After Effects Bootcamp

Students will learn more on creating special effects for video and motion graphics.

Target Audience: Graphic and Video professionals who need an essential understanding of video editing, motion editing and compositing. Experienced users will also benefit from many hands-on projects and tricks learnt on the class. No prior experience of After Effects is required. Training available on both Mac and PC.

Detailed Course Outline:

Introduction: Real-World Usage of After Effects

• What is After Effects?
• Cloud complete versus standalone plans
• What type of media can it create?
• What kind of media can be imported into After Effects?
• Components of an After Effects file
• After Effects workflow: Best practices
• Media deployment file fomat roundup
• What determines a project’s resolution?
• What determines a project’s frame rate?
• What are best practices regarding graphical and audio assets?
• What technical specifications must be met?

Hands-On Unit 1: Setting Up an After Effects Project

• About RAM and real-time rendering
• Understanding linked media, and reloading clips
• Setting Preferences and Project Settings
• Creating a project and importing footage
• Creating a Composition and arranging layers
• Adding effects and modifying layer properties
• Animating a Composition
• Working with the Time Controls Panel
• Working with Switches and Modes in the Timeline
• Creating rendering presets, and rendering a Composition
• Customizing the After Effects Workspace

Hands-On Unit 2: Basic Animation With Effects and Presets

• Working with imported Illustrator layers
• Creating text
• Applying text animation presets
• Applying effects to layers
• Previewing effects
• Nesting and pre-composing
• Adding transparency

Hands-On Unit 3: Animating Text

• Title design: Adding text layers
• Creating and formatting text
• Using text animation presets
• Animating with keyframes
• Keyframe interpolation basics
• Animating using parenting
• Converting imported Photoshop text
• Animating text using a path animation preset
• Animating type tracking
• Animating text opacity
• Using a text animator group
• Converting path points to positional keyframes
• Auto-orienting a layer along a motion path
• Adding motion blur
• Rendering a Composition

Hands-On Unit 4: Animating Shapes

• Differences between shape and mask layers
• Adding a shape layer
• Creating and animating shapes
• Using Repeaters
• Incorporating video and audio layers
• Applying a Cartoon effect
• Adding a title bar
• Rendering a Composition using the AME

Hands-On Unit 5: Skills Summation Project

• Adjusting layer anchor points
• Masking video using vector shapes
• Applying self-generating effects
• Creating an animated slide show
• Mixing audio track levels

Hands-On Unit 6: Working with Masks

• Understanding alpha channels, masks, mattes, and keying
• Importing masks from Photoshop
• Animating masks
• Exploring keyframe interpolation with the Graph Editor
• Creating Animation Presets
• Creating and editing masks in After Effects
• Feathering the edges of a mask
• Using the Mask Feather Tool
• Applying blend modes
• Creating a vignette
• Color correction basics

Hands-On Unit 7: Working in 3D

• Manipulating 2D text and objects in 3D space
• Creating and shading extruded 3D text
• Animating 3D text
• Multiple scene Views
• Applying lights to 3D layers
• Shading and shadowing layers
• Animating light and Materials properties
• Third-party 3D plug-ins

Hands-On Unit 8: Color Correction and Cleanup Adjusting color balance

• Replacing a background
• Using the Clone Tool to remove unwanted elements
• Correcting a color range
• Warming colors with the Photo Filter effect

Hands-On Unit 9: Rendering and Exporting

• Testing for final Renders and Exports
• Understanding video and audio compression
• Rendering in After Effects’ Render Queue
• Rendering in the Adobe Media Encoder
• Creating Render templates
• Rendering and Exporting to a variety of media types:

• High-resolution recompositing
• DVD-VWeb video
• YouTubeMobile devices
• Web video

Hands-On Unit 10: 3D—Advanced Concepts

• Switching camera perspectives
• Working with multiple views
• Adding and animating lights
• Adding and animating cameras
• Interpolating camera motion
• Cutting between multiple cameras
• Working with Cinema 4D Lite in After Effects

Hands-On Unit 11: Advanced Masking

• Adapting complex masks
• Positioning and scaling complex mask elements
• Feathering complex masks
• Animating complex masks
• Rotoscoping with the Roto Brush Tool
• Creating and refining Roto Brush segmentation boundaries
• Freezing and unfreezing Roto Brush segments

Hands-On Unit 12: Color Keying

• Understanding blue and green screen keys
• Creating garbage mattes
• Refining mattes and masks
• Using the Keylight effect
• Using the standard Color Key effect

Hands-On Unit 13: Particle Simulations

• Applying Particle Simulation effects
• Adjusting birth rate, longevity, and other effect properties
• Adding additional effects
• Compositing Particle Simulations

Hands-On Unit 14: Time-warp Simulations

• Using the Timewarp effect to retime video
• Establishing keyframes to control speed
• Using the Graph Editor to adjust fast, slow, and reverse motion

Hands-On Unit 15: Painting and Cloning

• Understanding the Paint tools
• Modifying and saving custom Brushes
• Creating Brush strokes
• Animating strokes
• Rotoscoping with brush strokes
• Animating with the Eraser tool
• Duplicating video with the Clone tool

Hands-On Unit 16: Puppet Tool Distortion

• About the Puppet Tools
• Adding Deform pins
• Stiffening with the Starch Tool
• Animating pin positions

Hands-On Unit 17: Warp Stabilization and Motion Tracking

• Using the Warp Stabilizer VFX feature
• Customizing Warp Stabilizer VFX settings
• Using the Track Motion panel
• Applying single-point motion tracking
• Working with track points
• Appying multipoint tracking
• Creating motion tracking by applying Mocha planar data

Hands-On Unit 18: Expressions

• Writing Expressions
• Pick Whip Expressions

Hands-On Unit 19: 3D Camera Tracking

• Tracking footage
• Creating text and shadows
• Adding ambient lightLocking layers to planes with null objects
• Adjusting Camera depth of field

Hands-On Unit 20: Time-lapse Simulations

• Simulating Time-lapse photography
• Manipulating light over time
• Duplicating an animation using the pick whip
• Creating a track matte
• Animating shadows
• Adding a lens flare effect
• Applying Time Remapping keyframes
• Customizing Time Remapping keyframe values

Note: Our outlines are a guide to the content covered on a typical class. We may change or alter the course topics to meet the objectives of a particular class.

What's Included:

• Adobe After Effect Training Manual
• Adobe Certificate of Course Completion
• 6 Months Free Repeat Policy