of presets. We'll also take a look at the Brainstorm tool, a fantastically creative feature of After Effects.
Animating Text
If you are working with large groups of words on separate layers, it's often easier to animate them as a group by parenting them to a null layer. In this video you'll see how useful this can be, not only for animation purposes but also just to make temporary adjustments to your composition view.
In this lesson you'll learn about the Sequence Layers keyframe assistant, and also learn when it's better to simply sequence and trim your layers manually, using markers as guides.
Text layers include animators and additional properties that can be adjusted and animated using selectors. This method of animation is quite different from animating regular properties but is quick and flexible once you know how. This video will get you up to speed.
After Effects ships with lots of free text animation presets that are ideal for kinetic typography animation projects. In this lesson you'll learn to apply them and adapt them to fit in with your project.
After Effects includes lots of free motion animation presets that allow you to easily apply interesting motion to layers. You'll learn how to apply and modify them in this video.
While you can do a lot with the many free animators that are included with After Effects, if you want something truly unique you should build your own from scratch. In this lesson you'll learn how this is done.
The Brainstorm tool offers a really creative way of working: Just select a few parameters and brainstorm them to create a random selection to choose from. In this video you'll see how to use Brainstorm to create multiple alternative settings for an effect and begin to build a preset library.
Everyone wants to do 3D animation these days, but After Effects' 3D is a bit of a strange beast, more like 2.5D! In this chapter you'll learn about the idiosyncrasies of working in the After Effects 3D environment and gain confidence as you go.
Creating 3D Animation
In this section we'll look at ways of making 3D as painless as possible. First we'll set up our layers in the 3D environment and add some effects to them. Then we'll look at how parenting can help simplify 3D animation before diving into some of the free 3D animation presets.
Working with 3D
Transition effects, traditionally used to blend the join between two clips, can be used in creative ways in a 3D environment. In this tutorial we'll use the Page Peel transition, which is generally thought of as old-fashioned, to create the impression of pages tearing off a calendar in 3D space.
Animation presets can be applied to 3D layers, and when applied to text, can include complex per-character 3D animation. You'll learn how to use these features in this lesson.
Cameras can be tricky to work with, particularly if you're coming from a 2D background. This chapter will demystify cameras and give you the confidence to experiment with them in your work.
Working with Cameras
Camera animation can be quite daunting if you are new to 3D. In this video you'll learn how to make basic camera moves and understand the field of view.
There are some new shortcuts in After Effects that make camera animation a little easier and offer a more experimental approach. In this lesson you'll learn how to animate the camera by roughly positioning it and then using the new "Focus On" camera shortcut to center the field of view on a selected layer.
Adding depth of field to your camera will create the effect of objects blurring as they move further from the focal plane of the camera. In this movie you'll learn how to apply this and adjust the focal distance, as well as how to fine-tune the aperture settings.
Lighting plays a vital part in any 3D composition and can make the difference between an average piece of work and a great one. In this section we'll take a look at the properties of lights, including the new light falloff feature. You'll also learn to vary the effects of lighting on the different elements in your compositions by adjusting the material options of your layers.
Working with Lights
Light falloff controls are a new addition to After Effects CS5.5. They allow you to create more realistic lights by specifying a falloff distance where the light will naturally come to an end. Users can control this by taking advantage of two brand-new falloff types-Smooth and Inverse Square Clamped-and using the Radius and Falloff Distance properties to fine-tune these, as you'll see in this video.
The way light interacts with your layers is partly controlled on the layer itself by the material options. In this video you'll see how these controls work and how they can be used to adjust the lighting options for each layer individually.
Expressions enable you to control the animation of properties via commands as opposed to keyframes. They open up a whole new way of working and are a whole lot of fun, as you'll see in this chapter.
Using Expressions to Create Motion
In this video you'll learn how to connect properties together using the Expressions pickwhip. This allows you to use one property to control or influence another.
There are a few things you need to be aware of when rendering your movies from After Effects. In this chapter you'll get some helpful tips to assist you when rendering movies from After Effects.
Rendering Your Final Movie
Color correction is a vital part of any project, and in this video we'll explore the available options, including built-in effects as well as third-party options. We'll also discuss the pros and cons of 32-bit floating point color correction.
Output modules determine how your rendered pixels are formatted. In this lesson you'll learn how to set these up and how to add multiple output modules to a single render item to create multiple versions of your movie, each with unique settings, with just a single render.
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