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Starting a New Composition

Lesson 3 from: Adobe After Effects Fundamentals

Philip Ebiner

Starting a New Composition

Lesson 3 from: Adobe After Effects Fundamentals

Philip Ebiner

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Lesson Info

3. Starting a New Composition

Lessons

Class Trailer

Chapter 1: Introduction

1

Class Updates & My Favorite CC 2020 Updates

06:22

Chapter 2: After Effects Basics

2

Understand the After Effects Workspace

05:39
3

Starting a New Composition

08:15
4

CC 2018 Update - Starting a New Composition from Footage

01:55
5

Adding Media to Your Project and the Timeline

05:08
6

Using the Basic After Effects Tools

10:20
7

Create a Perfect Circle, Alignment, and Shape Colors

03:04
8

Working in the Timeline

10:59
9

Layer Properties

08:57
10

Quiz: After Effects Basics

Chapter 3: Animating with Keyframes

11

Animating in After Effects

07:35
12

Position, Scale, and Rotation Animations

05:17
13

Tips to Make Your Animations Look More Nautral

04:21
14

Using the Graph Editor

05:32
15

Challenge - Bouncing Ball

01:01
16

Solution - Bouncing Ball

13:00
17

Quiz: Animating with Keyframes

Chapter 4: Shapes and Solid Layers

18

Working with Solid Layers and the Ken Burns Effects

07:07
19

Working with Shape Layers, Strokes, and Paths

06:24
20

Adding Layer Styles like Drop Shadow, Bevel, and Gradients

03:44
21

Shape Effects - Trim Path Animations, Wiggle, and Zig Zag

05:54
22

Quiz: Shapes and Solid Layers

Chapter 5: Important After Effects Skills

23

Track Matte Animations - Make Layers Appear and Disappear

08:37
24

Using Pre-Compositions to Group Layers

05:34
25

Easily Reverse Complicated Animations

02:14
26

Playing with Time

05:54
27

Blend Modes

06:05
28

Stabilize Shaky Footage

04:04
29

CC 2018 Update - Previewing and Favoriting Fonts

00:46
30

CC 2019 Update - Responsive Design Time

03:36
31

CC 2019 Content Aware Fill

03:55
32

CC 2019 Create Motion Graphic Templates

08:37
33

Quiz: Important After Effects Skills

Chapter 6: Motion Graphics Projects

34

Intro to Motion Graphics Projects

00:53
35

Clean Lower Third

09:22
36

Logo Reveal Animation Bumper

13:25
37

Colorful Transition

16:59
38

Text with Mask Path Animation

10:05
39

Text Bubble Animation

13:39
40

Weather App 1

16:41
41

Weather App 2

08:21
42

Weather App 3

06:59
43

Quiz: Motion Graphics Projects

Chapter 7: Flat Animation Challenge

44

Flat Animation Challenge

02:47
45

Phil Designs his Flat Animation Scene

01:23
46

Animating Fireworks with the Repeater Effect

15:02

Chapter 8: Flat Animation Challenge

47

Removing Green Screen Background

06:46
48

Adding a Background that Matches the Foreground

07:55
49

Adding Motion to a Still Image with the Puppet Tool

06:26
50

Adding Movement with the Ripple Effect

06:07
51

Quiz: Flat Animation Challenge

Chapter 9: Green Screen (Chromakeying)

52

Intro to 3D

10:04
53

Swinging 3D Text Animation

12:11
54

Build Out Your 3D Composition

05:47
55

Animating Our 3D Scene

07:38
56

Create Stars in After Effects

05:11
57

Quiz: Green Screen (Chromakeying)

Chapter 10: 3D Animations and the Camera Tool

58

Using the Rotoscope Tool

06:55
59

Cleaning Up Your Edges

07:21
60

Finishing Our Rotobrush Animation

07:33
61

Quiz: 3D Animations and the Camera Tool

Chapter 11: Rotoscoping

62

Easy Screen Replacement with Masks

09:56
63

Replacing a Screen Version 2

13:49
64

Screen Replacement with Mocha

07:13
65

CC 2019 Update - Native Mocha AE Plugin

05:08
66

Quiz: Rotoscoping

Chapter 12: Screen Replacements

67

Using the Puppet Pin Tool

04:33
68

Animating Your Puppet Pins

03:04
69

Animated Blinking Eyes

08:21
70

Adding Perspective with Animated Clouds

07:10
71

CC 2018 Update - Advanced Puppet Pin Tool

02:08
72

Quiz: Screen Replacements

Chapter 13: Puppet Tool Animations

73

Applying Text Animation Presets

05:59
74

Create a Page Turn Effect with CC Page Turn

10:05
75

Radial and Linear Wipes

03:20
76

Color Correction in After Effects

03:33
77

CC 2019 Update - Selective Color Adjustments

03:25
78

Quiz: Puppet Tool Animations

Chapter 14: Motion Tracking

79

Motion Tracking Basics

09:51
80

Tracking Text and Visual Effects to Video Clip

06:21
81

Tracking Rotation and Scale

11:33
82

Adding Details to Our Text

04:04
83

Quiz: Motion Tracking

Chapter 15: Character Animations

84

Intro to Character Animations

01:31
85

Design Your Character

14:32
86

Rigging Your Character

02:50
87

Animating Our Character

09:55
88

Adding the Animated Background

09:12
89

Adding Details to Character Movement

06:46
90

Adding the Paper Cut Out Look

05:29
91

Quiz: Character Animations

Chapter 16: Exporting from After Effects

92

Exporting an H264 File from After Effects

07:03
93

Exporting from After Effects with a Transparent Background

04:03
94

Exporting from After Effects through Adobe Media Encoder

04:40
95

CC 2018 Update - Exporting an Animated GIF from Adobe Media Encoder

02:14
96

Create an Animated GIF from After Effects CC 2017

07:03

Chapter 17: After Effects Workflow & Tips

97

Audio Tips for After Effects

02:19
98

Working with Premiere Pro

05:54
99

Quiz: After Effects Workflow & Tips

Chapter 18: Expressions

100

Expressions Basics

07:24
101

Animate a Flickering Light with Expressions

17:35
102

Quiz: Expressions

Chapter 19: Conclusion

103

Conclusion

00:44

Final Quiz

104

Final Quiz

Lesson Info

Starting a New Composition

let's start a new composition. There's multiple ways to do everything in after effects. Usually there's a button in the interface, there's often a keyboard shortcut, which you can get to if you go to help and then click on keyboard shortcuts. This will take you to the adobe website which has shortcuts for both Mac and pc users, which is really helpful. And then lastly there might be a menu option up here in the top. So if you go to composition, for example, you'll see the new composition button which will also show you the keyboard shortcut. I'm using a Mac so it's going to be command n or just click this button down here in the project panel. This brings up your composition settings window. Remember think of this as an individual video or maybe an individual clip that you're working on. You can always rename this later. But for example, I would just call this after effects one. You can name it whatever you want. Then you have all of your sequence settings under the basic settings, you...

have different presets. So if you're using a particular type of camera or footage, you would just select this one of these presets. For example, a lot of videos that I create. I'm shooting at 1920 by 1080 pixels. This is what you your standard HD footage is And I shoot at 29.97 frames per second. So I could find one of those presets that matches those settings such as this one. HD tv 10 18 29. that changes the width and height to match that. It also changes the frame rate down here and you can customize this stuff for yourself. For example, if you want to create a square graphic for example if you're putting on social media like facebook or instagram which like square graphics, you can just click in the width or the height and type in the pixels that you want. So if we want a square we can do 1000 pixels by 1000 pixels and that would work fine. Typically your pixel aspect ratio should just be left at square. If you run into an issue or if someone wants you to do it differently, you would select these but for most of the projects you're using just leave it at square next. You have your basically your timeline window options. The duration is an important one. This can also be changed later but this is where you set the duration of your composition which is different than again referring to premiere pro where if you start a new sequence, it can basically be as long as the video you add, you can keep adding clips. It can start out as a minute. But then as you add more clips It turns into two minutes, 10 minutes an hour. With After effects you set the duration in the beginning. So if you want a clip Or an animation to be five seconds long then you would set it as five seconds long. Like it shows here If you need it to be 10 seconds you would change this to 10 seconds. For example, this can also be changed later but it's good to start out with something shorter like so background color. This is the background of the composition. This just depends on how you want it to look. While you're editing. This doesn't actually change the background of the video itself. We'll be showing you how to add a background color in a future lesson. This is just think of it as the transparent background so that you can work in your project. Some people like a white background just to see what that looks like. Typically I'm just going to leave it as black when you're happy. Just click OK. And now you can see two things happen. One in our project tab. Over here we have this composition and then down here our timeline has sort of opened up and you can adjust your timeline to zoom in and out. You can see now that our timeline goes from zero seconds, 25 seconds. And then you have the frames in between 10 frames 20 frames then one second to zoom in. You can take this top bar the time Navigator and zoom in by dragging to the left or right. There's also this little slider at the very bottom for you to drag in and out and that allows you to zoom in and out. You can also use the plus or minus keys on your keyboard. Just a few more things about your composition panel down here at the bottom. You have different ways to adjust the view on the left, you have this percentage. This will depend on the resolution of your screen, you can zoom in According to a percentage and this will zoom into your composition at that percentage. So if you just want to set it at a smaller percentage, you can choose like 25%. So this is Moving your 100% resolution composition and shrinking it to 25%. If you want it to just match the size of this panel, You can choose fit up to 100 and now you can adjust the panel size by clicking on the edge and dragging upward down. And this is helpful because oftentimes I'll find myself adjusting the size of these panels so that I have more room in the timeline for example, and that way the video or the composition adjust while I change that panel. The other thing I want to mention right now is this resolution right now I have it set for full and this is the playback resolution, not necessarily the export resolution of your video and this helps if your computer is a little bit slower. Oftentimes my after effects students asked my computer is running slow. It's it's lagging the video, it plays back choppy, How do I make it play back smoothly? Usually the issue is that you don't have enough memory or RAM processing power in your computer. I recommend at least 16 gigabytes of RAM on a Mac. You can see that information by clicking the apple button and clicking about this Mac and you can probably find a similar setting on your pc as well in your computer settings. So here you can see that my memory is GB right here. Even still when I'm using with using high resolution footage like 4K footage, I do get a little bit of playback lag and so to fix that, we can actually decrease the resolution of our playback. This will play back at a lower resolution. So you're seeing a little bit lack of quality but that's better than having a choppy playback. In my opinion, the last thing I want to talk about right now with this composition panel is this button right here, which is the toggle transparency grid button. So see if I click that you get this checkerboard view when you see the checkerboard think transparent. So if you actually wanted to export this video right now with transparency, what you would get is just a blank video with nothing. It wouldn't even be a black background even though the background of our video is set to black. Remember what I talked about in the composition settings which you can get back to if you go to composition composition settings or command K on your keyboard. See the background color is black. If I set this at white, for example, click OK. And then click OK. If I click the transparency grid button again, it still shows that it's a transparent background. We're going to see how this comes to play when we create graphics like titles and we want to put them on to other videos in the future. But just know that you can click this button to see what in your composition is transparent. That's the basics of starting new compositions. In the next lesson, we're going to be importing graphics into our project panel and then we're going to be moving on and actually working with our composition and adding new layers.

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Practice Files

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