Adobe After Effects CC Classroom in a Book (2017 release)

Lisa Fridsma has long loved the process of teaching others to use Adobe products. She has written, edited, and designed over thirty books in the Classroom in a Book series over the last decade and a half (including books on Photoshop and After Effects), going back to her time on-staff at Adobe. She’s currently the owner of Darlington Hill Productions (Informational illustrations and publishing). Lisa lives in Bethesda, Maryland, with her family and two above-average dogs.   Brie Gyncild aims to make technical information accessible to those who need it. Brie wrote The Photoshop CS5 Pocket Guide and The Photoshop Elements 8 Pocket Guide. She has also co-written The Photoshop Show Starring Russell Brown; numerous editions of the Classroom in a Book series on Photoshop, After Effects, Flash, and Acrobat; and several editions of the How to Wow series. Brie lives in Seattle with two cats and an overgrown garden.

Getting Started                                                                                                                                

About Classroom in a Book

Prerequisites

Installing After Effects and Bridge

Optimizing performance

Restoring default preferences

Online content

How to use these lessons

Additional resources

Adobe Authorized Training Centers

1       Getting to Know the Workflow                                                                                  

About the After Effects work area

Getting started

Creating a project and importing footage

Creating a composition and arranging layers

About layers

Adding effects and modifying layer properties

Animating the composition

About the Tools panel

About timecode and duration

About the Timeline panel

Previewing your work

Optimizing performance in After Effects

Rendering and exporting your composition

Customizing workspaces

Controlling the brightness of the user interface

Finding resources for using After Effects

Review questions and answers

2       Creating a Basic Animation Using Effects and Presets                                

Getting started

Importing footage using Adobe Bridge

Creating a new composition

Working with imported Illustrator layers

Applying effects to a layer

Applying and controlling effects

Applying an animation preset

Previewing the effects

Adding transparency

Rendering the composition

Review questions and answers

3       Animating Text                                                                                                                         

Getting started

About text layers

Installing a font using Typekit

Creating and formatting point text

Using a text animation preset

Animating with scale keyframes

Animating using parenting

About parent and child layers

Animating imported Photoshop text

Animating type tracking

Animating text opacity

Using a text animator group

About text animator groups

Animating a layer’s position

Timing layer animations

Adding motion blur

Review questions and answers

4       Working with Shape Layers                                                                                             

Getting started

Adding a shape layer

Creating custom shapes

Duplicating shapes

Duplicating and modifying a composition

Positioning layers with snapping

Adding compositions to a 3D project

Adding the finishing touches

Extra credit

Review questions and answers

5       Animating a Multimedia Presentation                                                                  

Getting started

Using Creative Cloud Libraries in After Effects

Adjusting anchor points

Parenting layers

Precomposing layers

Keyframing a motion path

Animating additional elements

Applying an effect

About solid-color layers

Animating precomposed layers

Animating the background

Adding an audio track

Supported audio file formats

Editing audio files in Adobe Audition

Review questions and answers

6       Animating Layers                                                                                                                    

Getting started

Preparing layered Photoshop files

About Photoshop layer styles

Simulating lighting changes

Duplicating an animation using the pick whip

About expressions

Animating movement in the scenery

Adjusting the layers and creating a track matte

About track mattes and traveling mattes

Animating the shadows

Adding a lens flare effect

Adding a video animation

Rendering the animation

Retiming the composition

Review questions and answers

7       Working with Masks                                                                                                            

About masks

Getting started

Creating a mask with the Pen tool

Editing a mask

About mask modes

Creating a Bezier mask

Feathering the edges of a mask

Replacing the content of the mask

Zooming and panning by touch

Adding a reflection

Creating a vignette

Using the Rectangle and Ellipse tools

Adjusting the timing

Tips for creating masks

Trimming the work area

Review questions and answers

8       Distorting Objects with the Puppet Tools                                                            

Getting started

About the Puppet tools

Adding Deform pins

Defining areas of overlap

Stiffening an area

Animating pin positions

Squash and stretch

Recording animation

Act it out with Adobe Character Animator

Review questions and answers

 

9       Using the Roto Brush Tool                                                                                               

About rotoscoping

Getting started

Creating a segmentation boundary

Using Adobe Premiere Pro with After Effects

Fine-tuning the matte

Refine Soft Matte and Refine Hard Matte effects

Freezing your Roto Brush tool results

Changing the background

Adding animated text

Outputting your project

Extra credit

Review questions and answers

10    Performing Color Correction                                                                                      

Getting started

Previewing your project on a video monitor

Adjusting color balance with levels

Adjusting color balance with Color Finesse 3

Replacing the background

Color-correcting using Auto Levels

Motion tracking the clouds

Replacing the sky in the second clip

Color grading

Extra Credit

Review questions and answers

11    Using 3D Features                                                                                                                   

Getting started

Creating 3D text

Using 3D views

Importing a background

Adding 3D lights

Adding a camera

Extruding text in After Effects

Working with Cinema 4D Lite

Integrating the C4D layer in After Effects

Finishing the project

Review questions and answers

12    Working with the 3D Camera Tracker                                                                      

About the 3D Camera Tracker effect

Getting started

Repairing rolling shutter distortions

Tracking the footage

Creating a ground plane, a camera, and the initial text

Creating realistic shadows

Adding ambient light

Creating additional text elements

Locking a layer to a plane with a null object

Animating the text

Adjusting the camera’s depth of field

Rendering the composition

Review questions and answers

13    Advanced Editing Techniques                                                                                        

Getting started

Using Warp Stabilizer VFX

Bicubic scaling

Warp Stabilizer VFX settings

Using single-point motion tracking

Checking for drift

Moving and resizing the track points

Using multipoint tracking

mocha for After Effects

Creating a particle simulation

Understanding Particle Systems II properties

About high dynamic range (HDR) footage

Review questions and answers

 

14    Rendering and Outputting                                                                                               

Getting started

Creating templates for the Render Queue

About compression

Exporting using the Render Queue

Preparing movies for mobile devices

Rendering movies with Adobe Media Encoder

Preparing a movie for broadcast output

Review questions and answers

 

Appendix: General keyboard shortcuts