However, as you continue to grow — and do your research into how to master the programs — you quickly learn that video editing using After Effects skills can actually be pretty straightforward and fun. I am going to be working in a project I have already built but please feel free to follow along using any After Effects project. The most important thing to remember is the fact that these files are not embedded with the Project file, so you want to make sure to keep everything well organized on your hard drive before you bring it into your After Effects project. Now as you can see in this After Effects project, I've got quite a lot of things going on. For over 15 years, he's cultivated a successful freelance career, presented at conferences all over the U.S., and now serves as Senior Motion Designer for School of Motion. Now you may have noticed we are working in kind of a circle, starting with the Project panel, then to the Timeline, then the Composition panel, now I am on the right side in the Info panel and if we come all the way back up to the start of our circle here in the upper left area we have the Toolbar. In this lesson, you will get familiar with After Effects Interface and Shape Layers structure and, of course, create your first animation. The left side allows you to stack layers vertically one on top of the other. Now, it's important to note there are many different panels, buttons, switches and options to the interface. 250+ Elements for Influencers and Vloggers. However, the basic functionality of After Effects has been pretty much the same with each release, so you don’t necessarily have to purchase a new book every year. Browse the latest Adobe After Effects tutorials, video tutorials, hands-on projects, and more. I don't need to Create a Composition and I'll go ahead and just click the Import button. So, when you are working in After Effects it's very important that you pay close attention to where you are clicking and what is selected because there will be different Menu options made available depending on which panel or property is currently active. And now that file has been brought into the Project panel and notice it's automatically selected and I'm getting a preview over a black background here in the Project panel. That’s where great tutorials come in. All files imported into a project don’t have to reside in a composition. Because you can access additional columns just by Ctrl-clicking or right-clicking on the dark gray area here right next to the Name. If we just press the Spacebar we can preview the animation. After Effects will pop up a dialog where you can configure the settings of your new composition like name, resolution, pixel aspect ratio, frame rate, duration and much, much more. So, I'll click on the BlueMtns.jpg and I'll hold down Shift and I'll click on the Camper_Mtns.jpg and then I'll click on the Label next to one of those files and let's change it to a nice bright Orange color. If you're just looking to render what you've already done, check out this article: How to render a WebM. And notice when I do that now the image has gone out of my composition. And that gives me a list of the recent projects that I've opened. In the Open dialog box let's look at our project files. Their location is referenced by the project. We will also take a look at depth of field and a 3D particle system. In looking at the different files we have in the Project panel you'll notice we have a bunch of different kinds of files. That's because After Effects projects don't embed external files, they reference where those files live on your hard drive. Mark starts by describing the core terminology of film, video, and animation before moving on to an exploration of the After Effects interface. 4.1 After Effects Keyframe Basics In this lesson, you're gonna learn about keyframe basics which is at the heart of a tremendous amount of animation. So, if you are not sure what something is, just hover over top of it. Click once in the Project panel to make it active and I know it's the Project panel because it says Project in the upper left-hand corner. After Effects Basic Introduction Course - Free Course. And to master it as well, you’ll need to change your thinking and focus. Navigate back to that Assets folder and this time I'll import both the BlueMtns and the Camper_Mtns file. Now, you may have noticed whenever you click on an object you have made it selected. Now on the right side of the Timeline this determines where the layers appear over time and you notice this blue line has an element on top that if I hover over top it tells me it's the Current Time Indicator. By Kyle Hamrick. The menu that popped up is called a Tool tip and they are on by default. I can turn its Visibility off here on the left-hand side by clicking on the Eyeball or clicking it again to turn it back on. This is especially helpful when combined with techniques from the tutorial above, and can be great for creating and using your own custom lower thirds. Then, once you think you have everything figured out, you’re introduced to the powerful behemoth of digital video effects, motion graphics, and compositing that is Adobe After Effects. Now the Current Time Indicator determines exactly what frame we are going to be viewing in the Composition panel. It's always a good idea to keep things organized whenever you're working in After Effects. In the meantime, even this simple technique is a great way to round out your After Effects skills, and it can really up the value of your projects and is great to add to client videos. So, let's do some further investigation by right-clicking on the video file and choose Reveal in Explorer if you're on Windows or Reveal in Finder if you're on the Mac. Articles in this section. But another great way is to use the New Composition From Footage button because I want to import some video footage and create a composition from that footage. This is a video file, it should be larger than 1 Megabyte. The first way to keep things organized is to use Columns. The Toolbar allows you to add different elements to your projects, for example, I could add a Rectangle into here or I could add Cameras, I could add Paint Brush Strokes, you get the general idea. Hello, I am Anish Kokani an Enthusiast Digital Entrepreneur.. And since both files were selected when I let go they'll both end up in the folder. Another way to Import is to double click in the Project panel. What you learned: Open or create projects. Tylegn May 14, 2020 21:58. Now in this project I have already organized everything into folders. So here I'll go to Columns and notice I could set up any kind of information I'd like to organize things by, like the In Point or the Out Point or the overall Duration of the file. Again, want to make sure Multiple Sequences is not selected and then I'll go ahead and just click Import and both those elements will be imported right here into the Project panel. This software is also a part of Adobe system’s creative Cloud app and maintained by Adobe system. If you go to the top portion of the Project panel notice I have the Name column. I will show you how to apply track mattes to layers and gain detailed control over the opacity of your layers. And I'll double click on the Project panel one more time to make that panel smaller again. This panel is the Project panel and I know that because its name in the upper left corner and to the right of the name you will see three lines. Selecting a region changes the language and/or content on Adobe.com. https://helpx.adobe.com/after-effects/how-to/getting-started-after-effects.html In this tutorial we will cover the basics of 3D in After Effects. And I'll call this images and press Return. To determine how the elements are laid out within the interface we need to first set our workspace. All right, so I used a lot of what you might call buzzwords in those previous sentences. If I click on this Road Trip.MOV video file sure enough there's a preview in my Project panel. and do your research into how to master the programs, Tutorial: Getting Started with Content-Aware Fill in After Effects, How to Animate via Audio Frequencies in Adobe After Effects, 7 Useful Ctrl and Cmd Key Shortcuts in Adobe After Effects, How to Create a Mid-’90s DV Camcorder Look in After Effects, Exporting Video With An Alpha Channel for Transparency in After Effects, 5 Tips for Starting Your Own TikTok Channel in 2021, Documentary Tips for Filming Undercover and Undetected, Breaking Down Quentin Tarantino’s Iconic Trunk Shot, An Interview with “Assassins” Cinematographer John Benam, Installing the After Effects 8-Bit Game Preset. And while some of your basic editing knowledge might serve you in some ways, learning After Effects skills really is a completely different beast. Beyond the Basics of After Effects - Adobe MAX 2020. Ranging from beginner to advanced, these tutorials provide basics, new … The Start screen contains a list of previously opened projects. You can follow the book from start to finish or choose only those lessons that interest you. If you click on any one of these files you'll get information at the top of the Project panel showing you a little bit about that file. If you are a designer and looking to apply effects and transitions to your video, or create animated logos, illustrations or infographics After Effects is the program to edit in. I'll click here and you notice these are my project files. I'm going to navigate back one folder in my browser. I find it interesting that the JPEGs and the Vector Art have the exact same label color. So, I'll click once on that file and then down here at the bottom I have a couple of different options. If I want to preview that file larger I can go ahead and just double click directly on the file and that will open here in the Footage panel. 38:11. And notice even though I'm using caps for some and lower for others it really doesn't change how things are organized other than just the fact that they are capitalized or lowercase. The next column over is Labels. The first one I want to Import is the SummerCamp_Badge Illustrator file. Looking for a fun and simple tutorial to dive into while working with After Effects? If you’ve ever opened up Adobe After Effects, you might have felt intimidated by all of the buttons and windows. This is the panel where you will import and organize all the assets that you'll be using in your different After Effects projects. Most versions of After Effects operate with the same basic interface layout from the moment you launch the application. By the end of the course, you will make a fish jump! To know exactly what frame you are on, you want to look in the lower left corner of the Composition panel, here, this will tell you or in the upper left corner of the Timeline itself. Here's a great video on the using our source files with After Effects! Sample files to practice with (ZIP, 117 MB), Southeast Asia (Includes Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam) - English, الشرق الأوسط وشمال أفريقيا - اللغة العربية. Labels are another method for organizing and selecting multiple elements in a project. Here are some tutorials that teach all the basic knowledge you’ll need for working with the program. For many video editors and aspiring visual effects artists, the allure of learning After Effects skills comes from a desire to create some of those mind-bending, jaw-dropping visuals you often see online and on social media. Teaching you how to make a lit fire effect, this is one of the most fun After Effects tutorials for beginners we know of. So, as you can see there are plenty of different ways you can Import files into After Effects. Well, try out this one on how to animate with trim paths! Now usually when I get started I click on the New Project... button. Which means it's just going to go ahead and flatten any possible layers that are involved with that Illustrator file. In fact, they're less than a megabyte a piece. Now I don't want to use any of these, so I'll go ahead and just click outside of that menu to hide it. Your Composition Window sits in the very center, which is essentially a ‘live view’ of what’s happening as you make edits. The best way to think about this book is as a foundational piece to building your knowledge base and your craft. YouTube videos, while helpful, didn't get to the basics … If I want to undo the last thing I did I can press Ctrl + Z on Windows or Command + Z on the Mac to undo. One of the initial challenges with After Effects is understanding the difference between Projects and Compositions. So, I'm going to open up the Assets folder and in here we'll go ahead and import a couple of different assets. Mark employs these techniques to walk through a sample project, demonstrating how everything comes together in an actual workflow. And when I let go now you'll notice it's hidden under all the other layers, so I can't see it. If you click on those three lines, that will give you access to the Panel menu which gives you settings specific to the individual panel. Now, it's really important that you clear out this field when you're done searching for things so that you can see everything back in the Project panel when you're finished. Let's continue to look at our project. When the Open panel pops up navigate to your project files. At the top of the Project panel, I have the AA_Compositions folder and in there I have the Tour the Interface composition. In a course designed to inform and inspire beginners, instructor Mark Christiansen covers the basics of Adobe After Effects 2021. Dragging an element in the Project panel down to the. And not only has that file been imported but I've also got a composition that matches those settings and it's already created the first layer in the composition. Now they both have switched to Orange and notice the order has changed because we still have things organized according to the Label column. Mark starts by describing the core terminology of film, video, and motion design before moving on to an exploration of the After Effects interface. Notice the new Folder is already highlighted so I can just go ahead and name it. Post questions and get answers from experts. After Effect software is used for creating compositions, Motion graphics and gives visual effect to any footage. If you’re still hungry for more After Effects learning, tutorials, and tricks, check out these articles. Let’s cover the basics so that you understand how to navigate the application. Imported files are not embedded in your After Effects Project. And just press the Spacebar to stop playback. This is a very interesting graphics … Now the last thing you might want to do is delete files, like let's say there is an image that you're not working with anymore, well here I'll open the images folder and I'll click on the Camper_Mtns.jpg and drag it down not to the New Folder icon but over here to the Trash icon. In this accessible and simple beginner’s guide video tutorial, you can learn some of the basic techniques of working with masking and Roto Brush tools for some simple rotoscoping tricks. So, if we look at the selected file you can see it's a compressed video file, an MP4 file, and its size is definitely larger than 1 Megabyte. Missing some After Effects skills? Composition is just a stack of layers that create this composite. In the Project panel if we look you'll notice I've already created a bunch of folders and organized several different elements like I have a Music file here, if we go down to the bottom I have Video Footage. You can press that multiple times to go back multiple steps. This is definitely one of the cooler After Effects skills tutorials we’ve produced here at PremiumBeat, but here are some straightforward, effective, awesome guides to creating 8-bit pixel art for your videos or projects. And in this video, we will be focusing on the main elements of the interface to get you up and running quickly. In this tutorial by Justin Odisho, we get a course in how to create and export transparent background videos in After Effects. This tutorial goes over the following eight tools: You can follow along with this full write-up here. If you need to learn Adobe After Effects for the first time, it helps to break the program down to the basics. The Timeline is divided up into two sections. The way I have organized things on my hard drive I created a folder called Assets and anything that I thought I was going to import into any of these After Effects projects, I put in the Assets folder. While many graphics can be created in After Effects there will be plenty of times when you'll want to animate files created in other applications like Photoshop files or Illustrator files, you know, photographs and video files. Experience the best TheBeat has to offer. As you first launch After Effects it's really important to understand how project files are saved and how all the assets that you'll be working with should be organized on your hard drive before you ever bring them into an After Effects project. With this tutorial, you’ll have a complete understanding of how to use After Effects and start improving your own videos in no time. So, if I double click on that icon, notice now the Timeline is active and the Timeline and the Composition panel which is right here in the middle of the interface work together in conjunction. I'll click on the first one, hold down Shift and click on the next one and they're both selected. If I click this white X to the left of the word Footage that will go ahead and close that panel. So, if I want to select a layer I can just click once on that layer and I know it's selected because it's bright white. So, if I click on the Label column here notice now the files are organized according to their label colors. So, if I click once in the Search area and start to type the word camp, any footage that has the word ‘cam’ in it is going to be popped up. The first time you launch the application you'll notice the Start screen and working from the top down it's divided up into two sections, the Work section and the Learn section. So, I'll click on the New Composition From Footage button and you guess that I'm going to find a video clip, so I'll click once on this Road Trip-Camp MP4 File and I'll click Import. Now I want you to come to the upper left portion of the interface and click once to make sure this panel is active. Dragging an element in the Project panel down to the trash icon will delete the file from the project. You'll learn to turn any layer into 3D as well as create 3D lights and cameras. Notice I have four different After Effects project files and if you come over here on the right-hand side you'll notice under the Size that none of them are particularly large. Now, what happens when you have everything organized into folders but you still want to be able to find those elements without having to open every single folder? As you are working in the interface of After Effects, you might want to look in the upper right corner in the Info panel because you will get little menu items letting you know what it was you last completed. Plus, many users just developing their After Effects skills users might not be aware that this technique exists. You will notice these lines repeated throughout the different panels in the interface. The first way you can import assets into After Effects is by going up to the Menu bar and clicking on File, go to Import and choose File... Navigate to wherever you saved your project files and you notice I have an Assets folder saved right next to them. Double-click in an empty area of the Project panel to automatically open the Import dialog box without having to go to the menu bar. Beyond the Basics of Adobe After Effects: Intermediate Skills - S6604 Kyle Hamrick is an Emmy-winning motion designer, video editor and software trainer. Adobe After Effects CC Classroom in a Book contains 14 lessons that cover the basics, providing countless tips and techniques to help you become more productive with the program. Notice also, as I slide over different layers we can see other elements in our composition. To add this to a folder I'll just click and drag down to the New Folder button and here we can call this Footage. And when I let go it's going to tell me: Are you sure you want to remove this because it's being used in one composition? In this 2 part tutorial we will take a basic to advanced look at creating titles in After Effects. Now the Project panel is where you will import and organize all the elements you will be using to build your After Effects projects. See the white line under the Footage panel this is letting me preview in the Footage panel. The tools in After Effects make it very easy to build video compositions, add video effects and motion graphics … I could use drag and drop if I had an Explorer window or a Finder window and I could drop things directly into the Project panel. Specifically, Video Copilot’s Basic Training is a 10 part series designed to get you up to speed with all the basics of After Effects — and it’s free. You have your Project Files i.e. Now if I want to change where this layer appears vertically I can click on that layer and drag it down to the bottom of the Timeline. The search field in the Project panel can help you find specific assets. In a course designed to inform and inspire beginners, instructor Mark Christiansen covers the basics of Adobe After Effects 2020. When you build graphic builds like this they'll be built in something called a Composition which is represented here in the Composition panel and down here in the Timeline. Notice it looks like it's the Composition panel but it's really not. And that will load up a preview here on the top of my Project panel and it also shows me some important settings about the format of that file itself. We're going to focus on the Work section and go to the upper left corner here and RECENT is selected. How to Use After Effects? Adobe After Effects can help you take motion graphics to the next level, but the tool isn’t always easy to use (especially if you are new to it). And as you can see I've got video files in there, I've got graphics in there, let's take a closer look and figure out where these files actually are. So, if I didn't want to do that I can just press Ctrl + Z on Windows or Command + Z on the Mac to undo but now you know how to actually delete files in your Project panel. Another great tool available in After Effects that, once you get to more advanced effects, you will use a lot of are track mattes. So, I'd like to change the color for the labels for each one of these JPEG files. While “rotoscoping” as a term itself might scare some potential editors away, it’s actually not that scary and a surprisingly intuitive technique to master. your media files, footage, and images etc on the left. So grateful for this basic course! After Effects Basics Part 1: Using the Rigid Mask Tracker - L6623a; Transforming 2D Design to 3D Animation in After Effects - S6608; After Effects Basics Part 2: Using Content-Aware Fill for Video - L6623b; After Effects Basics Part 3: Using 3D Camera Tracker - L6623c ★ Lesson 1 — After Effects Basics. So, I am going to go down to the bottom folder where it says Video Footage, and to look in that folder I will click the triangle to the left of the folder and then I will just click once on the top video clip. Next, he covers fundamentals of working in After Effects: building compositions, working with layers, animating, adding effects, designing in 3D, and rendering. Next, he covers fundamentals of working in After Effects: building compositions, working with layers, animating, adding effects, designing in 3D, and rendering. If you’re looking to try out something a little more advanced and outstanding, this tutorial by Peter McKinnon can show how to create the viral “float yourself” effect. Well, you can come up to the Search area here in the Project panel. So, for those looking to take these first steps into really understanding how After Effects works — and for those who are ready to truly unlock the power of Adobe’s flagship motion effects platform — here are seven in-depth tutorials to teach you the basics and hone your skills. After Effects Basics Follow. Learn Adobe After Effect's basic tools and techniques with the Get Started series. What you learned: Organize assets in the Project panel. So, in the Menu bar, I am going to go to Window, Workspace and make sure I am set to the Standard workspace. In very simple terms you can break the main interface down into 4 key sections. So, go to the upper left portion of the interface and click once in the Project panel to make it active. 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