Adobe After Effects CC : Introduction

Two Day Course

Overview

This Adobe authorised two-day course is designed to allow those new to animation and post production techniques to get the most from this immensely powerful software. Whether you are a motion graphics designer, a web designer, rich media artist or broadcast video editor, Adobe After Effects CC allows you to create stunning motion graphics and visual effects.

The emphasis throughout this introduction is on practical exercises. These exercises will cover basic effects, project settings, video layering techniques, creating masks, text animation, using filters for special effects and rendering your final project.

What are the 5 things you will get out of the course?

• Be confident in creating After Effects projects from scratch without guidance
• Understand the After Effects interface and its operation
• Understand the keyframing (simplest form of animating an object) workflow
• Confidently use the extensive effects palette
• Produce animated and motion graphic videos suitable for web, media and more

If you would like to run this as a private course tailored to your exact requirements, please call or email. You need no previous experience to attend this course.

Public Course Dates & Pricing

• Public Courses

  Small class sizes so you get the maximum amount of trainer time possible. You attend with delegates from other companies.
  
  A great, cost efficient way to learn, discounts are also available for group bookings.

   

  Discount Info

• Private Courses

  One to one tuition or a private group with just your colleagues. Your choice of duration, content and location. We can train at one of our centres or onsite with you wherever you are located.
  
  We offer a free consultation service to help work out every detail and build the perfect course for you.

  From £499 + VAT per day

  Free Consultation

Course Outline

• Day One
  
  Starting a New Project
  • Workspaces – selecting a layout and resetting the windows
  • The Project window, timeline and viewer
  • Creating sequences – sequence settings
  • Essential viewer window settings
  • Creating assets within AE
  • Arranging objects in the viewport
  • How layers work in the timeline window
  • Object properties – the basics – Position, Scale, Rotation, Anchor Point and Opacity
  • Manipulating object transforms
  • Navigating the timeline, playing scrubbing and zooming
  • Simple animation – your first keyframes
  • Position animation and Bezier curves
  • Manipulating keyframes
  • Using the keyframe navigator
  • Copying and pasting keyframes
  • Proportional scaling of keyframes on the timeline
  • Using hotkeys to reveal keyframes and properties
  
  Adding Basic Effects
  • The effect controls palette
  • Ensuring that you explore effects completely – good workflow practices
  • How effects work with keyframes
  • Combining effects together
  • Adjustment layers
  • Basic colour correction
  
  Creating Text Layers and Basic Text Animation
  • Adding ease to improve animation quality.
  • Exploring the interface in more detail, switches modes and time controls.
  • Adding Motion Blur – Adjusting the global motion blur settings.
  
  Layer Controls - What do all the buttons do?
  • Ensuring correct workflow vector files
  • The collapse transformations switch
  • Importing video footage
  • Trimming and time manipulation of layers
  • Sorting, finding and working with assets in the project window
  • Saving project files – asset linkages – things to be aware of
  • Working with multiple sequences
  • Importing Photoshop files
  • Layer modes
  • PreComps – a sequence within a sequence
  • Why Precomps are vital - tidyness, reusablilty, changeability and solving technical issues
  
  Deeper into Keyframes - Basic Interpolation Types
  • Hold keyframes
  • Reversing animation the right way – avoiding “Bezier twists”
  • Roving keyframes
  • Auto orientation
• Day Two
  
  Track Mattes
  • Track Matte types – Luma and Alpha
  
  Creating Masks
  • Mask types and settings – shape and bezier masks
  • Editing masks
  • Using masks to reveal and hide layers
  • Animating Masks
  • Other mask uses for paths and effect controls
  • Shape layers
  
  Creating a Basic Logo Title from Scratch
  • Anchor point issues
  • Pre-composing base elements for better workflow
  • Adding effects to build our sequence
  • Parenting Layers
  • A simple expression - “Wiggle”
  • How Wiggle works – what the numbers do
  
  The Effects and Presets Palette
  • Using basic presets as a start point
  • Saving your own presets
  • Text presets – a special case
  • Creating your own text animators
  • Saving text animators as a preset
  
  Rendering – Creating our Final Output
  • Render settings
  • Using the correct workflow
  • Outputting varied media types with Media Encoder
  
  3D Layers – A Basic Introduction
  • Creating and manipulating layers in 3D space
  • Correct 3D and 2D layout to avoid problems
  • Creating and using a camera
  • Creating lights and light settings
  
  Saving your work for film, video, mobile devices and the web
  
  Questions and answers