After Effects Professional

After Effects CS4 Professional

Overview
Adobe After Effects CS4 is a powerful software tool for visual eff ects and motion graphics. You can use After Effects’ tools to create dynamic designs for commercial video and motion picture production to CD-ROM title development. This course will help you to understand the fundamental concepts and features to master the program. It includes many advanced features, including tips and tricks using the latest version. We also recommend this course for those planning to obtain the Adobe
Certified Expert status.

Who Should Attend
Graphic professionals who need an essential understanding of motion editing and compositing. Experienced users will also benefit from the many tips and tricks and special exercises.

Prerequisites
Because of the amount of material we cover in class, we do require students to be comfortable using a mouse, opening and saving files, and the general operations of computers. While we will make every reasonable effort to help, students with insufficient skills may be required to observe the class lessons or do their best to keep up without slowing down the rest of the class.

What You Will Learn

• Basic Animation and Effects
• Keyframes and Layers
• Working with text
• Parenting and Nesting
• Transparency
• Track and Key
• Using Paint and Vector Paint
• Expressions and Time
• Advanced Motion techniques
• New Features of CS4

LESSON PLAN

• Basic Animation
  Creating folders in the project panel
  Creating a new composition
  Importing files and folders
  Adding layers to the Comp panel
  Changing the background color
  Animating position
  Navigating between keyframes
  Dragging footage to the Timeline panel
  Aligning and distributing layers
  Editing spatial keyframes, motion paths
  Auto orientation
  Adding effects
  Importing layered Photoshop/Illustrator files
  Rendering

• Advanced Animation
  Working with Adobe Bridge
  Template Projects
  Viewing animated properties
  Graph editor overview
  Panning and zooming time
  Editing graph curves
  Easing animations
  Editing multiple keyframes
  Motion sketch
  Using the smoother
  Motion Blur
  Roving Keyframes
  Time-Reverse Keyframes
  Anchor Point overview
  Pan Behind tool
  Motion control moves
  Hold keyframes
  Time display and timecode

• Layer Control
  Layers and stacking order
  Moving layers in time
  Trimming layers Slip editing
  Sequence Layers assistant
  Looping footage
  Image sequences
  Changing the frame rate
  Time Stretch
  Blending Modes
  Effects and solids
  Effect motion path
  Effects & Presets panel
  Searching for effects
  Animation presets
  Behavior presets
  Adjustment Layers
  Non-square pixels

• Creating Transparency
  Rectangular Mask tool
  Free Transform Points
  Masking in the Layer panel
  Mask Feather Animating a Mask Shape
  Masking with the Pen tool
  Effecting a mask area
  Mask Opacity
  Audio Spectrum effect
  Alpha Track Matte
  Effects and track mattes
  Luma Track Matte
  Mask shapes in CS4

• Type and Music
  Creating basic text
  Creating Text Animators
  Animating text properties
  Creating cascading text
  Animating by words
  Title safe areas
  Animating text Blur and Tracking
  Text on a path
  Rendering with an alpha channel
  Field rendering
  Adding sound to a comp
  Add comp and layer markers
  Customizing presets
  Editing Photoshop Text Layers

• Parenting and Nesting
  Parenting, Nesting, and Expressions
  Assigning a parent
  Parenting, opacity, and effects
  Parenting with Null Objects
  Using guides
  Nesting comps
  Editing precomps
  Nesting a common source
  Sizing precomps
  Locking panels
  Precompositing a group of layers
  Render order explained
  Using precomposing to re-order

• Expressions and Time
  Using the pick whip to create expressions
  Altering expressions
  Stabilizing shadows
  Looping keyframes
  The wiggle expression
  Creating a master controller
  Converting sound to keyframes
  Frame blending
  Pixel motion
  Stop motion tricks
  Preserve Frame Rate
  Creating freeze frames
  Time Remapping

• 3D Space and Dimension
  Enabling layers for 3D
  Moving layers in 3D space
  3D rotation and orientation
  3D motion paths Camera track and orbit tools
  3D lights and Vignettes
  Animating lights
  Casting shadows
  Adding dimension to stills
  Editing stills for 3D

• Track and Key
  Creating track points
  Important tracker options
  Applying stabilization
  Fixing bad tracks
  Tracking interlaced footage
  Motion tracking Radio Waves effect
  Applying tracks to effect points
  Perspective corner pin tracking
  Bezier Warp effect
  Working with high-defi nition footage
  Keying using the Keylight effect
  Improving keyed composites
  Creating garbage mattes

• Using Paint and Vector Paint
  Basic painting
  Erasing strokes
  Paint Channels
  Paint Blending Modes
  Brush duration bar
  Animating strokes
  Revealing a layer
  Creating organic textures
  Tablet settings
  Cloning
  Transforming strokes
  Vector Paint overview
  Wiggle Control
  Onion Skin mode
  Playback modes

• New Features in After Effects CS4
  Using Brainstorm
  Brainstorm with keyframes
  Puppet Pin tool
  Animating Puppet pins
  Puppet Overlap tool
  Recording Puppet Animation
  Creating a Shape layer
  Shape Stroke and Fill settings
  Editing shapes
  Multiple shapes
  Even-Odd Fill
  Shape Effects
  Shape Repeater
  Compound Paths
  Shape Gradients
  Shape Pen Paths
  Advanced Strokes
  Animating a Stroke