Complete Beginner's Guide To After Effects: Create a Motion Project From Scratch

1. Class Introduction: Hello, and welcome to the complete beginners guide to Adobe After effect. If you are a designer and looking to apply effects on transitions to your video, create animated logos, illustrations or infographics or simple video presentations, after effect is the program to edit it. The tools in after effects make it very easy to build video compositions, add video effects, and motion graphics to bring your presentations to life. Now, a lot of videos you see on YouTube and TV with animated sequences have been created using after efect. This is the industry standard software for simple video animation, and I create all my videos in after effect. Now, this course has been carefully created to bring you up to speed with the program. On this course, you will learn all the methods I use to create my videos. So, if you've never used after effects before and wonder how the software works and want to try some simple animation, this course is for you. So the topics that are going to be covered in this course are the basics. So whether you have the most up to date version of After effects or you're using an older version, you should be able to follow along just fine. On this course, we will be starting from the very beginning and working our way across 48 episodes to learn all the basics and eventually put it all into practice and build a video presentation project together from scratch. Now, this may seem like a lot of episodes, but trust me, after this creative adventure, you will be able to use Adobe After effects very proficiently. After watching this course, you will be able to create your very own video presentation in after effects, ready to export and share. So what are we going to create on this course? So in the last section of this course, Section three, we are going to create a two D video presentation that could be used online or on TV. We are going to create an advert for a travel blog, and the theme will be five must see venues in London. So why a video presentation? Well, a video presentation is a typical project that is created in after effects. On this course, you will get the opportunity to experience what it takes to create a basic video presentation with animation which can be used online or in broadcast. This creative exercise is going to include all the basic tasks a beginner will need to know. To create this project, we'll be working with all the common creative tools to edit video, apply video transitions and effects, create simple two D animations, animate typography, animate still images, animate graphics made with other creative programs, and even synchronize an animation to audio. Now, as we create the video presentation, I will also be demonstrating how to manage the project in a smart way so everything is clear and organized. So let's take a look at the finished document. So here we are in Adobe After effect, and here you are looking at the finished presentation document we are going to build up to. So here you can see the video playing in the preview window here in after effects. Now, this video presentation includes a lot of design and illustrative elements, basic two D animations and video transitions. Along the way, we will be focusing on each part individually and see how it can all come together to finish a complete presentation. Once we have finished the presentation, we are then going to export the video to the correct format to be published online or used in broadcast. So to help break down the process, I have structured the course in three main sections. Section one, introduction, Section two, essential practice, and Section three, create a project. In the introduction section, I'll be introducing you to after effects and bringing you up to speed with some of the things you will need to be aware of before we continue on to the Essential Practice section. In the Essential Practice section, Section two, we are going to look closely at some of the creative tools and principles in after effects. Here you will have the opportunity to get hands on with over 17 after effects exercise documents I have designed and prepared, especially for you to practice with. And when we get to the creative project section, Section three, we will be using all that we have learned in the essential Practice section to create a project from scratch. The download folder comes with lots of exercise documents we will be using on this course that have been carefully developed to aid your learning experience. The folder also comes with document resources such as videos, graphics and images you can use to build your first video presentation from scratch later on in this course. To get the full learning experience, I recommend you get the project folder. Download link with instructions is in the description. Now, I also suggest you download the free PDF course index. You can save this to your computer and come back at any point. This is an interactive PDF which has been designed to enhance this course experience. This contains all the relevant video and project download links, as well as all the useful information referred to throughout the course. So I recommend you download this PDF. You can also find the downloadable link in the description. So, before you start the course, I would recommend getting the PDF download and checking the What to do first page. This will set you up ready to start the course with the course instructions, download instructions, and how to use the project folder. So once you have completed the to do list, you will be perfectly set up to start the course. So that is an overview to this after effect beginners course. Once you have downloaded the course PDF and the project folder, let's get into it. And we are going to begin with the first video in this course, where I'm going to talk a little bit more about after effect and discuss the differences between Dobe Afterefct. Sce in. 2. What is After Effects: Hello, and welcome to the first video in this beginner's guide to Adobe After effect. In this video, I'm going to discuss what after effect is. I will also be discussing the difference between Adobe After effect and Adobe Premiere Pro. So as a beginner, you will have a good understanding of the differences between them, what they are used for, and which one is right for you and your project. So since 2003, Adobe Premiere Pro has been available to amateur and pro video editors and is purely a video editing software. Premiere Pro has powerful tools to edit footage, to create small or large video productions. If you simply want to focus on video editing and apply color effects and simple transition effects, Adobe Premiere Pro is the program to use. Adobe premiere revolves around a timeline paradigm where you layer and chop footage together with simple transition effects. Lots of video clips can be placed together on one or few layers, chopped up and moved around quite swiftly. Here is an example of a simple Premiere Pro project. Here we can see ten video sources all chopped up neatly on one layer. The workflow in premiere is pretty streamlined and really comfortable. It's really easy to select multiple files, move them around, cut and edit. So Premiere Pro is used for the production of your raw video edits. Now, Adobe After effects is used in post production after the video footage has been produced and exported from programs such as Adobe Premiere, hence after effects. Since 1995, with its first release, Adobe After effects has been available to add visual effects to video, create motion graphics and animation sequences. In the industry, after effects is used in the post production process of filmmaking and television production and also in design and social media. Now, for those not familiar with after effects, it may help to imagine after effects as a mix of premiere and Photoshop. If you're familiar with Photoshop, you will be aware of all the color effects, masking, and blending mode capabilities that can be applied to two D images. In after effects, very similar effects can be applied just like in Photoshop, but to video footage across time. After effects is also commonly used for keying, tracking, transitions, light, particle and three D effects. Now after effects is based on compositing and works not only with video footage, but with image, audio, type, and files brought in from other programs like Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, three D programs, and also premiere to create video presentations. So here is an example of the same edit previously shown in Premiere, but now here in after effects. Like Premiere Pro, after effects also revolves around a timeline paradigm, but with more management and focus around layers like in Photoshop. Here we can see that a video edit of the same ten clips can create a more complex workflow. We cannot chop up footage as easy as in Premiere. We have to work in layers which stack up on top of each other. Simple video edits can be quite clunky and awkward in comparison. Now, simple video editing can be done in after effects, but it is not as streamlined as Premiere Pro. To do proper video editing, you really want to use Adobe Premiere. So Adobe Premiere Pro and after effects are powerful software tools used for specific jobs. These are two amazing programs, and used together, there is nothing you cannot create. Now, when I create my videos, I always edit first in Adobe Premiere. Then once I have edited, I will export out my footage and open in Adobe After effect where I will color grade and add visual effects, audio, and motion graphics. So to recap, some key things to remember are Adobe Premiere Pro is mainly used for editing, and after effects is mainly used for post production, visual effects, motion graphics and animation sequences. So that's a brief introduction to Ado Aftereffects. In the next video, we are going to take a look at the after effects interface. So I'll see you in the next video. 3. Interface Introduction: Hello, and welcome to the second video in this beginner's guide to Adobe After effect. In this tutorial, we are going to kick things off from the very start. In this video, we are going to take a look at the Adobe After effect interface. Now, the first version of After effect was released in 1995, with all the innovations and new features that have been introduced over the years. Up until now, the interface itself has not changed all that much. For those of you that are completely new to after effects, in this video, I'm going to show you around and introduce you to some of the key things you need to be aware of when starting out. So let's get into it. Now, I'm currently using Adobe After effect CC 2018 for Mac. If you're using an earlier version or you're on Windows, some things may be a little different in parts, but in principle, it should be the same. So if you have after effects open and wish to follow along, you will need to first come up to Window, scroll down to workspace, and then select all panels. This is to make sure we all have the same setup. Next, we must again go to Window, Workspace and then scroll down and select reset all panels. This will then set the interface to the all panels default layout, and you should have something that looks like this. What you should have is the default settings where you can see all the key panels. Now, don't worry if your setup is not exactly the same as mine. On versions of after effects before 2017, the panels on the far right here may just come all the way down the side of the screen instead of on top of this panel here. For now, don't worry too much about this. Just follow along and you should be fine. I'll be talking through all of this shortly. So this is Adobe CC, and with CS six and CC, we have this dark interface. If you're using an earlier version, you may be looking at the light interface. Now, if for whatever reason you wish to toggle the interface color, you can come to after effects on the top, toolbar for Mac for PC, this is in Edit. Scroll down to preferences and select appearance. Upon click, the preference menu will appear. If we look down here on brightness, it's here, you can talk of the lightness and darkness by clicking and dragging the switch. I like it dark, so I'm going to select the darkest option and click Okay. To begin, I'm going to open up a document. This document is going to help me demonstrate various functionality of the program, which we are going to be covering a little later on in this video. Be sure to open this and follow along. This document can be found in the introduction folder in the project folder. So with the project folder open, click into the S one Introductions folder, into the first folder, interface introduction, and open the folder of the version you are using and open the interface introduction file. And you should have something that looks like this. Now, just a quick thing to mention here, this document contains a particular font. When you open this file, you may get an error message saying you don't have the font installed. To follow along with this tutorial, you are also going to need to install the font first. Now, this is not included in the project folder as I cannot supply it with the download. Now, the font we're using here is lemon milk and can be downloaded for free online. If you come into the project folder, into the project Assets folder, click into the typeface folder, you will see a text document here. And if you open this up, it will tell you exactly where to get the font from online. Simply click on the link in the text document, and it will take you to the site where you can download it. Once downloaded, be sure to install it. Close down after effects, then reopen the file and you should be able to follow along just fine. So once you have downloaded the font and installed it, let's continue. Okay, so let's take a closer look at the interface. Now, all of this may look a little complex right now, but don't worry, it's fairly straightforward. At this point, it will help to break the interface down into five key sections. One, the composition panel here in the center, two, the timeline panel at the bottom, three, the project panel over here on the left side of the screen, four, the tools panel on the top of the screen, and five, a variety of work panels here on the right. So the first thing I want to draw your attention to is the timeline panel. This is the long panel that runs along the bottom of the screen here. This is one of the main panels in after effects, and it's this panel where we manage our project elements over time. So the first thing to point out here is the timeline across the top of the panel. This represents the length of time of this composition. Below this, we can see the layers that make up the particular composition, each one representing a particular element in the video presentation. In the timeline panel, layers are displayed as bars from left to right that indicate their presence along the timeline, in a particular order and in a particular hierarchy. Now, if I click and drag on the scroll bar over on the far right up and down, We can see that there are quite a few layers making up this composition stacked up on top of each other. Now, if you look above the timeline panel, you can see the visual layout of the elements in the composition panel. Now, if you click on the layer bar in the timeline panel, you will see the visual element selected in the composition panel above with a bounding box around it. These are the layer controls. Now, if for whatever reason you cannot see the bounding box, come up to view and make sure show layer controls is ticked. This panel here is where layouts are edited visually, which we will be looking into later. So back into the timeline panel, over on the left side of the panel, we can see the names of the layers with icons that indicate which type of media they are. And to the left and right of these are a bunch of switches and modes that can be applied to the layers. So at the bottom of the panel, just under the layer bars, you will see a Zoom indicator. We can use this to zoom in and out of the layers on the timeline and use this to fine tune applied effect. Notice, as you zoom in, the bar on the right gets smaller. This is used to click and drag through the timeline when zoomed in, and I'll just zoom back out. So, lastly, to the left of this in the far left corner and just next to the Zoom toggle are some buttons that can toggle the view of some switches and modes that can be applied to the layers above. And if I click these, we can see them appearing next to the layer names. For now, I'll just toggle these off. Now, there is lots more to learn about this timeline panel, which I'll be going into in more detail in the next video. But for now, let's move on. So the next panel I want to draw your attention to is the composition panel. This is the big panel in the center of the interface, and this gives us a visual preview of the project we are working on. Now, if you carefully move your mouse cursor over an object, you will see a box appear around it. Now, if you click on the element in the composition, you will see the bounding box appear around it, allowing us to transform the object or move the element around. Notice, as you click the various elements in the preview, you will see the layer appear highlighted in the timeline panel and its position in the layer hierarchy. Now, it may help to think of this preview area like the Canvas area in Photoshop. It's here where we manage the composition of the visual elements over time as we see them on screen. Now, if we look carefully at the bottom of the composition panel, we can see a number of buttons and switches regarding the preview panel above. Now, we will be going over these in a bit more detail as we use them later on in the course. But the key tools to know about initially are the magnification, grid and guide options, preview time, and the resolution display. The magnification ratio allows us to zoom in and out of the visual composition to a variety of percentages within the composition panel to get closer to some of the elements and to fine tune animations. If I click 100%, the Canvas area will zoom in 100%. If I click the fit option, this will fit the composition screen nicely to the panel. To the right of this, we have the grid and guide options. By clicking this, you will be able to activate a series of grids and guides, such as the title action safe area, proportional grid, and activate the grid guides and rulers. Once active, you will have to click these again to turn them off. To the right of this, we have the preview time. This is an indication where the time indicator is located on the timeline. Next to the right of this, we have the resolution factor. Right now, this is set to full. Though if I click this and hit quarter, you will see the composition in the preview pane become pixelated. This is quarter the resolution than full. Here we can also choose half, where we can see it becomes less pixelated. This tool is used to downscale the resolution of the visual elements in the canvas area. When creating projects, we will regularly use this feature as we live preview projects. This is for performance and workflow streamline purposes. Sometimes it can be clunky and slow previewing video and animations. If we set the resolution to low, it previews faster. Now, I'll be demonstrating how this works in the next video. For now, I'll pop this back to full. Now, on occasions, you may find yourself accidentally double clicking on a layer in your timeline. For example, I'll drag the time indicator to around 2 seconds on my timeline, and in the composition panel, we can see a background blue color. Now, if we scroll down to the bottom of the timeline panel, we can see a deep blue solid layer. Now, if we come and double click on this layer, upon double click, the solid layer will appear in another tab at the top of the composition panel. Now, this is a way to isolate a layer to inspect it. Now, in this instance, as you scroll across the timeline, you will not be able to see any of your layers in the composition panel above. Now as a beginner, you may wonder where your composition has gone. Now, don't worry. If you look carefully in the composition tab at the top, you will see your comp is still present, but on a separate tab on the left. If you ever find you have accidentally double clicked a layer and you can no longer see your comp, remember, you can simply close down the tab in the composition panel at the top or click back on your main comp on the left to come back to your comp. Remember to keep this in mind, as you may find yourself lost like this at the start. The next panel I want to draw your attention to is the project panel. This is the panel that is typically placed on the left hand side of the interface, and this panel contains all the elements that make up our video project. When we bring footage, images, and audio files, for example, into our project, this is where they will be placed. Now, a project may include hundreds of individual elements. This panel allows you to carefully organize your elements into folders like you see here. If I click and expand these, we can see the contents. If you click down on the folders here, you can see how the elements have been arranged and what it contains. So the next panel I want to draw your attention to is the Tools panel. In after effects, this panel runs across the top of the interface and contains all the tools that can be used. As you can see, we have lots of icons. To activate the tool, we simply click it or press one of the many shortcut buttons on the keyboard. We know which tool is active because it will be highlighted in blue. In after effects, we will be using many tools. You will also notice that as we use the tool, the mouse cursor will change indicating which tool we have activated. Now, if we move to the top of our window, we can see the standard bar across the top, from file across through to view, window, and help. From here, we can access various properties, controls, and initiate some of the creative features in after effects. But for now, we are not going to go too much into that. So moving over to the far right hand side, we have a set of panels. These panels are essential in order to produce work and control many variables in an after effect project and are kept neatly to the right of the screen interface. And right now we see these as a stack. Now, in more recent versions of After effects, to activate them, we can simply click on the name of the panel once to open it. Now, on earlier versions of After effects, you will need to place your mouse cursor between the panels and click and drag to reveal the contents inside. Now, some of you familiar with other programs like Illustrator and Photoshop will recognize some of these panels. Here we have the align panel for lining objects in the composition panel and the character and paragraph panel for editing type. Now, one of the panels you will become familiar with later in the course is the effect and preset panel. This panel includes a lot of visual effect and preset animations we can apply to our layer elements in the timeline panel, and I will be demonstrating this later on in the course. So right now we are looking at all the panels. In after effects, you can change the workspace to tweak the panels you see here. For example, if I come up to Window and scroll across to workspace, we can see a few options here. Here we have animation through to text. By selecting any of these, we can change the interface and the panels we see. If we click on standard, for example, we will see that some of the panels will now disappear. By clicking on the variety of workspaces, we can customize the panels we see. Now, on standard, if you want to reveal some of the panels that are not currently shown, we can come up to Window, and here we will see the ultimate list of panels we can use, a lot of which are currently not active. To activate one, simply click on it, for example, character. Upon click, it will appear in the panel stack on the right. This also works to remove panels. So back up to Window, this time, if you wanted to take away a panel, simply click one that is currently checked to deactivate it. If we click on character again, it will now take it away from the panel stack. Now, as you activate and deactivate panels and move them around to best suit your needs, you will be able to save your customized workspace. By coming up to Window, scroll across to workspace, then scroll down to New Workspace. You can name your new workspace, and in this instance, I'll call it GD Workspace and click Okay. Now, if I come to Window and across to workspace, I will see my new workspace from the list. For now though, I'll come back up to window over to workspace and click on all panels. For the duration of the course, I will set my workspace to all panels as I'll be referencing some of these panels later on in the course. That's a brief overview of the Adobe After effects interface. Keep in mind that the software on screen can be broken down into five key sections. One, the composition panel in the center, two, the timeline panel at the bottom, three, the project panel on the left, four, the two panel on the top, and five, the variety of work panels on the far right. So in this video, I give you a brief overview of the interface. Now before we move on, there are some more details you'll need to know about some of the panels so you can be ready to create your own project. In the next video, we will be taking a closer look at the timeline panel, learning more about layers, how they work, and how they are managed over time in after effects. So see in the next video. 4. Layers & the Timeline Panel: Hello, and welcome to the third video in this beginner's guide to Adobe After effects. In this tutorial, we are going to take a closer look at Leas and the timeline panel in Adobe After effects. In the previous episode, I introduced you to the Adobe Artifacts interface, where I briefly introduced you to the timeline panel. Now, this panel is one of the most important panels in this program. There's a lot to learn and understand about this panel, which is important before we move on in this course. In this video, we are going to be covering the following topics layers, the time indicator, RAM preview, and the timeline work area. After this video, you will get a better understanding of how all of this works, and hopefully feel more comfortable moving forward. So let's start with the layers. Now, if you're completely new to after effects, you will soon come to realize that layers are the fundamental basis for any composition created in after effects, and these layers are managed in the timeline panel. Everything we see visually in the composition panel above is coordinated, managed, and composed in the timeline panel below. So here is the timeline panel at the bottom of the interface, and inside are all the layers making up this composition. To follow along with this tutorial, you will need to open this document I have prepared, especially for this video. This can be found in the introduction folder in the project folder. With the project folder open, click into the S one Introduction folder, then into the third folder layers and the timeline panel. And open the tower bridge file inside, and you should have something that looks like this. What we're looking at here inside the timeline panel is a timeline composition. Up in the visual composition panel above, we can see an arrangement or visual objects in the canvas area that make up this composition. We have an illustration, some shapes, and we have some type elements. Now, if we look closely in the timeline panel, we can see that each element that exists in the canvas area above is represented by its own individual layer, which are all stacked on top of each other in rows as bars. Now, if I move my mouse cursor over the top of the panel, we will see the cursor change. This is indicating I can click and drag up or down to increase the visibility of the layers within. However, this will make the composition panel smaller. But for now, I want us to focus on the layers in the timeline panel, so I'll drag this up a little bit like so. In this instance, I have a few layers which I still can't see. On the far right of the timeline panel, you will see a slider, which you can drag up or down to see more of the layers within. Or if you have a scroller on your mouse, you can place your mouse cursor into the timeline panel and scroll using that. So here we can see there are quite a few layers. Each layer has a name with an icon to the left of this to give us a quick preview as to what type of element is on that layer, such as a video, an image, a shape, or audio. To the right of these are a series of switches and modes that can be applied to the layer and over on the far left, we have the visibility switches to toggle the visibility of layers and lock layers on and off in the visual composition panel above. The way the timeline panel works is by stacking layers on top of each other in a hierarchy, quite like stacking sheets of paper on top of each other. Whichever layer is at the top of the layer stack is the layer which will have the most visibility, and the layer at the bottom will have the least visibility hidden by any layer which happens to be above it. Layers are created here in the timeline when an item is dragged in from the project panel on the left or created using the tools on the top bar, such as the type or shape elements. Now in after effects, we don't only work with hierarchy, but we also have to work with time. Notice the numbers across the top of the panel on the right. This represents the length of time of this composition. As we can see here, by the number indicator across the timeline, this composition is currently 36 seconds long. Everything in this composition occurs within 36 seconds. You will also notice that these layer bars are set at different widths from left to right. This indicates their presence along the timeline. You can see, for example, that some layers are visible throughout most of the sequence, where some only for a short period. So now I want to bring your attention to the blue line here on our timeline. This represents a particular instance in our composition, which is visible in the composition panel in the middle of our interface. If I come to the grabber at the top and drag left or right, we can move through time, either back or forward. As you move, you will see the graphics changing in the composition above. You will also see the time change in the top left of the timeline panel in blue. This will clearly tell you at what time the current timeline indicator lies and where in the composition you are. Now, this time indicator is fundamental to using after effects, and you will see later how we will be paying close attention to this to compose all animations in after effects. Now notice that as you move the bar from left to right, crossing over the layers in the timeline panel, you will see visual elements coming and going. It's important to note that whatever you see visually in the composition panel is linked to the position of this blue line, the current time indicator here in the timeline panel. To edit the composition through time, we must use this time indicator and place it where appropriate along the timeline to create the composition. Now, if you click on a layer bar in the timeline panel, you will see that visual element selected in the composition window with the layer controls around it. However, if you click a layer bar that is before or after the blue line time indicator, you will notice that it is not selected or visible in the composition panel. Remember, you can only see in the visual composition panel where the blue line, the time indicator is in the timeline panel. If there is a layer selected in the timeline panel you want to see in the composition panel, you will have to select the time indicator and move it on top of the layer you wish to see. Now you may also notice that these layer bars are in different colors. In after effects, we can change the color of the layer bars. This allows us to organize our layers visually. To do this, we can simply click on the colored square on the far left next to the layer name and select a color from the drop down. Simple. So right now, we can see an arrangement of the layers from top to bottom. Remember, the way the timeline panel works is by stacking layers on top of each other in a hierarchy. Whichever layer is at the top of the layer stack is the layer which will have the most visibility, and the layer at the bottom will have the least visibility hidden by any layer which appears to be above it. To change the hierarchy, we can simply click and hold on a layer name on the left and drag up or down. As we do that, we will see a blue line indicating where it would be placed upon release. Should you want to drag multiple layers at once, simply click on the first layer, then press and hold Command on Mac or Control on PC and click other layers. On selected, you can then click and drag them wherever you want. Simple. So the last thing I want to show you about layers are the layer properties. Notice next to each layer name over on the left, we can see a triangle pointing right. If we click this for one of the layers, we will reveal the layer properties. Let's look at this type layer, for example. Upon click, you will reveal the properties below, and here we can see text and transform. Now, it is really important to mention and for you to remember here that every layer, regardless of what kind of media object it is, be it an image, a shape, an audiophile or text layer, we will always see the transform property. If we drop this down, we will see the following anchor point, position, scale, rotation, and opacity. These are the basic properties you can animate over time on any layer to create your video sequence. Now, if we take a look over here under the layer adjacent to the properties, you will notice these little shapes. Now, you may be wondering what these are. These are called keyframes and these keyframes are what set the parameters for all effects over time, such as position, scale, rotation, and opacity over on the left here. As you begin with after effects, you will learn that almost every effect you create is set with keyframes, and there is a lot to learn about keyframes, which we will be going into in more depth in the next video. But for now, keep in mind that it's from here we do basic animation. So above this, we see the contents drop down. Now, this is what varies depending on what type of layer it is. At a glance, you can see that there are lots of properties on a layer we can animate and customize. To close the layer properties, simply click on the triangle to the left of the layer name and that will close. Remember, you can toggle this triangle to hide and reveal the properties. So the next topic I want to discuss with you is previewing. So far, I have shown you how to move through the timeline with the time indicator by clicking and dragging. But what if you want to preview the video composition to see how it looks in real time? To do this, we use what is called a RAM preview. So first, I'll carefully put my mouse cursor over the top of the timeline panel, look for the mouse cursor to change to the up and down arrow and click and drag this down so I can see more of the visual composition panel above. Now, if I click on the timeline indicator and drag it back to the beginning of the timeline, on the keyboard, I will press Space Bar. Upon click, you will see a red line start to move out from the blue time indicator line and across the timeline and preview the video sequence in real time in the composition panel above. Also, notice the green line that appears and builds across the timeline at the top. Now, this is called a RAM preview. It's called a RAM preview because after effect uses the computer's RAM to preview the sequence. This green bar here represents how much has been loaded into RAM, and whatever is green should play smoothly. If I press space bar again, this will stop the RAM preview. Notice how the time indicator also moves to where we stop the preview. You will also notice the green line stops. Upon stopping RAM preview, you will also stop the preview loading into RAM. If I press Spacebar again, it will continue. If I press it again, it will stop. Now, I can click on the timeline indicator, drag back to the start, press Spacebar again, and I can watch the sequence again and again. Now, as you create your composition sequence in after effects, you will be constantly RAM previewing your composition like this in order to test and make sure your animations are in time and you are happy with them. Now it's important to mention that the more complex your animation sequence, for example, if you have lots going on in one instance, it's going to require more RAM and slow things down a little. If you have a computer with a fast processor and lots of RAM, this will work more smoothly. Though if you have a lower spec computer, this will be a slower process. Now there is something that makes RAM preview more streamlined and less of a pain to use. In the last episode where I introduced you to the interface, I showed you the resolution factor here at the bottom of the composition panel. Right now, this is set to fall. This means full resolution of the preview in the visual composition here in the panel above. Now, if I click this and select half, third, or quarter, you will notice the visual become pixelated. Now if I click the time indicator and drive back to the start and press space bar to activate the RAM preview, this will preview a lot more smoothly. This is because we have downgraded the resolution, which loads less information into the RAM preview. This puts less stress on the hardware and allows it to preview a lot smoother. As you create sequences in after effects, you will be toggling this a lot in after effects. You will find that as you work on your project, you will be working in half, third, or quarter resolution to test your sequences. And when you want to preview in full quality or focus on a particular part of your sequence to refine, you will toggle to full resolution. Now another thing you will need to learn about the timeline panel is the work area. If you look closely, just under the timeline number indicator, you will notice a bar with two blue ends, one here on the far left and one on the far right. On the end of each bar, we will see a blue grabber. As we place our mouse cursor over this, you will see the mouse cursor change. For example, I will click and drag the blue grabber on the far left and drag over to say 10 seconds. Next, I will click and drag the blue grabber on the far right and drag it into 16 seconds. So right now, I have set the work area 10-16 seconds. Now, if I click and drag the time indicator into this work area space and press space bar to activate the RAM preview, you will notice that the red line travels to the end of the work area and loops back to the start when it gets to the end. This bar, just under the timeline numbers is the work area, and we use this work area in after effects to focus on particular time frames in our sequence. For now, I'll just press Spacebar to stop the RAM preview. Something else you can do here is place your mouse cursor over the work area. Notice the mouse cursor change to a left and right arrow. If I click and drag, I can move the work area across the timeline to another place and then click the blue handles on the ends to tweak the work area time. Now, we can use this work area to preview the entire sequence or write down to a second. And there will be many instances where we will want to focus on just a few seconds and loop a preview to make sure the animation or video sequence is exactly how we want it. Using the workspace area and the resolution factor, we can make previewing the composition in real time, smooth and easy. These are very important things to remember when using after effects, as you'll be using these a lot as you create a video sequence in after effects. This brings us to the end of the video. So to recap, the timeline panel allows us to focus on three things, determine layer order and hierarchy, timing, and animation, and treat and manage individual composites through a motion sequence. So in this video, I discuss layers and how they work. What we are looking at here inside the timeline panel is a timeline composition, which contains all these layers for this particular animated sequence. In this instance, we are currently looking at a single timeline composition. Now, it's important to note that a simple project can include many individual timeline compositions to create an entire video presentation. It will help to think of compositions as individual video parts. Some animated sequences can be very complex and require lots of layers. So we can use compositions as a way to focus on particular sequences, organize and manage a project. In the next video, we will be taking a closer look at compositions, learning more about them and how they work to build a project in Adobe after effects. So see in the next video. 5. Compositions: Hello, and welcome to the fourth video in this beginner's guide to Adobe After effect. In this tutorial, I'm going to discuss compositions in After effect. In the previous episode, I discussed in depth the timeline panel and how layers work. Now, in after effects, all the layers we see down in the timeline panel are contained in what is called a composition. Now, compositions are what we use to help build video presentations in after effects. In this video, we are going to be covering the following topics. What are compositions, composition tabs, and how to create compositions. After this video, you will get a better understanding of how compositions work so you will feel more comfortable moving forward. So let's get into it. So what is a composition? So when you begin a new project in after effects, you essentially start with a clean slate with nothing whatsoever. When beginning an after effects project, we typically begin by creating a composition or a comp for short. This is done by clicking the new comp button or coming up to composition in the top bar and clicking New Comp. For now, I'll just click Okay for our new comp. With the new composition created, you will see it is now shown in the project panel over on the left represented with the composition icon. In after effects, a composition is represented by this graphic, a film clip with some shapes. In this instance, the comp is called comp one by default, as I did not name it. With a new composition ready, we can see a blank screen in the visual composition panel and an empty timeline panel down below. A composition is essentially an empty vessel to place our media content into such as video, text, animation or audio files. As you begin to add your media elements into the timeline panel, you will start to build your layers which creates the composition. Here we are in an after effects document with one composition in the project panel consisting of lots of layers, which we can see in the timeline panel. Now, some after effects projects can include many individual compositions to create an entire video presentation. Let's now jump to another example. In this example, we can see a number of compositions in the project panel. If we look closely in the timeline panel below, we can see that some of the compositions have been placed into another composition. Now, some video or animated sequences can be very complex and require lots of layers. So we could use compositions as a way to focus on particular sequences, organize and manage complexity in project. Now, another way to think of compositions is to think of them like groups. Compositions can be used to group lots of layers, and then the individual comps can be placed into one main composition, like in this example, so let's take a closer look at this example I have open here to learn more about compositions. To follow along with this tutorial, you will need to open up this document I have prepared, especially for this video. This can be found in the introduction folder in the project folder. So with the project folder open, click into the S one Introduction folder into the fourth folder compositions and open the Hyde Park After Effects file. And you should have something that looks like this. The first thing I want to draw your attention to is the timeline panel. Across the top here, we can see this composition is 1 minute long and below this, we only have seven layers. Now, if I drag my time indicator to the start and press space bar to activate preview, we can see that there are lots of things happening in the composition visually, but only seven layers in the timeline panel. Now, if we look closely to the left of the timeline panel, we can see the name and icon for each layer. These icons indicate what type of layers these are. In this instance, we can see that each layer is a composition layer and we can tell this because of the icon next to each of them. As seen earlier in the project panel, again, we can see the composition icons indicating that these are compositions. Now, if we double click on one of these composition layers and let's start with the video edit stills layer, upon double click, this composition layer will now open in the timeline panel. Notice now, we can see all the individual layers that make up this composition. Here we have the video, type, shape, and image layers, and we know this because of the icons next to each over on the left. Now, it's important to note that a single composition like this in after effects contains both visual and time information represented in two separate panels. When we have a composition open, we see the timeline information in the timeline panel here at the bottom, containing all the layer elements. And above, we see a visual representation of these layer elements in the composition window. As we click on some of the layers in the timeline panel, we can see them selected in the visual composition panel above. When creating a composition in after effects, we use these two panels together to control the time and visual dynamic of the presentation. So next, I want to draw your attention to the composition tabs. Now, what are composition tabs? Currently, we have this composition open, and if we look carefully in the top left corner of the timeline panel, we have a tab that shows the composition name. Notice this is currently highlighted and to the left of this is another tab. So if we click this, we can see we are back to our composition called main sequence. So currently, we have our main sequence and the video edit stills comp open in the tab. So next, I will come down to another layer in the main sequence, and this time, I will double click on the video edit wildlife layer. Upon double click, the composition layer will now open in the timeline panel. So again, like earlier, we can see all the individual layers that make up this composition, and now we have a new tab at the top of the timeline panel. Now, it's easy to navigate through your tab comps. Simply click on them to reveal them. If you want to close them, you can click on the X over on the right tab. And if you want to open it up again, make sure to go back to the main sequence and double click it, and it will reopen. So if I click back into the main sequence, we can see that this single comp contains seven composition layers. For this project, I have chosen to organize my main sequence into seven separate compositions. So why would I do this? Well, in after effects, we can use compositions as a way to focus on particular sequences, organize and streamline a project. Each section here has complex video and animation settings with many layers. I have organized my main sequence in this way to make it nice and easy to manage each section individually. My main composition is not full of layers and overly complicated. This also gives me the flexibility to move each section around as a whole and order the video sequence differently if I so choose. Okay, so now we know what compositions are, how do we create them? So there are a number of ways you can create a comp. One way is to come to the bottom of the project panel here on the left. Notice at the bottom of the panel, we have the composition icon here. If we click this up we'll pop the composition settings box. So here there are a range of settings we can customize. As a beginner, you only really need to pay attention to the comp name, dimensions, frame rate, and duration. At the top, you can name your comp, and I'll just call this new comp one. Down below, under preset, we can set the dimensions. Now, this will default to the original composition you started the project with. In this instance, it's 1920 by 1080, our current standard dimension for video. This is what we want for now. Now, frame rate is regional. Depending on what part of the world you're from, you will need to assign a particular frame rate. Here in Europe, we use 25 frames per second. I'm going to use that for now. Next is duration, and we can set this for however long we want our composition to last. In this instance, I'll set it to 10 seconds. Now, here you can also set the background color, but for now, I'll just keep it set to black. Once happy, I'll click Okay. So prom click, you will now see your composition open down in the timeline panel. We can see the timespan is 10 seconds across the top here and up in the visual composition panel, we can see the black screen. Now, it's important to note that when you create a new composition in your project, it will always appear in the project panel. If we look in the project panel here on the left, we can now see our new comp one is present at the bottom. This composition is now ready to start bringing in visual elements to create a video sequence. But for now, I'll click the X in the top left corner of the tab to close it. Now there are two other ways to create a composition. First, you can simply press the keyboard shortcut Command N on Mac or Control N for PC. Upon click, this will bring up the composition settings just like earlier, and I'll just hit Cancel. The second way to create a comp is to come up to the top menu, click composition, click New composition, and upon click, you will see the composition settings again. Quite easy to create a new composition. Now, once a composition is created, you can edit it. For example, change the name, duration or the frame rate. To do this, you can come over into the project panel, right click on the composition and select composition settings. Upon click, you will see the same settings you saw when you created the comp. Here, you can make any modifications and click Okay. Now, another way, for example, if you see a composition in your timeline, you can double click it to open it, then come up to composition in the top bar and simply click Composition Settings. Easy. And that brings us to the end of this video. So to recap, some key things to remember are compositions are like individual video sequences. A typical after effects project will have multiple compositions. Compositions make it easier to organize complexity. Compositions contain both visual and time information represented in two separate panels, the timeline panel and the visual composition panel. And when you create a composition, it appears in the project panel. Now, in after effects, every element that is brought into the program is placed into the project panel. And we saw in this video that when created, compositions are also stored in this panel. Now, it may help to think of this project panel as a kind of links panel. Now, as a beginner, there are a few important things you will need to learn about this panel before we move on. In the next video, I'm going to discuss the project panel in a bit more depth and show you how compositions, as well as all media elements brought into the program are managed and placed into your timeline panel ready for editing. So see you in the next video. 6. The Project Panel: Hello, and welcome to the fifth video in this Beginner's Guide to Adobe After Effects. In this tutorial, we are going to take a closer look at the project panel. Now, in after effects, every element that is brought into the program is placed into the project panel. It may help to think of this as a kind of links panel. As a beginner, there are a few important things you will need to learn about this panel before we move on. In this video, I'm going to discuss the project panel in a bit more depth and show you how media elements brought into the program are managed and placed into your timeline panel ready for editing. So in this video, we are going to be covering the following topics. The project panel, managing links, managing assets in the project panel, and placing media elements from the project panel into your compositions. After this video, you will get a better understanding of how all this works, so you will feel more comfortable moving forward. So let's get into it. So here I am where we left off in the previous episode with an after effects project open. If you're new to this series and you wish to follow along with this tutorial, you will need to open this document I have prepared, especially for this video. This can be found in the introduction folder in the project folder. So with the project folder open, click into the S one Introduction folder into the fourth folder compositions and open the Hyde Park after effects file. So now I want to draw your attention to the project panel, which is located over on the left hand side of the interface. As mentioned earlier, every element that exists in your project is stored here ready to be placed into a composition. In this instance, we can see we have a number of folders. In the comps folder, we can see all the compositions that make up this project. And above, we have the Assets folder. If we toggle down, we can see more folders where I have organized my media into various sections such as audio, images, solids, and video. Now, if I click the drop down button on these folders, you can see the media elements within. For this example, I will put my mouse cursor carefully over the top of the timeline panel until I see the mouse cursor change to the arrows, then I'll click and drag down. This will give more visibility to the project panel here. So as we scroll up and down in the Project panel, we can see there are quite a few media elements in this project, and I have personally organized my files in this way so I know where everything is and where to access it from. So next, I want to draw your attention to the top of the project panel. At the top of the project panel, we have this media info space. For example, if I click into the video folder below and click on Flower underscore one MP four, at the top of the project panel, we can see the information regarding this media item. In this instance, it's telling me the name, how many times it's been used in the project, the dimensions, its length, frames per second, and the video format. We can use this area of the project panel to check any media item we have the project. This time, I will come up and click on an image. Remember to use this feature if you want to check info about your media items in after effects. Now, another quick way to see information at a glance is to pull your project panel out. In after effects, the project panel is neatly placed over on the left. Now, if I carefully place my mouse cursor where the project panel meets the visual compositions panel in the middle, we will see the mouse cursor change to arrows. If I click and drag this out to the right, you can see information regarding each media item. If I move my mouse cursor to the top next to the title names, I can right click on this and choose which property I want to see. So for now, I'll click back onto the project panel edge and drag it back in so I can clearly see the media item names and the composition panel in the middle. Now, it's important to mention that when we bring media elements into an after effect project, they are not physically part of the file. All media elements such as video, images, and audio will exist on your computer, and when you bring them into after effects, they appear here as Links. It will help to think of this project panel like a Links panel. If a link is changed, edited or deleted off your computer, it will effectively change or break the link. For example, if I come into the project panel and come into the video folder, then into the stills folder and come and select a video link. Let's go with Landscape three MP four. If I right click and come and click on Reveal in Finder, upon click, a browser window will appear and we can see where on the computer the media file is placed. Now, if, for example, I change the name of the link and I'll just put an X on the end of the file name. I I come back into after effects, we will get a message stating a file cannot be found. If I click Okay, we will now see that where the file was placed in the composition, we will now have this colored background. When a file is missing or changed in after effects, you will always see this colored image, and this will be applied to anything that is missing. Notice, in the project panel, we will see this colored icon applied to the now missing link. Now, if I come back to my browser window and change the file name back, and I'll take the X from the end of the filename, back in after effects, we can still see the image link is missing. But now if I come to the media link in the project panel, right click and select reload footage, the media will appear back again. Now, another example is if a file is moved to a different place on your computer. Back in the browser window, I'm now going to move my file from this folder into another folder. If I come back to after effect, we will get the message stating a file cannot be found again. If I click Okay, again, we will see the colored background in our comp and on the media link in the project panel. Now, this is a common thing that can happen. However, what we can do is come to the broken media link in the project panel, right click and select replace footage and select file. Upon click, we can then navigate to the file on the computer. In this example, I'll just navigate to the new video location, select and click Okay. Upon click, the media will appear back again. So what we have done there is relink the footage. So now I'm going to come back to my folder and just put the file back into the Stills folder. Back into after effects, we will get the same error message again. So again, I'll right click and select replace footage and select file. I'll just navigate back to the folder it was originally in. Select and click Okay. Upon click, the media will appear back again. Nice. So keep in mind, you have to be really careful when working with links in after effect. If you make any changes to files or move them around on your computer outside the program, it will have a knock on effect inside your after effect document. If this happens, you will typically need to reload the footage or re link the footage. So next, it's important to mention that when you create a brand new after effect project, you have no folders or anything in this project panel. So how do we manage assets in the Project panel? So let's start by creating a new document. If you have the Hyde Park document open, come up to file and click Close Project. If it asks you to save for now, just click No. So after closing your project, you should now see a blank interface ready for a new project. Now, if I click the new Composition button here in the middle to start a new project or come up to composition in the top bar and click New Composition, up we'll pop the composition settings window. Now, I'll make sure the dimensions are set to 1920 by 1080, and the composition length is set to 1 minute, and I'll click Okay. And we will see a brand new composition open. Now, if we look over in the Project panel, we will see just one composition present. And if we look down in the timeline panel, we will see no layers inside. So I want to start to organize my media in the project panel. To begin, I can come to the bottom of the project panel and click the Create New folder icon. On click, we will see a new folder in the project panel and I'm going to call this comps and it's in this folder, I'm going to place all my compositions made during a project. Now, if I accidentally click off the folder, I can select it and press Enter on the keyboard to change the name. With my comps folder created, I'm now going to click and drag my Comps one composition into the Comps folder. Now it's time to bring some external media into my project. To do this is quite easy. One way is to come into the project panel with the mouse cursor and double click into the blank space below the folder. Upon click up we'll pop a browser window. This is after effects asking you what file you would like to import. So in this instance, I'm going to navigate to the downloadable project folder. Click into the Project Assets folder, then click into the Images folder, then into the JPEG folder, then into the Hyde Park folder, and there we can see a few images. In this instance, I'm going to select all the images and click Open. Upon click, you will then see all the images appear in the project panel. Now before I do anything else, I'm quickly going to come down to the bottom of the project panel and click the new folder icon. I'll name this folder images. Then I'll click the top image, press and hold shift, and select the bottom image to select them all. With them selected, I'll drag them into the folder. So now I have two neat folders in my project panel, a comps folder, and an Images folder. So next, I'm going to bring in some video files, but this time, I'll show you another way you can bring in media. So I'll come back into the project panel with the mouse cursor and double click into the blank space. Upon double click, app will pop a browser window. In my browser window, I'm going to navigate to the downloadable project folder. Click into the Project Assets folder, then click into the video folder, then into the first folder Hide Park, and here we can see a number of folders. Now, if you click into these, you can see there are a number of video files. Now, if we back up to the Hyde Park video folder, you can see in this instance I have organized them in folders here into various categories. Okay, so in this instance, I want all the videos to be placed into after effects. So here I will click on the one Hyde Park folder and click Open. Upon click, you will see the folders appear inside the project panel. After effect will interpret the folder structure from the browser and copy the folders into after effects. And if I click to toggle down the folders, we can see the media items inside. Great. So next, I'm quickly going to organize this. I'll come to the bottom of the project panel, click on the new folder icon and name the new folder video. Next, I'll simply select the Hyde park folder and drag it into the video folder. So that's one way to place content into your after effects document. Now, another way is to simply drag content from a browser window into after effects. This time, I'm first going to open a browser window on my computer and I'm going to make sure I can clearly see the after effects interface behind it. I'll navigate to the project folder, click into the Project Assets folder, then click into the images folder, then into the JPEG folder, into the location folder, and into the aquarium folder. In this folder, I can see some images. So here I can simply select one or multiple images. Then with them selected, I will click and drag my mouse cursor from the browser window and into after effects. With my mouse cursor over the project panel area, I will release the mouse. Upon release, the files will appear in my project panel. So I'll quickly make a new folder called aquarium. I'll select my images and drag them into the new folder, and then I'll drag this aquarium folder and place it into the Images folder. Perfect. So that's a few simple ways to get media into your after effects project and how to organize media into neat folders in the project panel. Okay, so once you have media in your after effects project, it's time to start working with it. So right now we have a composition open. We can see the black screen in the visual composition panel and the timeline panel is blank. So now there are a few ways you can get content into your composition. So I'll toggle down the video folder and toggle down the stills folder so I can see the video files inside. Here I can click and drag a video element down into the timeline at the bottom. Upon release, you will see the video appear in the timeline panel as a layer. You will notice that the layer appears as a bar from the beginning of the timeline. This bar will represent how long the video footage is. In this instance, the video is around 19 seconds long, and we know this by looking at where it ends compared to the time indicator at the top of the timeline panel. So one way is to click and drag elements from the project panel into the timeline panel. Another way is to drag elements from the project panel into the visual composition panel in the middle. So let's try this with an image this time. So over in the project panel, I'll toggle down the image folder so we can see the contents. This time, I'll click and drag an image over and into the visual composition panel. Upon release, it will appear in the composition. Now, I just placed in an image with a resolution greater than the video. So right now, the image will appear cropped within the video frame. If I click and drag the image around in the composition panel, we can move it around like so. So when we placed in the image, it appeared on top of the video we previously placed in. If we look in the timeline panel, we will also see a new layer and it will be placed on top of the video layer. Now, when you drag media elements from the project panel into the composition panel, they will always be placed in the top of the layer stack by default. Now, something else you will notice is that this time, the layer goes all the way to the end. Now this is because a still image has no time signature like the video. So when you place a still image into your composition, it will span the entire length of time. To alter this, you will need to change it down in the timeline panel. And that brings us to the end of this video. So to recap, some key things to remember are the project panel is where all your media elements and compositions are located in your project. Organizing your project panel with folders can make your workflow more efficient. If you make any changes to files or move files around outside after effects that are linked, it will have knock on effect inside your after effects document, and elements must be placed into your compositions by dragging them from the project panel, either into the timeline panel or into the visual composition panel. Okay, so now we know how to bring media elements into after effects and manage them in the project panel. It's now time to start animating and adding effects. Now, to understand how to animate and add effect, you will first need to understand the animation principles and how they work in after effects. In the next video, we're going to learn the key animation principles in after effects and how they are applied. So I'll see you in the next video. 7. Animation principles: Hello, and welcome to the sixth video in this beginner's guide to Adobe After effect. In this tutorial, I'm going to introduce you to the key animation principles in after effects. In the previous episode, I demonstrated how to bring media elements into after effects and manage them in the project panel. Now, once you have media elements in your composition, it's time to start animating and adding effects. Now, to understand how to animate and add effect, you will first need to understand the animation principles and how they work in after effects. In this video, we are going to learn the key animation principles and how they are applied. So let's get into it. So here I am in After effacts and I have a project open here demonstrating the key animation principles in after effects. In after facts, there are four key principles position, scale, rotation, and opacity. When it comes to animating in after effects, you will most likely use one of these principles. In some instances, you may even use multiple animations on one media type. What you will come to learn as you use after effects is as you build your video presentations and start to animate your media content and create transitions, they will all utilize these four principles in some way. This is a composition I have put together to help you understand how animation works in after effects and how it is applied. In after effects, animation is applied to our media elements down in the timeline panel. Let's take a closer look. Now, if you want to follow along with this video, you can open this document I have prepared, especially for you. This can be found in the introduction folder in the project folder. So with the project folder open, click into the S one Introduction folder, then into the sixth folder animation principles, and open the animation principles after effect file. And you will have the same document I have opened here. Okay, so right now, I am in preview mode, so I'll press space bar to stop this for now. Now, if we come into the timeline panel below, we can see the shape layers that are animating in the visual composition panel above. Now, we can tell they are shaped layers because of the icon next to them. In after effects, a shape layer is represented as a star. And in this instance, the layer bar colors are set to purple. So first, I will click on the top layer bar called position. Notice, when the layer is selected, the object is also selected in the composition panel above. So I'll come over to the left in the timeline panel by the file name and I'll carefully click the triangle next to the colored square. This will drop down the properties for this layer. So initially, we can see contents and transform. This time, I'll carefully click on the drop down triangle for transform, and now we can see the animation properties for this layer. From the top, we have anchor point, position, scale, rotation, and opacity. Now, it's important to note that whatever media type you place into your composition, you will always have these transform options. This is where animation is applied to layers in after effects. As a beginner, you will need to familiarize yourself with these transform options, as we will be working with these soon and often as we progress in this course. So notice that on this layer, we can see we have keyframes set for the position property. You can see the stopwatch over on the left is blue, and we can see some keyframes adjacent to this over in the timeline. Note this, we have no other properties set here only position. So next, I'll scroll down and select the scale layer, and here I'll do the same. I'll click the triangle to the left of the name to toggle the properties down, and again, I'll click to toggle transform down. So this time, we can see that for this layer, we only have scale keyframes applied. So I'll do the same for the rotation layer. Again, just rotation keyframes applied. And lastly, on the opacity layer again, just opacity keyframes applied. So for each shape layer here, in the timeline, I have only applied one animation principle. So now I'll just click on the main triangles next to the name of each layer, and this will snap them all closed like so. So now we can just see the bars in the timeline panel. So I'll drag my time indicator to the far left to the start of the timeline and press space bar. This will begin the preview, and we can see how they animate. So this is how animation is done in after effects. To recap, some key things to remember are the four key animation principles in after effects are position, scale, rotation, and opacity. Animations in after effects use one or all of the principles, and animation is set in the transform properties in the timeline panel. Okay, now, if I click the top layer bar, hold Shift and click the bottom purple layer, upon click, I will select them all. Notice, they are also selected here in the composition panel above. Now, with all the layers selected in my timeline panel, I'm going to simply press U on the keyboard. This keyboard shortcut will expand the layers out, but only reveal these shapes below. And if we look carefully, we can see they are adjacent to each animation property applied to each layer to the left in the timeline panel. Now, these shapes are called keyframes, and these keyframes are what set the parameters for all effects over time. Before we move on, there are some more details you will need to know about keyframes. In the next video, we will be taking a closer look at keyframes, learning more about them, how they work, and how they are managed over time. So see you in the next video. 8. Keyframes: Hello, and welcome to the seventh video in this beginner's guide to Adobe After effect. In this tutorial, we are going to take a closer look at keyframes. In a previous episode, we learned the four main animation principles you will come to use in after effects position, scale, rotation, and opacity. We also learned where animation is composed down in the timeline panel. At the end of the video, I introduce you to keyframes, the little shapes that we saw under the layers with effects applied. Now, keyframes are what set the parameters for all effects over time. Before we move on, there are some more details you will need to know about keyframes so you can be ready to create your own project. In this video, we will be taking a closer look at keyframes, learning more about them, how they work, and how they are managed over time. So in this video, we are going to be covering the following topics, keyframes and keyframe easing. After this video, you will get a better understanding of how keyframes work, so you will feel more comfortable moving forward. So let's get into it. So here I am in after effects, and I have a project open here demonstrating two simple animation sequences. Here I have two simple circle animations from left to right, as they move, they also change size and opacity. Also notice that even though they are the same animation, they move differently. Now, I will be discussing this shortly. But for now, if we look in the timeline panel, we can see that this composition is 5 seconds long and we are currently in preview mode. We can see the red line going along the timeline to the end, then starting again in repetition. Also, in the timeline panel, we can see the layers that make up this composition. Here we have two circle shape layers and a background composition. Now, under each circle layer, we can see some small shapes. These shapes are what we call keyframes in after effects. Now, these keyframes are determining the animation sequence we see above in the visual composition panel. For now, I'll press space bar on the keyboard to stop the preview and I'll drag the time indicator back to the start. So what are key frames? Well, keyframes are using After effects as a way to set parameters for all effects over time. Notice that over on the left, we can see that the keyframes for both these layers are adjacent to the position, scale, and opacity properties. Now, in the last episode, you saw I only had one animation principle applied to each shape layer. Here we have three animation principles applied to each layer. When animating a layer element, keyframes are set for each property individually, and we see these stacked on top of each other. For these layers, we have the position keyframes. Then under this, we have the scale keyframes, and under this, we have opacity keyframes. Now, if you want to follow along with this video, you can open this document I have prepared, especially for this video. This can be found in the introduction folder in the project folder. So with the project folder open, clicking to the S one introduction folder, then into the seventh folder keyframes and open the keyframes after effects file. And you will have the same document I have opened here. So if we look carefully, we can see that for each property, a keyframe is placed to start a sequence at a particular point in the timeline, and another keyframe is placed to the end of the sequence. A keyframe marks the point in time where you specify a value for a particular property. At this stage, it may help to think of keyframes as journey points. Basic animations have a start point and an endpoint, whereas more complex sequences will have start, a middle, and an endpoint. For example, on this blue circle layer, we have the position keyframes, then under this, we have the scale keyframes and under this, we have opacity keyframes. Notice that the start and end keyframes are different for each property as each property is animated at a different time in the sequence. So if I now come to the blue time indicator at the top of the timeline panel and slowly click and drag from left to right, starting from the first position keyframe along to the next keyframe, we can see the blue circle moves from the left hand side of the screen to the right. So the first keyframe is the starting point, point A, and the second keyframe is the midpoint point B. This is how keyframes work in after effects. We create a keyframe with a particular value for a particular effect at one point, then set a keyframe at another point with a different value and after effect fills in the gaps for us. This is called keyframe interpolation, where after effects creates the frames between the points so we do not have to animate frame by frame. Example, here we only have two keyframes to get from point A to point B, and after effect fills in the gaps between interpolating the frames in between, moving the circle across. Now, if we look further along the timeline, we can see there is a third keyframe. If I continue to drag my time indicator further along, we can see the blue circle travels back to the start to point A. But in the context of the keyframes, this is the end point. Point A is the start, point B is the middle, and back to point A again is the end. So in this instance, the first keyframe places the circle at point A and the third keyframe also places the circle at point A. These two keyframes have the same keyframe property applied, equaling the same position visually in the composition panel. Because the animation N sequence is the same as the start, when we preview this, and I'll drag the time indicator to the start and press space bar, it looks like an infinite animation sequence. So that is the position sequence. So I'll press space bar to stop the preview and drag my time indicator back to the start. Now on the same blue circle there, we also have keyframes for scale and opacity, and we can see there are more applied this time than were applied to position. So let's take a closer look. If we drag the time indicator from the first keyframe to the second, we can see that when we arrive at the second keyframe, we are at the midway point between point A and point B and the size and opacity of the circle has changed. These keyframes here are setting the properties for the scale and opacity of the circle at this point in time. From the start to this point, the circle gets smaller and changes opacity. Now, if I continue to drag my time indicator right to point B, we can see the size and opacity are back to that of which was at point A and we have the keyframes here on the layer that specify that. So from the midway point between point A and B, the circle gets larger and changes opacity back. So between the start keyframe and middle keyframes for position, we have these keyframes here for scale and opacity, which animate in between. If I continue to drag the time indicator right, we can see that the next set of keyframes for scale and opacity are the same as previous at the midway point between point A and B. If we continue to move along to the end of the sequence, it appears to be back to the start. In this instance, for scale and opacity, we have the starting keyframe, the end keyframe and the middle keyframes in between, a start, middle, and end. So that's an overview of how keyframes are used and how they can be set for various parameters to create an animation sequence. Now, up until this point, we have been focusing on the blue circle. Now, if I drag my time indicator back to the start and press Space spot a preview, we can see the red circle below is the same animation, but it appears to move differently. This red circle is animating smoothly, where the blue circle in comparison appears to move more rigidly. Now, if we look in the timeline panel, we can see that the key frames for the red circle are positioned exactly the same as the blue. So why is it moving more smoothly? Well, in after effects, we can apply what is called easing to our keyframes. So what is easing? Well, in after effects, we can apply easing to our keyframes to apply a smooth animation effect. If we look in the timeline panel and compare the keyframe shapes on the blue and the red circle, we can see a difference. In this instance, easing has been applied to all the keyframes on the red circle sequence, but not on the blue circle. The default keyframes applied to the blue circle are all diamond shaped, and we can see each keyframe on the blue circle looks the same, whereas the keyframes on the red circle are slightly different. Now, if I come into the timeline panel and carefully click just before the first position keyframe on the blue circle, click and drag over all the other keyframes for the blue circle animation. Upon release, I will select them all, and they will be highlighted in blue. Now, if I carefully come over to the left at the top of the timeline panel, above the layer names, we can see an icon here called the Graph Editor. Now, if I click this, where the layers once were, we will now see this visual diagram. What we are looking at here is the momentum of the blue circle shape between each keyframe represented here by red squares. Here we have the momentum of position, opacity, and scale. Notice how straight the lines are at each point with hard edges at each keyframe. So I'll click back on the Graph Editor button to go back to my layers. This time, I'll do the same, but for the red circle keyframes. If I come just under the red circle layer and carefully click just before the first position keyframe and drag over all the other keyframes for the red circle, upon release, I will select them all and they will all be highlighted in blue. If I come back to the graph editor button at the top of the timeline panel above the layer name and click this, now we are seeing a very different diagram. Instead of the rigid lines and hard corners we saw on the blue circle sequence, we are now seeing nice smooth lines between each keyframe. This is exactly what easing does in after effects. In principle, easing adds smooth momentum between keyframe points, which in turn adds smoothness to our sequences. For now, I'll click back on the graph editor to return back to the layers. Drag my time indicator back to the start and press space bar to show a preview, and we can see the effect easing has when applied to keyframes. Now, if you want to learn more about easing, don't worry, I'll be going into this in more depth in a future video. Now, it's important to note that keyframes are not only used for animation. We can also use keyframes to apply a whole multitude of effects to video. If we now look over in the project panel, we can see another composition here called video sequence. And if we double click this, we will see a new composition open. Now, unlike the previous composition, this only includes video. So if I drag the time indicator over to the left and hit Space spot to preview, we can see a really simple video sequence with a basic transition and Klefect applied. If we look down in the layers panel, we can see here we have some key frames applied to each layer. And looking over on the left hand side by the layer name, we can see the control properties for a variety of things such as linear white transitions, scale, and some color effects. Notice that some of the keyframes also have easing applied, again, to apply smoothness to all the transitions. Keyframes are the basis of how all animation and effect work in after effects. Understanding this principle will help you understand more complex sequences as we move further into this course. As we progress on this course, we are going to be using keyframes lots more, expanding on the principles we have learned in this video to create more complex and dynamic effects. As you progress in after effects, you will learn that all video sequences created in after effects are just a more complex and sophisticated version of the simple animation sequences showcased in this video. So to recap, some key things to remember are keyframes are set for each property separately on a layer. An animation or effect sequence will always begin with a keyframe to start and end with a keyframe to finish. Many keyframes can be applied to a particular property to create a dynamic sequence, and keyframe easing can be added to apply smoothness in sequences. So up until now, I have introduced you to the after effects interface and showed you some of the crucial interface structures and how to use them. Now it's time to move on and start to get hands on with after effects. In the next video, we are going to move into the essential practice section of this course. This section, we are going to cover all the cool things after effects can do. We are going to get hands on and learn by undertaking a number of exercises, which later in the next section, we will use to build a project from scratch. In the next video, we are going to start with one of the most basic tasks in after effect. In the next video, I'm going to show you how to manage video in after effects and how to perform simple video edits. So see you in the next video. 9. Simple Video Editing: Hello, and welcome to the eighth video in this beginner's guide to Adobe After effect. This is the first video in the second section of this course, essential practice. In this section, we are going to cover a lot of cool things after effects can do. We are going to get hands on and learn by undertaking a number of exercises, which later in the next section, we will use to build a project from scratch. In this tutorial, I'm going to show you how to manage video in after effects and how to perform a simple video edit. Now, it's important to state at the start of this video that after effects is not a video editing program by design. Now, that's not to say you cannot do video editing in after effects. In this video, I'm going to show you how. But it's important to note that Adobe After effects is primarily used for post production. Any video you use in after effects will typically be edited in a specialized video editing program like Adobe Premiere, first, exported and then brought into after effects. That's how I make my videos, for example. I first shoot my raw video, then edit it together in Adobe Premiere, export from there and import into after effects. Remember, after effects is based on compositing and works not only with video footage, but with still images, type and files brought in from other programs like Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and three D programs to create video presentations. What you will come to learn is that video editing in premiere, as opposed to after effects is a far more easier task. However, when we bring in video that has been exported from other programs, we still need to edit it in after effects to a certain degree. In this video, I'll be showing you an example of how to edit video simply in after effects. So in this video, we are going to be covering the following topics, importing video into after effects and editing video clips in the timeline panel. So first, I'll start by showing you what we are going to create in this video, and then I will show you how to do it. So let's get into it. So here I am in after effects, and I have a project open demonstrating a simple video edit sequence I have prepared earlier. And here I have some footage of marine life taking at the London Aquarium. If we look in the timeline panel, we can see that this is made up of seven video layers, and we can see the red line traveling across the timeline indicating we are in preview mode. Looking at the timeline panel, we can see the classic layer bars, and as the red line passes over each bar, we can see how this edit looks in the composition panel above. Now, if you were to follow along with this video and create your own video edit like this, you will need to download the project folder. Now, if we look carefully in the timeline panel, we can see that only part of each video layer bar is highlighted. And they string together seamlessly in a stack to create this edit. This is how a typical video edit looks in after effects. When we place video into compositions, we cannot easily cut and move parts of it around like we can in video editing programs like Premiere Pro. When we place a video file into after effects, we have to work with its entire contents on a layer and clip which part is visible and which part is not. Okay, so with that introduction, let's see how we can create a simple edit like this in after effects. So first, I'm going to close this project down. I'll come to file, scroll down and select close project. So with the blank screen here, I'm going to begin by dragging in some video files. To do this, I'm going to make sure I can see my browser window on top of the after effects interface. In the project folder, I'll come into the assets folder, into the video folder, then into the aquarium folder, and in here, you will find some video files. So in this instance, I'm going to select them all by clicking and dragging over them. Then drag them into the project panel on the left of the after effect interface. Upon release, they should all appear in the panel. The first thing I'm going to do is create a new composition. So I'll come up to composition at the top bar, click and select New Composition. With the composition settings window open, I'll name the comp to video edit. Next, I'll click here on the preset dropdown. Now, I'm based here in Europe, so I'm going to set this to HDTB 25. If you're based in the United States, you may want to go with your regional standard, which is 29.97 frames per second. So you may want to go for HDTV 29.97. I'll select HDTV 25, and this is going to result in 25 frames per second. So by clicking on this, it will set my dimensions to 1920 by 1080. Next, I'll set my duration to 35 seconds, and I'll keep the background black and click Okay. Upon click, we will have a new composition to work with. So with the new composition ready, I'll place in my video. I'll come over to the project panel, and the first video I'm going to add will be the Deep Blue clip. I can do this a number of ways. I can click and drag it down into the timeline name section and release like so, and I'll just undo that. Or I can click and drag into the composition panel. As I do this, I can see the outline of the video. I'll make sure it snaps to the borders and release. And again, I'll undo that. Now, another way is to use the keyboard shortcut. So with the media selected in the project panel, I can press Command forward slash on Mac or Control forward slash on PC. And this will place the video straight into the timeline panel. So here I have my first video footage as a layer in my timeline. Now if I come under the composition panel, hit the resolution factor pop up, I'll click on half. Then I'll make sure my time indicator is at the start of my timeline, and I'll press Spacebar to preview my video like so. Easy. So for now, I'll click Spacebar again to stop. Right, so let's get some more videos in here. So over in the project panel, this time, I'm going to press and hold Command on a Mac or Control on PC and select Fish two, three, five, horse one, Jelly one, and Jelly two. With them all selected, I can either press Command Forward slash on Mac or Control Ford slash on PC to quickly place them into my timeline panel. Or I can click and drag them over into the compositions panel. As I do this, I can see the outline of the video. I'll make sure it snaps to the borders and release. Upon release, we can see the video layers appear in the timeline. So looking closely at the layers, we can see that these clips vary in length, and we can tell this by the lengths of the bars. Now, in this instance, we only want each video clip to show for 5 seconds, so these video layers will work just fine. So with our videos in the timeline panel, now we are ready to edit. The first video file I want to edit is deep blue. But right now this is set at the bottom of the layers. If I come over to the layer names, I'll click and hold the layer name for this layer and drag it to the top of the layer stack. Upon release, I can now see it on top. If I click and drag my time indicator across this layer, the entirety of this video layer is visible. Now, if I carefully put my mouse cursor over the end of the layer bar on the right, we will see the mouse cursor icon change to arrows pointing horizontally in and out. Now if I click and drag inwards like so, we will notice that we are dragging in the highlighted part of the layer for now, I'll drag this in to around 15 seconds, referring to the numbers in the top of the timeline ruler. Next, I'll do the same, but on the left hand side. So I'll place my mouse cursor over the far left side of the layer bar. When the mouse cursor icon changes to arrows pointing horizontally in and out, I'll click and drag into 10 seconds, like so. So if we look carefully, the rest of the layer bar still exists, but we have simply edited the highlighted part of the bar. Whatever is highlighted on the video bar is visible. If I click and drag my time indicator across from the beginning, we cannot see the video, but if I move it across into the highlighted area, we can now see it in the composition panel above. So that is the main principle of editing a video clip in a composition in the timeline panel. Now, I want this highlighted bit to be at the start of my composition. Next, I'll click on the highlighted area and drag left so the start of the highlighted area starts at the start of the timeline. Easy. So that's my first clip edited. Now, it's just a case of doing the same process to my other clips and placing them in the correct position. So next, I'll click and drag the next video layer up and under my first one. In this case, I want the next clip to be Jelly one. I'll click and drag this up and under deep blue. Next, I'll click across on the timeline ruler so I can see my new clip in the composition panel. This time, I'm going to click and drag my layer left and right, like so to try and find a good starting point in my composition panel above. Once I find a good starting point, I'm going to edit the layer. Now, earlier we put our mouse cursor at the end of each layer bar and drag them in. Now, here's a quick tip. First, place the time indicator where you want to begin and press Alt open square bracket on the keyboard. Notice the highlighted area of the clip snaps right to the time indicator. Easy. Next, I'm going to click and drag the layer under the deep blue layer. By holding shift, the start of the highlighted area is going to snap to the start of the highlighted area above. Next, I'm going to click and drag my time indicator left while holding shift to snap to the end of the deep blue layer above. With the jelly layer selected and my time indicator in place, I'll press Alt close square bracket, and the highlight area is now clipped exactly the same as the layer above. Next, I'll click and drag my new edited clip layer to the right, holding shift so the start of my new clip snaps to the end of the clip above. So now I have my two layers edited. If I click and drag the time indicator over them, we can see how that looks. Let's do this again for the next video layer, this time with the Fish three layer. I'll click and drag the layer up and under the jelly one MP four layer. So I'll click and drag the layer bar over to the right. I'll click on the T ruler so I can see it. I'll find an appropriate place towards the beginning, and I'll press Alt open square bracket to trim the clip. Like last time, I'll drag the layer across under my first clip while holding Shift to snap it in line with the top layer. I'll drag my Time indicator left while holding shift to snap to the end of the top layer. With my Fish three layer selected, I'll press Alt close bracket to trim the end of the clip. Then I'll click and drag my new edited clip layer over to the right while holding shift to snap it to the end of my second layer. Easy. If I click and drag the time indicator over my three edited clips, we can see how that looks. So let's do this again but this time with the horse one layer. So first, I'll click and drag it up and under the fish three layer. I'll click and drag the bar over to the right. I'll click on the time ruler so I can see it. I'll find an appropriate place towards the beginning or maybe in this case, towards the middle, and I'll press Alt open bracket to trim the clip. Like last time, I'll drag the layer across under my first layer while holding Shift to snap in line with the top layer. I'll drag my time indicator left while holding Shift to snap to the end of the top layer. With my horse layer selected, I'll press Alt close bracket to trim the clip. Then I'll click and drag my new edited bar over to the right, while holding shift to snap it to the end of my third layer. And if I click and drag my time indicator over my four edited clips, we can see that's looking just fine. So by using this technique, we are making sure each video clip is the same length. So next, the Fish five video layer. I'll click and drag it up and under the horse layer. I'll click and drag the bar over to the right. I'll click on the time ruler so I can see it. I'll find an appropriate place to begin the video clip, and I'll press Alt open bracket to trim the start of the clip. I'll drag the layer across under my first layer while holding shift to snap it in line with the top layer. I'll drag my time indicator left while holding shift to snap to the end of the top layer. With the fish layer selected, I'll press Alt closed bracket to trim the end of the clip. Then I'll click and drag my new edited clip over to the right while holding shift to snap it to the end of my fourth layer. So next, the Jelly two video layer. I'll click and drag it up and under Fish five. I'll click and drag the bar over to the right. I'll click on the time ruler so I can see it. I'll find an appropriate place to begin the video clip, and I'll press Alt open bracket to trim the clip. I'll drag the layer across and under my first layer while holding Shift to snap it in line with the top layer. I'll drag my time indicator left while holding Shift to snap to the end of the top layer. The jellyfish two layer selected, I'll press Alt closed bracket to trim the clip. Then I'll click and drag the new edited clip over to the right, while holding Shift to snap it to the end of my fifth layer. Easy. One last time. With the last layer, I'll click and drag the layer bar over to the right. I'll click the time ruler so I can see it. I'll find an appropriate place to begin the video clip and I'll press Alt open bracket to trim the clip. I'll drag the layer across under my first layer while holding Shift to snap it in line with the top layer. I'll drag my time indicator left while holding Shift to snap to the end of the top layer. With my jellyfish two layer selected, I'll press Alt close bracket to trim the end of the clip. Then I'll click and drag the new edded clip bar over to the right while holding Shift to snap it to the end of the sixth layer. And there we have our final clip in position completing the composition video Edit. I I now click and drag the time indicator to the start of the timeline ruler, I'll make sure the resolution factor pop up is set to full. I'll press Spacebar to activate preview, and the video edit will play out just how I want it. Perfect. So that is how you can edit video in after effects. Now, there is something else you will need to be aware of as a beginner. On occasions, you may find yourself accidentally double clicking on a video layer in your timeline. For example, with the video edit complete, let's double click on a video layer here. Now, upon double click, the video will appear in another tab in the composition panel. This is a way to isolate a video layer to inspect it. In this instance, we are no longer looking at the video edit reflected in the timeline panel below. Now, in this instance, as you scroll across your timeline, you will not be able to see any of your other layers on the timeline. Now, as a beginner, you may wonder where your comp has gone. Now, don't worry. If you look carefully in the composition panel above, you will see your comp is still present, but on a tab on the left. If ever you find you have accidentally double clicked on a video layer, you can simply close down the tab in the composition panel at the top to come back to your main comp. So remember to keep this in mind. So now you know how to manage and edit video, it's now time to start applying basic animation. In the previous episode, I discussed in depth keyframes. In the next video, we are going to start to get more hands on with keyframes. In the next video, I'll be discussing simple animation principles and showing you how to animate in after effects with keyframes. So see you in the next video. 10. Simple Animation: Hello, and welcome to the ninth video in this beginner's guide to Adobe After effects. In this tutorial, I'm going to demonstrate how you can create a simple animation in after effects. So in a previous episode, we learned about keyframes and how they are used to create animation sequences in after effects. Now it's time to get more hands on with keyframes. In this video, we are going to be covering the following topics, adding keyframes, setting keyframe properties, and duplicating properties. After this video, you will have a good understanding of how to use keyframes to animate. So let's get into it. So here I am in after effects, and I have a project open demonstrating a simple animation sequence that we are going to create in this video. This is a nice and easy animation exercise which will help you get started and understand animating in after effects. Here, I have a circle animation moving from left to right, and as the circle moves, it also changes size and opacity. In this tutorial, we are going to learn how to animate position, scale, and opacity. So right now I am in preview mode, so I'll press Space bar to stop it for now. So before we start the tutorial, let's take a quick look at what we will be creating. Now, if you want to follow along with this video and create your own animation like this, you will need to download the project folder. So here we have a simple animation that is 10 seconds long. And we know this because we can see the seconds displayed in the time ruler at the top of the timeline panel. So I'll click and drag my time indicator across here to 5 seconds. At 5 seconds, the circle has moved from the left side of the screen point A to the right side of the screen to point B. I I continue to drag to 10 seconds, the circle moves back to point A. So the start and end of the animation appears the same. Now, if I drag my time indicator 1-5 seconds, we can see that as the circle moves from point A to point B, the size and opacity changes. When we get to point B at 5 seconds, the size and opacity is the same as point A. Now, as I continue to move to 10 seconds, the same animation happens on the way back to point A. So if I hit Spacebar to preview, this appears to be an infinite animation as the end is the same as the start. Okay, so what's going on in the timeline panel? So if we look carefully in the timeline panel, we can see we have one shape layer called circle. Now, we can tell this is a shape layer because of the icon next to it. In after effects, a shape layer is represented as a star. In this instance, the layer bar color is set to purple. So under our purple shape layer, we can see some key frames. And if we look carefully over to the left in the timeline panel, we can see the key frames are set for position, scale, and opacity. So first, let's pay attention to position. So here we can see we have a keyframe at the start, one keyframe in the middle, and one at the end. Now, I'll click and drag my time indicator to the start of the timeline. So in the timeline panel, at the very start, we can see we have a keyframe for position. Now, this keyframe is setting the value for this position in the visual composition panel above at point A. So I'll click and drag my time indicator across here to 5 seconds. At 5 seconds, the circle has moved to the other side of the screen to point B. In the timeline panel, we can see we have another keyframe for position. Now, this keyframe is setting the value for this position in the visual composition panel at point B. Now, if I continue to drag to 10 seconds, the circle has moved back to point A. In the timeline panel, we can see we have a keyframe at the end for position. Now, this keyframe is setting the value for this position in the visual composition panel at point A. So to move from left to right, it takes three keyframes to do it. One, a keyframe for point A, two, a keyframe for point B, and three, a keyframe back to point A. Now let's pay attention to scale. So here we can see we have a keyframe at the start, three keyframes in the middle, and one at the end. Now, I'll click and drag my time indicator to the start of the timeline. And in the timeline panel, at the very start, we can see we have a keyframe for scale. This keyframe is setting the value for scale in the visual composition panel above at point A. So I'll click and drag my time indicator across here to the midway point between point A and point B. At this point, the circle has decreased in scale. In the timeline panel, we can see we have another keyframe for scale. This keyframe is setting the value for scale in the visual composition panel at the midway point. Now if I continue to drag to 5 seconds, the scale of the circle is back to its original size at point A. In the timeline panel, we can see we have another keyframe for scale. This keyframe is setting the value for scale in the visual composition panel at point B. If I continue to drag the time indicator across here to the midway point between point B and point A, at this point, the circle has decreased in scale again. And in the timeline panel, we can see we have another keyframe for scale. Again, this keyframe is setting the value for scale in the visual composition panel at the midway point. If I continue to drag to 10 seconds, the scale of the circle is back to its original size at point A. And in the timeline panel, we can see we have a keyframe at the end for scale. So to change the scale of the circle between point A and B, it's taken five keyframes to do it. One, a keyframe for scale at point A, two, a keyframe for scale at the midpoint to point B, three, a keyframe for scale at point B, four, a keyframe for scale at the midpoint back to point A, and five, a keyframe for scale back at A. Now let's pay attention to opacity. So here we can see like with scale, we have a keyframe at the start, three keyframes in the middle and one at the end. Now, I'll click and drag my time indicator to the start of the timeline, and in the timeline panel, at the very start, we can see we have a keyframe for opacity. This keyframe is setting the value for opacity in the visual composition panel above at point A. I'll click and drag my time indicator across here to the midway point between point A and point B. At this point, the circle has changed opacity. In the timeline panel, we can see we have another keyframe for opacity. This keyframe is setting the value for opacity in the visual composition panel at the midway point. Now if I continue to drag to 5 seconds, the opacity of the circle is back to full at point A. In the timeline panel, we can see we have another keyframe for opacity. This keyframe is setting the value for opacity in the visual composition panel at point B. If I continue to drag the time indicator across here to the midway point between point B and point A, at this point, the circle has changed opacity again. And in the timeline panel, we can see we have another keyframe for opacity. Again, this keyframe is setting the value for opacity in the visual composition panel at the midway point. If I continue to drag to 10 seconds, the opacity of the circle is back to full at point A. And in the timeline panel, we can see we have a keyframe at the end for opacity. So to change the opacity of the circle between point A and B, it's taken five keyframes to do it. One, a keyframe for opacity at point A, two, a keyframe for opacity at the midpoint to point B, three, a keyframe for opacity at point B, four, a keyframe for opacity at the midpoint back to point A, and five, a keyframe for opacity back at point A. So with that overview, let's now see how you can create this animation from scratch. So to help you, I have prepared a simple worksheet for you. So with the project folder open, click into the S two Essential Practice folder, then into folder nine simple animation, then into the template folder and open the simple animations template after effect file. And you should open a document like this. So here I have the same document I just showed you, but without the animation applied. Now, if we look in the timeline panel, we can see a circle shape layer at the top. Now, if we come into the timeline panel and click the triangle next to the purple square, this will toggle down to reveal the contents and transform options. If I click the triangle next to transform, we can toggle down the position, scale, rotation and opacity options. Here we can see that there are no keyframes applied to position, scale or opacity. This is blank, ready to animate. So let's begin. When animating in after effects, it helps to take one step at a time. It helps to focus on one part of the animation, and when that is in place, we can then focus on another part. So first, I'm going to start with position. I want my circle to start at point A and reach point B at 5 seconds. First, I'll put down a keyframe for position. Now, the first thing to learn about keyframes is when you place a keyframe, it will be placed wherever the time indicator is on the timeline. So first, I will make sure my time indicator is right at the start of my composition with my time indicator at the start of the composition. I'll carefully come over to the transform properties to the left of my timeline panel. Next, I will click on the stopwatch icon next to position. Upon click, you will see the first keyframe appear on the layer. Next, I will drag my time indicator over to 5 seconds on the timeline, halfway through my composition. Okay, so with my timeline indicator at 5 seconds, this time, I'm going to come into the composition panel above and click on the circle. With it selected, I'm going to click and drag the circle across the screen to point B. Now, once I release the circle at point B, we can see a new keyframe for position has appeared in the timeline. By moving the shape at 5 seconds to a new place in the composition panel, it has created a new keyframe. So now if I click and drag the time indicator, back to the start and back to 5 seconds, we can see the circle move. Excellent. We have just created the first animation. So now we have one keyframe to start and one keyframe to end the sequence. So now I'll move the time indicator back to 5 seconds. Next, I want to place another keyframe, but this time at the end of the composition. I'll move the time indicator across to the end of the timeline. Now, at this point, I want my circle to move back to point A exactly where I started. Now, I could drag the circle back across like I did a second ago. But how am I going to be sure I'll put it in the exact same place? Well, here is a quick tip. What I'm going to do next is come and click the first keyframe for position. With it selected, I'll press Command C on Mac or Control C on PC to copy. With my time indicator at the end of the timeline, I will now press Command V on Mac or Control V to paste. Upon pasting, we will now see a new keyframe appear at the end, and the circle has now jumped back to point A in the composition panel. By copying and pasting the first keyframe at the start, we are pasting the new value at the end of the timeline. If I now click and drag the time indicator back to the start and press Space part to preview, we will see the circle move from point A to point B and then back to point A again. Because the end of the animation sequence is the same as the start, when previewing like this, it appears to be an infinite animation. So we have one keyframe at the start at point A, one keyframe to move to point B in the middle of our timeline, and one keyframe at the end to go back to point A, easy. So that's position done. Now let's look at scale. Now for this animation, I want the circle to scale down and then up again between point A and point B. I wanted to do this on the way to point B and on the way back to point A. So first, I'll put down a keyframe for scale. So first, I'll make sure my time indicator is right at the start of my composition. With my time indicator at the start of the composition, I'll carefully come over to the transform properties to the left of my timeline panel, and next, I will carefully click on the stopwatch icon next to scale. Upon click, you will see the first keyframe appear on the layer, though this time under the position keyframe. Next, I will drag my time indicator over slowly, watching the circle as it moves across to point B. When the circle reaches the midway point, I'll stop. Looking in the timeline panel, we can see that the time indicator is now halfway between the first and second keyframe for position. This is exactly where we want it to be. So next, I'll come over to the transform properties in the timeline panel and focus on the scale property. Right now, we can see the scale of the shape is at 100%. What I'm going to do now is put my mouse cursor over the 100% value until I see my mouse cursor change to arrows pointing left and right. Then I'm going to click and drag the value down to 50%. Upon release, the size of the circle will be reduced to 50% in the visual composition panel, and we will see a keyframe appear for scale in the timeline. Perfect. So next, I will drag my time indicator over to 5 seconds to the exact point of the keyframe for position. Right now, we can see that the circle is still at 50% at this point. At this point, I want my circle to be back to the same size it was at point A. Just like earlier, I'm going to come over and click on the first keyframe for scale. With it selected, I'll press Command C on Mac or Control C on PC to copy, and with my time indicator exactly at 5 seconds, I will press Command V on Mac or Control V on PC to paste. Upon pasting, we will now see a new keyframe appear for scale, and the circle is now back to 100%. By copying and pasting the first keyframe for scale at the start, we are pasting the same value here. So now if I click and drag the time indicator back to the start and back to 5 seconds, we can see the circle move and also change scale down and up exactly how we want it. So as I continue to drag my time indicator from 5 seconds to 10 seconds, I want to create the same scale animation on the circle moving back to point A as I did moving to point B. So next, I will drag my time indicator over slowly watching the circle as it moves across back to point A. When the circle reaches the midway point, I'll stop. Looking in the timeline panel, we can see that the time indicator is now halfway between the second and third keyframe for position. So what I'm going to do here is copy the keyframe which holds the value for 50% I created earlier. So I'll carefully select the keyframe at the midway point. With it selected, I'll press Command C on Mac or Control C on PC to copy. And with my time indicator, exactly midway, I will press Command V on the Mac or control V on PC to pace. Upon pasting, we will now see a new keyframe appear for scale, and the circle is now back to 50%. Nice. So as I continue to drag my time indicator across to 10 seconds, I want the circle to change scale back to 100% the original size. Again, I'm going to use the same copy and paste technique. I'll click on the first scale keyframe at the start of the composition to select it. With it selected, I'll press Command C on Mac or Control C on PC to copy. And with my time indicator exactly at 10 seconds, I'll press Command on Mac or Control V on PC to paste. Upon pasting, we will now see a new keyframe appear for scale, and the circle is now back to 100%. By copying and pasting the first keyframe for scale at the start, we are pasting the same value here again. Great. So that finishes the scale keyframes. So if I now drag my time indicator back to the start and press space bar to activate preview, we can now see the circle nicely scales down and up as it moves from point A to point B and back again. So that's scale done. So I'll press space bar to stop the preview and drag the time indicator back to the start. Now let's look at the last effect we want to apply to this animation. Now for this animation, I want the circle to change opacity when it scales down. Then appear back to 100% opacity when it scales back up again. I wanted to do this on the way to point B and on the way back to point A. First, I'll put down a keyframe for opacity. First, I'll make sure my time indicator is right at the start of my composition. With my time indicator at the start of my composition, I'll carefully come over to the transform properties to the left of my timeline panel. Next, I will carefully click on the stopwatch icon next to opacity. Upon click, you will see the first keyframe appear on the layer, though this time under the scale keyframe. So next, I will drag my time indicator straight over to the second scale keyframe on the timeline, as the scale keyframe indicates the midway point between point A and point B. We will also see the circle move from point A to the midway point in the composition panel. This is exactly where we want to be. Next, I will come over to the transform properties in the timeline panel and focus on the opacity property. Right now, we can see the opacity of the shape is at 100%. What I'm going to do now is put my mouse cursor over the 100% value until I see my mouse cursor changed to arrows pointing left and right. Then I'm going to click and drag the value left to 30%. Upon release, the opacity of the circle will be reduced to 30% in the visual composition panel, and we will see a new keyframe appear for opacity in the timeline. Perfect. So next, I will drag my time indicator over to 5 seconds to the exact point of the keyframes for position and scale above. So right now, we can see that the circle is still at 30% opacity at this point. At this point, I want my circle to be back to the same opacity it was at point A. So just like earlier, I'm going to come over and click on the first keyframe for opacity. With it selected, I will press Command C on Mac or Control C on PC to copy. And with my time indicator exactly at 5 seconds, I will press Command V on Mac or control V on PC to paste. Upon pasting, we will now see a new keyframe appear for opacity, and the circle is now back to 100% opacity. By copying and pasting the first keyframe for opacity at the start, we are pasting the same value here. So now if I click and drag the time indicator back to the start and back to 5 seconds, we can see the circle move, change scale down and up, and also change opacity, exactly how we want it. So as I continue to drag my time indicator from 5 seconds to 10 seconds, I want to create the same opacity animation on the circle moving back to point A as I did moving to point B. So next, I will drag my time indicator straight over to the fourth scale keyframe on the timeline, as this scale keyframe indicates the midway point between point B and A. We will also see the circle move from point B to the midway point in the composition panel. What I'm going to do here this time is copy the keyframe which holds the value for 30% opacity and created earlier. I'll carefully select the keyframe at the midway point for opacity. With it selected, I'll press Command C on Mac or control C on PC copy with my time decator exactly midpoint, I'll press Command V on Mac or control V on PC to paste. Upon pasting, we will now see a new keyframe appear for opacity and the circle is now back to 30%. So as I continue to drag my time indicator across to 10 seconds, I want the circle to change opacity back to 100%. So again, I'm going to use the same copy and paste technique. So I'll click on the first opacity keyframe at the start of the composition to select. With it selected, I'll press Command C on Mac or Control C on PC to copy. And with my time indicator exactly at 10 seconds, I'll press command V on Mac or Control V on PC to paste. Upon pasting, we will now see a new keyframe appear for opacity, and the circle is now back to 100%. By copying and pasting the first keyframe for opacity at the start, we are pasting the same value here again. Great. So that finishes the opacity keyframes, and that finishes the animation. So now I'll come into the timeline panel and click on the I symbol on the far left of the guides. Clicking this will toggle the visibility off. Now we have finished the animation. We do not need the guides any longer. So now we can see we have lots of keyframes in the timeline. Now, once they are placed in the timeline, you can move them around quite easily, and you will want to do this to alter the way your animation works. For example, by clicking and dragging the middle position keyframe and dragging left on top of the second scale and opacitor keyframe. If I drag the time indicator back to the start and press space bar, we can see the effect that has. Circle dathes over to point B real fast, then takes longer to return to point A. This time, I'll drag the second position keyframe back into the middle, but this time drag the first keyframe up to the second keyframe for scale and opacity and the last keyframe into the fourth keyframe for scale and opacity. Now looking carefully, just under the time indicator, we have the work area bar. What I'll do now is place my mouse cursor carefully over the blue edge on the left, then drag in to meet the first position keyframe. Then I'll carefully place my mouse cursor over the blue edge on the right, then drag in to meet the last position keyframe. What we have done here is closing the work area on these few frames here in the middle. So now I'll make sure my time indicator is inside this work area, and I'll press space bar, and we can see the effect that has. We are now previewing a loop between these points on the animation. Here we can see the circle quickly dashes to point B, then back to A again much faster. Also, the circle changes opacity as it moves to point B and back again to point A. This gives us a different animation entirely. So I'll press Spacebar to stop the preview. Now I'll carefully come and double click on the workspace area, and this will snap it back to the full timeline. Next, I'll carefully click and drag the keyframe back to where they were earlier. I'll put the start keyframe for position back to the start and the third keyframe back to the end. If I drag the time indicator back to the start and press Space Bar, we can see the effect that has. We are now back to our original animation. So this is how keyframes are used to animate in after effect. As we progress on this course, we are going to be animating more and more, expanding on these principles we have learned in this video to create more complex and dynamic effect. So to recap, some key things to remember are when placing keyframes, we must first make sure the time indicator is in the correct position on the timeline. To add a keyframe for the first time, we click on the stopwatch. After the first keyframe is added, to add a new keyframe, we need to press the add keyframe button, the diamond shape over on the far left of the timeline. Keyframes can be copied and pasted to duplicate values, and keyframes can be dragged around the timeline to edit and change the nature of animations over time. So once you are happy with your animation, come up to file, scroll down to Save As, and what we'll need to do here is save a new version of our after effect animation. Now, I'm going to save this in the folder here, in the project folder. You can save this wherever you wish, but make sure you remember where it is as we will be using this in the next episode. Here I'll change the name to simple animation project and click Okay. Perfect. Now, looking at our animation in preview mode, it looks great, but there is something rigid and plain about the movement. If we look at the animation I previewed at the start, we can see it moves more smoothly and with more flow. Now, this is because we have easing applied to the keyframes. If we look in the timeline panel, we can see the keyframes are different from the ones we just applied to our animation. These keyframes have different shapes applied. In after effects, this is called easing. So to add nice smooth effects to our animations, we can apply easing. In the next episode, we're going to expand on the animation we just created, and I'm going to show you how you can add easing to your keyframes in after effects. So see you in the next video. 11. Easing: Hello, and welcome to the tenth video in this beginner's guide to Adobe After effect. In this tutorial, I'm going to demonstrate how you can add easing to your keyframes in after effects. So in a previous episode, we learned how to create a simple animation using keyframes. In this video, I'll be showing you how to add smoothness to your animations by using easing. So in this video, we are going to be covering the following topics. What is easing? Applying easing, different types of easing and using the right kind of easing. After this video, you will understand how to apply easing to keyframes to animate. So let's get into it. So here I am in After facts where we left off in the previous episode. In that episode, we created a simple animation of a circle moving from point A to point B, changing scale and opacity in between. Now, looking at our animation in preview mode, it looks great, but there is something rigid and plain about the movement. If we look at the animation I previewed at the start of the previous video, we can see it moves more smoothly and with more flow. Now, this is because we have easing applied to the keyframes. If we look at the timeline panel, we can see the keyframes are different from the ones we just applied to our animation. These keyframes have different shapes applied. In after effects, this is called easing. So what is easing? Well, in principle, easing adds smooth momentum between keyframe points, which in turn adds smoothness to our sequences. So let's see how this works in practice. To help explain easing, I'll open a quick demonstration document I have put together. Now, I recommend you look at this because this is really going to help you. With the project folder open, click into the S two essential practice folder into the tenth folder, easing and open the Yoyo demo after effect file. And you will have the same document I have opened here. Now, if you have not yet downloaded the project folder and you want to follow along and take a closer look at this demo, you will need to download the project folder first. If I hit Spacebar to preview, we can see the yo yo animations. Now, it's important to mention here that these animations are all exactly the same. However, they move differently. This is because they have different easing effects applied. Below each animation here is a little diagram for a reference showing you the easing that has been applied to each animation above. The lines show the smooth effect caused by the easing. Looking at the first yo yo, we can see it moves quite rigidly from top to bottom with quite an abrupt shift at each end. The momentum here is pretty consistent. Now, looking at the second yo yo, we can see it's a bit more smoother when it falls. The momentum seems to slow as it reaches the bottom and then it snaps back at the top. Now, looking at the third Yoyo, we can see it's even more smoother when it falls and when it reaches the top. The momentum slows as it reaches the bottom, then speeds up and slows again as it reaches the top, creating a continuous smooth action with a nice swing at each end. So now I want to draw your attention to the timeline panel. Looking in the panel, we can see that each layer has the same amount of keyframes applied, but have some different shapes. In after effects, there is a variety of keyframes you can apply to create various movement and smoothness effects. And if we look carefully, we can see the keyframes below are matching the key frames in the diagram just under each Yoyo animation. Now let's take a quick look at keyframe types. These are the common keyframe shapes you'll encounter when applying easing to your keyframes. At this stage, it will help to recognize the shapes and what they do. If you'd like to take your time to look over these keyframes, you can also look at the keyframe page on the PDF course document that accompanies this course. This document has been prepared to help you and accompany your learning experience. This can be downloaded for free. The link is in the description. So here we have the first keyframe. This is a diamond shape and is referred to as a linear keyframe. These are the default keyframes created when you add effects to your layers initially, and these typically create a plain and direct movement. On a diagram, it appears like this. A linear keyframe as described creates a simple line of movement over time, where an object, in this example, a circle will move from point A to point B within a certain time frame at a constant speed with a rigid movement. Next, we have what looks like an arrow shape pointing left. This keyframe is referred to as an Es out keyframe. This keyframe can be applied to add smoothness to the start of a sequence. On a diagram, it appears like this. An Ease out keyframe creates a subtle delay in time at the start where an object in this example, a circle will move out from point A, starting slowly, then building momentum into point B within a certain time frame, though with a flowing movement. It's called ease out because it creates a subtle delay moving outwards from a keyframe. Next, we have what looks like an arrow shape pointing right. This keyframe is referred to as an ease in keyframe. This keyframe is the exact opposite of the previous. On a diagram, it appears like this. An Ease in keyframe creates a subtle delay in time at the end where an object in this example, a circle will move out from point A, then decrease momentum into point B within a certain time frame, though with a flowing movement. It's called ease in because it creates subtle delay moving inwards to the keyframe. So next, we have what looks like an hourglass shape. This keyframe can be applied to add smoothness in a sequence, and these typically create smooth momentum used between sequences. On a diagram, it appears like this. An easy ease keyframe creates subtle delay or movement over time instead of a constant speed. This tends to create a swing type movement where an object in this example, a circle will move from point A and appear to curve over point B slowing down subtly, then swinging over to point C within a certain time frame though with a flowing movement. So that's how these keyframes are working on my yo yo animation. So I'll press space bar to stop the animation preview, and now if I come into the timeline panel and look at the first Yoyo one layer, we can see that the keyframes applied to this are linear keyframes. These are the default keyframes that are applied initially as you begin to animate your sequence. Now if I carefully click the first keyframe for Yo Yo, next, I will hold Shift, then click and drag to select the other two keyframes. Upon release, I will select them all and we can see they are highlighted in blue. Now, if I carefully come over to the left at the top of the timeline panel above the layer names, we can see an icon here called the Graph Editor. Now, if I click this, where the layers once were, we can now see this visual diagram. What we're looking at here is the momentum of yo yo one between each keyframe. Keep in mind that this is not the physical direction movement of the object in the composition panel above. Think of this as more of a momentum graph over time. The smoothness of position in this instance is represented here by this green line. Now notice how straight and rigid the line is. We can see that this diagram is matching the one we have under the first yo yo. Now, remember this. I'll click back on the graph editor button to go back to my layers. Using linear keyframes creates a more direct animated appearance where it goes from one point to another with a consistent speed with no smoothness or change your momentum. This time, if we look at the second yo yo two layer, we can see that the same linear keyframes are applied, but this time the middle keyframe is an hourglass shape. This is an easy ease keyframe. Now, if I carefully click on the first keyframe for Yoyo two, next, I will hold shift, then click and drag to select the other two keyframes. Upon release, I will select them all and we can see they are highlighted in blue. Now, if I carefully come over to the left at the top of the timeline panel and click the graph editor icon, once again, what we are now looking at is the momentum of the Yoyo two shape between each keyframe. Notice this time, instead of the rigid line, there is a subtle curve in the middle. Now, we can see that this diagram is matching the one we have under the second Yoyo. I'll click back on the graph editor button to go back to my layers. So using an easy ease keyframe in the middle creates a smooth swing animation in between the sequence. So next, let's look at the third Yoyo layer. This time, we can see we have something quite different. The first keyframe is an arrow pointing left. This is an ease out keyframe. The second frame is an hourglass, an easy ease keyframe again, and the last keyframe is an arrow pointing right. This is an ease in keyframe. Now, if I carefully click the first keyframe for Yoyo three, hold Shift and click and drag to select the other two keyframes, upon release, I will select them all and we can see they're all highlighted in blue. Now, if I carefully come over to the left at the top of the timeline panel and click the Graph Editor icon again, what we are looking at now is the momentum of the Yoyo three shape between each keyframe. Notice this time, we have the same curve at the top, but this time, the lines curve more out at the beginning and at the end. This line is more curvy. Now, we can see that this diagram is matching the one we have under the third yo yo. I'll click back on the graph editor button to go back to my layers. So using an ease out keyframe at the start, an easy ease keyframe in the middle, and an ease in at the end, we get a really nice smooth animation throughout the sequence. So adding easing changes the momentum of an effect between keyframes. This as a visual effect adds smoothness to our sequences and is something you will want to keep in mind and apply to your sequences as you animate and build your video presentations. Now, in after effects, applying easing is easy. So now I'm going to show you how. So to begin, we are going to need the animation project open we created in the previous episode. If you have yours ready, be sure to open it. Though if you do not, or you're joining the course for the first time, you can get this after effects project in the downloadable folder to follow along. With the project folder open, click into the S two essential Practice folder, then into the tenth folder easing and open the easing after effect file. And you will have the same document I have open here. So now we are ready to begin. So let's take a quick look at the current animation. So I'll make sure the time indicator is at the start of the timeline, and I'll press space bar to activate preview. Right now, we can see this is a very plain and direct animation, moving from left to right and scaling down quite plainly. Now, if we look in the timeline panel, we can see the key frames for our animation we set earlier. Looking at these, we can see they are all diamond shape. These are linear keyframes, which are the basic and plain keyframes which create consistent momentum. Now I want to add some dynamic to the animation. To begin, I want us to concentrate on the position keyframes. I'll press space bar to stop the preview. And the first thing I'm going to do here is click the first position keyframe. With it selected, I'm going to right click on the mouse, then scroll down to keyframe assistance, scroll across and select ease out. Upon click, we will now see the keyframe change shape from a diamond shape to the arrow pointing left. So just like that, I have added easing to my first keyframe. Now, I used an ease out keyframe there because it is at the start of the sequence, and I want the circle to build up momentum gradually from the start of the sequence. Next, I will click the second position keyframe. With it selected, I'm going to right click on the mouse, then scroll down to keyframe assistance, scroll across and select Easy Ease. Upon click, we will now see the keyframe change shape from a diamond shape to an hourglass shape. Now, I used an Easy Ease keyframe there because it is between the sequence and I want the circle to smooth over the middle of the sequence. Next, I will click the third position keyframe. With it selected, I'm going to right click on the mouse, then scroll down to keyframe assistance, scroll across and select Ease in. Upon click, we will now see the keyframe change shape from a diamond shape to an arrow pointing right. Now, I added an easy in keyframe there because it is at the end of the sequence, and I want the circle to slow down momentum gradually into the end of the sequence. With easing applied to my position keyframes, I'll make sure the time indicator is at the start of the timeline and I'll press space bar to activate preview. So now we can see there is a nice smooth transition from point A to point B and back again. Instead of the abrupt and robotic movement at each point, we now have a nice smooth, swing like sequence. Now if I carefully click the first keyframe for position, next, I will hold Shift, then click and drag select the other two keyframes. With them selected, I can carefully come over to the left at the top of the timeline panel and click the graph editor icon again, this is the effect the easing is having on the keyframes. So at the start, we applied the Es out keyframe. This is creating this nice curve out like so. Then at the middle we applied the Easy Es. This is creating this nice smooth curve at the top. Then at the end, we applied the E's in. That is creating this nice curve in like so. So I'll make sure the time indicator is at the start of the timeline and I'll press space bar to activate preview. Now we can watch and compare the momentum of the animation above over time with the momentum curve here in the graph editor. So we can see the circle slowly moves out, then gathers momentum to point B, then towards the curve, it slows down over point B. Over the curve, it starts to build momentum in a swing action back to point A, and as it approaches point A, it decreases momentum slowly. Now, because the starting point is the same as the end point, this appears to be an infinite animation. This graph editor here, if we were to link this together, it would look like a wave as the Es out on the left would join the E's in on the right infinitely. I'll click back on the graph editor button to go back to my layers. Next, I want to concentrate on the scale keyframes. If I press space bar to stop the preview, the first thing I'm going to do here is click the first scale keyframe. With it selected, I'm going to right click on the mouse, then scroll down to keyframe assistant, scroll across and select Es out. Upon click, we will now see the keyframe change shape from a diamond shape to the arrow pointing left. Next, I will click the second scale keyframe. With it selected, I'm going to right click on the mouse, then scroll down to keyframe assistance, scroll across and select Easy Ease. Upon click, we will now see the keyframe change shape from a diamond shape to an hourglass shape. Next, I will click the third scale keyframe. With it selected, I'm going to right click on the mouse, then scroll to keyframe assistance, scroll across and select Easy Ease again. Upon click, we will now see the keyframe change shape from a diamond shape to an hourglass shape again. Next, I will click the fourth scale keyframe. With it selected, I'm going to right click on the mouse, then scroll down to keyframe assistance, scroll across and select Easy Ease. Upon click, we will now see the keyframe change shape from a diamond shape to the hourglass shape again. Lastly, I will click the fifth scale keyframe. With it selected, I'm going to right click on the mouse, and scroll down to keyframe assistance, scroll across, and select Ease in. Upon click, we will now see the keyframe change shape from a diamond shape to the arrow pointing right. So with easing applied to my scale keyframes, I'll make sure the time indicator is at the start of the timeline, and I'll press space bar to activate preview. So now we can see there is a nice smooth scale transition applied to the sequence. Much nicer. Now, if I carefully click the first keyframe for scale, next, I will hold Shift, then click and drag to select the other four keyframes. With them selected, I can carefully come over to the left at the top of the timeline panel and click the graph editor icon again. What we are now looking at is the momentum of the scale between each keyframe. So now we can see something a little more interesting than the first example. At the start, we applied an Ease out keyframe. At the end, we applied an ease in keyframe, and all through the middle, we applied the Easy Ease keyframes. So see the effect it has here. It has created this nice curved line. So I'll make sure the time indicator is at the start of the timeline, and I'll press space bar to activate preview. So just like the smooth momentum of the positioning, we now have smooth momentum for scale. So I'll click back on the graph button to go back to the layers. And the last effect we have applied is opacity. Now, opacity in this instance is a very subtle effect. We could add easing to the keyframes, but in this instance, it would not have any obvious effect. If I preview the animation, it appears to work as I wish. So in this instance, I'm just going to leave the keyframe set to linear. So that is an introduction to easing and how easing is applied to keyframes in after effects. As we progress on this course, we are going to be animating more and more, expanding on the principles we have learned in this video and adding easing to create more complex and dynamic effects. So once you are happy with your animation, come up to file, scroll down and select Save as. What we will do here is save a new version of the after effect document. Now, I'm going to save this in the folder here, in the project folder. You can save this wherever you wish, but make sure you remember where it is as we will be using this in the next episode. Here I'll save this as easing Lesson project, and click Okay. Perfect. So to recap, some key things to remember are adding easing changes the momentum of an effect at the start, end or between key frames. As a visual effect, keying adds smoothness to our sequences, and this adds a more dynamic and smooth aesthetic to our sequences. So over the last few episodes, we have learned about animation principles, and now we know how to create simple animations. Now, one of the main factors when creating video sequences is time. Now, we use the timeline to set our keyframes to animate and edit our video to create a video presentation to specific times. As you start to build in after effects, there are going to be various occasions where you will want to customize the time it takes for an effect to happen, the speed of an animation or even the speed of a video. You may want to slow something down or speed something up. The next video, I'm going to discuss a feature in after effects called time stretching, and I'll also show you ways to control your keyframe animations to slow down or speed up your sequence. So see you in the next video. 12. Time stretching: Hello, and welcome to the 11th video in this beginner's guide to Adobe After effect. In this tutorial, I'm going to demonstrate how you can easily slow down or speed up your video and keyframe sequences in after effects. So over the last few episodes, we have learned about animation principles and how to create simple animations. Now, one of the main factors when creating video sequences is time. We use the timeline to set our keyframes to animate and to edit our video to create a video presentation to a specific time. As you start to build in after effects, there are going to be various occasions where you will want to customize the time it takes for an effect to happen, the speed of an animation or even the speed of a video. Now, you may want to slow something down or speed something up. In this video, I'm going to demonstrate how you can easily slow down or speed up your keyframe sequences and use a feature called time stretching to slow down or speed up your video. So in this video, we are going to be covering the following topics, adjusting a keyframe sequence over time and video time stretching. So let's get into it. So here I am in after effects, and I have the project open that we worked on in the previous video. Now to follow along in this video, I suggest you have the project you worked on in the previous video open. If you can open it, great. Though if you don't have it to hand or you're new to this course and wish to follow along, you can open this document I have prepared, especially for you in the project folder that goes with this course. So if we look down in the timeline panel and look at the numbers on the time ruler, we can see that the composition time space is approximately 10 seconds. So I'll make sure my time indicator is at the start of the timeline, and I'll press Space bar to activate preview. And here we can see that the animation sequence spans the entire 10 seconds of the comp. Okay, so what if I want to speed up the animation sequence? Now, we could click and drag the keyframes individually to change the sequence, but that would be tedious and time consuming. Here is a quick tip. So I'll press space bar to stop the preview, and I'll carefully come down into the timeline panel and click before the first position keyframe and drag over the first keyframes for position, scale, and opacity. Then I will hold shift and click and drag to select all the other keyframes. When we select the keyframes, they will turn blue. Make sure you have all the keyframes selected, and with the all selected, I'm going to come to the end frame, then press and hold Alt on the keyboard, then click and drag my frames in like so. By holding Alt and dragging, we can alter the time of the entire sequence of keyframes. Instead of my sequence spanning 10 seconds, let's hold down Alt and drag the sequence to 5 seconds. It's half the composition. So I'll make sure my time indicator is at the start of the timeline and I'll press Spacebar to activate preview. So now we can see that the animation sequence happens a lot faster. Now notice when the preview line gets to the end of the keyframes, the circle stops. Well, this is because the sequence has ended. Now, if we want to preview just the sequence 0-5 seconds, here is another quick tip. I'll press Spacebar to stop the preview, and now if I click and drag my time indicator over to the last keyframe while holding Shift, the time indicator will snap to the keyframe below. So on the keyboard, I will press N. Upon click, we will see the work area just below the time ruler snap to the time indicator. So now the work area is set to 5 seconds. I'll make sure the time indicator is at the start of my timeline and I'll press Spacebar to activate preview. Now I can watch the animation in a loop, and it's much faster. I'll press Spacebar to stop the preview. Okay, so with the keyframes still selected, I'm going to come to the end keyframes, then press and hold Alt on the keyboard, then click and drag my keyframes out again like so. This time, I'll drag out to around 7 seconds. So now instead of my sequence spanning 5 seconds, it now spans 7 seconds. Now, if I click and drag my time indicator over to the last keyframe while holding Shift, the time indicator will snap to the frames below. On the keyboard, I will press N. Upon click, we will see the work area just below the time ruler snap to the time indicator. So now the work area is set to 7 seconds. I'll make sure the time indicator is at the start of the timeline and I'll press Spacebar to activate preview. And now we can see the animation sequence happens a little slower but faster than at 10 seconds. So that's a really easy way to alter the timing of an entire set of keyframes applied to an effect. So next, I'm going to show you how you can alter time for video. So with the project folder open, click back into the S two essential Practice folder into the 11th folder, time stretch, and open the video time stretch after effects fall. You will have the same document I have open here. If I make sure the time indicator is set to the start of the timeline, I'll press Spacebar to activate preview. Here I have a video of a little Be I took in Hyde Park in London, collecting some pollen. And right now, this is playing at its original speed. And right now, we can see that this clip is spanning 25 seconds on the timeline. Now, what if I want to speed this video footage up or slow it down? Well, here is how you can do this. So I'll press Spacebar to stop the preview, and I'll first click on the layer to select it. Then I'll right click and come up to time, then scroll over and select time stretch. Upon click, we will activate this little option window. So here we can see the original duration, and under this, there is a stretch factor which is currently set to 100%. Okay, so let's try and speed this up first. In the stretch factor, I'm going to type in 50. So by doing that, I'm going to speed up the video clip by half, so it's going to play at twice the speed. With 50 entered, I'll click Okay. Now upon click, notice the bar for the video clip has now changed. It no longer spans the entire length of the composition. This is because we just changed the time of this clip. Okay, so I'm going to drag the time indicator towards the end of the bar holding shift. When the time indicator snaps to the end of the bar, I'll press N on the keyboard to snap the work area to the end of the clip like so. I'll make sure the time indicator is at the start of the timeline and I'll press space bar to activate preview. And now we can see the video is playing faster. Okay, let's try even more. I'll press space bar to stop the preview. Again, I'll click on the layer to select it. Right click come up to time, then scroll over and select Time stretch. Again, we will activate this little option, and this time in the time stretch factor, I'll type in 25 and click Okay. Notice the bar from the video clip has changed again and is now smaller than before. So again, I'm going to drag the time indicator towards the end of the bar while holding Shift. When the time indicator snaps to the end of the bar, I will press N on the keyboard to snap the work area to the end of the clip. I'll make sure the time indicator is set to the start of the timeline, and I'll press space bar to activate preview. And now we can see the video plays really fast. That is a busy B. Okay, so this time, let's try slowing it down. I'll press space bar to stop the preview. Again, I'll click on the layer to select it, right click and come up to time, then scroll over to select T stretch. We will activate the little option here. This time in the time stretch factor, I'll type in 200. This will now double the original time and I'll click Okay. Notice the bar for the video clip has now stretched over the entire composition and now exceeds the timeline span. What I can do this time is come up to composition down to composition settings and in duration, I can change this from 25 seconds to 50 and click Okay. So now I want to span the work area to the entire composition. A neat trick here is to come up and simply double click on the workspace area. By double clicking on this, it will quickly snap to the entire duration of the comp. I'll make sure the time indicator is at the start of the timeline, and I'll press space bar to activate preview. And now we can see the video has slowed down. So by using timestretch, you can speed up or slow down your video easily in after effects. Now, what if we want to apply this effect to a series of clips at once instead of just one clip? Well, in a previous video, we learned how to edit multiple video clips in after effects in a single composition. Now, at this point, it would be helpful for you to learn about precomposing in after effects. Precomposing basically allows you to take multiple layers in compositions and place them into a single composition to allow you to control that one composition separately. Pre composing in after effects can make your workflow much easier and improve your organization, and it allows you to work much more effectively. In the next video, we are going to look at pre composing in after effects, see you in the next video. 13. Precomposing: Hello, and welcome to the 12th episode in this beginner's guide to Adobe After effect. In this tutorial, I'm going to be discussing pre composing in after effects. So in a previous video, we learned how to edit multiple video clips in after effects in a single composition. Now, at this point, it would be helpful for you to learn about pre composing in after effects. Pre composing basically allows you to take multiple layers in a composition and place them into a single composition to allow you to control that one composition separately. Pre composing in after effects can make your workflow much easier and improve your organization. For those of you that are familiar with Photoshop, it may help to think of pre composing like grouping or using smart objects. In after effects, this allows you to work much more effectively. So in this video, we are going to be covering the following topics. What is pre composing and precomposing layers in after effect. After this video, you will understand how to pre compose and manage your layers more effectively. So let's get into it. So here I am in Adobe After effects and I have a project open here that I'm going to use to demonstrate how precomposing works. Now, if you have the project folder, you can open up the document I have here. With the project folder open, click into the S two essential Practice folder into folder 12 pre comps and open the pre comps after effects file, and you will have the same document I have opened here. Okay, so looking here in the timeline panel, we can see we have three layers. Now, if we look at the icon for each layer by the name over on the left, we can see a composition icon. This means that these layers are composition layers. I I make sure the time indicator is at the start of the timeline and press Spacebar to activate preview, what we have here is a small graphic intro sequence, then some video footage of Hyde Park, London, and some video taken at the aquarium. I'll press Spacebar to stop the preview if we come to the first layer, the bottom layer called intro, let's double click this. Upon click, we will open the comp up in a separate tab and we will also see a new tab on the timeline panel. Here we can see it contains all the individual layers that make up this comp. Now, if we come back to the main comp by clicking on the main comp tab, this time, I'm going to double click on the Hyde Park Edit layer. Upon click, we will open up another tab and we can see it contains the individual video layers that make up this video edit comp. Upon click, we will again see a new tab on the timeline panel. Now, if we come back to the main comp by clicking on the tab, this time, I'm going to double click on the aquarium edit layer. Again, we can see it contains all the individual video layers that make up this comp. Upon click, we will also see a new tab on the timeline panel. So I'll come back to the main comp by clicking on the tab. So here we have a single composition which only includes three layers, but each layer contains a complex set of layers carefully edited. These layers have been precomposed. So why would we do something like this? Well, this allows us the flexibility to compartmentalize the media on our timeline and manage them individually, instead of having to manage lots and lots of layers at a time. So let's have a go at this and see this in action. So with the project folder open, click into the S two essential Practice folder into folder 12 pre comps and open the pre comps worksheet after effects file. And you will have the same document I have open here. So here we have the same document we just saw but without the precomposed layers. I'll place my mouse cursor carefully between the timeline panel and the composition panel. When the mouse cursor changes to arrows up and down, I'll click and drag up a little. This will allow me to expand the timeline panel so we can see the layers a little bit more clearly. Unlike the previous file, which has three layers, here we can see all the layers in one composition. Now you will find that as you add lots of media to your project, it will soon build up like this, and it can get overwhelming pretty quickly. So one method to make this easier to manage is to pre compose your layers. So if I scrub my time indicator across the timeline, we can see we have the various parts. What I want to do now is precompose these layers into various sections. So I'll begin with the first part. So the first four layers here in the timeline panel are making up a simple intro to the video sequence. So I'll start by precomposing these. So to precompose layers, first select the top layer you want. So here I'll click on the top yellow layer. I'll hold Shift and select the bottom layer. By holding Shift, this will select them all. Then I'll right click on any of the layers. I'll come across and click pre compose. Upon click, you will see a menu box open. So first, I'll name this to intro at the top. Then I'll make sure I move all attributes into the new composition checked. I'll make sure adjust composition duration to the time span of the selected layer is checked. This will mean that the new comp will only be as long as the content selected. On this occasion, I will also make sure open a new comp is checked, and I'll click Okay. Upon click, we will now open a new composition and the layers I initially selected will be inside. Also notice that in the project panel, a new composition will appear. Notice that this will be revealed as a new tab in the timeline panel. Next, I will click back onto the main comp tab. Now we can see that those layers have been reduced into one composition layer in the main comp. If I want to change the color of this layer to match the yellow, I can simply click on the color box next to the layer name and select yellow. Easy. Now, if I want to edit this, I can simply double click on the comp layer and it will open up the new tab. So back into the main comp, I'll do the same again but this time for my Hyde Park layers. So here, I'll click on the top green layer, I'll hold Shift and select the bottom layer, and this will select them all. Then I'll right click on any of the layers. I'll come across and click precompose. Upon click, you will see a menu box open. First, I'll name this to Hide Park Edit at the top. I'll make sure I move all attributes into the new composition, check and adjust composition duration to the timespan of the selected layer checked. On this occasion, I'll also make sure that opening new comp is checked, and I'll click Okay. Upon click, we will now open a new composition and the layers I initially selected will be inside. Notice that this will be revealed as a new tab in the timeline panel, and in the project panel, a new composition will appear. I'll click back onto the main comp tab, and now we can see that those layers have been reduced into one composition layer in the main comp. If I want to change the color of this layer to match the green, I can simply click on the color box next to the layer name and select green. If I want to edit this, I can simply double click on the comp layer and it will open up in a new tab. So back into the main comp, I'll do the same again, but this time for my aquarium layers. So here, I'll click on the top red layer. I'll hold Shift and select the bottom layer. With them all selected, I'll right click on any of the layers, and I'll come and click on precompose. Upon click, the menu box will open. So first, I'll name this to aquarium edit at the top. I'll make sure I move all attributes into new composition checked and adjust composition duration to the timespan of the selected layer checked. On this occasion, I will also make sure that open in New comp is checked, and I'll click Okay. Upon click, we will again open a new composition, and the layers I initially selected will be inside. Notice that in the project panel, a new composition will appear. Also notice that this will be revealed in a new tab in the timeline panel. So next, I will click back onto the main Comp tab, and now we can see that those layers have been reduced into one composition layer in the main comp. If I want to change the color of this layer to match the red, I can simply click on the color box next to the layername and select red. And now we have a neat and tidy main comp layer of just three layers, which I have the option to move, reorder, and control individually. So one of the most useful reasons to precompose layers is to apply effects to the comps as a whole without having to tweak each individual video clip. For example, if I double click into the aquarium clip, right now, this clip is about 30 seconds long. So back into the main comp, what if I wanted to alter the speed of this clip? Well, in the previous video, we learned how to alter speed of a video by using timestretch. So I'll right click on the comp. Come up to time, then click TStretch. With the menu up, I'll type in 50% and click Okay. So just like that, I can alter the time of the entire aquarium edit without touching any of the individual layers. So I'll make sure my time indicator is at the start of the timeline panel, and I'll press space bar to preview. So now we have the intro as normal, the Hyde Park video as normal, but now we can see the aquarium clip plays faster at twice the speed. Now, if I double click into the aquarium precomp, the time of the original video files are unaffected. So pre comps can be used not just to organize your layers, but to apply effects to a group of layers without altering the original edit or sequence. We just saw one example there where we can alter the time, but there are lots more effects that can be added to comp layers like this. Precomposing gives us lots of flexibility in after effects when working on the timeline, especially when working with complex sequences. So that's how you can precompose in after effects. So, up until this point on the course, we have covered some of the fundamentals in after effects. This is all in aid to give you some good grounding knowledge of how things work, so you will feel comfortable with the software and feel less intimidated by it. So now we have lots of fundamentals covered. It's time to start to look at how we can create in after effects. So over the next few videos, we're going to look at how we can start to build and include media into our video sequences. And first, we are going to look at how we can use assets and media brought in from other design programs like Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. So in the next video, I'll be discussing how to import media from other programs and manage them in after effects. So see you in the next video. 14. Importing Files: Hello, and welcome to the 13th video in this beginner's guide to Adobe After effects. In this tutorial, I will be discussing how to import media files and manage them in Adobe After effects. So up until this point, in the course, we have covered some of the fundamentals in after effects. This is all in aid to give you some good grounding knowledge of how things work, so you feel comfortable with the software and feel less intimidated by it. So now we have lots of fundamentals covered. It's now time to look at how we can use assets and media brought in from other design programs to create an after effects. Now, after effects is a really dynamic program that does not just work by itself. As a designer, you will no doubt be creating files in all sorts of programs. You may create initial artwork and compositions in Photoshop. You may create logos and illustrations in Adobe Illustrator, and you may even create three D models in three D programs. After effect allows you to bring in all these files so you can incorporate them into your video and animation sequences. In this video, I'll be discussing how to import media from other programs and manage them in after effects. So in this video, we'll be covering the following topics, importing media files into after effects and managing media files in after effects. So after this video, you will get a better understanding of managing files and after effects and how this all works, so you will feel much more comfortable moving forward. So let's get into it. So here I am in after effects, and I have a project open here I have prepared earlier, demonstrating a document with lots of different kinds of media content. Now, I'm going to use this document to show how media files could be managed and imported into after effects. With the project folder open, click into the S two essential Practice folder into folder 13, importing files, and open the importing files after effects file, and you'll have the same document I have open here. Now, if you want to follow along with this video, you can open this document I have prepared, especially for you. This can be found in the Essential Practice folder in the project folder. So first, I want to draw your attention to the project panel over on the left. As covered in a previous episode, all media brought into after effects is stored in this panel, and it helps to think of this panel like a links basket. So in this instance, I have organized everything contained in this project into two neat folders, assets and comps. So first, I'm going to toggle down the assets folder. Upon click, you will see here I have managed this assets folder into audio, images and video. Here I have categorized the potential media I may bring into my project. So next, I'll toggle down images. Here I have categorized all the potential image media I may bring into my project. Here I have a folder for JPEGs, PNGs, photoshop artwork, solids and vectors. So I'll toggle down JPEG and I'll toggle down the aquarium folder, and in here we can see the JPEG files I have in this project. Next I'll toggle down the PNG folder, then the fish folder, and in here we can see the PNG files I have. Next, I'll toggle down the PS folder, which stands for Photoshop. Then in here, I'll toggle down the British flag folder, and in here we can see a lot of Photoshop files. Next, I'll toggle down the solids folder, and in here we can see I have a white solid. Next, I'll toggle down the vectors folder, and in here we can see I have a few Illustrator files. Next, I'll toggle down the video folder, and here we can see to MP four video files. I'll toggle all my image folders back up like so, and next, I'll toggle down the comps folder. In here, we can see I have all my main comps inside. So here you can see how I have managed the media in my after effects document. Now, this is not done automatically. I had to create this folder structure myself in after effects. I find that putting everything in its own folder like this in the project panel keeps everything organized and in place where I know I can access it fast. So with that overview of the project panel, let's see how all this media works in my document. So now I want to draw your attention to the composition panel in the center of the screen and the timeline panel below. So this is a composition with what appears to be an aquarium photo scene. Now, if we carefully look in the timeline panel, we can see quite a few layers here making up this image above. Each layer has an image icon next to it suggesting these are image layers. So from the top to bottom, we have six PNG layers and a JPEG at the bottom. If we start to select the fish layers in the timeline, we will see them selected in the composition panel above with the bounding box around. Now, if we press V to activate the selection tool and start to click and drag the fish around, we can see that they are not actually part of the image. These are individual image layers with transparent backgrounds. So if we toggle the visibility of the fish layers off in the timeline panel and the coral layer, we can see that this composition has an image layer at the bottom. So now I'll toggle back the visibility of all the layers above. How was this composition created in after effects? Well, all the elements you see in this composition here were not created in after effects. These cutout fish would have been prepared in a program like Photoshop and brought in. Let's take a look. In after effects, if I come down into the timeline panel, select one of the fish layers and put my mouse cursor over the fish layer, I'll right click, I can select an option called reveal. If I scroll across and select Reveal in Finder, for PC, I believe this is Reveal In Explorer. Upon click, we will see a folder appear showing which file the artwork is from and where it is located on the computer. Now, if you have already downloaded the project folder and are following along with the after effects document included, you will be taken to the Images folder in the project folder like so. So now we can see on the computer where this image file is located, and we can also see all the other fish cutouts. So let's take a look at this file. So I'll open this fish one dot png file in Photoshop. Now to follow along with this video, it would help if you already have Photoshop installed on your computer. I'll be jumping into Photoshop during the course of this video to explain a few things. Though, if you don't have Photoshop installed, don't worry too much, you can still follow along and watch. So here we are in Photoshop, and this is the fish artwork file I prepared earlier. Now, if you look over in the Layers panel, you can see that this is just one layer that has been cut out and we can see the transparent area around it. So a pretty simple document. Now, if I quickly come back to my folder and select all the other fish layers and open them in Photoshop, we can see that these are all the same, simple cutouts. Now, I'll jump back into after effects and I'll do the same with the aquarium image at the bottom. If I click on this layer and Reveal in Finder, upon click, a folder will open showing me with the images on my computer. Now, in this instance, there are a few other images in this folder. I'll open this aquarium pito dot JPEG in Photoshop, and we can see it's a nice simple image file. Easy. Sabakan after effects, this is an example of how an image and some PNG images can work in a composition. So these fish cutouts were first created in Photoshop and brought into after effects. When these media files are brought into after effects, they can be placed very easily as layers into a composition like this and animated. Now, I'll be showing you later how this can be done. But before that, I want to show you the next composition example. So now I want to draw your attention to the second composition in my comps folder called Big Ben. I'll just double click on this to open it. So next, we have a completely different example here. Instead of a photographic style image, we have a flat illustration. Now, if we carefully look in the timeline panel, we can see quite a few layers here making up this image above. So this time, in the layers panel, each layer has an Adobe Illustrator icon next to them, and looking at the layer names, we can also see they have a dot I at the end. This is suggesting these are Adobe Illustrator files. So from top to bottom, we have six illustrator layers with a white solid layer at the bottom. If we start to select the illustrator layers in the timeline, we will see them selected in the composition panel above with the bounding box around them. Now, if we press V to activate the selection tool and start to click and drag the layers around, we can see that there is a layer for each illustration element in this composition. So if we toggle the visibility of all the illustrator layers off in the timeline panel, we can see that this composition has a white solid layer at the bottom. So I'll toggle back the visibility of the illustrator layers above and press Command Z to undo all the movements to put them back in their original place. So how was this composition created in after effects? So all the elements you see in this composition here were not created in after effects. These illustrations would have been prepared in Adobe Illustrator and brought in. So let's take a look. So I'll come down into the timeline panel, select the Big Ben layer, and put my mouse cursor over and right click and select Reveal. I'll scroll across and select Reveal in Finder. For PC, I believe it's Reveal in Explorer, and upon click, we will see a folder appear. Showing which file the artwork is from and where it is located on the computer. Here we can also see other Illustrator files. Let's take a look at this. I'll open this Big Ben file in Illustrator. Now, again, it would help if you already have Illustrator installed on your computer. I'll be jumping into Illustrator during the course of this video to explain a few things. Though if you don't have Illustrator installed, don't worry too much, you can still follow along and watch. So here we are in Illustrator, and this is the Big Ben artwork I prepared earlier. This is a piece of vector artwork I carefully created as an asset for this course. If we click on it, you can see the various parts that make up this illustration. So a pretty simple document, and I'll just jump back into after effects. This is an example of how vector files can work in a composition. These illustrations were first created in Illustrator and brought into after effects. When these media files are brought into after effects, they can be placed very easily as layers into a composition like this and animated. Again, I'll be showing you later how this can be done. But before that, I want to show you the next composition example. Now I want to draw your attention to the third composition in my comps folder called squirrel, and I'll just double click on this to open it. Next, we have a completely different example here. I'll make sure to put the time indicator at the start of the timeline, and I'll press Spacebar to activate preview. This time, we have a simple video file, and I'll press Spacebar again to stop now, if we carefully look in the timeline panel, we can see this time we have one layer. Looking at the layer, we can also see it has a video icon next to it, and it has a.p4 at the end of the name. This is suggesting that this is a video file. So how was this composition created in after effects? Well, unlike the other compositions we just saw, this would have been very easy to create. Being a simple video file, we can just drag it into a composition. So let's take a look. So I'll come into the timeline panel, select the squirrel layer, and put my mouse cursor over and right click and select Reveal. I'll scroll across and select Reveal in Finder, Explorer for PC, and upon click, we will see a folder appear showing which file the video is from and where it is located on the computer. Here we can also see a bunch of other video files. So a pretty simple video document. And I'll just jump back into after effects. So this is an example of how a video can work in a composition. This video would have been shot and possibly edited and exported in a video editing software and brought into after effects. When video files are brought into after effects, they can be placed very easily as layers into a composition like this and edited. So now I want to draw your attention to the fourth composition in my comps folder called British flag. And I'll just double click on this to open it. So this is a composition with artwork depicting a British flag. Now, if we carefully look at the timeline panel, we can see quite a few layers here making up this image above. This time, each layer has an Adobe Photoshop icon next to them. This is suggesting these are Adobe Photoshop files. We start to select the Photoshop layers in the timeline, we can see them selected in the composition panel above with the bounding box around them. Now, if we press V to activate the selection tool, we can click and move them around like so. How is this composition created in after effects? This British flag composition here was not created in after effects. This composition was created entirely in Photoshop and brought in. Let's take a look. I'll come down into the timeline panel, select the London layer, and put my mouse cursor over and right click and select Reveal. If I scroll across and select Reveal in Finder, Explorer for PC, upon click, we will see a folder appear showing which file the artwork is from. So on my computer, we can see that the entire composition is from this one Photoshop file here. So let's take a look at this. So I'll double click this to open in Adobe Photoshop. So here we are in Photoshop, and this is an artwork file I prepared earlier. Now, if you look over in the Layers panel, you can see that this document consists of many layers. And if I toggle the visibility of some of these layers here, you can see that all of the various elements have been created individually, and we even have the type layer at the top. So this document was first created in Photoshop and brought into after effects in such a way that it has allowed me to work with and potentially animate every layer individually. So that is an overview of how various media types can work in after effects. Now I'm going to show you how you can import and manage all the media like this in after effects and place them into compositions. So the first thing we should do here is create a new after effects document. So I'll come up to file new and hit New Project. If it asks me to save changes, on this occasion, I'll select Don't Save. Okay, so we are starting from scratcher. So the first thing I'm going to do is create two new folders in my project panel. So I'll hit the new folder icon at the bottom of the project panel and name this Assets. I'll click off the folder to deselect it, and then I'll hit the new folder button again and this time, call it Comps. With my two folders ready, let's start by creating a composition. So I'll come up to composition, hit new composition, and with the settings open, I'll first name it to Comp one aquarium. Then I'll hit the preset drop down and select HD TV, 1080, 25. Make sure the dimensions are set to 1920 by 1080. I'll set the duration to 15 seconds and click Okay. Now, a new comp will appear in the project panel, and I'm quickly going to drag this into the comps folder, and I'll toggle down my comps folder so I can see it inside. So with my new composition, let's bring in some media. So a real easy way to do this is to drag in from a browser window. So I'll make sure I can see a browser window on top of after effects, and I'll make sure I have the project folder ready. So I'll start by clicking into the project assets folder into images, into the JPEG folder, into the location folder, then into the aquarium folder, and I'll click on the aquarium picko dot JPEG and drag it into after effects into the project panel. Upon release, the image will appear in my project panel. With the new image, I'll drag that into my timeline panel and the image will appear in my composition. But right now it's too big. So with the layer selected, I'll press S on the keyboard, and this will pull up the scale properties under the layer. Here I'll drag the settings down like so so it fits the frame nicely, and back in my project folder, I'll come back and click into the PNG folder. I'll click into the fish folder, then I'll click and drag to select all the PNG files and then drag them straight into the project panel in after effects. Upon click, they will all appear nice and easy. Okay, so now we have some image files in the project panel. Next, I'll click on the new folder icon at the bottom of the project panel and name this images. Click and Drag this into the assets folder and click off to Deselect. Next, I'll click on the new folder icon at the bottom of the project panel and name this JPEG. Click and Drag this into the image folder and click off to Deselect. Then I'll click on the new folder icon again and name this PNG. Click and Drag this into the image folder and click off to DSelect. So I'll toggle down the image folder so I can see my new folders inside, and I'll click the PNG files and drag them into the PNG folder and then drag the JPEG file into the JPEG folder. So now I can start dragging in my fish cutouts into the composition. I'll click on Fish one and drag it in like so. If it's too big, I'll click on the bounding box handle and click and drag in while holding Shift to maintain the scale. I'll click on Fish two and drag it in like so. Again, if it's too big, I'll click on a handle on the bounding box and drag in while holding Shift to maintain the scale. I'll drag in a few other fish and resize until I have a nice composition like so. Next, I'll click on the Coral image and drag it in. Dragging it in, it will appear on top of my other layers. Now I'll be sure to click and drag the layer down in the timeline panel like so. That's how we can bring in JPEGs and PNG files. Let's look at how we can bring in some vector files. Let's start by creating a new composition. So I'll come up to composition, hit new composition, and with the settings open, I'll first name the comp two hyphen Big Ben. Then I'll hit the preset drop down and select HDTV 108025. I'll make sure the dimensions are set to 1920 by 1080. I'll set the duration to 15 seconds and click Okay. Now, a new comp will appear in the project panel and I'm quickly going to drag this into the comps folder. So with my new composition, let's bring in some media. So I'll make sure I can see the browser window on top of After effects again, and back into my project folder, I'll come back to images. This time into the AI folder, then into the Buildings folder, and I'll click on the bigbnt AI and drag it into After effects into the Project panel. I'll come back to the folder and this time click and drag the buildings left file in as well. Back in the project folder, I'll come back to the AI folder, then into the Objects folder, then into the clouds folder, and I'll drag in clouds one, three, and five. So now we have a new kind of image. So I'll hit the new folder icon at the bottom of the project panel. I'll name this vectors and drag it into the images folder. And next, I'll drag the new Illustrator files into this new vector folder. So right now, my composition background is black. So in the timeline panel over on the left, I'll right click select New at the top and hit solid. I'll make sure the solid is white and the same size as the composition, 1920 by 1080 and click Okay. Upon click, we will see a new white solid layer in the timeline panel, and also a new solids folder will appear in the project panel. I'll quickly drag the solids folder into the images folder as well. So next, I'll click and drag the Big Ben vector into the composition like so. Upon release, we will also see the layer present in the timeline panel. But right now it looks too small. I'll click on a handle on the bounding box and click and drag out while holding Shift to maintain the proportions. Easy. So next, I'll drag in the building horizon left vector and again resize it and position. This time, I'll press T on the keyboard to reveal the opacity options for the layer. I'll drag this down to 20% and I'll come and click the layer and drag it under Big Ben. Next, with the layer selected, I'll press Command D on Mac or Control D on PC to duplicate the layer and move it across like so. Easy. Next, I'll drag in clouds one, three, and five. If I select the top cloud layer, I'll press and hold Shift. I can select the bottom Cloud layer and with them all selected, I can move them down together under the big Ben layer like so. And if I press T on the keyboard, I can activate the opacity options for each layer at the same time. Then I'll click and drag on one of the properties down to 30%, and that will apply it to them all. Next, I'll press Command A on Mac or Control A on PC to select all the layers, then press U to collapse the layer properties so I can see just the layer bars in the timeline panel. Next, I'll scale up each cloud using the same technique as earlier. I'll select the layer to see the handles. I'll click on a handle and drag out while holding Shift to maintain the proportions and reposition like so. Now, I'll just toggle up all the image folders in the project panel as I don't need to see them right now. So that's how we can bring in vector files. Let's look at how we can bring in some video files. Let's start by creating a new composition. I'll come up to composition, hit new composition, with the setting open at the top, I'll first name the comp three hyphen squirrel. Then I'll hit the preset drop down and select HDTV 108025. I'll make sure the dimensions are set to 1920 by 1080. The duration is set to 15 seconds and click Okay. A new comp will appear in the project panel, and I'm quickly going to drag this into the comps folder. So with my new composition, let's bring in some video. So I'll make sure I can see a browser window on top of aftereffects and back in my project folder, I'll come back into the project Assets folder. This time into the video folder, then into the Hyde Park folder, then into the wildlife folder, and I'll click on the squirrel.p4 and drag it into Aftereffects into the project panel. So now we have a new kind of file. So I'll hit the new folder icon at the bottom of the project panel. I'll name this video and drag it into the Assets folder, and now drag the new video file into the video folder. Easy. So right now, my composition background is black, but that doesn't matter because now I'm going to drag my video into the timeline, like so to fill the frame. Upon release, we will also see the layer present in the timeline panel. So importing and placing video is really easy. Let's now look at the last example how we can bring in a Photoshop composition. So this is now slightly different than before. Earlier, we created a new composition ready to place in our media. So this time, I'm going to come into the project panel and double click into the empty space below the folders. Upon click, this will bring up a search window asking what we want to place into after effects. So I'll navigate to the project folder, into the project assets folder, into the images folder, into the PS folder, and I'll click on the British flag dot psd and click Okay. Now upon click, you will see a menu box open this is asking how you would like to import the file. Now, because after effects recognizes this file as a photoshop file with lots of layers inside, here you will have some options to select. Now, we want this file to be placed into After effects with the option to access each layer. So we will need to click on the drop down for Import kind, select composition hyphen retain layer sizes. For this layer option, make sure you have editable layer selected and click Okay. Now, upon click, you will see a new composition appear in the project panel. First, I'm quickly going to drag this into the comps folder. With it selected, I'll press Enter on the keyboard to rename the comp, and in this instance, I'll just put a four dash before the name. Now I'll double click on the new comp to open it. So here we are, and we can see after effects has generated our composition. If we look on each layer, we can see we have each segment as an individual layer. Perfect. What you may also notice is that as well as the individual colored shapes that make up this flag, we also have a type layer at the top. Right now, this is just a static type layer like the rest. Now, this layer was created in the Photoshop artwork created outside after effects. But what if we wanted to edit this type, change the size or the typeface, perhaps. Well, Aftereffects recognizes this is a type layer. With the type layer selected, if we right click and select Create, then scroll across and click Converter editable type. Upon click, we will see the type layer change from the Photoshop icon to a type icon. Now we can double click on this type layer and edit. Easy. This is one example of how flexible after effects can be with imported files. Now, if we look over in the Project panel, we will now see a new folder called British flag Layers. If we toggle this down, we can see we have some Photoshop layers. So now we have a new file. So I'll click off the folder to deselect and I'll hit the new folder icon at the bottom of the project panel. I'll name this Ps artwork and drag it into the images folder. Now I'll click the British flag layers folder and drag it into the PS artwork folder. Easy. So that is how to import artwork assets prepared in other programs in after effects. Now, there is one more thing you should really know about. As well as importing files from Illustrator and Photoshop, you can actually import other after effect projects you have worked on into your document. Now, let's say you have spent a lot of time working on one particular after effect project, and then you realize you want to get some work you have done in another document. In after effects, it's not particularly easy to copy content from one after effects document into another. So what we can do is simply import an after effect document into another to access all the work. So let's see how this works. I'll come over to the project panel and double click into the gray space. Upon click, we will get the browser asking us to navigate to the file we want to import. So I'll navigate to the project folder, click into the S two ascent your practice folder into folder 13, importing files. And here we have another after effects document called Under the Sea. This is a document I have prepared earlier that has the same structure and similar contents to what we have just created here. So I'll click on that and click Open. Upon click, we will now see a under the sea folder in the project panel. And if we toggle this folder down, inside, we will see the same folders as we have just created in this file. In the ASCs folder, we will have images and videos, and in the comps folder, we will have comps created in a previous file, which we can now open and integrate into this project. So keep in mind, if you ever have multiple after effect files and want to bring them into one, you can easily import aftereffect files into other after effects files like this. So that is a brief introduction on how to import various media into after effects, how to manage, organize, and place them into your compositions. Now, we are going to be doing more and more of this as we move on and progress in this course. So it's important to emphasize to you as a beginner in after effects how important it is to organize your media well in your project panel with folders. So now, we have covered how to create using media brought into after effects. Let's look at a way we can be creative in after effects. As you create your video sequences, you will also find yourself using shape elements created in after effects. Now, there are lots of reasons you would build shapes in after effects. Shapes can be used to add visual elements to your composition. They can give us a basis to build our artwork and they can be used to create masks, which we will be learning about later in the course. In the next video, we are going to look at how we can create and use shapes in after effects. So see you in the next video. 15. Creating Shapes: Hello, and welcome to the 14th video in this beginner's guide to Adobe After effect. In this tutorial, we will be looking at the types of shapes you can use in after effect and how to create them. In a previous episode, we looked at how to bring media elements into our after effects documents to start building compositions. Next, it's time to start to look at how we can create inside after effects. In this video, we are going to begin by looking at how we can create shapes in after effects. Now, there are lots of reasons why you would want to build shapes in after effects. Shapes can be used to add visual elements to your composition. They can give us a basis to build our artwork and they can be used to create masks, which we will be learning about later in the course. So in this video, we're going to be covering the following topics, types of shapes that can be created in after effect, creating shapes from the Shape Builder tool, editing simple shapes from the Shape Builder tool, creating shapes from type, and creating shapes from vectors. So let's get into it. So as a beginner, it will help you to understand the types of shapes that can be created in after effect. As you start to develop your own video sequences, you will find that you will use shapes for a number of creative tasks. Often, your video sequences can all start from a simple shape. So here are some shape examples you can create in after effects. Now, if we look down in the timeline panel, we can see that each shape exists on its own layer, and we know they are shapes because they have the star icon next to their names. In after effects, a shape layer is identified by the star icon. Now, the four easiest types of shapes you can create in after effects are simple shapes using the Shape Builder tool, editable shapes, shapes from type, and shapes from vectors. Let's take a quick look at these. Now, if you have downloaded the project folder, you can open up the document I have here. The project folder open, click into the S two essential Practice folder into folder 14, creating shapes and open the shapes after effects file, and you will have the same document I have opened here. This is a document I have prepared for you to quickly experiment with shapes. I want to draw your attention over to the project panel. Here you can see I have a folder called Shapes preview and one called Shapes Practice. For now, I need you to pay attention to the Shapes preview folder. In this folder, we can see we have four compositions. Now, each of these is going to preview one of the ways we can create shapes. So let's start with the first comp, simple shapes. So double click on this first Compie and it will appear in the composition panel. So here are some simple shapes that can be created with a click of a button using the Shape Builder tool. So back in the project panel, next, double click on the editable shapes comp. In after effects, you can edit simple shapes like the ones we just observed to create more complex shapes like this. These are shapes that have also been created using the Shape Builder tool. However, these were created by editing some of the settings applied to the basic shapes. And here we can see we can get some very dynamic and interesting shapes. So next, back in the project panel, double click on three shapes from type. Now in after effects, you can also create shapes from type. It's easy to convert type into shapes which can prove very handy. Back in the project panel, lastly, double click on shapes from vectors. Now, in after effects, you can go a step further. It is also possible to import shapes created in Adobe Illustrator. So if you wanted to create a really complex shape or a piece of artwork in after effect, you could compose it in Illustrator first and open in Aftereffects. This is an amazing feature in after effects and it allows you to get really creative with the elements you can use in your project. So those are the four easiest shapes you can create in after effects. Let's now take a look at how we can create shapes like the examples we have just seen. So now I want to draw your attention back to the project panel and this time into the folder below called Shapes Practice. These are some worksheets I have put together to help you. So let's begin by double clicking on the first comp, simple shapes worksheet. So here we are going to start by creating some shapes using the Shape Builder tool. Now, before I begin, I think it's important to mention that the Shape Builder tool works very much like the Shape Builder tool in Photoshop and Illustrator. So if you're familiar with how the Shape Builder tool works in Photoshop and Illustrator, this will help you here. So let's start by drawing a circle. So if we come up to our tools menu at the top, we can see the shape tools, about seven icons across. I'll click and hold on this, and we can see an array of shapes on offer. So to begin, I'll click the Ellipse tool. Upon activating the Ellipse tool, the mouse cursor will change to a cross hair. So before we start to draw our shapes, first come up to the top of our interface where we can see fill and stroke. First, we'll click into the fill color square and select a black color. Then make sure the stroke is set to zero, and I can do this by clicking and dragging down to zero like so. So with the fill color set to black and the stroke set to zero, we can now click and drag on the composition panel to create a circle. Now, as I drag, we can choose how the ellipse is going to be placed. However, if we want a perfect circle, as we drag, we should hold down Shift on the keyboard. This will ensure we draw a perfect circle like so. Upon release, we will have created the shape, and we will now see a new shape layer appear in the timeline panel below. Okay, something important to mention at this point. If we click on our new shape, we will notice this little crosshair in the center of this composition. Now, this is called the anchor point, and this is really important. When we start to do things with shapes later, such as animating and changing position and scale, this anchor point is the bearing that everything is set to or from. If the anchor point is not set in the center of the shape, it's going to cause some problems. Ideally, we need this anchor point to be bang in the center of the shape, but right now it's nowhere near the shape. By default, the anchor point is not set in the center of your shape. You will need to do this manually. To do this is easy. Simply come up to after effects on Mac or edit on PC and come to preferences and click on General. Upon click, a series of options will appear. What we need is to make sure that center anchor points in new shape layer is checked. I'll click this to make sure it's checked and click Okay. So what I'll do now is select my circle shape and press backspace on the keyboard to delete it. Next, I'll come back to my shape tool, click and hold, and again, select the ellipse, and click and drag on my composition while holding Shift to get a perfect circle. Upon release, we will have a new circle shape, and notice this time, the anchor point is now set bang in the center of the shape. Perfect. So that's how to create a circle shape using the Shape Builder tool. So let's have a go at another one. This time, let's create a square. Now, it's really important to mention at this point that before we begin to draw any new shape, we first need to make sure we have the previous shape deselected in the timeline panel. If we don't deselect the layer first, when we draw a shape, it will add it to the same shape layer we just created. Now, in some instances, you may want to do this. But for now, we want to create individual layers. I'll click off my circle shape layer in the timeline panel to make sure it's deselected. I'll come back up to the tools menu, click on the Shape Builder tool, select the square shape and click and drag on my composition while holding Shift to draw a perfect square like so. Upon release, I have created the shape. Next, I'll create a rounded rectangle shape. I'll click off my square layer in the layers panel to make sure it's deselected. I'll come back up to the tools menu, click on the Shape Builder tool, select the rounded rectangle shape, and click and drag on my composition. Now, as I drag out my rounded rectangle, I can press up or down on the keyboard. By doing this, we'll adjust the roundness of the corners. I'll press up or down to match the round corners of the worksheet and release. Upon release, I have created the new shape. So next, I'll create a hexagon shape. I'll click off my rounded rectangle shape layer in the timeline panel to make sure it's deselected, and I'll come back up to the tools menu, click on the Shape Builder tool, select the polygon shape, and click and drag on my composition while holding Shift to draw a perfect hexagon, like so. Upon release, I have created the shape. So next, I'll create a star shape. I'll click off my hexagon shape layer in the timeline panel to make sure it's deselected. I'll come back up to the tools menu, click on the shape, builder tool, select the star shape and click and drag on my composition while holding Shift to draw a perfect star. Upon release, I have created the shape. So just like that, we have created five basic shapes in after effects with the anchor point set in the middle. Back in the project panel, next, double click on the next comp, editable shapes worksheet. This time, we are going to create more complex shapes. To create these, we are going to use the Shape Builder tool again, but this time we need to modify some of the settings. Let's start by drawing this triangle shape. I'll come back up to the tools menu, click on the Shape Builder tool and select the polygon shape. Now, as I click on drag in the composition, we will see I am creating a hexagon shape. Now, with a polygon shape active, if I press up or down on the keyboard, I can toggle the amount of points the hexagon has. I can press up to increase and press down to decrease the amount. So on this occasion, I'm going to press down on the keyboard until I see a triangle. Now, if I press and hold shift, this will straighten up my triangle like so. Upon release, I have created the triangle shape, and I'll press V to activate the selection tool and click and drag the triangle into place. The next thing I want to do is add the round corners. Well, to do this, we need to come down and open the shape layer properties. So I'll toggle down the little triangle next to the layer name and drop down the contents option. Now, when you reveal the contents, you should see a little add button to the right of this. So what we can do is click this button, and we will have a list of options to choose from. From this list, I'm going to choose round corners. Upon click, you will see a new round corners option appear in the contents of the shape. Next, we can toggle this down and tweak the radius of the round corners. On this occasion, I'll push this up to 40 and there we have a triangle shape with round corners. Next, I want to create this badge shape. First, I'll click on the triangle toggle to close the settings on the layer and I'll click off the layer in my timeline panel to deselect it. Then I'll come back up to the tools menu, click on the Shape Builder tool, and this time select the star shape. Now, as I click and drag in the composition, we will see the star shape. Now, just like on the polygon tool, if I press up or down on the keyboard, I can toggle the amount of points the star has. I can press up to increase or press down to decrease the amount. Now also with the star tool, if I press and hold command on Mac or Control on PC on the keyboard and drag in and out, we can toggle the length of the points. On this occasion, I'm going to press a few times and just release. Upon release, I have a new shape. But this is not the shape I want. Next, I'm going to come down and open the shape layer properties. I'll toggle down the little triangle next to the layer name to drop down the contents options. I'll click the little triangle next to the contents to drop this down. Then I'll see a polystarO option. I'll toggle this down and we will see more options. Next, I'll toggle down PolystarOPath, and here we will be able to see lots of options to customize. So on this occasion, I'm going to click on points and type in 20. For the inner radius, I'm going to type in one, four, five, and for the outer radius, I will type 170. And now we have the same shape as on the worksheet. So I'll click the shape and drag it into place. Easy. So next, I want to create this Ninja star shape. So I'll first click on the triangle toggle to close the settings on the layer, and I'll click off the layer in my timeline panel to deselect it. Then I'll come back up to the tools menu, click on the shape builder tool, and again select the star shape. Now, as I click and drag in the composition, we will see I have the same shape I made previously. In after effects, when you create a shape, it remembers the previous shape you created. So when you create a new shape, it keeps the previous settings. Now, this is not a problem here. All I'm going to do is press down on the keyboard a few times until I get a star with four points, and I may have to press and hold command for Mac or Control on PC on the keyboard and drag in or out just to extend the length of the points like so. I'll press and hold shift so it straightens up the star and release. Upon release, I have a new shape. So next, I'm going to come down and open the shape layer properties and reveal the content settings like so. This time, I'm going to click on the Add button and select Twist. Upon click, we will see a new twist setting available in the content settings. So I'll toggle this down and set the twist angle to 60, and that will match the worksheet example. So I'll press V to activate the selection tool and click the shape and drag it into place like so easy. So next, I want to create this rounded hexagon shape. So I'll first click on the triangle toggle to close the settings on the layer and I'll click off the layer in my timeline panel to deselect it. Then I'll come back up to the tools menu, click on the Shape Builder tool and select the polygon shape. So I'll drag out to create a hexagon shape, and I'll press up to add more corners until there is seven. And I'll press and hole shift so it straightens up the shape and release. Upon release, I have a new shape. So next, I'm going to come down and open the shape layer properties and reveal the content settings. I'll toggle down until I can see the full settings for the path. In this instance, I will push the outer roundness out to 60%, and that will add roundness to my shape. So I'll press V to activate the selection tool, click the shape, and drag it into place. Next, I want to create this starfish looking shape. So I'll click on the triangle toggle to close the settings on the layer and I'll click off the layer in my timeline panel to deselect it. Then I'll come up to the tools menu, click on the Shape Builder tool and select the star shape. So I'll drag out to create a star shape, and I'll press up to add or down to remove points. So in this instance, I want to create a star shape with six points. Upon release, I have a new shape. So next, I'm going to come down and open the shape layer properties and reveal the content settings. I'll toggle down until I can see the full settings for the polystarPath. In this instance, I will push the inner radius to 90, the outer radius out to 240, the inner roundness to 120, and the outer roundness to 140. That will create an interesting roundness to my shape. I'll press V to activate the selection tool and click the shape and drag it into place. Though I may have to scale it up or down a little to match the worksheet. So lastly, I want to create this flower looking shape. So I'll click on the triangle toggle to close the settings of my layer and I'll click off the layer in my timeline panel to deselect it. Then I'll come back up to the tools menu, click on the shape builder tool, and again, select the star shape. So I'll drag out to create a star shape. Now, as I click and drag in the composition, we will see I have the same shape I just made. Remember, in after effects, when you create a shape, it remembers the previous shape. So when you create a new shape, it keeps the previous setting. I'll press and whole shift to straighten up the shape and release. Next, I'm going to come down and open the shape layer properties and reveal the contents. I'll toggle down until I can see the full settings for the polystar path. In this instance, I will set the points to 27. I will set the inner radius to 120, the outer radius out to 170, the inner roundness to 255, and the outer roundness to 330. And that will create the interesting roundness to my shape. I'll click the shape and drag it into place, and just like that, we have created six shapes with very specific qualities. So back in the project panel, next, double click on shapes from type. So here I have a type layer which you could easily create. For the purpose of this exercise, I have put this in here for you. So if we look down in the timeline panel, we can see that we have just one type layer, and we know this is a type layer because it has a T icon next to the layer. In after effects, a type layer is represented with a T icon. Now, if we double click on this type layer, we can edit it, no problem. Now, in after effects, we can make shapes from type layers, and this can be done quite simply. So when you have a type layer in place, simply right click on the type layer, scroll down to create and select Create Shapes from text. Upon click, you will see a new shape layer appear in the timeline panel. You will also notice the original type layer still exists, but the visibility will be set off. Now, if we come into the timeline panel and toggle down the new shape layer contents, we will now see we have the individual letters as shapes. We may have one shape layer, but contained in this one shape layer is now six individual shapes, and we can toggle the visibility or expand them down further to apply individual effects. That's how easy it is to create shapes from type in after effects. So the last example I want to show you is how to create a shape from an Illustrator document. So back in the project panel, next, double click on shapes from vectors. So here are two shapes. On the left, we have a really complicated shape and on the right, a more simple shape. Now, these were not created in after effects. It would be quite tricky to create something like this in after effect. So something like this would have been created in Illustrator first. So here I am now in Adobe Illustrator, and here I have an illustration of the London eye I prepared earlier using the powerful drawing tools in Illustrator. And this exists here as a vector image. Now, we learned in the previous episode how to import media into after effects. So here we are going to use the same procedure to create this as a shape in after effects. So back in after effects, I'm going to come into the project panel and double click in the gray empty space below the folders. Upon click, a window will appear asking me what I want to import into after effect. So here I'm going to navigate to the project folder and come into the project assets folder, then into the images folder, then into the AI folder, then into the buildings folder, and I'll click on the London I and click Open. Upon click, we will now see our Illustrator asset in the project panel. Now I can click on the Illustrator document and drag it into the composition like so and release. Upon release, we will now see it in the comp, along with a new layer in the timeline panel below. So I'll press S to activate scale and push the scale up to match the worksheet, and I'll press V to activate the selection tool and click and drag it into place. So right now, this exists as an illustrated doc, and there's not a lot we can do with this. However, what I can do is convert this into a shape so I can change the color and add other effects. To create a shape from a vector layer is easy. Simply come down to the layer and right click. Scroll to create and then click Create Shapes from Vector. Upon click, you will see a new shape layer appear in the timeline panel. You will also notice the original illustrator layer still exists, but the visibility will be set off. Now, if we come into the timeline panel and toggle down the new shape layer contents, we will now see we have the individual parts of the shape. Like with the type shape layer, we may have one shape layer, but contained in this one shape layer is now two individual shapes, and we can toggle the visibility or expand them down further to apply individual effect. So that's how easy it is to create shapes from an Illustrator vector in after effects. So let's try it once more. I'll come over to the project panel and double click in the gray empty space under the folders. I'll navigate to the project folder, go into the project assets folder, then into the images folder, then into the AI folder, then into the Objects folder, and I'll click on Pin and click Open. Click, we will now see the Illustrator asset in the project panel. Now I can click on the Illustrated document and drag it into the composition like so and release. Upon release, we will now see it in the comp, along with a new layer in the timeline panel. I'll press S to activate scale and push up the scale to match the worksheet. I'll press V to activate the selection tool, click and drag into place. Next, I'll come down to the layer and right click. Scroll to create and then click Create Shapes from Vector layer. Upon click, you will see a new shape layer appear in the timeline panel. You will also notice the original Illustrator layer still exists, but the visibility will be set off. And if we come and expand the contents of the new shape layer down, we can see the two parts that make up the shape. Easy. So that is how you can create and edit shapes easily in after effect. Now, in after effects, there is more we can do with shapes to edit them further and even go as far as to draw our own shapes. In after effects, we can use the Pen tool to create our own unique shapes and enhance shapes made using the Shape Builder tool. In the next video, I'll be showing you how you can use the Pen tool to create custom parts, create shapes, and edit shapes in after effect. So see in the next video. 16. Pen Tool & Paths: Hello, and welcome to the 15th video in this beginner's guide to Adobe After effect. In this tutorial, we are going to learn about the Pen tool and paths in After effect. In the previous episode, we looked at making shapes using the Shape Builder tool and the various ways they can be customized. Now, there is another way of making shapes. In after effects, we have what is called the Pen tool. In after effects, this can be used to create custom paths which can join to make shapes, which can be used for animation sequences. Now, some of you watching that Use Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop may already be familiar with the Pen tool. In after effects, the Pen tool works quite similar to how it works in Illustrator and Photoshop. Now, if you are already familiar with the Pen tool, then you may want to skip ahead to the next video. Though if you are new to the Pen tool, I would strongly advise you continue with this video. In this tutorial, I'm going to discuss the Pen tool and the concept of paths in after effects. So in this video, we are going to be covering the following topics. What is the pen tool? Drawing with the Pen tool and modifying shapes with the Pen tool. So by the end of this video, you will know everything there is to know about the Pen tool. So let's get into it. So here I am in after effects, and I have a project open here demonstrating some paths and shapes I have created previously with the Pen tool. This project also includes some worksheets. These include some paths and shapes we are going to be creating later on. So let's start by taking a look at this document. Now, if you want to follow along with this video, you can open this document I have prepared, especially for you. This can be found in the essential practice folder in the project folder. Okay, so what exactly is the Pen tool, and what are paths? Well in after effects, the Pen tool is used to simply draw and modify paths. These paths can then be used to perform a series of creative tasks. In after effect, we can find the Pen tool up in the toolbar, about seven icons right of the selection tool, and the icon looks like a fountain pen. Looking carefully, we can see this little triangle at the bottom right of the icon. This means there are several tools available here. Now, if we move our mouse cursor up to the Pen tool, we can click and hold, and we will see some tools expand. Available here, we have the Pentool, the add vortex tool, delete Vortex tool convert Vortex tool, and mask feather tool. For now, we don't need to worry about these. I'll be discussing these shortly. So first, I want to draw your attention to comp one, paths examples. You can find this comp by clicking on the first tab at the top of the timeline panel. I'll make sure the magnification ratio at the bottom of the composition panel is set to fit. I'll place my mouse cursor carefully between the timeline panel and the composition panel. When the mouse cursor changes to arrows up and down, I'll click and drag down a little. This will allow me to expand the composition panel so we can see this a bit more clearly. Here I have two paths I have created previously in after effects. Now, in a previous episode, we undertook a simple animation where we moved a circle from left to right across a straight path. In after effects, we can use paths like this to animate along. So instead of animating in straight lines, we can animate along a particular custom path like this, and I'll be showing you how to do that later on in the course. For now, the first thing I want you to do is activate the selection tool. You can do this by pressing V on the keyboard and you will notice your mouse cursor change to a black arrow. Then I want you to click on the top stroke example to select it. Then carefully, double click on the stroke and you will see a dashed bounding box around it. Then click once and you will see some vertex points on the edges of the path and the vector outline that makes this path. Now some of you familiar with Illustrator and Photoshop may know these as anchor points. In after effects, these are referred to as vertex points. But don't worry, they are pretty much the same thing. Here we have a simple stroke. This was created using the Pen tool, and we can see that from the start to the end, it consists of five vertex points. I'll double click off the stroke into the white space to deselect it. Next, with the selection tool still active, I want you to carefully click on the next stroke example to select it. Then carefully double click and you will see a dash bounding box around it. Then click once and you will see some vertex points on the curves of the path. If I press and hold Shift and select the other vertex points on the path, we can select them all. Upon click, we will see the path outline and the vertex points and handles that make up the path. So here we have the same stroke path as above with five vertex points. But this time, there are curves applied to the corners, so I'll double click off the stroke to deselect it. So next, I want to draw your attention to Comp two, shape examples. So either double click on the comp in the project panel, or you can click on the second tab here on the top of the timeline panel. So here we have a random looking shape with hard corners and a blob shape with nice curve corners. Again, these were created using the pen tool. So like we did with the previous paths, let's come and click on these. I'll press V to activate the selection tool. Then I want you to click on the stroke of the first shape to select it. Then carefully, double click on the stroke, and you will see a dashed bounding box around it. Then click once and you will see some vertex points on the edge of the path outline that makes the path. I'll double click off the stroke to deselect it. Next, with the selection tools still active, I want you to carefully click on the next shape example to select it. Then carefully double click and you will see a dashed bounding box around. Then click once and you will see some vertex points on the curves of the path. This time, I'm going to press and hold shift and click and drag over the other vertex points of the shape to select the other part of the path so we can select them all. Upon release, we can see the vector outlines and the vertex points and handles that make up the path. I'll double click off the stroke to deselect it. Next, I want to draw your attention to Comp three, modifying shapes. Now, you can double click on the comp in the project panel or you can click on the third tab here on the top of the timeline panel. Here we have some random looking shapes that have been created by modifying shapes made by the shape tool. In after effects, the Pen tool gives us the flexibility to edit and modify shapes we make using the Shape Builder tool for further customizability, and we will be having a go at making these quite soon. Now we are familiar with paths, vertex points and handles. Let's start to draw some paths and shapes. Now I want to draw your attention to the worksheets folder over in the project panel. Now, I have put these together to help you. First, I want you to double click on the first comp Path worksheet, and you should see these two path guides. At any point, we can activate the Pen tool by simply pressing G on the keyboard. When the pen tool is active, you will notice the mouse cursor change shape and we have this little fountain pen. This means we are ready to begin to draw. Now, before I start to draw, I want to come to the top of the interface section and first set the color and stroke size. First, click on the word fill next to the color box. Upon click, we will get the fill option settings menu. This instance, I will set the fill option to none on the far left and click Okay. Next, click into the colored box next to stroke and set a black color. I'll click Okay, then I'll click on the stroke size. I'll type in ten and press Enter. Also, at this point, it's really important we have the roto Bezia checked off at this point. If for whatever reason this is checked on with you, make sure this is checked off. So I'll begin from the top and start to click onto each square point along the first path. As we click and drop down these points, we begin to draw a line. I'm just going to drop down five points here along my first worksheet path inside these square points like so, and we have just created a simple line stroke. Easy. So I'll press V to activate the selection tool and double click off the stroke to deselect it. Now, at this point, look carefully down in the timeline panel. Upon creating this path, we now have a shape layer present. So that was quite easy. Let's now look at how we can create a curved path. Now, it's really important to mention at this point, that before we begin to draw any new shape or path, we first need to make sure we have the previous path or shape deselected in the timeline panel. If not, then as we start to draw a new shape or path, it will be added to the selected shape layer. Now, in some instances, you may want to do this, but for now, we want to create individual layers. With the first shape layer deselected in the timeline panel, I'll press G on the keyboard to activate the Pen tool. When the pen tool is active, you will notice the mouse cursor change shape again to the little fountain pen. My stroke and color settings should still remain from the last stroke settings. No solid color, stroke color set to black and stroke size ten. To do this, I want to show you a quick technique I use, and I call this the click and curve technique. Let's begin to click some points down along the second path. I'm just going to drop down five points again along my second worksheet path inside the square points like so. Again, we have just created a simple line stroke like before. I'll press V to activate the selection tool and double click off the stroke to deselect it. Looking down in the timeline panel, upon creating this path, we now have another shape layer present. With the path created, now I'm going to add curves to the line to match the guide behind. I'll press V to activate the selection tool and click to select on my path. Now I'll come up to the Pen tool in the tools menu and click and hold, and I'll come down and select the convert vertex tool. I'll now move my mouse cursor carefully over the first vertex point of my second path. Notice, as the mouse cursor hovers over the first point, the mouse cursor changes to a upside down V shape. I'll begin by clicking and dragging over to the right. As I do this, we will see some handles pull out and we can start to add curve to the line. Now, I can click and drag the angle in any direction. But if I want it to be at a precise angle, I can press and hold shift as I drag like so. I'll drag out a little and release. Now I have just added the first curve. Next, I'll come down to the next point and again click and drag out right like so while holding Shift to get a precise angle. So now I have just added the second curve. I'll come along to each vertex point and carefully click and drag out to the right while holding Shift to add curve to the line while attempting to match the guide below. Don't worry too much if you do not match the guide exactly. This is just a quick reference. Once we have added the curves, we can double click off the stroke to deselect it. Now, what if we want to make some twigs to that line? Perhaps alter the curves a little? Well, this can be done easily by first selecting the path and I'll press V to activate the selection tool and select the path. Then carefully double click on the path and you will see a dashed bounding box around. Then click once and you will see some vertex points and the handles are pair. Now, in this case, only some of the handles are appearing. I'll press and hold Shift and select the other vertex points of the path, so now we can select them all. So with the handles visible, you can now click and drag on the handles individually to make any adjustments. I'll just click and drag on some of the handles and pull them out, again, holding shift so they are at precise angles to match my guide below. Once I'm happy, I'll double click off the stroke to deselect it. Okay, so let's now move on to the next worksheet. Now I want to draw attention to the worksheets folder in the project panel. So now double click on the second worksheet, shape worksheet, and you should see these two shape guides. Unlike the previous path example, in this exercise, we are going to draw some complete shapes. So first, I'll press G to activate the pent tool. When the pent tool is active, you will notice the mouse cursor change shape again to the little fountain pen. Again, my stroke and color setting should still remain from the last stroke setting. No solid color, stroke color black and stroke size ten, and I'll begin from the top and start to click around into each square point like so. Now, when I click on the last point, on the start point, notice that as I roll my mouse cursor over the start point, there will be a little circle to the bottom right of the cursor icon. This is telling us that if I click this point, we will join the path. I'll go ahead and click to join the path. Just like that, we have created a shape this time and upon creating the shape, we now have a shape layer present in the timeline panel. The only difference here is joining the path at the end instead of keeping the path open. Let's now look at how we can create a curved shape. With the first shape layer deselected in the timeline panel, and again, I'll use the same technique as earlier. Let's begin to click some points down along the second shape. Now, just like earlier, when I click on the last point, before the start point, notice that as I roll my mouse cursor over the start point, there will be a little circle to the bottom right of the cursor icon again. This is telling us that if we click this point, we will join the path. I'll go ahead and click to join the path, and again, we have just created a shape like before. I'll press V to activate the selection tool and double click off the stroke to deselect it. Looking down in the timeline panel, upon creating this shape, we now have another shape layer present. Okay, so with the path created, now I'm going to add curves to the line to match the guide behind. First, though, I'm just going to zoom in here to get a closer look, and I'm going to do this by rolling on my mouse wheel. I'll press V to activate the selection tool and select my path. Now I'll come up to the Pen tool in the tools menu and click and hold, and I'll come down and select the Vertex tool. I'll now move my mouse cursor carefully over the first vertex point on my second path. Notice, as the mouse cursor hovers over the first point, the mouse cursor changes to an upside down V, and I'll begin by clicking and dragging over to the right. As I do this, we will see some handles pull out and we can start to add curves to the line. I'll carefully click and drag the angle to roughly match the guide below. I'll drag out a little and release. Now I'll move along to each vertex point and carefully click and drag out to add curve to the line while attempting to match the guide below. Now, don't worry too much if you do not match the guide exactly. This is just a quick reference. To move around the Canvas area easily, I press and hold space bar and click and drag so I can see my points easier to edit. Now, be careful. Sometimes you may need to click and drag up, down, left or right to get the right curve. Once we have added all the curves, we can double click off the stroke to deselect it. Now, in this instance, we will want to make some tweaks to that line. So I'll press to activate the selection tool and select the path. Then carefully, double click on the path and you will see a dashed bounding box around. Then click once and you will see some vertex points and the handles appear. Now, in this case, only some of the handles are appearing. So I'll press and hold shift and click and drag over the whole shape. Upon release, we should now see all the handles. So with the handles visible, you can now click and drag on the handles individually to make any fine adjustments. So I'll zoom in and click and drag on some of the handles and pull them out to match my guide below. Easy. Once happy, I'll double click off the stroke to deselect it and zoom out. In this instance, I'll click the magnification pop up at the bottom of the composition panel and click fit. So that's how you can easily draw shapes in after effects using the Pen tool. Now, what if I want to modify a path or a path of a shape to add or take away a vertex point? Well, let's now move on to the next worksheet. So now I want to draw your attention to the worksheets folder over in the project panel. Next, double click on Worksheet three, modifying shapes, and you should see the shape examples. So these three shapes were created using the Shape Builder tool. Here we have a basic square, a hexagon, and a star shape. So let's see how we can modify these shapes using the pen tool. And first, we will start with the square shape. So I'll press V to activate the selection tool and select the square. Now, when you create a shape using the shape builder tool, initially, the vertex points on the stroke are an editable. To edit the shape using the pen tool, we must first convert the point to a Bezier path. So with the square shape layer selected, I'll come into the timeline panel, and first, we will drop down the settings or the layer to reveal the contents and transform options. I'll click to drop down the contents. In this instance, it says rectangle one. So I'll click to drop this down. And we can see the path, stroke and fill options. Now I'm carefully going to place my mouse cursor over Rectangle Path one, right click and select Convert to Bezier Path. Now I can click the top toggle button next to the layer name to snap the options closed for that layer. I'll come back into the compositions panel and just double click off the shape to start and I'll just zoom in a little. I'll click the shape once, then double click, then click once again, and now I can click on my vertex points and move these around if I want to. But in this instance, I don't want to move them around, so I'll press Command Z on Mac or Control Z on PC to undo. Now, in this instance, I want to add vertex points to my path. I'll come up to the tools menu, click and hold on the Pen tool and this time, select the Add Vertex tool. Upon click, you will now notice the mouse cursor change to a pen icon with a plus next to it. So I'll come to the center of the path line here and click once on the path. Upon click, I will add a new vertex point to my path. I'll press and hold space bar and click and drag down like so. Again, I'll click on the path in the center to add a new vertex point. I'll click the magnification pop up at the bottom of the composition panel and click Fit. So next, I'll press V to activate the selection tool, and now I can click to select and move my new vertex points around. In this instance, I'll click the top one and move it up and I'll click the bottom one and move this one up as well. I'll double click off the shape to deselect it. Just like that, I have used the Pen tool to add new vertex points to change a simple shape to create something new. Okay, so next we have this hexagon shape. Let's see how we can tweak this. So remember, before we edit a shape made with the shape tool, we must first convert the path to a Bezier path. So with the hexagon shape layer selected in the timeline, first, we can drop down the settings on the layer to reveal the contents and transform options. I'll click to drop down the contents. In this instance, it says polystar one. So I'll click to drop this down and we can see the path, stroke and fill options. Now I'm carefully going to place my mouse cursor over polystarPath one. Right click and select convert to Bezier Path. Now I'll click the top Toggle button next to the layer name to snap the options closed for this layer. And I'll come back into the composition panel and just double click off the shape to deselect. Again, I'll just zoom in a little. So with the selection tool, I'll click the shape once, then double click, and then click once again, and now I can click on my vertex points. Now I can come into the Pen tool menu, click and select the convert vertex Point tool. I'll come to the left side of the hexagon, click and drag up or down like so to add curve to the left side. Easy. Next, I'll come to the right side and click and drag the point out towards the right. I'll press V to activate the selection tool, then grab the far right handle and carefully drag that in like so to create this unique shape, and I'll double click off to deselect. I'll click on the magnification pop up at the bottom of the composition panel and click Fit. Just like that, I have used the Pen tool to edit a simple hexagon shape into something new. Okay, so there we just added some vertex points. Now, what about taking vertex points away? So next, we have this star shape. Let's see how we can tweak this. Now, remember, before we edit a shape made with the shape of the tool, we must first convert the path to a Bezier path. So with the star shape layer selected in the timeline panel, I'll come and drop down the setting on the layer to reveal the contents and transform options. I'll click to drop down the contents, and in this instance, it says PolystarO. I'll click to drop this down and we can see the path, stroke, and fill options. Now I am carefully going to place my mouse cursor over PolystarPath one, right click and select convert to BziPath. I'll come and click the top Toggle button next to the layer name to snap the options closed for that layer. I'll come back into the composition panel and just double click off the shape to deselect. I'll just zoom in a little with the selection tool, I'll click the shape once, then double click, then click once again and now we can click on my vertex points. Now I'll come up and into the Pen tool menu, but this time I'll select the delete Vertex tool. Upon click, you will now notice the mouse cursor change to a pen icon with a minus next to it. I'll come to the top of the star and click a vertex point. Upon click, that point will be removed. I'll come to the bottom of the star and click on the middle vertex point. Upon click, that point will be removed. I'll press V to activate the selection tool and I'll click and drag the two top vertex points up like so. I'll come back into the Pentool menu, click and select the Convert vertex 0.2. I'll come to the left side of the shape and click and drag down like so to add curve to the left side. Then I'll come over to the right side and click and drag down to add curve to the right side. Then I'll double click off to deselect. I'll click the magnification pop up at the bottom of the composition panel and click Fit, just like that, I have used the Pen tool to edit a simple star shape into something completely new. That's how you can easily modify paths and shapes using the Pen tool. Keep in mind, you can use this technique when editing paths and shapes you initially create with the Pen tool. For example, if we jump back into the second worksheet, shape worksheet, where we created some shapes with the Pen tool, if we press V to activate the selection tool, click a shape, double click, and then click once again, we can select the vertex points. Just like adding points to the shapes, we can click the Add Vertex Point tool and click on the path and press V to use the selection tool to move that point around. We can also select the delete vertex Point tool to remove points. Now, keep in mind, when you create the shape using the pen tool, we do not need to convert the paths into se paths like we did with the shapes. When you draw with the pen tool, it is already a se path. So that's how easy it is to create paths, create custom shapes with paths, and then modify your paths using the pen tool. So over the past few episodes, we have learned the many ways we can create and modify shapes in after effect. Now it's time to look at how we can apply color and stroke effect. In the next video, I'll be demonstrating how you can apply a variety of fill and stroke effects to your shapes in after effect. So see you in the next video. 17. Fill & Stroke Effects: Hello, and welcome to the 16th video in this beginner's guide to Adobe After effect. In this tutorial, we will be looking at the fill and stroke effect we can apply to our shapes in after effects. So over the past few episodes, we've learned the many ways we can create and modify shapes. Now it's time to look at how we can apply color and stroke effect. In this video, I'll be demonstrating how you can apply a variety of fill and stroke effects to your shapes in after effects. So in this video, we'll be covering the following topics, simple fill color, strokes and gradients. So let's get into it. So as a beginner, it will help you to understand the variety of fill and stroke effects you can apply in after effects. As you start to develop your own video sequences, you will find that you will use fill and stroke effects to add dynamics to your artwork. Here are the three main effects you can apply to your shapes in after effects, a simple fill effect, a stroke effect, and a gradient fill effect. Now there are lots of different ways you can manage these effects. In this video, I'll be showing you all the ways you can experiment and get a variety of results. Let's take a quick look at some examples. Now, if you have downloaded the project folder, you can open up the document I have here. With the project folder open, click into the as two Essential Practice folder into folder 16, fill and stroke effect, and open the fill and stroke effect after effects file. You will have the same document I have open here. So before we get into applying fill and stroke effect, I want to give you a quick overview of some of the fill and stroke effects we can work with in after effects and the ways to manage them. So I first want to draw your attention over to the project panel. Here you can see I have a folder called fill and stroke preview and one called fill and stroke Practice. For now, I need you to pay attention to the fill and stroke preview folder. In this folder, we can see four compositions. Now, each of these is going to preview ways we can create and manage fill and stroke effect. So let's start with the first comp, simple color. So double click on the first compia and it will appear in the composition panel. Here are some simple shapes that have been created using a variety of methods. The first is a circle created using the Shape Builder tool. The second is a shape created with the pen tool, and this last shape was brought in from Adobe Illustrator using the techniques demonstrated in a previous video. Now, if we look down in the timeline panel, we can see that each shape exists on its own layer and we know they are shapes because they have the star icon next to their names. In after effects, a shape layer is identified by a star icon. When you create shapes, you can easily add simple color. So these shapes exist here in my composition, and all they have applied to them is a simple fill color, so nothing too complicated here. So back in the project panel, next, double click on the next comp, stroke examples. Now, when you create shapes, you can easily add strokes with a variety of stars. Here are some more shape examples, but this time with a variety of stroke effects applied. First is a hexagon shape created using the Shape Builder tool Next is another shape brought in from Illustrator. Next is another shape created with the Shape Builder tool and the last shape example was created from type. So a variety of shapes here, demonstrating how shape effects can be applied. Here we can see a variety of stroke effects ranging from simple to more complex. Lastly, back in the project panel. Next, double click on gradient examples. Now, when you create shapes, you can also add gradient effects. Here are some more shape examples, but this time with a variety of gradient effects applied. First, we have a shape made with a pen tool, a shape brought in from Illustrator, and a circle shape made with the Shape Builder tool. A variety of shapes here demonstrating how gradient effects can be applied. Notice here on the end that we can apply a gradient effect not just to the fill of a shape, but also to a stroke. Those are some of the fill and stroke effects you can create in after effects. Let's now take a look at how we can apply and manage fill and stroke effects like the examples we have just seen. Now I want to draw your attention back to the project panel, and this time into the folder called fill and stroke practice. These are some worksheets I have put together to help you. Let's begin by double clicking on the first comp. Simple color worksheet. So here, I have some shapes I have prepared for you and we're going to start by applying simple fill color. So let's start with the circle. So first, click on the shape and with it selected, come up to the top of the interface. Just to the right of the tools menu should be the settings for our fill and stroke effect. This is where we can manage the fill and stroke settings apply to our shape. So where it states fill, currently, we can see the box next to this is set to black. If we look at the stroke setting next to the fill setting, we can see it's currently set to none. Right now, none of these shapes have stroke effects applied. So if we click on the black box next to fill up we'll pop the shape fill color menu. From here, we can select a color. So on this occasion, I will select a red color and click Okay. And that's how easy it is to change the color of a shape. So next, click on the Chevron shape and with its selected, come back up to the fill color, click on the color box and select a blue color. Easy. Next, click on the Seahorse shape. Come back up to the fill color, click on the color box and select an orange color. So that's how easy it is to apply fill color to your shapes in after effects. Remember to keep an eye on the fill settings at the top of the interface. So back into the project panel, next, double click on stroke worksheet. Again, I have some shapes I have prepared for you, but this time, we are going to look at how we can apply some stroke effects to shapes. And let's start with the hexagon shape. So first, click on the shape and with it selected, come back up to the top of the interface, click on the color fill box and start by changing the color fill to a green color. With the green applied, this time we can come over to the right and apply a stroke. I can do this easily by clicking on the stroke value and dragging left or right so. This will add a stroke to the shape. Now, if I want to be specific, I can double click onto the value and type in a specific value. In this instance, I'll type in ten and press Enter. Just like with the fill color, we can click on the stroke color box and select a color from the picker. On this occasion, I'll select a blue color for the stroke, and that's how easy it is to apply a stroke and change the color. So next, click on the swan shape. Come up to the fill color, click on the color box and apply a purple color. Then come over to the stroke. But this time, you'll notice something different. This time, we have a question mark in the stroke color box, and as we try and drag up the stroke, it is not working. So why is this? Okay, so this time, we are trying to apply a stroke to a shape brought in from Illustrator. Now, it's important for you to know that a shape brought in from Illustrator is treated differently. Looking in the timeline panel, we can see that this is a shape layer just like the previous. However, this was originally created from an Illustrated document. So if we want to apply a stroke to this, we have to use a different method. Now, keep this in mind if you ever want to apply a stroke to a shape created from Illustrator. To do this, we need to come into the timeline panel and drop down to reveal the contents of the shape layer. Once you have revealed the contents, you will see the Add button to the right of this. If we click on the Add button, we can come up and select stroke. Upon clicking Stroke, we will now see the setting become available for stroke. So just like we did previously, come up to the stroke settings, click on the color box, and this time, choose a yellow color. To the right of this, you can now click and drag to increase the stroke or double click to type in a specific value. Here, I will double click and type in 30 and there we have the stroke. So remember, when you create a shape using the Shape Builder tool, you can easily apply a stroke. But when working with a shape created from Illustrator, you will have to use the Add button down in the layer settings. Okay, so let's take a look at another example. Now in after effects, you can apply a dashed effect to a stroke. Let's click on the next shape and with it selected, come back up to the top of the interface, and let's click on the color box fill and start by changing the color to a light purple color. The color fill applied, this time we will come over to the right and apply a stroke. Now, this shape was created using the Shape Builder tool. So this time, the stroke setting will be easily available. So just like earlier, we will drag out the stroke, and I'll set this to ten and change the stroke color to red. So now our stroke is applied, we can now add a dashed effect. To do this, we need to come into the timeline panel and drop down to reveal the contents of the shape layer. So come into the layer, toggle down to reveal the contents, then toggle down again to reveal the shape, then toggle down again until you can see the stroke option. Here is where we will need to add the dashed settings. So toggle down stroke, and now we can see all the options available. From here, we can also edit the color and size just like at the top of the interface. At the bottom of the stroke option, we can see dashes. To add a dash, simply click the plus button to the right of dashes on click, you will add a dashed line. Here we can customize the settings. If I click and drag out on the dash settings, we can specify how big the dashes are, and if we tweak the offset, we can change the orientation of the dashes. Now, if you want to control the space between the dashes, if you click back on the plus button again, you will see a new gap option up here. If we toggle this, we can increase the space between the dashes like so. So that's how easy it is to apply a dashed line to a shape. Now, there is something else you should know about dashed lines. In after effects, you can add more than one dash to a stroke. Let's see how this works with the neck shape. I'll press V to activate the selection tool and click on the neck shape. So with it's selected, come back up to the top of the interface, click on the color fill box and start by changing the color fill to an orange color. With the color fill applied, come over to the right and apply a stroke. Now, this shape was created using the Pen tool, so this time, the stroke settings will be easily available. So just like earlier, we will drag up the stroke and I'll set this to ten and change the stroke color to a dark purple. Okay, so now our stroke is applied, we can now add a dash defect. Back in the timeline panel, toggle down to reveal the contents of the shape layer and keep toggling down until we see the stroke settings. To add a dash, simply click the plus button to the right up dashes and upon click, you will add a dashed line. I'll set the dash here to 100, like earlier, I'll click the plus icon again to activate the gap option, and I'll set this to 100. Right now, we have a dashed stroke applied, but like the stroke applied to our previous shape, the ends of each dash have hard corners. In this instance, we are going to apply rounded corners. So on the stroke settings, we will see an option called line cap. Currently, this is set to butt cap. If I click on this drop down, we can change it to round cap. Upon click, our dashes are now rounded. Easy. Now, if we come and click the plus icon again next to dashes, upon click, we will see a two option appear. On this occasion, I'll drag the value down to zero, which gives us this dot effect. Now, if I wanted to, I could keep clicking the plus button to add more dashes. But for now, I'll just leave it as it is. That's how to apply strokes to shapes and how to get this interesting looking dash stroke effect to your strokes. So back on the project panel, next, double click on stroke Worksheet two. So this time, I have some shapes that were created from type. Now, this example is a little different from the previous shapes. Looking in the composition panel, here we can see three letter shapes. But if we look in the timeline panel, we can only see one shape layer. Keep in mind, when you create shapes from type, they will exist in one shape layer. So applying fill and stroke effects to shapes like this is a little different. So let's take a quick look. So if we want to apply a quick color fill to all the letter shapes, we can simply select the shape layer, come up to fill and select a color like so. However, if you want to change the color of the individual letter shapes, you will have to do this in the timeline panel. So back in the timeline panel, toggle down the layer settings to reveal the contents of the shape layer. And this time in the contents, we can see a part for each letter. Let's start with the letter Y. So if we toggle this down, we can see the individual settings for this letter Y shape. If I toggle down the fill settings, we can click on the colored square and select a light blue color. And this will only apply to the letter Y shape. So we can do this for the rest of the letter shapes. If I toggle down the settings for letter O, we can come into the fill options and set the color to a light red. Likewise, with the last shape layer, if we come into the fill settings, we can change the color to a light yellow. So to edit the individual color settings, we need to set that in the individual fill settings for each letter shape. Now, to apply a stroke to each individual part is fairly straightforward. First, we need to select the shape part in the setting. We can then come up to the top of the screen and click and drag on the stroke size option, and that will apply a stroke. So we can select the O layer part down in the layer settings, come up to the stroke and drag one out like so, and the same for the exclamation mark. Now to tweak the color and settings of the stroke, we again need to do this in the shape layer options. So back down in the timeline layer for the letter shape, if we toggle down the stroke option, here we can change the stroke color to a light pink. For the next letter shape, we can toggle the stroke options and change the color to a dark purple. And for the last letter shape, we can toggle the stroke option and change the color to a gray. Simple. So with our strokes applied, we can now add dash effects. So to the O letter shape layer, I'll come back to the stroke options, and using the same technique as shown earlier, I'll click the plus icon to add a dash. I'll hit the plus icon again to add the gap option and set the dash to 50 and the gap to 80. On this occasion, I'll hit the plus button again to add another dash, and I'll set this to ten. To finish off, I'll come to the line cap option, click this and choose Round Cap, and that will add nice round ends to my stroke lines. For the last letter shape, I'll come into the stroke settings. Click the plus button twice to add a dash and a Gap option. Here I'll set the dash to 30, the gap to 60, and click the type shape to deselect. So that's how you manage fill and stroke settings for multiple shapes on a single shape layer. Now, if for whatever reason, you want to turn a stroke off on one of the layers, let's say the Y shape, I can come into the options for that particular shape part and simply toggle the visibility off for the stroke option, like so. Easy. Let's now move on to the last color effect. Back in the project panel, next, double click on gradient worksheet. Here I have three shape examples, a shape created with the pen tool a shape brought in from Illustrator and a shape created with the Shape Builder tool. Here we are going to apply some gradient effects. Let's start with the first shape. First, click on the shape and with it selected, come up to the top of the interface, and this time, instead of clicking on the color box next to fill, this time we are going to click on the word fill. You click on this, a fill options box will appear, and it's from here where you can choose to set the color fill to none, a solid fill, a linear gradient, or a radial gradient. On this occasion, we can select the linear gradient and click Okay. Next, we will click back into the fill color box, and this time we will see the gradient editor. It's from here where we can choose the colors to make up the gradient. At the top, we can see the two color parts to our gradient. If we click the first color on the left, we can then click a color below to set it. On this occasion, I'll select a blue color. Next, I'll click the second color of the gradient. Once happy with my gradient colors, I'll click Okay. Now we have a gradient effect applied. Now, if we look closely on the shapes as well as the bounding box, we can see these little handles. These represent the handles for the gradient. Now, if we carefully click and drag these, we can alter the gradient effect like so. We can set the gradient from top to bottom or from left to right, or at an angle. Easy. Now, if we want to change the color of the gradient, simply come back up and click on the fill color square to bring back the gradient editor. Now, if you want to add another color to the mix, simply move the mouse cursor near the gradient editor at the top until it changes to a hand icon and click once. This will add a new color, which you can, of course, select and choose another color. On this occasion, I'll pick a red and click Okay. So that's how we can apply a gradient effect easily to a shape. Now, let's try with a shape brought in from Illustrator. I'll select the shape, come up and click Fill. I'll select linear gradient, click Okay, and there it is. Now notice, it's applied the same gradient effect applied to the previous shape. So back up to fill, click on the color box, and we can take away the middle color by clicking on the color picker and dragging it away. Then we can select the other gradent colors and change them. Click Okay and apply the new gradient. Now, remember to look for those gradient handles, and I'll click and drag these to alter the direction of the gradient, and I'll click and drag the line from top to bottom like so. Now I'll come and click on the last shape, this time, I'll click on Fill and select radial gradient and click Okay. Just like with the linear gradient, we get these handles, which I can click and drag the outer handles to expand the gradient effect like so. I'll click on the fill color square and change the gradient colors, and now I have a nice radial gradient applied. Now I want to apply a stroke. So just like earlier, I'll come up to the stroke and drag out the size, click on a color and change it, and then click Okay. So we apply the gradient effect to the solid shape by clicking on the word fill and choosing the option. This time, if we click the word stroke, we will get the same option as we did for fill. Here we can choose a solid fill, a linear gradient, or a radial gradient. On this occasion, I'll select linear gradient and click Okay. Upon click, we will see our new gradient applied to the stroke. So up in the color box for the stroke, I'll click, and just like with the solid fill, we can set the colors. Now, if we look closely, we can see another set of handles, but this time for the stroke. So I'll carefully select these and drag them to change the angle. Notice this time that for the stroke, we have these dashed lines to differentiate it from the gradient fill. I'll carefully drag these out to alter the gradient direction. Easy. So that is how you can apply fill, stroke, and gradient effects to your shapes in after effects. Now, in a previous episode, we undertook a simple animation exercise where we moved a circle shape from left to right across a straight path. Now, there may be occasions where you don't want to animate something in a straight line. Perhaps you want to animate something along a more rounded path. Now, in a previous episode, we learned how to create paths. Now, in after effects, we can use these paths to animate things like images and shapes across. So instead of animating in a straight line, we can animate along a particular custom path. In the next video, I'll be showing you how to animate along a path in after effects. So see you in the next video. 18. Animating Along a Path: Hello, and welcome to the 17th video in this Beginners Guide to Adobe After effects. In this tutorial, I'm going to demonstrate how you can animate along a path in after effects. Now, in a previous episode, we undertook a simple animation exercise where we moved a circle shape from left to right across a straight path. Shortly after that, we learned how to create paths using the Pen tool. Now, in after effects, we can use paths to animate things like images and shapes to cross. In this video, I'll be showing you how to animate along a path. So in this video, we will be covering the following topics, animating along a path, animating on a path from a shape, and animating on paths from Adobe Illustrator. After this video, you should be able to animate easily along a custom path in after effects. So let's get into it. So here I am in after effects, and I have a project open here demonstrating some animations we are going to create in this tutorial. Now, you may recognize these paths, as we created them earlier in a tutorial where we learned how to use the Pen tool. Now we know how to create custom paths. We can now learn how to animate along them. So let's take a look at what we will be creating in this tutorial. So first, we are going to look at how we can animate along a curved path using the Pen tool. Then we are going to look at animating along an oval path using the Shape Builder tool, and then we are going to look at animating along a path brought in from Adobe Illustrator. So we will be covering a few path types here in this tutorial. These are some very common types of animation you will need to do in after effects. So right now, it's good to cover them. Let's get started with the first animation animating along a curved path. But first, let's take a closer look at what we'll be creating. With the project folder open, click into the S two essential Practice folder into folder 17, animating along a path and open the animate along a path after effects file. You'll have the same document I have opened here. First, I want to draw your attention over to the project panel. In here, there are two folders, one called preview and one called worksheets. To start, I want you to double click on the second comp in the preview folder, curved path example, and you should see this underwater scene here. I'll make sure the time indicator is at the start of the timeline and I'll press space bar to activate preview. Here we can see the fish is animating along a nice curved path, avoiding all the dangerous obstacles in the way. Also notice that as the fish moves across the path, the fish points in the right direction, dives as it goes down and looks up as it rises. Now, shortly, I'll be showing you how to do this as well. Now, if we look in the timeline panel, we can see that this composition is 10 seconds long, and we are currently in preview mode. Also, in the timeline panel, we can see the key frames that are applied to the fish PNG layer. These keyframes are determining the animation sequence we can see in the visual composition above. Now, if we look closely, we can see there are some key frames for position we have not covered yet. These are called rove keyframes, and we will see shortly how these work. I'll toggle the visibility of the path guide layer off so we can see the animation without the path, and that is looking pretty cool. Let's have a go at animating this little fish through the underwater scene. To make this easy for you, I have set up a worksheet for you to have a go yourself. Now I want to draw your attention to the first comp in the worksheet folder, curved path worksheet. Simply double click on this and it will open in a new tab and you should see the underwater scene here ready for you to animate. Here we have the same composition we just saw, but without the animation. In my timeline panel, I can see that I have the fish illustration as a separate layer and I want to animate the fish through this underwater scene, avoiding all the obstacles. To do this, we will need to create a path and then animate the fish across it. But before that, there is something really important we have to pay close attention to. If we zoom in on the fish here, we can see the anchor point for this layer is currently dead center of the fish layer. Now, this is something we normally want, but on this occasion, we don't want this here. We are about to animate the fish across the path and we want the fish to rotate along the path and dive down and rise up. When we animate a layer across a path, it's this anchor point that moves across the path. Think of it like a roller coaster. This anchor point is the wheels on the path, so it's this anchor point that leads the layer. If this does not make much sense to you right now, don't worry, you will see shortly what I mean. Right now, if we animate this fish across a path, it's going to connect to the path by this middle anchor point bit. What we want is the fish to travel along the path led by the head. Before you animate any layer across a path, keep in mind where this anchor point is on the layer. So in this instance, I'm going to come up to the main menu and click on the anchor point tool. Then click on the anchor point and just drag it over to the head of the fish instead of the belly. So with the anchor point on the fish layer correctly placed, let's zoom out and create a path for our fish to move along. So this can be done quite easily in after effects using a path. For this worksheet, I have also provided a nice path guide for you to use, and we can toggle this on and off by hitting the visibility button on the layer in the timeline panel. So first, I'll click on the Fish and just click on the visibility icon to toggle the visibility off for now and click off the layer to make sure it's deselected. As we learned in a previous episode, to draw a path, we will use the Pen tool. First, we will come up to the Pen tool menu, select the Pen tool. Now, before I start to draw my path, I'm going to come up to the fill and stroke settings on the top of the interface. First, I'll click on Fill and set this to none. Then I'll click on the stroke color. I'll set this to a white color and I'll set the stroke to five pixels. With that set, I'll come and start to click along my path guide like so. Here, I'm going to use my click and curve technique. I'll click on the points to first place down my vertex points. I've put down my main vertex points, I'll come back to the Pen tool, click and hold on the Pen tool and select the convert vertex tool. Now I'll come to each point and click and drag right while holding Shift like so to add curve to my line at a precise angle. I'll do this at each point. Now, don't worry if it's not exactly like the guide right now. Once I have added the curve to each point, I'll press V to activate the selection tool, and now I can click on each point and drag on each handle to pull out and fine tune the curves like Z. After a few tweaks, the curve should now match the guide below. So that's the path created, and that's the first step. Now we want to animate the fish along it. So now come down into the path layer in the timeline panel and toggle down the properties, toggle down contents, then toggle down shape one. Now we need to pay close attention to Path one. Toggle this down and click on the path like. Now, make sure you have both the Path one and path selected. Now simply press Command C on Mac or Control C on PC to copy. I'll toggle back up the stroke layer and select the fish layer. I'll click the visibility icon to bring the fish back. I'll press P on the keyboard and this will bring up the position property on the layer. Now carefully click on the position property so it's highlighted, and I'll make sure the time indicator is at the start of the timeline, and now I'm going to press Command or V on Mac or Control V on PC to paste. Upon pasting, you will now see the path appear and the fish will be positioned at the start. Also notice that on the layer, we now have some keyframes for position. Now, as we move the timeline indicator across these keyframes, we will now see the fish animate along. Excellent. Now, if we look closely at the animation, we can see that as the fish animates along the path, it's the anchor point of the layer that travels along the path. Because we move the anchor point earlier to be at the head instead of the body, the fish now appears to move along the path led by the head rather than the body. This is going to give us a better looking animation. So this is all happening pretty fast right now. I want the animation to span the length of my comp here. Now, a quick tip here for you, with all the keyframes currently selected, if I press and hold Alt on the keyboard, we can click the last keyframe and drag it out like so. This will alter the time of the entire animation sequence. I'll drag my last keyframe across to the end of the comp and release. Now, I'll make sure the time indicator is at the start of the timeline and I'll press Spacebar to activate preview. Now my animation sequence is spanning the length of the comp. Perfect. So at this point, I can come into the timeline panel and toggle the visibility of the path I created earlier off. I'll also toggle off the path guide, and that's looking pretty good. So to animate the fish along a curved path, we first created the path, which set the values. Then we carefully copied the values of the path and pasted the values into the position settings of this fish layer. This then applied the curve path to the position settings, enabling the fish to move across it over time. So I'll press spacebar to stop the preview, and if we look down in the timeline panel, we can see some keyframes here we have not discussed yet on this course. Now let's look at these three keyframes in between this animated sequence. Here you can see that these are circle keyframes. What are these? Well, these are called rove keyframes and these are added automatically when we applied the path. When we pasted the curve path value into the positioning settings, it transcribed them into keyframes. Since the path was a curved path, it has added these rove keyframes which creates a continuous smooth motion, very much like easing. So let's watch the animation again. I'll make sure the time indicator is at the start of the timeline and I'll press Space Bar to activate preview. Right now, the fish is moving along the path at a consistent speed, but it seems to start and end quite abruptly. What I can do here is add some easing at the start and the end to smooth this out. I'll press space bar to stop the preview. Now, before this, I need to make sure I don't have any keyframes selected. Now they are all blue from earlier, so I'll just quickly click off them to deselect, and they will appear white. I'll come to the first keyframe, right click, scroll down to keyframe assistant, then scroll right and select Easy Ease out. Now notice this will shift some of the rove keyframes across a bit, but don't worry about that too much right now. Next, I'll come to the last keyframe, right click, scroll down to keyframe assistant, and this time select eases in. Notice the rove keyframes will shift back to the middle again. I'll make sure the time indicator is at the start of the timeline and I'll press space bar to activate preview. So now we can see there is a nice ease into the sequence and a nice ease to the end of the sequence. So right now, the fish is moving along the path with lots of smoothness. But what I want next is the fish to look down as it dives and look up again as it comes up. So this can be done easily by adding rotation key frames. So let's look at how we can do that. So I'll press Spacebar to stop the preview, and I'll drag my time indicator back to the start. And for this, I'm going to toggle back the visibility of the guide layer as this is going to help a little. Okay, so with the fish layer selected, I'm going to press R to show the rotation property for the layer. So first, I will add a rotation keyframe by clicking on the stopwatch. With my first rotation keyframe in place, I'll press U on the keyboard. This will now show me what keyframes are applied to this layer, and now I can see keyframes for both position and rotation. Now, I need to see this as I'm going to use it as a guide. So next, I'll scrub the time indicator along the timeline, holding shift until my time indicator snaps to the first rove keyframe. Then I'll come over and add another rotation keyframe by clicking the diamond shape on the far left of the timeline panel. Again, I'll scrub the time indicator along the timeline while holding Shift until my time indicator snaps to the next rove keyframe. Then I'll come over and add another rotation key frame by clicking the diamond shape on the far left of the timeline panel. Again, I'll scrub the time indicator along the timeline, holding shift until my time indicator snaps to the next rove keyframe. I'll come over and add another rotation keyframe by clicking the diamond shape on the far left of the timeline panel. Lastly, I'll scrub the time indicator along the timeline again while holding shift until my time indicator snaps to the last keyframe. Then I'll come over and add another rotation keyframe by clicking the diamond shape on the far left of the timeline panel. Now we have rotation keyframes for each main point. Now, as we move to each keyframe for rotation, this is exactly the rotation we want the fish to be at at this point in time. But what we need to do now is rotate the fish in between these keyframes, so the fish dives and rises correctly. Let's start at the beginning. I'll make sure the time indicator is at the start of the timeline and I'll start to scrub my time indicator across the timeline to about here between the first and second keyframe for rotation. The path here, we can see it's just on the initial curve of the path. At this point, we want the fish to be looking down. So now I'll come into the rotation property and click and drag on the rotation value, so the fish is facing downwards, and I'll use the guide in the background to make sure it's aligned correctly. Now notice, as soon as we alter the rotation value, we have a new keyframe applied. Perfect. Next, I'll scrub further along the timeline until I get to about here just as the path starts to curve again. Now, at this point, we still want the fish to be facing downwards. So again, I'll come over into the rotation property and click and drag on the rotation value. So the fish is facing down. As soon as we alter the rotation value, we have another new keyframe. So I'll make sure the time indicator is at the start of the timeline, and I'll scrub through to take a look at that. Now, the fish is starting to rotate too soon. To fix this, I can simply drag the first keyframe out a little to delay this, and that's looking a little better, and the fish is diving nicely. So scrubbing the time indicator onwards, and I'll stop to about here as the path starts to curve up again, again, I'll come over into the rotation property and click and drag the rotation value up. So this time, the fish is facing upwards. And as soon as we alter the rotation value, we have another new keyframe. So I'll continue to scrub the time indicator onwards and I'll stop about here, where the path starts to curve again. I'll come over into the rotation property and click and drag on the rotation value. And as soon as we alter the rotation value, so the fish is facing up, we now have a new keyframe. So I'll make sure the time indicator is at the start of the timeline, and I'll scrub through to take a look at that and the fish is diving nicely and rising nicely. So at this point, if I need to, I can place the time indicator at any of the rotation keyframes and tweak the rotation values. So moving on, I'll scrub along a little, rotate the fish down, scrub along a little more, rotate the fish downwards again, scrub along under the curve a little more, rotate the fish up, scrub along a little more, and lastly, rotate the fish upwards. I'll make sure the time indicator is at the start of the timeline and I'll press space bar to activate preview. So now we can see the fish is diving down and rising up as we want it. What we have done here is add two rotation keyframes between each main point to add the rotation effect we want. But now we have this strange rotation effect at the end like we had at the start originally. So what I'll do here is just drag the last rotation key frame in a little so the fish rotates more smoothly at the end, like so. So I'll press spacebar to stop the preview. Now, what I can do here is click and drag over the first three rotation keyframes to select them. Right click, scroll down to keyframe assistant, and then come across and add easy E's. Then I'll skip the next frame, select the next two keyframes, right click, scroll down to keyframe assistant, then come across and add easy E's. I'll skip the next frame, select the next two keyframes. Right click, scroll down to keyframe assistant, then come across and add easy ease. I'll skip the next frame, select the last three keyframes, right click, scroll down to keyframe assistant, then come across and add easy Es. Here we have added a bit more smoothness to those rotation key frames. I'll make sure the time indicator is at the start of the timeline. Now, I don't need the path guide anymore, so I'll toggle off the visibility of this layer and I'll press space bar to activate preview and there is our fish animating along a curved path, diving and rising nicely. That's how to animate along a path in aftereffects. The next exercise is slightly different. This time, we are going to look at how we can animate along a path created with a shape. Now I want to draw your attention back to the third comp in the preview folder. Now double click on round path example and you should see this space scene here. I'll make sure the time indicator is at the start of the timeline and I'll press Spacebar to activate preview. What we have here is a satellite revolving around the Earth. If we look closely, the satellite gets bigger around the front and smaller around the back and we may also notice it changes opacity a little. So this time, we have a little perspective on the animation. Now, unlike the previous example where we had a clear start and end point, here we have what appears to be an infinite animation. Now, it would be possible to draw this path using the pen tool, but getting the precise curve may be awkward, an easier approach would be to use the shape tool. So let's see how this can be achieved. To make this easy for you, I have set up a worksheet for you to have a go yourself. If you come into the worksheets folder and double click on the second comp round path, you should see the spacing here ready for you to animate. Here we have the same composition as we just saw but without the animation applied. So in the timeline panel, I can see that I have this satellite layer as a separate layer, and I want to animate the satellite around the Earth on an angle. To do this, we will need to create a path and then animate the satellite across it. So let's create a path for the satellite to move along. And this can be done quite easily in after effects using the shape tool. So for this worksheet, I have also provided a nice path guide for you to use around the Earth here, and we can toggle this on and off by hitting the visibility button on the layer in the timeline panel. Okay, so let's create the path. Instead of using the Pen tool like in the previous example, this time we're going to use the shape tool. So I'll come up to the tools menu and click and hold on the shape tool, then come down and select the Ellipse tool. Now, before I start to draw my path, I'm going to come over to the fill and stroke setting on the top here. First, I'll click on Fill and set this to none. Then I'll click on the stroke color. I'll set this to a white color, and I'll set the stroke to five pixels. With that set, I'll come into the composition panel and I will click and draw out my ellipse like so. Now, don't worry too much if the ellipse is not exactly like the one I have in the background here. This is just for a quick reference. So once my ellipse is drawn, I will just move it in place with the rakes until I'm happy. Now, at this point, it's really important to mention that you have to be happy with this path before we set it as the path for the animation. Do not change the scale or anything at this point, or it won't work properly. Okay, so that's the path created. Now we want to animate the satellite along it. Now, with shapes, if we want to access the path information like we did earlier, we first need to convert the shape path into a Bezier path. And to do this is easy. First, come into the shape layer and toggle down the properties, toggle down contents, then toggle down Ellipse one. And now we have to pay close attention to the ellipse path one. Now I'm going to select the ellipse path one, then right click and select Convert to Bezier Path. This will now release the path information. Next, I'll toggle this down and click on the path like so. Now, make sure you have both the path one and path section selected, I'll simply press Command C on Mac or Control C for PC to copy. Upon copying, I'll toggle back up the shape layer, and then I'll come and select the satellite layer. Press P on the keyboard and this will bring up the position property for the layer. Now carefully click on the position property so it's highlighted, and I'll make sure the time indicator is at the start of the timeline, and I'll press Command V for Mac or Control V on PC to paste. Upon pasting, you will now see the path appear and the satellite will be positioned at the start. Also notice that now the layer will have some key frames applied for positioning. Now, as I move the indicator across the keyframes, we will notice the satellite animate along. Okay, so this is all happening pretty fast right now. I want the animation to span the length of my comp here. Remember the quick tip from earlier. So with all the keyframe selected, if we press and hold Alt on the keyboard, we can click the last keyframe and drag it out like so. This will alter the time of the entire animated sequence. So with them all currently selected, I'll drag my last keyframe across to the end of the comp. So I'll make sure the time indicator is at the start of the timeline, and I'll press Space bar to activate preview. And now my animation sequence is spanning the length of the comp. So at this point, I can come into the timeline panel and toggle the visibility of the shape I created earlier off. I'll also toggle off the path guide, and that's looking pretty good. I'll press Space bar to stop the preview, and if we look down in the timeline panel, we can see some familiar keyframes. Again, we have some rove keyframes applied. Since these keyframes are on a curved part of the path, it has added these rove keyframes, which creates a continuous smooth motion, very much like easing. So let's watch the animation again. I'll make sure the time indicator is at the start of the timeline and I'll press space bar to activate preview. Right now, the satellite is moving around the Earth the way I want it. Now, because we stretch the animation sequence right to the end of the comp, when the satellite gets to the end of the shape path, which is the starting point, when the animation loops, it looks like an infinite animation, which in this instance is pretty cool. However, right now it looks a little plain. What I want to do next is set the orbit to an angle. But now we have a problem we need to solve. The path applied to the satellite is horizontal, but I need to rotate it. Now, once a path is applied to a layer like this, you cannot rotate the path. How are we going to rotate it? Well, this can be done quite simply. What we are going to do here is simply precompose the layer so I'll press Spacebar to stop the preview, and I'll toggle back the visibility of the shape layer we created earlier. I'll select the top layer, press and hold shift, and select the next layer. With them both selected, I'll right click on one of the layers. I'll come down and click precompose. Upon click, the precompose menu box will open. So first, I'll name the composition to satellite orbit. Then I'll make sure that I check the box for move all attributes into new composition and adjust composition duration to the timespan of the selected layers. In this instance, I'll leave the new composition box checked and press Okay. Upon click, we will now open a new composition with just those two layers, and the composition is the same length. Also, if we look in the project panel, we will see our new comp is present. So for now, I can close this composition and come back to the round path worksheet on the next tab next to it on the timeline. Now we can see that we have this composition layer, which we can now rotate. I'll press R with the layer selected, and this will show the rotation property on the layer. Here, I'm simply going to come and rotate the complex to about -20 degrees. Now, if it doesn't look right in regards to the Earth, I can use the arrow keys to just move the orbit to where I see fit. I'll make sure the time indicator is at the start of the timeline, and I'll press space bar to activate preview. Now my satellite is orbiting around the Earth how I want. Perfect. So now I want to add some subtle animation effect to make it more dynamic. Next, I want to make the satellite smaller as it goes around the back of the Earth. So I'll press Spacebar to stop the preview and double click onto the satellite orbit comp to open it back up. So back in the pre comp, we can see that the rotation is back to the original. So now I'm going to add some scale effects to the satellite. So I'll drag my time indicator back to the start and toggle off the shape layer. So with the layer selected, I'm going to press S to show the scale property for the layer. And first, I will add a scale keyframe by clicking on the stopwatch. With my first scale keyframe in place, I'll press U on the keyboard. This will now show me what keyframes are applied to the layer, and now I can see the keyframes for both position and scale. Now, I need to see this as I'm going to use it as a guide. So next, I'll scrub the time indicator along the timeline, holding shift until my time indicator snaps to the second row keyframe. This is the point in which I want the satellite to be its largest. So I'll come over and add another scale keyframe by clicking the diamond shape on the far left of the timeline panel. Then I'll scrub the time indicator along the timeline, holding shift until my time indicator snaps to the last row keyframe. Then I'll come over and add another scale keyframe by clicking the diamond shape on the far left of the timeline panel. Next, I'll scrub the time indicator to the end of the comp, and then I'll come over and add another scale keyframe by clicking the diamond shape on the far left of the timeline panel. Now we have four scale keyframes applied. I'll make sure the time indicator is at the start of the timeline over the first scale keyframe. Now I'll come into the scale property and scale down to 20%. Next, I'll simply double click on the last scale keyframe. Upon click, a scale option manual appear. This time, instead of setting the scale in the timeline panel, I'll just type it in here. I'll type in 20 to match the first keyframe and press Okay. With the keyframe indicator at the start of the timeline, I'll press space bar to activate preview. Now, as the satellite animates around, it changes scale going from small to large and back again in an infinite loop. Excellent. I'll press space bar to stop the preview. Now I want to apply one last effect. As the satellite gets smaller, I want the opacity to change, making the satellite seem further away. Now I'm going to add an opacity effect to the satellite. I'll drag my time indicator back to the start and with the layer selected, I'm going to press T to show the opacity property for the layer. So first, I will add an opacity keyframe by clicking on the stopwatch. With the first opacity keyframe in place, I will press U on the keyboard. This will now show me what keyframes are applied to this layer, and now I can see the keyframes for position, scale, and opacity. I need to see this as I'm going to use these as a guide. I'll scrub the time indicator along the timeline while holding Shift until the time indicator snaps to the second position keyframe. This is the point in which I want the satellite to be its clearest. Next, I'll come over and add another opacity keyframe by clicking the diamond shape on the far left of the timeline panel. Then I'll scrub the time indicator along the timeline while holding Shift to snap to the fourth position keyframe. Then I'll come over and add another keyframe by clicking on the diamond shape. Next, I'll scrub the time indicator to the end of the comp. Then I'll come over and add another opacity keyframe by clicking the diamond shape. Like scale, we now have four opacity keyframes applied. I'll make sure the time indicator is at the start of the timeline over the first opacity keyframe. Now I'll come into the opacity properties and pull down to 30%. Next, I'll simply double click on the last opacity keyframe. Upon click on an opacity options menu will appear. This time, instead of setting the opacity in the timeline panel, I'll just type it in here. I'll type in 30 to match my first keyframe and press Okay. So with the time indicator at the start of the timeline, I'll press Space bar to activate preview, and now as the satellite animates around, it changes scale and opacity in an infinite loop. Perfect. I'll press spacebar to stop the preview, and I'll click back into the worksheet comp. With the time indicator at the start of the timeline, I'll press Spacebar to activate preview, and the animation is looking just how we want it. But this time at an angle around the Earth. Easy. That's how to animate along a path from a shape in after effects. Now, what if we want to create a more complex path, a path that may be too difficult to compose in after effects, but easier to create in another program. So the next exercise is slightly different again. This time, we are going to look at how we can animate along a path brought in by Adobe Illustrator. So next, I want to draw your attention back to the fourth comp in the preview folder. So come and double click on spiral path, and you should see this field scene here. I'll make sure the time indicator is at the start of the timeline and I'll press space bar to activate preview. So what we have here is a butterfly animation swooping down onto a daisy on what appears to be a spiral path. As the butterfly descends onto the flower, the butterfly gets smaller. Also, as the butterfly moves along the path, it also turns correctly as it should. Looking down in the timeline panel, we can see the key frames applied here are slightly different to what we saw previously. Now you may also notice that the butterfly is flapping its wings every so often. Now, unlike the previous two animations that animated a still image and a vector image along a path, this time we are moving an animated clip along a path. In after effects, you can also move animations along a path. Now notice that this butterfly layer in the Layers panel is actually a comp layer. So if we double click on this comp layer we will open it up and see that this is a simple animation of a butterfly flapping its wings. I'll make sure the time indicator is at the start of the timeline and I'll press Spacebar to activate preview. Here, we have a left and a right wing changing scale to give the illusion like the wings are flapping. Okay, so I'll close this to go back to our example. So looking at the path here, we can see that it's a spiral. Now it would be possible to draw this path using the Pen tool, but getting the precise curves may be awkward. An easier approach would be to use a program like Adobe Illustrator that has really cool tools to draw paths much easier. Now, it's quite common for designers to create their initial paths in Illustrator and then bring them into after effects. Now, if we look at the Layers panel, we can see here that we already have a layer with an Illustrator icon next to it. The spiral path used in this animation was first created in Illustrator. So I'll come down into the timeline panel, select the spiral layer, and put my mouse cursor over and right click and select Reveal. I'll scroll across and select Reveal in Finder. For PC, I believe this is Reveal in Explorer. Upon click, we will see a folder appear, showing which file the artwork is from and where it is located on the computer. Here we can also see the other Illustrator files. But for now, let's look at the spiral file. So I'll open this spiral file in Illustrator. Now, it would help if you already have Illustrator installed on your computer. I'll be jumping into Illustrator during the course of this video to explain a few things. But if you don't have Illustrator installed, don't worry too much, you can still follow along and watch. Here we are in Illustrator, and this is the spiral path I prepared earlier. This path was created using the spiral tool in Illustrator, where you can easily drag out a spiral and add as many or as few spirals as you like. A pretty simple document. To create the spiral path in after effects, I imported it in from Illustrator. Let's see how this can be achieved. So to make this easy for you, I have set up a worksheet for you to have a go yourself. So now I want to draw your attention to the third comp in the worksheets folder to double click on spiral path, and you should see the flower scene ready for you to animate. So here we have the same composition we just saw but without the animation. In the timeline panel, I can see that I have this butterfly comp as a separate layer. Now, if I drag the time indicator to the start of the timeline and press space bar to activate preview, we can see the butterfly flapping its wings and I'll press Spacebar to stop the preview. Now we want to animate the butterfly swooping around and then land on the flower. To do this, we will need to create a path and then animate the butterfly across it. Let's create a path for the butterfly to move along. But before that, let's remember to look carefully at the anchor point applied to the layer. If we zoom in here on the butterfly layer with it selected, we can see the anchor point is placed right in the center. Just like we did earlier with the fish, we are going to want this butterfly to travel across the path leading with the head and not the belly. Before we apply the path, we need to correctly place this anchor point. So I'll come up to the tools menu, click on the anchor point tool and click and drag the anchor point on the butterfly layer just behind the head like so. With the anchor point correctly positioned, we can now apply the path. So here, I'm going to use a vector path I created in Illustrator. For this worksheet, I have also provided a nice path guide for us to use as a reference, and we can toggle this on and off by hitting the visibility button on the layer in the timeline panel. Easy. Okay, so let's create the path. Now, instead of using the Pen tool or the shape tool like in the previous examples, this time, we're going to use an Illustrator file. So I'll come into the project panel and double click into the gray area below the folders. Upon click, a browser window will open. So with the project folder open, come into the project assets folder, into the Images folder, into the AI folder, into the Objects folder, select the spiral image and click Open. On click, the spiral Illustrator file will be present in the project panel. Now I'm simply going to drag the file down into the timeline panel and place it on top like so. Upon release, we will now see the spiral path stroke, which is very similar to our guide. Now, once the path is in after effects, you can move it around and place it wherever you like, like so. Now, it's important to state at this point that 19. Effects & Presets: Hello, and welcome to the 18th video I must Beginner's Guide to Adon After effect. In this tutorial, we are going to take a look at effects and presets in after effects. Now, over the past few episodes, we have been looking at how to animate manually from scratch, create shapes, pads, and animate media we have brought in from other programs. Now, after effects comes pre installed with a whole range of effects and presets you can use to add a variety of dynamic effects to your sequences and a click of a button. In this video, I'll be introducing you to one of the most useful panels in after effects the Effects and Presets panel. Where I will be showcasing a number of simple and easy effects and presets you can use in your video sequences. So in this video, we will be covering the following topics the Effects and Presets panel, effect controls, and applying and managing effects. After this video, you will get a better understanding of how effects and presets work, so you'll feel more comfortable using them moving forward. So let's get into it. So here I am in after effects, and I have a project open here that I'm going to use to demonstrate how effects and presets work. Now, up until this point on the course, we've been paying a lot of attention to the timeline panel below, the project panel over on the left, and the composition panel in the center. Now I want to draw your attention to the panels over on the right hand side of the interface. What we want to look at in this video is the effects and preset panel. Now, this panel can be found on the right clustered with the other panels. Now, if I click this once, it will drop down and we can see a lot of categories here. Now, if I accidentally double click the panel, in this instance, it will take up the whole screen. You can avoid this by clicking once on the panel. If this happens, you can simply double click again and the panel will collapse. Now on earlier versions of after effects, this may not happen, and to access your effects and presets panel, you might have to click and drag down to reveal the contents inside. Now, if you cannot see the effects and presets panel, for whatever reason, come up to window, scroll down and make sure effects and presets is ticked. If we look closely in this panel, we can see there is a lot of effects and presets that after effects comes installed with. As after effect has evolved over the years, more and more effects and presets have been added. So what we can do here is toggle down some of these categories, and as we do so we can see that there is a huge amount to choose from. So at this point, it may help to start with what effects and presets are. Now, in after effects, there are a lot of individual effects that can be applied to your layers, and these can be found in this panel here. In after effects, it is possible to add more than one effect to a layer. We can actually apply multiple individual effects to build and create a particular unique and interesting overall effect. There is no limit to how many you can apply. Now, some of these have been carefully created and put together here in the panel. These are called presets. A preset is when two or more effects have been combined to create an overall effect. Now, these can help you do all sorts of things in after effects from adding color effects to your video footage, creating animated transitions, keying yourself out from green screen, animating text to adding interesting animated textures. Let's take a look at how some of these work. Now, if you have the project folder, you can open up this document I have here. With the project folder open, click into the S two essential Practice folder into folder 18, effects and presets and open the effects and presets after effects file, and you will have the same document I have open here. This is a document you can use to quickly experiment with the effects and presets with me in this video. So looking in the project panel, I have a number of compositions which I'm going to open and apply some effects and presets to. So let's start with the first comp. So come into the project folder and double click on comp one and this will open it. Right now, all I have here is a comp with a solid blue layer inside. When applying an effect or preset, you need to have something to start with. Here we have a solid layer. Now, to make a solid layer is easy. In the timeline panel, in the area with the layer names, you can place your mouse cursor in the gray area under the layer name and right click. Scroll up to New, click on solid and create a new solid from here. I'll click on the color box, choose an orange color and click Okay, here we have a new solid layer. Easy. Let's apply an effect. So over in the Effects and Presets panel, I'll toggle down the first category animation presets. Then I'll come down to synthetics, about half the way down, and I'll toggle this down in here we can see the available presets. So to apply a preset is easy. We can simply click and drag it from the effects and presets panel onto the element in the composition, or as I like to do, drag it down and release it on the selected layer in the timeline panel. However, make sure to pay attention to your timeline indicator when you place it. Wherever the time indicator is on the timeline is where the effect will start from. So I'll make sure my time indicator is towards the start of the timeline, then I'll click and drag the digital preset onto the layer like so and release. Upon release, we will see the effect applied to the layer in the composition panel above. Now, it does not matter what color the original solid layer was, as now a completely new set of effects have been generated and applied to this solid layer. Now, if we press U on the keyboard, we will reveal all the keyframes applied to the layer. Now, if you're struggling to see your keyframes, we can place the mouse cursor carefully between the timeline panel on the composition panel. When the mouse cursor changes to arrows up and down, we can click and drag up a little. This will allow me to expand the timeline panel up so we can see the contents more clearly. Okay, so here we can see we have keyframes for quite a few properties to make this effect. So let's see what this effect looks like. I'll click just before the keyframe and press B on the keyboard to place the starting point of my workspace. Then I'll click just after the keyframes and press N on the keyboard to place the endpoint of my workspace. I'll make sure the time indicator is inside the work area. In this instance, I'll click the resolution factor pop up at the bottom of the composition panel. For this, I'll select half, and this will preview a bit more smoothly. One set, I'll press space bar to activate preview, and here we can see the effect this is having. Okay, so I'll press space bar to stop the preview. Now, when you apply a preset in after effects, we now have the option to tweak the effect controls. When we apply an effect, the effect controls can be located over on the left where the project panel resides. Now, pay close attention to the top of this panel. If at any point you need to access your files, you can click the project tab just next to the effect control tabs at the top. For now though, we'll click back on the effect controls. Here we can see that to create this digital effect, we have on this layer takes a lot of settings. If I come into the effects controls, we can see them. So first, I'll come up and toggle up each effect so we can see exactly what effect has been applied. Here we can see we have five effects in total making up this preset. Applied to it, we have fractal noise, poster ise, glow, tritone, and mosaic. Now if I start from the bottom and toggle each effect off by clicking the effects icon, and I'll start with Mosaic, we can see the appearance change in the composition panel. Without the mosaic effect, we have something different here. I'll make sure the time indicator is inside the workspace area and I'll press space bar to activate preview, and we can see what that looks like without the mosaic effect. And I'll press spacebar again to stop the preview. Next, I'll toggle off tritone, then I'll toggle off glow and then I'll toggle off posterize. I'll make sure my time indicator is inside the work area and I'll press space bar to activate preview. To create the digital effect, we started off with something very different, and as other effects are applied, and I'll toggle these back on one by one, we can see the visual effect changes until we have the digital effect of the preset and I'll press spacebar to stop the preview. I after effects, there is typically not one quick effect solution. Often, to get a particular effect, you will have to combine individual effects together to get something you want. This is where you will have to be creative and experiment with effects. Okay, so now we understand it takes individual effects to build a preset. Once a preset is applied, we can then tweak the individual effect to alter the overall effect. I'll make sure the timeline indicator is inside the work area and I'll press space bar to activate preview. So first, I'll start with the bottom. I'll toggle down the mosaic effect controls, and here we can toggle the blocks, and I can go from 100 to say 20 here. Next, I'll toggle down the tritone effect controls, and here we can change the color, and I'll change the green to a blue. Next, I'll toggle down the glow effect controls. And here we can change a number of things, for example, the glow radius, and I'll change that from 25 to say 50. Next, I'll toggle down the posturize effect controls, and here we can change the level, and I'll change that 2-3. Lastly, I'll toggle down the fractal noise effect controls, and here we can change a number of things, for example, the contrast, and I'll change that 100-80. So by tweaking the individual effects, we can alter the overall effect quite drastically. So I'll press space bar to stop the preview. Now, looking at the timeline panel, we can see the keyframes generated from the effect. Every time you apply an effect, make sure to pay close attention to the keyframes it generates, as you will want to manage these to control the time. Right now, we can see the effect is span in only a few seconds. If we want to expand the sequence, we can select the end keyframes and drag them further across the timeline like so. So I'll drag the workspace area out and click into the area and press space bar to activate preview. Now, we may not want to use anything like this in our project, but the principles demonstrated here apply to every effect and preset you will ever use in after effect. Every time we apply an effect, we must always look to the effects controls to manage the effect. So now I'll click back into the project panel by carefully clicking back on the project tab at the top, and this time, double click on Comp two. And here we have another comp with a solid. So let's take a quick look at another preset. So this time in the animation preset, I'll toggle down the backgrounds folder. I'll make sure the time indicator is towards the start of the timeline. I'll come into the effects and presets panel and drag the germs preset onto my layer. Upon release, we will see the effect applied to the solid layer. So I'll press U to reveal the key frames, and I'll press Space bar to activate preview. Now, I'll press Space Bar again to stop the preview, and I'll come and look in the Effects Control panel. So again, we can see all the individual effects it takes to create this effect we see in the composition panel, and we can tweak them individually. Now, I'll press Command Z on Mac or Control Z on PC to undo the germs preset. And this time, I'll come to oseight and drag it onto my layer, and I'll press Space Bar to activate preview. I'll press space bar again to stop the preview. I'll press U to reveal the keyframes and then look in the Effects Controls panel. Again, we can see all the individual effects it takes to create the overall effect in the composition panel. And if we want, we can tweak them individually. For now, I'll press Command Z on Mac or Control Z on PC to undo the rose Light preset. In the Effects Controls panel. This time, I'll come down and toggle image special effects. I'll drag bad TV too Old onto my layer. And if we look in the effects controls, we can see all the individual effects it takes to create this particular effect and we can tweak them individually should we wish. So every time you apply a preset, make sure to look at the keyframes applied and in the effects controls to make tweaks and changes. Now, I'll click back into the project panel by carefully clicking on the tab at the top, and this time, double click on com three. So now, instead of a solid layer, I have some video footage. In after effects, there are lots of effects and presets you can add to video. For example, this time in the animations preset folder, I'll toggle down Image creative and click and drag colorize gold dip onto my layer, and I'll press Spacebar to activate preview. So here we can see a drastic color effect applied. So I'll press Space spot to stop the preview, and in the effects and controls panel, we can edit the effect and change the source opacity, color, overall opacity, and blending mode of the effect. Easy. I'll press Command Z on the Mac and Control Z on the PC to undo those effects. And next, I'll come and drag Grayscale one onto my layer and I'll press SpaceSp to activate preview and that's an easy way to apply grayscale to video. So I'll press Spacebar to stop preview again. And in the Effects Controls panel, we can tweak the settings. So I'll press Command Z on Mac or Control Z on PC to undo those effect. Next, in the image special effects folder, I'll drag Bad TV to Old onto my layer. And I'll press Spacebar to activate preview, and we can see quite a drastic effect there. So I'll press Spacepot again to stop the preview, and in the Effects and Controls panel, again, we have lots of effects applied which we can tweak. So I'll press Command Z on Mac or Control Z on PC to undo that effect. Next, I'll come down to the stylized folder towards the bottom of the Effects and Presets panel. I'll toggle this down and drag CC threshold RGB onto my layer. I'll press Spacebar to activate preview, and we can see quite a drastic effect there. Over in the Effects and Controls panel, we can tweak the red, green, and blue threshold settings. I'll press Spacebar to stop the preview again and press Command Z on Mac or Control Z on PC to undo those effects. This is one way to add effects and presets to your layers. Now, as you can see there, there are lots and lots of effects and presets and it can be hard to remember where they all are. Now, a quick tip here for you to remember if you know the effect you want to apply to your layer, for example, I want to add a blur effect to the video. If I come up into the Effects and Presets panel, at the top, we have a search option. So I'll click into the search option and type blur. Below will show the results for the blur effects and presets. Lastly, I'll come down to the Blur and Sharpen folder and drag Gaussian blur onto my layer. In the Effects Controls panel, I'll tweak the blur in our settings and push that right up to about 20, and I'll press Spacebar to activate preview. That's how effects and presets can be applied to video. Now, before I end the video, there is one more thing I need to show you. Now, I'll click back into the project panel and this time, double click on com four. I'll press Spacebar to activate preview. And now instead of a solid layer or video layer, this time in the timeline panel, I have a composition layer, and we know this because of the comp icon present next to the layer name. This is a simple video edit I have prepared earlier. I'll press spacebar to stop the preview now if we double click on the composition layer, it will open up and we can see video clips and some picture files. So I'll close this and come back to the previous comp. So back in the Effects and Presets panel, I'll delete the word blur I typed in earlier. I'll toggle down the animation presets folder, then toggle down the image creative folder, and I'll drag colorize sepia onto my comp layer, and I'll press space bar to activate preview. So now we have a color effect applied to the composition layer with the effect controls ready to tweak them. So this effect is applied to the composition layer and not the video layers themselves. If I double click back into the comp, we can see that the video edit is still untouched by the effect. Back into com four, by using effects and presets on composition layers, it's a really good way to preserve your original content. Easy. That's a brief introduction to effects and presets, how they work, how they can be applied, and how they can be modified using the Effects Controls panel. Now, as a beginner, I would recommend spending a bit more time exploring the effects and presets panel to see what's on offer and play around tweaking all the effects controls to practice and familiarize yourself with how it works in after effect. Now, as we move further into the course, we're going to be learning more about effects and presets. We will be using more of them to animate and build a video presentation later in the course. Now, one of the cool things we can use effects and presets for is to animate type. Now, animating type in after effects is hugely popular with designers. In the next video, I'll be discussing type in after effects, where we will be looking at how we can use some common effects and presets to animate type. So see you in the next video. 20. Text Animation Presets: Hello, and welcome to the 19th episode in the Beginner's Guide to Adobe After effect. In this tutorial, we are going to look at type and animating type in After effect. So in the last episode, we learned about effects and presets. Now, as we move further into the course, we are going to be learning more about effects and presets, and we are going to be using more of them to animate and build a video presentation. Now, one of the cool things we can use effects and presets for is to animate type. Now, animating type is hugely popular in after effects for designers. In this video, I'll be discussing type in after effects and looking at how we can use some common effects and presets to animate type. So in this video, we will be covering the following topics, animating type with presets and animating type manually. After this video, you should feel more comfortable using an animating type in after effects. So let's get into it. So here I am in after effects and I have a project open here that I'm going to use to demonstrate some type animation presets and how to use type. So let's take a look at what we have here. Now, if you have the project folder, you can open up the document I have here. With the project folder open, click into the S two Essential Practice folder into folder 19, Type and animating type, and open the type and animating type After effect file. And you will have the same document I have open here. This is a document you can use to quickly experiment with text effects and presets with me in this video. Now, just a quick thing to mention here, that's pretty important. When you open this file, you may get an error message saying you don't have the font installed. Now, if you do get this error message to follow along with this tutorial, you're going to need to install the font first. Now, this is not included in the project folder as I cannot supply it with the download. The font we're using in this document is lemon milk and can be downloaded for free online. If you come into the project folder, into the project assets folder, click into the typeface folder, you will see a text document here. And if you open this up, it will tell you exactly where to get the font from online. Simply click on the link in the text document, and it will take you to the site where you can download it. Once downloaded and installed, close down after effects, then reopen the file, and you should be able to follow along just fine. So once you have downloaded the font and installed it, let's continue. So in the last episode, we looked at the effects and presets panel over on the right of the interface. Now, if we toggle down the animation preset category, we can see we have a folder called text. In here, we can see many effects and presets for animating type. Now, if I toggle down the animate in folder, for example, there are lots of presets just for this category. Just like we applied effects and presets to our layers in the last episode, we can apply effect and presets to our type much the same, and you will soon learn that there are quite a few to choose from. In the previous episode, we learned how to apply simple animation to shapes and images. Now, we can also animate our type manually in after effects to add very simple effect. But if we want to create something a little more dynamic, we can use some of these presets. So now I want to draw your attention over to the project panel. Here you can see I have a type animations folder with 11 examples of animated type. Now, we are going to have a go at applying type preset animations very shortly. But let's first take a look at some examples. So first, double click on the first composition here, animate in, slow fade on, and it will appear in the composition panel. I'll make sure the time indicator is at the start of the timeline and I'll press Space bar to activate preview. So here we can see the nice fade in animation. Create this effect, I simply dragged on a preset. Now, if we look down in the timeline panel, we can see we have just two keyframes. So right now this animation is happening over 4 seconds. Now, remember, we can use these keyframes to control the speed and duration of the sequence over time. So I'll press Spacebar to stop the preview, and if I select the first keyframe, I can drag it inwards. And I'll press Spacebar to activate preview, and now we can see the effect is happening but just a little faster. And if I drag it out, we can see the effect is happening slower. Okay, so this time in the project panel, double click on the second comp, animate in typewriter. And I'll make sure the time indicator is at the start of the timeline, and I'll press space bar to activate preview. And here is another type animation preset. This one is animating type in with a typewriter effect. Again, for this effect, we only have one setting applied with two keyframes. Next, in the project panel, double click on the third comp, and I'll make sure the time indicator is at the start of the timeline, and I'll press space bar to activate preview. Now, this time, instead of the fade in effect, we have a fade out effect. Again, for this effect, we only have one setting applied with two keyframes. Next in the project panel, double click on the fourth comp, organic ripple. I'll make sure the time indicator is at the start of the timeline and I'll press space bar to activate preview. So this time we have quite a dynamic effect applied to the type. Notice this time, applied to the layer, we have two keyframes for two separate settings for this sequence. Next, in the project panel, double click on the fifth comp, fill and stroke rotate Hue. I'll make sure the time indicator is at the start of the timeline, and I'll press spacebar to activate preview. And this time, we have a color effect applied. For this effect, we only have one setting applied to the layer with two keyframes for this sequence. Lastly, in the project panel, double click on the sixth comp blurs joigi. I'll make sure the time indicator is set to the start of the timeline and I'll press spacebar to activate preview. On this type, we have an interesting blur effect applied. Now notice in the timeline panel, we don't have a keyframe for this effect. This is something we have not yet seen on this course. This effect is actually created by what is referred to in after effects as an expression, but this is a bit more advanced, so we won't be going into that right now. So that's a few examples of type presets. Now, there's a few more to look at in the project panel, but for now, I think you get the idea. Let's now move on and have a look at how we can apply these ourselves. Now, if you come into the project panel, you will see a folder below called worksheets. This includes a few comps I have set up for you to jump right in. So first, double click on Worksheet one, and you should have this blank comp with a blue solid layer. So first, we need to create some type in our composition. To use a type tool, we can either come up to the tools menu on the top and select it or we can press the keyboard shortcut Command T on Mac, or Control T on PC. With a type tool active, the mouse cursor will change letting us know it's active. So when placing type in your composition, there are two ways of doing this. You can either click once to type one line of type, or you can click and drag out a box, and upon release, you will create a regional text box to place a paragraph of type into within a more restricted area. So I'll just select these layers and delete them for now. On this occasion, I just want one line of type. With my type tool, I'll click once and for now, I'll just type in type animation. Once you have created a type layer, to deselect it, you can either click on the selection tool in the tools menu or you can click off the layer in the Timeline panel. To edit the type, you can either double click on the type layer in the Timeline panel. This will select the type and you can then click into it to edit, or with the selection tool active, you can click the type element to move it around and then double click to select the type and click into to edit. Now when you start to work with type, you will want to pay close attention to the character panel over on the right hand side of the interface. In this instance, it's appeared automatically for me, but you can click it down. If you don't see the character panel, for whatever reason, you can come up to Window and make sure it's checked. So the character panel works much like any other character panel in Adobe product. Here you can set your typeface and tweak all the settings. So with my type selected, I'm going to make sure the font is set to lemon milk. I'll set the size to about 160. I'll make sure the color is white, and I'll deselect the type. Now, if my type is not well positioned in the frame, I'll press V to activate the selection tool. I'll click the type and move it into a better position, like so. Now, another panel you will need to pay attention to when working with type is the paragraph panel. This is usually under the character panel. So now I'll select my type, and in the paragraph panel, I'll click the justify center button. I'll press V to activate the selection tool. I'll grab my type and move it into the middle. So now we are ready to apply an animation preset. So just like we did earlier, let's come into the effects and presets panel, into the Animation Preset folder and down into the text folder. And in the text folder, I'll toggle down the animate in folder. Now, there is something you may find useful here. So here in the effects and presets folder, we have so many presets to choose from. As a beginner, it's hard to know what any of these do. Wouldn't it be nice to somehow preview them first? Well, we can. So if we come up to the top right of the Effects and Presets panel and click the line to activate the menu, we will get a menu drop down. And there there is an option here called Browse presets. If I click this, Adobe bridge will open. Now, it's important to mention that to do this, you will need Adobe bridge installed. For those of you not familiar with bridge, bridge is a separate program by Adobe that allows you to explore creative content on your computer. Now, we're going to use Bridge Shear to preview the presets so we can get an idea of what it's going to look like. Now, if you don't have bridge installed, don't worry too much. This won't stop you applying the preset in after effects. Okay, so here in bridge, all these folders are representing the folders in the effects and presets panel. So if I double click on text and then double click on animate in, here we will get some thumbnails of the sequences to give us an idea of what the preset will look like. So if I click on random fade up, this one is looking quite interesting. So back in after effects, let's come down and select the random up preset. Now, remember, wherever the time indicator is on the timeline, the effect will start from there. I'll make sure my time indicator is towards the start of the timeline, and I'll click and drag this preset onto the type layer. Upon release, the type will disappear. So I'll press U with the layer selected, and this will reveal two keyframes now applied to my layer for the settings over on the left. So I'll press Spacebar to activate preview, and we can see the animation effect has been applied. So this is an animate in effect. So that's why it starts invisible. And I'll press Spacebar to stop the preview. So upon applying the effect, it has set the duration to around 2 seconds. If I want to alter the duration, I can come and click on the last keyframe and drag it along, and I'll press Spacebar to activate preview again, and now the sequence is animating over a longer duration. So I'll press Spacebar to stop the preview, and I'll press Command Z on Mac or Control C on PC do the preset. So now I'll come and apply another effect. So back in bridge, let's come back a step and this time, double click into graphical. So this white trim effect here looks a little different. So back in after effects, let's come down and toggle down the graphical folder. With white trim selected, I'll make sure my time indicator is towards the start of the timeline, and I'll click and drag this onto my type layer. And all of a sudden upon release, we will see a lot of white. I'll press U so I can see the keyframes applied to the layer, and here we can see we have quite a few keyframes applied for the settings for this one. I'll press Spacebar to activate preview, and we can see the animation sequence. Quite an interesting effect here. So I'll press space bar to stop the preview. And again, if I want to alter the duration, I can come and drag over the last set of keyframes to select them and drag them inwards like so. I'll press spacebar to activate preview, and now the sequence is happening a lot quicker. So that's how easy it is to apply presets to type in after effects. At this point, I would say, continue to explore and have some fun with the type preset. When applied, make sure to look at the keyframes, set to the layer so you can see what is going on and what you can do to tweak and customize the duration. And if you have adobe bridge installed, be sure to use it to preview the effects so you have a rough idea of how they're going to look. So we have just looked at how we can apply animation presets to type players to add quite dynamic effect. Now, there may be instances where you do not want to add big effects like that. You may want to do something more subtle. So now come over to the project panel, and in the type animations folder, double click on the 11th comp, simple animation effect. I'll make sure the time indicator is at the start of the timeline and I'll press space bar to activate preview. Here we have three very simple animations, where the type simply appears and moves into place. Now, this is something we can achieve quite easily with some simple manual animation using some of the same techniques demonstrated earlier in the course. Let's now see how we can do this. So now come and double click on Worksheet two, and I have a type layer here ready for you to have a go. So what we want to do here is simply animate the type so it rises from below, and as it does so, it fades in. To do this, I'll start by selecting the layer, then press P to pull up the position settings. I'll place my time indicator towards the beginning where I want the sequence to start, and I'll carefully click on the stopwatch to place my first keyframe for position. Next, I'll scrub along my timeline about halfway, and I'll come back and click on the diamond shape to add a second keyframe. So now I have a start and an endpoint. But now I need to set where the type is going to be at the start. I'll scrub the time indicator back over my first keyframe, holding shift so it snaps bang on the first keyframe. And with the type selected, I'll press the down arrow on the keyboard while holding Shift to move it down towards the bottom of the frame like so. I'll make sure that time indicator is at the start of the timeline and I'll press Spacebar to activate preview. So my type starts towards the bottom of the keyframe and then moves up. Easy. So I'll press space bar to stop the preview, and now I want to add an opacity effect. So I'll scrub the time indicator back over my first frame while holding Shift so it snaps, and I'll press T to activate the opacity settings. Next, I'll click on the stopwatch to place my first keyframe for opacity. Then I'll press U so I can see my position keyframes, as well. So I'll click and drag the opacity down to zero here on the first frame. Then I'll scrub the time indicator back over to my second position keyframe while holding shift so it snaps to the keyframe. Back over on the opacity settings, I'll drag it up to 100%. Doing this will automatically add a new keyframe for opacity. I'll make sure the time indicator is at the start of the timeline and I'll press space bar to activate preview. Now as the type rises up, it also fades in. So to finish this, I'll add some easing. I'll press Spacebar to stop the preview, and I'll right click on the first position keyframe, come down to keyframe assistant, scroll across and select Easy Ease out. Then I'll right click on the last position keyframe, come down to keyframe assistant, scroll across, and select Easy Ease in. I'll make sure the time indicator is at the start of the timeline, and I'll press space bar to activate preview. And now we have a nice smooth movement effect applied to the sequence. Now, what if I want to change the direction of the type? So instead of animating in from the bottom, it animates in from the right. Well, I'll pres space bar to stop the preview, and I'll scrub my time indicator back to the first position keyframe while holding Shift to snap. With the layer selected, in the composition panel above, we can see the layer controls and the animation pathway. So what I'm going to do now with the arrow buttons on the keyboard is move the starting point into a new position. So holding Shift, I'll click up and right with the arrow buttons to push it over to the right. While I'm doing this, I'm keeping an eye on the animation line to make sure this is nice and straight. Once happy, I'll make sure the time indicator is set to the start of the timeline, and I'll press space bar to activate preview. And now we have the type animating in from the right. Easy. So that is how you can easily animate type in after effects. You can either choose from lots of dynamic presets or you can animate the type manually. So now we are starting to learn some fundamental techniques which we can use to build a project. In this tutorial, we looked at using effect and preset to animate type. Next, we are going to look at how we can use effect and presets to add transitions to our video and animation sequences. So see you in the next video. 21. Transition Presets: Hello, and welcome to the 20th episode in the beginner's guide to Adobe After effect. In this tutorial, we're going to look at video transitions in after effects. So now we are starting to learn some fundamental techniques we can use to build a project. In the last video, we learned how to use effects and presets to add dynamic animation effects to our type. Now we are going to look at how we can use effects and presets to add transitions to our video and animation sequences. After this video, you should feel more comfortable using and animating transitions in after effects. So let's get into it. So here I am in after effects, and I have a project open here that I'm going to use to demonstrate some video transitions and how to create them. Now, if you have the project folder, you can open up the document I have here. With the project folder open, click into the S two Essential Practice folder into folder 20 transition presets and open the transition presets after effect file. And you'll have the same document I have open here. This is a document you can use to quickly experiment with the transition effects and presets with me in this video. So in the last episode, we looked at the type effects in the Effects and Presets panel over on the right of the interface. Now, if we toggle down the animation preset category, we can see we have three folders towards the bottom called transition dissolves, transition movement, and transition wipes. Now, if we toggle these down, we can see lots and lots of presets to choose from. So just like we applied effects and presets to our type in the last episode, we can apply effect and presets to our video layers much the same. In the previous episode, we learned how to apply simple animation to shapes and images. So we could animate our transitions manually in after effects to add very subtle effects. But if we want to create something a little more dynamic, we can use some of the presets here. So now I want to draw your attention over to the project panel. Here you can see I have a transitions animations folder with ten examples of animated transitions. Now, we are going to have a go at applying transition presets very shortly. But let's first take a look at some examples. So first, double click on the first composition, linear wipe. So I'll make sure the time indicator is set to the start of the timeline and I'll press Space far to activate preview. So here we can see a basic linear wipe transition from one video clip to another. To create this effect, I simply dragged on a preset. Now, if we look down in the timeline panel, we can see we have just two keyframes applied to the top layer. Right now, this animation is happening over about a second. Now, remember, we can use these keyframes to control the speed and duration of the sequence over time. I'll press space bar to stop the preview, and if I select the first keyframe and drag it in a little and drag the last keyframe in, I'll press spacebar to activate preview, and we can see the effect happens a lot faster. So I'll press space bar to stop the preview, and I'll drag my timeline indicator just halfway between the transition. Now, when you apply a transition to a video, you will also be able to tweak the settings in the effect controls panel. So with my layer selected, if I come over into the project panel, I look at the top and click on the Effects Control tab, and here we can see the settings. In this instance, I can tweak the wipe angle. As I do so, we can see the angle changing in the composition panel. I'll tweak this from -90 degrees to around -65, and I'll press space bar to activate preview, and now the linear wipe is set at more of an angle. So I'll click the project tab at the top of the panel, and this time in the project panel, double click on the second comp, wipes Iris points. I'll make sure the time indicator is at the start of the timeline, and I'll press spacebar to activate preview. This time, we have a wipe transition from a video clip to a pre comp. In after effects, as well as a video, you can also apply transition effect to composition layers. So I'll press spacebar to stop the preview. In this instance, I'm transitioning from a video clip into an image layer. If we double click on the picture pre comp layer, we can see that the picture has been placed into a separate comp. This is because the picture is bigger than the video Canvas area. So back in the main comp, the transition is applied nicely to the pre comp layer that fits the frame nicely. Again, for the effect, we have two key frames, which we can drag to tweak the duration of the effect. And in the effect and controls panel, we have some settings. In this example, we can click the invert Alpha. This inverts the transition. So instead of going from the video clip to the picture, we can go from the picture to the video clip. So next in the project panel, double click on the third comp, clock wipe. I'll make sure the time indicator is at the start of the timeline and I'll press space bar to activate preview. This time, we have a wipe transition from a video layer to a solid layer. In after effects, as well as video and compositions, you can also apply transition effects to a solid layer. So again, for this effect, we only have one setting applied with two keyframes. Next, in the project panel, double click on the fourth comp, Dissolves vapor. I'll make sure the time indicator is at the start of the timeline, and I'll press space bar to activate preview. This time, we have a dissolved transition from one video into another. So lastly, in the project panel, double click on the fifth comp, slide and drop. I'll make sure the time indicator is at the start of the timeline, and I'll press space bar to activate preview. So for this transition, a whole video drops in to transform on top of another video. For this effect, we have two key frames applied to the layer and settings we can tweak in the effect controls panel. For this one, we can reverse the direction, and now the transition comes up instead of down. Pretty simple. So here, in the project panel, there are a few other effects you can look at. But for now, I think you get the idea. So let's move on and have a look at how we can apply these ourselves. Now, if you come into the project panel, you can see I have a folder called Worksheets. So double click on Worksheet one, and you should see this comp ready. What we have here is two video layers in the timeline, and if you toggle the visibility of the top layer, you can see another one below. What we want to do here is transition from the top video into the one below. So I'll toggle back the visibility of the top layer, and now we are ready to apply a transition preset. So just like we did earlier, let's come into the Effects and Presets panel, into the animation preset folder down towards the transitions folders, and let's start with the transition wipe folder. Now, there is something you may find useful here, and you may remember this from the previous episode. Here we have lots of presets to choose from. Now, as a beginner, it's hard to know what any of these do. Now, wouldn't it be nice to preview them? Well, we can. So if we come up to the top right of the effects and presets panel and click the lines to pull up the menu, we will get a menu drop down. Now, there is an option here to browse presets. If I click this, Adobe bridge will open. Now, it's important to mention that to do this, you will need Adobe bridge installed. For those of you not familiar with bridge, this is a separate program by Adobe that allows you to explore creative content on your computer. And we can use Bridge She to preview the preset so we can get a visual idea of what it's going to look like. Now, if you don't have bridge installed, don't worry too much. This won't stop you applying the preset in after effect. So here in Adobe bridge, all these folders represent the folders in the effect and preset panel. So I'll come and double click on the transition wipes, and here we will get some thumbnails of the sequences to give us an idea of what the preset will look like. So if I click on clamshell, that's looking interesting. So back in after effects, let's come down to the transition wipes folder in the presets panel and select clamshell. Now remember, wherever the time indicator is on the timeline, the effect will start from there. I'll make sure my time indicator is towards the middle of the timeline, and I'll click and drag the clamshell preset onto the layer. Upon release, the video will disappear. I'll press to see my keyframes on the layer, and notice we have two keyframes applied for the settings. Also, we can see some settings available in the effect and controls panel. So I'll press space bar to activate preview, and we can see the animation effect has been applied. Easy. So this is an animate in effect. So that is why it starts invisible when animating in. Now, a quick tip with these transitions. Per the video transitions in instead of out. If you want to reverse the transition, you have to look closely in the effects and controls panel. Up at the master control, we can see the transition completion value. Now, when we place the time indicator over the first keyframe, this is currently set to zero. And when we place it over the second keyframe, it is set to 100%. Now, if we want to reverse the transition, all we need to do is reverse these values. On the first keyframe, I'll change the value 0-100%, and the second keyframe, I'll change the value from 100% to zero. Now instead of the video transitioning in, it now transitions out. Whenever you use a transition preset, be sure to keep an eye on the effect controls if you want to reverse the transition. Easy. I'll press Command Z on Mac or Control C on PC a few times to undo that preset and I'll come and apply another. So in Adobe bridge, let's come back a step and this time, double click into the Dissolves folder. So I'll click on Dissolves Ripple, and that's looking a bit different. So back in after effects, let's come up to the Effects and Presets panel and toggle down the Dissolves folder, and I'll select Ripple. I'll make sure my time indicator is towards the start of the timeline, and I'll click and drag the preset onto the video layer. And upon release, the video will disappear. So I'll press to see my keyframes on the layer. Notice again, we have two keyframes applied for the setting, and I'll press Spacepot to activate preview, and we can see the ripple transition effect applied. So I'll press space bar to stop the preview, and again, if I want to alter the duration, I can come and drag the last keyframe along or inwards like Z. And I'll press Spacebar to activate preview again, and now the sequence is longer. So that's how easy it is to apply transition presets to layers in after effects. And remember, you can apply them to video, composition and solid layers. So over the past few videos, we have been looking at some interesting animation effects that can be applied to our layers. Now, Adobe After effect is not just good for adding animation. Now, a lot of designers will use after effects to color grade and adjust color to their videos. In the next video, I'll be looking at how we can use after effects to adjust color in our video footage. So see you in the next video. 22. Colour Effects: Hello, and welcome to the 21st episode in this Beginners Guide to Adobe After effect. In this tutorial, we are going to look at color adjustments in after effects. So over the past few videos, we have been looking at animation effects that can be applied to your layers. Now, after effect is not just good for adding animation. Now, a lot of designers will use after effects to color grade and adjust color to their video footage. In this video, we will be looking at how we can use after effects to adjust color to our video footage. So let's get into it. So here I am in after effects, and I have a project open here that I'm going to use to demonstrate how you can apply color adjustments to your video. In the last episode, we looked at transition effects in the effects and presets panel over on the right of the interface. Now, instead of focusing on the animation preset category, this time, we're going to look further down at the color correction folder. Now, if we toggle down the color correction category, we can see we have quite a few effects here. So let's take a look at a few examples. Now, if you have the project folder, you can open up this document I have here. With the project folder open, click into the S two Ascent your practice folder into folder 21, color effects, and open the color effects after effects file, and you will have the same document I have open here. This is a document you can use to quickly experiment with color effect with me in this video. So now I want to draw your attention over to the project panel. Here you can see I have a folder called color Edited and one called original. For now, I need you to pay attention to the color edited folder. So double click on the first composition Camden one, and it will appear in the composition panel. So I'll make sure the time indicator is at the start of the timeline, and I'll press Spacebar to activate preview. So here we have a video which I took in Camden Town, London, and here I have applied a few color effects. To create this effect, I simply dragged on a preset. Now with the layer selected in the timeline panel, if we come up to the top of the project panel on the left and click on the effect Control tab, here we can see I have three color effects applied. So to this, I have a toner effect, and I'll toggle this off. Next, I have a black and white filter applied, and I'll toggle this off. And last, I have a brightness and contrast effect applied, and I'll toggle this off. So now you can see the original footage I started with. So I'll click the tab next to the effects controls to go back to the project panel. And this time, double click on the next composition, Camden two, and it will appear in the composition panel. So I'll make sure the time indicator is at the start of the timeline, and I'll press space bar to activate preview. So here is another video, but this time, I have applied some color effects that make the video look more vintage. So with the layer selected, in the timeline panel, if we come up and click back on the effect controls, here we can see I have three color effects applied. So to this, I have a photo filter effect, and I'll toggle this off. Next, I have a color balance filter applied, and I'll toggle this off. And last, I have a vibrance effect applied, and I'll toggle this off. So here you can see the original footage I started with. So I'll click the project tab to go back and this time, double click on the next composition, Camden three. So I'll make sure the time indicator is at the start of the timeline, and I'll press Spacebar to activate preview. This time, I have applied an effect that makes the video look quite graphic with two colors. So with the layer selected in the timeline panel, if we come up and click back on the Effect Controls tab, here you can see I have two color effects applied. So to this, I have a tint effect, and I'll toggle this off. And last, I have a brightness and contrast effect applied, and I'll toggle this off. So here you can see the original footage I started with. I'll click the project tab to go back and this time, double click on the next composition, Camden four and make sure the time indicator is at the start of the timeline and I'll press Space bar to activate preview. This time, I have applied an effect to really push out the colors and create a really vibrant effect. So with the layer selected in the timeline panel, if we come up and click back on the Effect Controls tab, here you can see I have just one color effect applied. To this I have curves. So I'll toggle this off and you can see the original footage I started with. So I'll click the project tab to go back and this time, double click on the next comp, Camden five. I'll make sure the time indicator is at the start of the timeline, and I'll press spacebar to activate preview. This time, I have applied quite a psychedelic effect to the video. With the layer selected in the timeline panel, if we come up and click back on the Effect Controls tab, here you can see I have just one color effect applied. To this, I have a Clama effect applied, and I'll talk of this off, and you can see the original footage I started with. So I'll click back on the project tab, and this time, double click on the next composition Camden six. So I'll make sure my time indicator is at the start of the timeline, and I'll press Space bar to activate preview. This time, I have applied an effect that makes the video look light with a warm feel. So with the layer selected in the timeline panel, if we come up and click back on the effect controls, here you can see I have two color effects applied. So to this, I have an exposure effect, and I'll toggle this off. And last, I have a photo filter applied, and I'll toggle this off. So now you can see the original footage I started with. So back again in the project tab, this time, I'll double click on Camden seven. I'll make sure the time indicator is at the start of the timeline and I'll press space bar to activate preview. This time, I have applied an effect that makes the video again look quite graphic though with a more monotone effect. So with the layer selected in the timeline panel, if we come up and click back on the effect controls, here you can see I have just one color effect applied. To this, I have a tritone effect applied, and I'll toggle this off and you can see the original footage I started with. So I'll click back on the project tab to go back and this time, double click on the last example composition, Camden eight. I'll make sure the time indicator is at the start of the timeline, and I'll press space bar to activate preview. This time, I have applied some subtle effects just to make the footage feel rich and clear. With the layer selected in the timeline panel, if we come up and click back on the Effects Controls tab, here you can see I have just two color effects applied. So to this, I have a vibrance effect, and I'll toggle this off last, I have an auto levels filter applied, and I'll toggle this off, and now you can see the original footage I started with. So those are a few examples of the types of color effect that can be made in after effect. You can make subtle adjustments or quite drastic adjustments to create a very distinct effect. Now I'm going to demonstrate how you can apply color adjustments in after effect. I'll click the Project tab to go back and notice under the color edited folder, we have an original folder. Well, in here are the exact same examples I just showed, but without the effects applied. These have been placed here for you to have a go yourself. So let's begin by clicking on the Camden one comp. So here in the timeline, we can see we have one layer of footage. So I'll make sure the time indicator is at the start of the timeline, and to make sure my video plays nice and smooth, in this instance, I'll click the resolution factor pop up at the bottom of the composition panel and select half. And I'll press Spacebar to activate preview. So here is a video I took from my Cannon ATD SLR camera. The video looks fine, but in this case, I think it would benefit from a little adjustment just to make it pop a little, which is most often the case when I bring in my raw footage from a camera. I'll press space bar to stop the preview and to add a color effect, we can use the same technique we used in the previous video. If we come over to the effects and presets panel, we can click down on the color correct tab. At the top, we have a few useful effects. Now, I want to make this video pop a little. I can do this easy by clicking and dragging the brightness and contrast effect onto my video layer. Upon release, we will see the effect controls appear in the panel to the left. So now I can tweak the contrast. In this instance, I'll push the contrast up to 20, and that's making the colors just pop a little more. If I toggle the effect on and off on the Control panel, we can see the effect that is having and I'll press Space bar to activate preview. Just like that, I made a very simple and easy adjustment to improve the quality of the video. What if I want to make this footage black and white? Well, there is an effect for that. Back in the color correction folder, if I click and drag the black and white effect onto the layer and release, the video is now black and white. Now, I could leave it there, but if I want to add a tone on top of that, well, I can click and drag on the CC toner preset and release on the layer. And if I want to change the tone, I can come into the effect controls and explore some other colors. But I kind of like the original, so I'll press Command Z on Mac or Control Z on PC just to undo that. So that's how easy it is to apply some color effects to your footage, and there is so much more to explore. Let's take a look at another example. So back on the project panel, this time, double click on Camden two. I'll make sure the time indicator is at the start of the timeline and I'll press space bar to activate preview. So I want to make this video feel a bit more vintage. To do this requires a few effects. To start, I can drag a vibrance effect on. So towards the bottom of the color correction folder, I'll click and drag the preset onto my layer. On release, we will see the effect controls appear in the panel. So now I can tweak the vibrant. In this instance, I'll push the vibrant up to around 80, and that's making the colors in the video more vibrant. If I toggle the effect on and off, we can see the effect that is having. Next, I'll come back to the presets panel and drag color balance onto the layer. And in the effect controls, I'll push up the mid tone red balance up to 100. Next, I'll drag on the photo filter onto the layer, and in the effects controls, I can toggle down the filter and choose from an array of presets. But in this instance, I'll keep it set to a warm filter, and I'll push up the density to around 60. And that is looking pretty cool. So let's look at another example. So back into the project panel this time, click on Camden three. I'll make sure the time indicator is at the start of the timeline, and I'll press space bar to activate preview. So this time, I want to give the video a very distinct visual effect. To start, I can drag a brightness and contrast effect onto the layer. Upon release, we will see the effect controls appear in the panel to the left. So now I can tweak the contrast. In this instance, I'll push the contrast up to around 50. Next, back in the presets panel, I'll drag tint onto the layer. And in the effect controls, I'll click the map to black color and choose a navy blue color and click Okay. Then I'll click the map to white color and choose a red color and click Okay, and that is creating a super cool graphic effect. So let's look at one more example. So back into the project folder, this time, double click on Camden eight. So I'll make sure the time indicator is at the start of the timeline, and I'll press space bar to activate preview. What we can see here is a piece of footage that appears to be affected by the light, which looks as if it's bleaching the video slightly. So to this video, I don't want to add any jazzy effect. All I want to do here is just enhance it. One of the easiest ways to do this is to simply drag on auto contrast. So I'll click and drag Auto Contrast from the preset panel onto the layer. Upon release, the footage has improved. Now, if you want to tweak this a bit further, we can come into the effects controls and push up the black clip from 0.10 up to about one. If I toggle the effect on and off, you can see before it was slightly bleached by the light and with the effect applied, the blacks and the colors are a bit more punchy and rich. Now, if I want to boost the colors a little more, I can click and drag a vibrance preset out and onto the layer. In the effect controls, I can boost the vibrance up to around 50 and that will make the colors punch out a little more, and that is looking much better. So that's how easy it is to make color adjustments to your video in after effects. So at this point, I would say continue to explore and have some fun with color effect. Go back to the project panel and look again at some of the edits I made and the effects applied in order to learn and see how they work. Then try and apply some color effect to some of the compositions I have created for you in the original folder, or even try and bring in some of your own video and experiment with color correcting on your own video. When applying effect, make sure to look at the effects controlled and what settings you can tweak. And remember that you will sometimes have to add a variety of effects to achieve an overall effect to have fun and explore. So that's an introduction to clo facts. Now, we just looked at how we can add Clo effects directly to our layers. In this video, we looked at some very simple compositions where we applied colo effects to just one layer. Now, what if we have a really complicated composition consisting of, say, 20 plus layers, and you want to apply a single effect to the entire com? Now, it would be tedious and take some time to apply the same effect to every layer. Well, in after effects, there is an easy way. In after effects, we can use what are called adjustment layers. In the next video, we will be looking at how adjustment layers work and how they can be used to apply an effect to an entire composition. So see in the next video. 23. Adjustment Layers: Hello, and welcome to the 22nd video in this beginner's guide to Adobe After effect. In this tutorial, I'm going to demonstrate how you can use adjustment layers in after effects. In the last video, we looked at how we could add color effects directly to our layers. In that video, we looked at some very simple compositions where we applied color effects to just one layer. Now, as you build your video presentations, there will be times where you will want to build complex compositions consisting of multiple layers, and you will want to apply a single color effect to the entire comp. Now, it would take some time and be a little bit tedious to apply the same effect to every layer. Well, in after effects, there is an easy way. In after effects, we can use what are called adjustment layers. In this video, we will be looking at how adjustment layers work and how they can be used to apply an effect to an entire composition. So in this video, we'll be covering the following topics. What are adjustment layers and how to use them. After this video, you will understand how to use adjustment layers easily in your video sequences. So let's get into it. So here I am in after effects, and I have a project open here that I'm going to use to demonstrate how you can apply color adjustments to your video sequences. So let's take a look at a few examples. Now, if you have the project folder, you can open up the document I have here. With the project folder open, click into the S two Essential Practice folder into folder 22 adjustment layers, and open the adjustment layers after effects file, and you'll have the same document I have open here. This is a document you can use to quickly experiment with adjustment layers with me in this video. So I want to draw your attention first over to the project panel. Here you can see I have a folder called adjustment layers and one called practice. For now, I need you to pay attention to the adjustment layers folder. So double click on the first comp, aquarium edit, and it will appear in the composition panel. So I'll make sure the time indicator is at the start of the timeline and I'll press space bar to activate preview. So unlike the previous video where we had just one video layer, here we have a composition with multiple video layers making the short video edit here. This is consisting of six video layers. Now, looking at the video in the composition panel, we can see that it has this blue filter applied to the entire comp. To create this effect, I applied an adjustment layer. Now, if we look carefully down in the timeline panel, we can see this layer on the top called adjustment layer. Now, if I toggle the visibility of this layer by hitting the eye icon on the left to turn it off, we will see all the videos play with the normal color. We can talk of the visibility of this adjustment layer to either apply the effect or turn it off. What is an adjustment layer? Well, adjustment layers are layers you place in your timeline that have no visual appearance in your video sequence. However, they do hold effects information that is applied to any layer below them. For example, if we click on the adjustment layer, come over to the project panel and carefully click on the effect controls tab at the top of the panel, we can see there are a number of effects applied to this adjustment layer. We have a black and white, an autocontrast, and a photo filter. If I toggle these off from the bottom to the top by hitting the effects icon, you can see that this overall effect has been built by a number of effects, just like we learned in the previous video. I'll toggle these back. Right now, this layer is sitting on the top of the layer stack. If I click and drag the adjustment layer three layers down, we won't see any effects applied to the layers above the adjustment layer in the timeline. When using adjustment layers, you have to keep in mind where it is placed on the timeline. When using adjustment layers, you have to keep in mind where it is placed in the layer stack. Remember, anything placed below it will be affected and anything above will not. So let's take a look at another example. So back into the project panel, I'll carefully click on the project tab at the top, and this time, double click on Camden Edit, and it will appear in the composition panel. So I'll make sure the time indicator is at the start of the timeline, and I'll press Spacebar to activate preview. So this time, unlike the heavy filter applied to the previous examples, this time, I have a subtle photo filter. And if we look down in the timeline panel, we can see again, we have an adjustment layer on the top. If we toggle the visibility of the adjustment layer on and off by hitting the eye icon, we can see the effect this is having. Why do we use adjustment layers? Well, in this example, you can see I have six video layers making up this video composition. To apply effects to each video would take a bit of work. If I decided to tweak or change the effect, I would have to change every single layer. Adjustment layers allow you to easily apply an effect to an entire composition very easily. Adjustment layers are really for convenience when working in after effects and an adjustment layer can be used for all of effects from color to distortion. So back into the Project panel, this time, double click on Hyde Park Edit. So I'll make sure the time indicator is at the start of the timeline, and I'll press Space bar to activate preview. This time, I have an overexposure effect applied. And if you toggle the adjustment layer off, you can see it's having quite a drastic effect. Now, if we select the adjustment layer, come into the project panel and click on the effects and controls tab at the top you can see what's being applied to the adjustment layer to create this effect. Lastly, back into the project panel, double click on Tower Bridge Edit. I'll make sure the time indicator is at the start of the timeline and I'll press spacebar to activate preview. This time, I have an effect applied to make it look a little more vintage and dreamy. Again, if you toggle the adjustment layer off, you can see it's having quite a drastic effect. This time, we don't only have color effects applied, but also distortion effects to create this abstract visual effect. So when using an adjustment layer you can apply a wide range of effects. So let's now take a look at how we can apply and use an adjustment layer. So back into the project panel, if you look below the adjustment layer folder, we have a folder called practice. In this folder, we have the same compositions we have just seen but without the adjustment layers and you can use these to apply adjustment layers with me. Let's begin by double clicking on aquarium, and it will appear in the composition panel. Here we are with a video sequence I have prepared earlier, very similar to what you may create in after effects. So instead of applying a color effect to each individual video layer, I want to apply it quickly to the entire comp. Do this is easy. First place your mouse cursor over on the left hand side of the timeline panel into the blank space below the naernames and right click. Scroll up to new, then come down and select adjustment layer. Upon click, you will see a new layer appear on the top of your layer stack. By default, the layer will be named as adjustment layer, followed by in number corresponding to its place in the layer stack. Now we can go ahead and apply effect to this adjustment layer. I'll come over to the after effects panel. I'll drop down the color correction folder. I'll click and drag the autocontrast effect onto my adjustment layer, and upon release, I can see that has enhanced my video below nicely. Also, in the effects controls panel to the left, we will now see the effects controls we can modify if we wish to tweak the effect further. Now that may be all I want to do to this comp. But if I wanted to add more effects, I could keep applying more presets to the adjustment layer, and this time, I'll drag vibrant onto the adjustment layer and push that up to around 70 over in the effects controls just to make those colors pop more. Now, what if I wanted everything to be black and white? Well, this time, I could drag the black and white effect onto the adjustment layer. Now, what if I wanted to apply a lens distortion effect? Well, this time, I'll click down on the distortion folder and drag the warp effect onto the adjustment layer. Over in the effects controls, I'll click down on the warp style and select Fish eye, and now it looks like we are looking through some strange glass. In the effects controls, we can also toggle off some of the effects if we don't want them any longer. I'll toggle off black and white, and I'll make sure the timeline indicator is at the start of the timeline and I'll press space bar to activate preview. Just like that, we have applied a number of effects really simply to an entire composition of layers. And if for whatever reason I want to take away the effect, all I need to do is simply click on the I icon for the adjustment layer to turn the effect off. So that's how simple it is to use adjustment layers in after effects. So over the past few videos, we have been applying color effects using some of the effects and presets. Now, while we are on the topic of color adjustments, there is another option you can consider. In after effects, we can also use what are called blending modes. Blending modes can be used to apply further dynamic color and video effect to your compositions. In the next video, we will be looking at how blending modes can be used. So see you in the next video. 24. Blending Modes: Hello, and welcome to the 23rd video in this beginner's guide to Adobe After effect. In this tutorial, we are going to look at blending modes and how they work in after effects. In the previous episode, we looked at how we can make color adjustments using some of the effects and presets. Now, in after effects, we can also use what are called blending modes, which can be used to add more dynamic color and video effect to your compositions. So in this video, we are going to be covering the following topics. What are blending modes and how to use them. By the end of this tutorial, you will have a good understanding of how to use blending mode. So let's get into it. So here I am in after effects, and I have a project open here that I'm going to use to demonstrate how blending modes work. So what exactly are blending modes? Well, blending modes are the ability to visually blend layers together, and we do this in the timeline panel. We can use blending modes to create various visual effects. Now, for those of you that are experienced with Adobe Photoshop, you may already be familiar with blending modes, as they work much the same in after effects as they do in Photoshop. In after effects, when we want to use blending modes, we can locate them in the timeline panel over on the left, near the layer names. Notice we have some small buttons in the bottom left corner. These are here to toggle the visibility of the controls and switches for our layers. When focusing on blending modes, we will want to make sure we have the middle one highlighted in blue or simply checked in earlier versions of after effects. This will allow us to see our blending mode options for each layer. Now, if we click on the mode dropdown, we will see a big list. This is a list of all the possible blending modes we can use. So looking at this, we can see the list is divided into eight sections. Each of these sections applies a particular type of blending mode. So the top section applies normal modes. The second section applies darkened modes. The third section applies lighten modes. The fourth section applies contrast modes. The fifth section applies comparative modes. The sixth section applies color modes. The seventh section applies matt modes, and the last section applies utility modes. Now, if you want to take a look and refer to this diagram in more depth, you can check out the blending mode page on the course PDF that comes free with this course. Download link is in the description. Now, at this stage, this list may mean nothing to you. But after a little experimentation, you will soon learn what these mean and the effects each blending mode has and which one will be right to use in the right instance. Now there does seem to be a lot of modes here, but there are only a few that are commonly used. Let's take a quick look at a few examples. Now, if you have the project folder, you can open the document I have here. With the project folder open, click into the S two Essential Practice folder into folder 23 blending modes and open the blending modes after effects file, and you will have the same document I have open here. This is a document you can use to quickly experiment with blending modes with me in this video. Now I want to draw your attention over to the project panel. Here you can see I have a folder called blending mode examples and one called Worksheets. For now, I need you to pay attention to the blending mode examples folder. So double click on the first composition here, dreamy and it will open in the composition panel. I'll make sure the time indicator is at the start of the timeline and I'll press Space bar to activate preview. So what we have here is a video playing on top of another video with a blending mode applied, which creates this dreamy effect. I'll press space bar to stop the preview, and if we look at the timeline panel, we can see we have two video layers. The top layer has a linear dodge blending mode applied in the ten mode section, and the layer has an opacity of 50%. Now, if I change the blending mode to normal at the top, we can see the effect without the blending mode. Now, if we apply the linear dodge blending mode back, we can see the video blends more subtly with the video below. So back in the project panel, this time, I want you to double click on the second comp, old history. I'll make sure the time indicator is set to the start of the timeline, and I'll press space bar to activate preview. Now, what we have here is a video playing, but this time with a series of static layers on top, creating this old history look and feel. So I'll press space bar to stop the preview, and if we look in the timeline panel, we have one video layer at the bottom, an image layer above that, and a shape layer at the top. So I'll toggle the visibility of these layers off by clicking the icons, and to create this, we started with a normal video layer. The video layer selected over in the project panel, I click on the Effects Controls tab at the top. To this video, I applied a toner effect from the color correction effects and presets panel. This is to give it an old monotone look and feel. Now, on top of this video layer, we have a JPEG image of some paper texture. To this, we have a hard light blending mode applied in the contrast modes section. And the layer has an opacity of 80%. If I change the blending mode to normal, we can see the effect without the blending mode. Now, if we apply the hard light blending mode back, we can see that blends much better with the video below. Next, we have a shape layer with a gradient color fill with a multiply blending mode applied in the darkened mode section, and the layer has an opacity of 70%. If I change the blending mode to normal, we can see the effect without the blending mode, which is much lighter. Now, if we apply the multiply blending mode back, we can see that has a much richer effect. So back in the project panel, I'll click on the project tab at the top, and this time, I want you to double click on the third comp Vivid. I'll make sure the time indicator is at the start of the timeline, and I'll press spacebar to activate the preview. What we have here is a video playing on top of a still image creating a vivid look and feel. I'll press Spacebar to stop the preview. And if we look in the timeline panel, we have one video layer at the top and an image layer below. To create this, we start with a normal image layer. On top of this, we have a video layer, which has been modified with a auto levels preset from the effects and controls panel. To this layer, a screen blending mode has been applied from the ten mode section. If I change the blending mode to normal, we can see the effect without the blending mode. If we apply the screen blending mode back, we can see that blends much better with the image below. Back in the project panel, next, I want you to double click on the fourth comp, gritty. I'll make sure the time indicators at the start of the timeline and I'll press spacebar to activate preview. Now, what we have here is a combination of both image and video layers creating a gritty look and feel. So I'll press space bar to stop the preview, and if we look at the timeline panel, we have two video layers at the bottom and two image layers above. So to create this, we started with a normal video layer at the bottom, and then the same video layer is duplicated on top. With the layer selected, if we look over in the effect controls panel, to this layer, we have a ramp and levels effect applied. This is creating the vignette effect and adding contrast to the video. To this video layer, we then have an overlay blending mode applied in the contrast mode section. And the video layer has an opacity of 50%. If I change the blending mode to normal, we can see the effect without the blending mode. Now, if we apply the overlay blending mode back, we can see that blends much better with the video below creating the richer effect. Next, I have an image layer adding these splash marks to the side of the video. This layer has a multiply blending mode applied in the darkened mode section. If I change the blending mode to normal, we can see the effect without the blending mode where we have a lot of white in the image layer. Now, if we apply the multiply blending mode back, we can see that blends easily. Now the next layer is the opposite. Again, we have an image layer, but this time adding white splash marks to the side of the video. This layer has a screen blending mode applied in the lighten mode section. If I change the blending mode to normal, we can see the effect without the blending mode where we have a lot of black in the image layer. Now, if we apply the screen blending mode back, we can see that blends easily. So those are a few examples of the types of effects that can be achieved using blending modes in after effects. So back on the project panel, I want to show you one last example. Next, I want you to double click on the fifth comp, wish you were here. I'll make sure the time indicator is at the start of the timeline, and I'll press space bar to activate preview. What we have here is a combination of both image and video layers creating a moving image postcard. This is a composition a designer could create for a social media post or as part of a video presentation. This example is using some basic effects and presets and the same blending techniques as the previous examples. Let's see how we can create an example like this. Back in the project panel, notice under the blending mode examples folder, we have a worksheet folder. Well, in here you should see a comp called postcard. Now, I have put this together for you to follow along with me. Let's begin by double clicking on this postcard comp. So here in the timeline, we can see a number of layers, and these have just been placed in here ready for you to work with. So let's start by toggling off the visibility of these layers. So from the bottom, we have an image layer. So this is a photograph of a tabletop with a blank postcard that we want to superimpose our video onto. On top of this, we have a video layer. This is the video we want to place into the postcard. On top of this, we have an image layer, which appears to be a sample of old paper texture, and we're going to put this on top of the video. On top of this, we have another image layer. This is a piece of type we are again going to place on top of the video postcard. So these image layers are layers that any designer may create and prepare in Photoshop or perhaps purchase from royalty free websites. In this instance, I have created these images myself. So by now, we are pretty much familiar with the way layers work in the timeline panel. The timeline panel works on a hierarchy from top to bottom. The layers at the top will have the most visibility than any layer below. So to begin, I'm going to toggle off the visibility of the top image layer, as we will not need this until later. What I want to do here is place the video layer on top of the image below into the postcard area. With the video layer selected, I'll press S on the keyboard to activate scale, and I'll click and drag on the scale value to scale the video down a little like so to roughly the same size as the postcard. Then I'll press R on the keyboard to activate rotation, and I'll rotate the video until it's roughly on top of the postcard. Now I want to place the video into the postcard, but with some white borders around. Here is a quick tip. To place the video perfectly, we can use a preset. Up in the effect and presets panel, we are going to come up to the top, click into the search field and type corner. In the distort folder, we will see a preset called corner pin. If we drag that onto the layer, we will see corner pins applied to the edge of the video. Next, I can simply click and drag each corner pin to where I want it like so. Easy. Now my video is how I want it placed inside the postcard area with white borders around. So right now, the outline of the video is looking too sharp. I want to roughen the edges here so it looks a little bit more convincing like it's part of the card. So again, up in the Effects and Presets panel, this time, I'll type in roughen. In a style folder below, we will see a preset called roughen edges. If we drag that onto the layer, we will see the settings appear in the effect controls over on the left. So I'll set the border to eight and push the complexity up to about ten. So now we can see we have a rough edge around the video, which looks more like it has been printed onto the card behind. Perfect. So next, I'm going to come up to the effect and presets panel, click the X to reset the folders below, and in the color correct folder, I will click and drag the Photoflter effect onto the video layer. And in the effect controls, I will click on the filter dropdown, select the warming filter 81, and then push up the density to about 50%. So now we have a bit of a vintage feel applied to the postcard image. Great. So next, I'll toggle back the old paper texture, and here I can use the same process I used to place the video. I'll press S to activate the scale and scale the image down. I'll press R to activate rotation and rotate the image so it's in line with the postcard. Up in the effects and presets panel, we're going to come up to the top, click into the search field and type in corner. In the distort folder below, we will see a preset called corner pin. If we drag that onto the image layer, we will see drag points appear on the edge of the image. Now I can zoom in here by scrolling on the mouse wheel and I can simply click and drag a point into each corner of the postcard. Then press and hold space bar and click and drag across the frame and then drag the next pin into the corner. Hold space bar, click to drag along the frame to the next pin, then drag that into the corner. Until all four pins are in position. In this instance, I'll click the magnification pop up at the top of the composition panel and click Fit. Now my old paper texture is in place. I can come down into the layer and click on the blending mode option and select multiply. Upon click, the paper layer above has blended with the video and image layer below, and that looks a lot more convincing. So why did we use the multiply blending mode? Well, let's change the blending mode currently applied to the paper layer. So let's come back up to the blending mode and this time come down and click on overlay. Upon click, this is having a completely different effect. This is making our image way too bright. If we come back to the blending mode categories, we can see that the overlay blending mode is part of the contrast category, thus creating a contrasting bright effect. If we come back to apply the multiply, we can see that this is the right effect for us to make the paper look like it's part of the video layer below. This is because the multiply layer is part of the darkened mode. All the white in the paper layer image will become transparent and the black tones in the image will blend with the layer below, thus darkening the image giving us this effect. If that is looking a little too much, I can simply press T to activate opacity and bring it down to about 65%. Next, I'll toggle back the type layer, and to finish off this composition, we want to place this white type over the postcard. With the layer selected, I can press R to activate rotation. I'll rotate until the image is in line with the postcard. Then I'll come down on the blending mode and select screen. This will then blend nicely with the layers below. Now, the screen blending mode exists in the lighting category, so all the black will disappear and we will only see the white. So I'll make sure the time indicator is at the start of the timeline and I'll press space bar to activate preview, and that is looking pretty good. Now we have three layers on top of the original video layer, all with their own unique blending modes applied, creating this interesting visual effect. So we must keep in mind that blending modes work to the usual layer hierarchy system from the top down. So when using blending modes, you must play close attention to the layer structure and the hierarchy. As you use various layers and blending modes, it's all about the combination and the structure that can determine the overall effect. You will come to realize that there are endless possibilities of the combinations of layers and blending modes you can explore to create various visual effects. Be sure to take some time to experiment and explore the blending modes on offer. Keep in mind the various categories of blending modes on offer so you can apply the right blending mode to capture the right effect you're looking for. Now, as you start to use after effect, more and more, there are going to be times where you'll want to cut something out or only see a certain part of the video to create a certain effect. To do this, we can use what is called masking. In the next video, I'll be introducing you to masking and showing you how to use it. So see you in the next video. 25. Masking in After Effects: Hello, and welcome to the 24th video in this beginner's guide to Adobe After effect. In this tutorial, we are going to look at masking in After effect. Now, as you start to use aftereffects, more and more, there are going to be times where you'll want to cut something out or only see a certain part of the video to create a certain effect. What we can do in aftereffects is use what we call masking. In this video, I'll be introducing you to masking and showing you how to use it. So in this video, we'll be covering the following topics, what masking is and how to mask with simple shapes, the pentle and with paths pasted in from Illustrator. After this video, you will get a better understanding of masking and how it works. So you will feel more comfortable and confident using masks in your project. So let's get into it. So here I am in after effects, and I have a project open here that I am going to use to demonstrate how masking works. So what exactly is masking? Well, masking is a way to remove parts of a layer without destruction, keeping the original source intact. Now, unlike programs like Photoshop, we cannot simply delete parts of a video or image layer away. But what we can do is use masking to hide what we don't want to see. For those of you that are experienced with Adobe Photoshop, you may already be familiar with masking as they work much the same in after effects as they do in Photoshop. However, setting them up and managing them in after effects is quite different. So let's take a quick look at a few examples. Now, if you have the project folder, you can open up the document I have here. With the project folder open, click into the S two scentialPractice folder into folder 24 masking and open the masking after effects file, and you will have the same document I have open here. This is a document you can use to quickly experiment with masking in this video. So now I want to draw your attention over to the project panel. Here you can see I have a folder called mask examples and one called practice. For now, I need you to pay attention to the mask examples folder. So double click on the first composition here, mask video with simple shapes, and it will appear in the composition panel. So I'll make sure the time indicator is at the start of the timeline, and I'll press Spacebar to activate preview. So what we have here is a video I took from London Aquarium, but we can only see certain parts of the video playing behind this layer. So right now it looks like we are looking through some small windows. So I'll press Space bar to stop the preview. And if we look in the timeline panel, we only have three layers. We have a video layer on the top and a black solid layer beneath. If I toggle the visibility of the black solid layer by clicking on the icon, we can see the blue solid below. Now, I'll press V to activate the selection tool and click on the top video layer, and we should see some shape outlines. These are shape masks which are applied to the video layer. The masks applied to this video in this instance, have been created using shapes from the Shape Builder tool. Now let's come into the timeline panel and toggle down the properties of the video layer. Upon click, we will see a new property we have not seen yet on this course. Here we have a masks property. So if we toggle this down, we can see that on this layer we have six individual masks applied. Now, let's click on mask one and toggle this down. So for each mask, we have four properties, which can be tweaked. On a mask, we can tweak the feather by dragging this in and out. We can tweak the opacity of the mask and we can tweak the mask expansion. Pretty cool. So if I toggle this up and toggle down the rest, we can tweak the same properties if we so choose. So this is a video layer that has been masked using shapes created from the Shape Builder tool. When a mask is applied to a layer, it will always be accessible from the layer settings as just shown. And I'll demonstrate how this is done shortly. Now, back in the project panel, this time, I want you to double click on the second comp, mask a comp with a pen tool. I'll make sure the time indicator is at the start of the timeline and I'll press space bar to activate preview. What we have here is a person wearing sunglasses and with what appears to be a reflection on the sunglasses. This time, instead of using simple shapes to create a mask, I have used the Pen tool to draw a specific shape to mask through. So I'll press spacebar to stop the preview. And if we look in the timeline panel, we have three layers. First, we have a shape layer, and the visibility of this is currently set off. If I toggle the visibility of this back on, we can see it's the shape of the sunglass lenses. I'll just toggle this off now. Next, we have a composition layer. In this instance, instead of masking a single video layer, this time we are masking a composition layer and under this, we have a single image of a person wearing sunglasses. Now, with the selection tool active, if we now click on the video layer we should see some shape outlines. These are the mask paths which are applied to the video comp layer. Now, the masks applied to this video comp layer in this instance have been created using the Pen tool. Now let's come into the timeline panel and toggle down the properties of the video comp player. So again, we can see the masks property. So if we toggle this down, we can see that on this layer, we have two individual masks applied, mask one for the right lens and mask two for the left lens. If we click on mask one and toggle this down, we can see the same properties we saw in the last mask example. So when creating a mask with the shape drawn with the Pen tool, it carries the same properties that can be tweaked with a mask drawn with a shape. Now, back in the project panel, this time, I want you to double click on pasting paths from Illustrator. I'll make sure the time indicator is at the start of the timeline, and I'll press Spacebar to activate preview. What we have here is a crown shape with some video of the river Thames and a tower bridge castle inside. I'll press Spacebar to stop the preview, and if we look in the timeline panel, we have three layers. On top, we have a video layer, and beneath this, we have a shape layer and a solid layer. The shape layer has a subtle gradient color applied, and if I toggle this off, the solid layer below is white. Now with the selection tool active, if we now click on the video layer, we should see some shape outlines. This time we have something a lot more complex than the shape masks and the pen tool masks demonstrated in the previous examples. The masks applied to this video layer in this instance is from a path pasted in from Adobe Illustrator. Here I am in Adobe Illustrator, and here is a vector crown that has been prepared earlier. In after effects, it is possible to paste in a complex path such as this to create a mask from. So back in after effects, if I come into the timeline panel and toggle down the properties of the video layer, again, we can see the masks property. So if we toggle this down, we can see that in this instance, there are many individual masks making up the crown shape. If we click on mask one and toggle this down, we can see the same properties we saw in the last mask example. So when pasting in paths from Illustrator, the same properties can be tweaked on the mask. Those are a few common examples of how one may go about masking in after effects. Depending on the complexity of the effect you want to achieve, you may either use the simple shape or you may want to use the pen tool or pastel in a path from Illustrator. So let's see how we can apply masks to our layers. So back in the project panel, notice under the mask examples folder, we have a practice folder. In here, you should see the same comps as above, but without any of the effects and mask applied. Now, I have put these together for you to follow along with me. Let's begin by clicking on the first comp, mask with shapes. Here in the timeline, we can see a number of layers. Let's start by toggling off the visibility of these layers. From the bottom, we have a blue solid layer. Above this, a black solid layer, and on top of those, we have a video layer. For this exercise, we are going to look at how we can mask using simple shapes made with the shape tool. So if at any point you want to mask a layer using a shape, we will first need to have the layer selected in the timeline panel. With the layer selected, we can come up to the shape tool, click and hold to select a shape. In this instance, I'll select a circle shape, and now I can simply click and drag on the video layer. And as we start to drag out, we are instantly creating a mask on the layer. Upon release, we will now have a mask applied to the layer. If I want to reposition the mask, I can come down into the layer and toggle down the properties to reveal the mask. If I click the mask, I can use the arrow keys on the keyboard to move the shape mask around quite easily. If I want to change the shape of the mask with it selected, I can double click on the path with the selection tool and we will see the bounding box, which I can tweak accordingly. Now, if for whatever reason you cannot see the bounding box, come up and click on View and make sure show layer controls is checked. Now, if I want to tweak this mask further, I can come and toggle down mask one and add a feather, ultra opacity, and tweak expansion like so. So that's how easy it is to apply a shape mask. But what if I want to add more masks? Well, this can be done quite simply. Again, with the video layer selected, I can come back to the shape tool, click and hold, select a shape, and simply click and drag to draw out another shape like so. This will apply another mask to the layer. And if we look in the timeline panel, we can see we now have a mask too. Now, what if I want to copy this square mask and duplicate it on the other side? Well, if I come down to masks and select the mask two, by pressing Command D on Mac or Control D on PC, this will duplicate the mask and now we can see a mask three. With mask three selected, simply press the arrow keys on the keyboard to move this out to wherever you want it. I'll do this while holding Shift to move it in larger increments. Just like that, you can duplicate a mask on a layer. So I'll make sure the time indicator is at the start of the timeline, and I'll press space bar to activate preview. And that's how easy it is to apply simple masks to your layers using shapes. Now remember, before applying a shape mask, make sure to have the layer selected first in your timeline panel. So that's one technique to applying a mask to your layers. Now, there may be an instance where a simple shape won't do. Perhaps you have a more bespoke area you want to mask out. To mask more complicated areas, we can use the pen tool. So back in the project panel, this time, I want you to double click on the second comp mask with the Pen tool. So here in the timeline, we have two layers. Let's start by toggling off the visibility of these. So from the bottom, we have an image layer of a person wearing sunglasses and on top is a video layer. So for this exercise, we want to place the video inside the lenses of the sunglasses to make it look like it's a reflection. So this time, we have a very specific shape on the sunglasses to mask. To do this, we will first draw out our shapes with the pen tool. To begin, I will toggle off the visibility of the video layer and I'll make sure I do not have any layer selected in the timeline panel. It's really important not to have a layer selected at this point. I'll press G on the keyboard to activate the Pen tool. Now up near the tools menu, I'm going to click on fill and I'll set it to none. Then I'll drag the stroke out to about five pixels and set the stroke color to a white. I'll scroll in on my mouse wheel to zoom in a little, and I'll start to click points around my first sunglass lens like so. Pressing and holding space bar to click and move around my canvas area to add more points. And when I get near to the start, I will click on the first vertex point to complete the shape. So right now, I have this rough shape inside my sunglass lens. Next, I'll come up to the Pentool, click and hold and select the convert to Vertex tool. Now I'm going to come back and click and drag on each vertex to add curve to my line. I'll do this carefully on each vertex point until I have a nice smooth shape filling my sunglass lens. Notice, in the timeline panel, upon drawing my shape with the pen tool, I now have a new shape layer. Perfect. Okay, so now we need to draw the other lens. So this time, I'll make sure the current shape layer is selected. I'll press G to make sure the pen tool is active. Now, if whatever reason you see the feather icon, simply press G again until you see the pen icon. And again, I'll click to draw points on the next lens like so. I'll click around and join at the end. I'll come up to the pento, click and hold and select the Convert to Vertex tool, and I'll click back and click and drag on each vertex to add curve to my line. Now, I'll do this carefully on each vertex point until I have a nice smooth shape filling my sunglass lens. I'll click off the layer and I'll click the magnification pop up at the bottom of the composition panel and click Fit to Zoom out. Down in the properties for the new shape layer, if we drop down the contents, we can see we have two shapes on this layer, shape one and two, which are the two lenses. So now I want to get the video inside these shapes. Okay, so we are going to apply some effects to the video later. So before we start to place the video, we will want to pre compose the video first. So to begin, I'll quickly right click on the video layer and select pre compose. On this occasion, I will name the comp sunglass video. I'll make sure to move all attributes into the new comp. I'll adjust the comp duration to the timespan, but click off open New comp and click Okay. So now the video layer is placed inside a comp player. Great. I'll press S on the keyboard to activate scale, and in the layers properties, I'll scale the video down like so. Then I'll press R to activate the rotation settings, and I'll rotate the video slightly so it's in line with the sunglasses until I have something that looks like this. Next, I'll press V to activate the selection tool and click and drag the video into place, so it's neatly over the lenses. So now I'll toggle down the shape layer properties to reveal the contents and the shapes. Then down into the shape, we will see a path option. So starting with shape two, I'll toggle down the path, then select the path and press Command C on Mac or Control C on PC to copy. For now, I will toggle off the visibility of the shape layer on top. Now, if I come to the video layer, I'll make sure this is selected. With it selected, I'll press G to activate the Pen tool with the layer selected, click once with the pen tool on the video layer, and then hit Command V on Mac or Control V on PC to paste. Upon paste, the paths from the shape layer will be pasted onto the video, and we should see the path highlighted like so. But now we have a problem. The path shape is for some reason, smaller than the path we just copied from the shape layer. Well, this is because we adjusted the size on rotation of the video comp layer. When pasting paths into layers that have been changed, the paths are not how we want them. So I'll press command Z on Mac or Control Z on PC do that. Now the solution to this problem is to pre compose the video layer again. We just change the rotation and scale of this video. If we now come back to the comp layer, I'll right click on the video layer and select pre compose. On this occasion, we will name the comp sunglass video two. I'll be sure to move all attributes into the new comp. I'll make sure adjust to the composition is checked, and I'll click off open New Comp and click Okay. Now the video comp layer is placed inside another comp layer. This time, it should work fine. Again, I'll toggle down the shape layer properties to reveal the contents of the shapes. Then down into the shape, we will see the path option. I'll toggle down the path, then select the path and press Command C on Mac or Control C on PC to copy. Now I will come to the video comp layer and make sure this is selected. With it selected, press G to activate the pen tool. If you can see the feather icon, just press G again until you can see the pen icon. With the layer selected, click once with the Pentool on the video layer and then hit Command on Mac or Control V on PC to paste. Now we have the path exactly how we want it. Now I'll toggle down the video comp layer and down into masks, we will see we have one mask applied. To the right of this, we will see a drop down that states none. Now, if we click this and select Add, we have now marked the video into the first sunglass lens. Perfect. So back into the shape layer on top, this time, select the path of shape one, press Command C on Mac or Control C on PC to copy. Click back into the video comp layer, press G to activate the Pen tool. And if you see the feather icon, simply press G again until you can see the pen icon. Click once, then press Command V on Mac or Control V on PC to paste. And the next path will be pasted onto the video comp layer. Again, back in the video comp layer, if we toggle to our masks, we can now see we have a new mask. Where it states none on the drop down to the right, click this and select Add, and now the video is inside the second lens. Perfect. So that's one simple technique how we can place video into paths drawn from the pen tool. Okay, so right now, this is not looking too convincing. To alter this, we can add some simple effects to the video. So if we double click into the video comp, we will open up a new comp with the video scaled down and rotated. If we double click on the video comp inside this layer, we will see the video is normal. So up in the effects and Controls panel, in the search menu, I'm going to type in black. This will reveal the black and white effect below, and I'll drag this onto the video layer. Next, up in the effect panel, I'll type in warp. Below in the distort folder, I'll drag the warp effect onto the video. Next, over in the Effect Controls, I'll click on the warp style and choose Fish eye. Next, I'll click off the video layer to deselect it. I'll come up to the shape layer, select a square. Then over in the fill, I'll select linear gradient. I'll push the stroke down to zero, then I'll drag a little square on top like so. Then I'll press and hold Alton Command on Mac or Alton Control on PC and press F, and that will fit the shape to the video frame. I'll click back into the color box and set my colors for my gradient. For the left color, I'll select a blue, and for the right color, I'll select a purple. I'll click Okay, then press V to activate the selection tool, and this will allow me to select the gradient points and tweak them like. I may have to zoom out a little to do this. So I'll move them so the gradient is at an angle. So once I'm happy with my gradient, I'll come down into the timeline panel, and on the layer properties for my shape layer, I'll click on the blending mode and select screen. If you cannot see your blending mode, make sure you have the second from left switch set to on in the bottom left corner of the interface. Okay, so with that effect applied, I can close the tab down and I'll see my new video comp with the effect applied. I'll close this tab down, and we are now back into the main comp with the video inside the sunglasses. Now, to finish off the effect, I'll come down into the timeline panel, and on the layer properties for my comp layer, I'll click on the blending mode and select multiply, and that will blend really nicely with the sunglass image below. I'll make sure the time indicator is at the start of the timeline panel, and I'll press space bar to activate preview, and that is looking pretty neat. So that's another technique to apply a mask to your layers. There may be an instance where even a path drawn with a pen tool might not do. Perhaps you have a piece of artwork drawn somewhere else, you want to recreate in after effects, but drawing it with a pen tool would take a long time. So to mask an even more complicated area, we can paste in a path from Adobe Illustrator. So back in the project panel, this time, I want you to double click on the third comp, masking with Illustrator path. So here in the timeline, we have two layers. Let's start by toggling off the visibility of these layers. From the bottom, we have a shape layer with a dark grade interpld and on top a video layer. So for this exercise, we want to paste in a very complicated path from Adobe Illustrator. So here we are in Illustrator, and this is a piece of vector artwork that has been created previously. We are going to paste this path into after effects and use it as a mask. Now at this point, it would help if you already have Illustrator installed on your computer, as we are going to open this Illustrator and copy the path. So to do this, we will first need our video set up in the composition like so, and then we will need to open up the path we want to paste in Adobe Illustrator. So with the project folder open, click into the project Assets folder, into the Images folder, into the AI folder, into the masks folder and open the crown mask document. So to begin, we will need to select the shape path. So I'll click the shape and press Command C on Mac or Control C on PC to copy. Back in after effects, simply select the video layer and with it selected, press Command V on Mac or Control V to paste. And just like that, a mask will be created on the video from the paths in Illustrator. Easy. And if we come down into the layer settings, we can see in the mask section, we have lots of individual mask shapes that are making up the mask, which can be tweaked as demonstrated earlier. So that's how you can apply simple masks to a layer in after effects. Now, in this video, I showed you some of the basic ways we can mask in after effects. These examples were quite static and didn't really move. Now, once you have applied a mask to a layer, it is actually possible to animate it. Hup is an example of how we can use masks and animate masks to create a dynamic type animation where type seems to appear from a particular point. In the next video, we are going to build on top of what we learned in this video and look at how we can animate a mask to create a dynamic animation sequence like this. So see in the next video. 26. Animate a Shape: Hello, and welcome to the 25th video in this beginner's guide to Adobe After effect. In this tutorial, we are going to look at how we can animate a simple mask in after effects. In the previous episode, I showed you some of the basic ways we can mask in after effects. Now, those examples were quite static and didn't really move. So here is an example of how we can use masks and animate them to create a dynamic type animation, where type seems to appear from a particular point. In this video, we are going to build on top of what we learned in the previous video and look at how we can animate a mask to create a dynamic animation sequence like this. After this video, you will get a better understanding of masks and how to animate them. So let's get into it. So here I am in after effects, and I have a project open here that I'm going to use to demonstrate how to animate a simple mask. What we can see here is an animated sequence where a bar graphic appears to grow out, and then type magically appears from behind it. So if we look down in the layers panel, we can see that this comp is made up of a blue shape layer on top, two type layers, and a gradient shape layer below. So right now, this sequence is happening on top of what looks like a radial gradient in the background. Now looking down in the layers panel, we can see at the bottom, we have a pale yellow solid layer below the gradient shape layer. Now, if we toggle off the visibility of the gradient base layer, we can see the sequence continues to play over the pale yellow. So there does not seem to be any shape layers or anything visually creating this effect. If I click the visibility back for the gradient base, we can see it's all transparent. So to create this animated effect, we have masks applied to the layers, and these masks have been animated. So let's take a look at how this has been created. Now if you have the project folder, you can open up the document I have here. With the project folder open, click into the S two Essential practice folder into folder 25, animate a shape mask and open the animate a shape mask after effect fall you'll have the same document I have open here. This is a document you can use to quickly experiment with animating masks in this video. I'll drag the time indicator across the timeline so we can see the final layout of the type. Now, if we click on the top blue layer with it selected, we can see the bounding box around it up in the composition panel above, and we can also see these two rectangles that appear on the left and the right side. Now, if for whatever reason you cannot see the bounding box, come up to view and make sure show layer controls is checked. So here we can see these two boxes on the left and right. Now, if I press U on the keyboard, we will see some key frames appear on the layer. Now, if I drag my mouse cursor over these frames, we can see these boxes move from the middle and outwards. These boxes are the masks that are applied to this blue. Layer. Now, if I drag the time indicator back out to the full comp, if we click on the type layers below, we will see something similar. We can see the bounding box around the type and these other boxes. Well, again, these are masks applied to these type layers. And if we press U on the keyboard on the type layers, we will reveal the keyframes applied. Let's now have a go at creating this sequence and see how we can animate a mask. So if you come into the project panel, you will see a folder here called practice. To begin, double click on the comp inside, animated shape mask. So here is the same comp we just saw, but without any of the masks and animation applied. So let's start with the blue bar graphic in the middle. So down in the timeline panel, I'll select the blue bar layer and come down and toggle down the contents of the layer. So this bar graphic was created using the rectangle shape tool. And on this layer, we can see we have contents and transform options. What I want to do here is animate this bar so it looks like it is growing out from the center. Also, I want to apply some feather to the edges. To do this, I'm going to apply two separate masks and then animate them. With the layer selected, I'll come up to the top of the interface and click Layer. I'll scroll down and place my mouse on mask, then scroll across and click on New mask. Upon click, we will now see a new mask property become available in the layer properties. This has now applied a new mask to the shape layer. Now, if we zoom in a little here and look carefully in the composition panel, we will see a new bounding box around the bar graphic. If I come and double click on this, I can then come and click and drag the edge of the box to change the size and shape of it. So I'll drag it down up and across like so. This is the mask area for the layer. Notice, as we drag this across, we can hide or reveal parts of the bar. I'll drag the edges of the mask area to set it over the bar graphic like so, covering the first half of the left side and giving lots of space over on the left. So next, I'll come down to look at the new mask property. Inside, we will see a mask called mask one. Now, if we look closely to the right of mask one, we will see a drop down box with the word add inside. Now, if we click this and select subtract, notice the mask now hides the part it is covering and reveals the part it is not. By clicking subtract, we have inverted the mask, so now it's hiding the bar. By setting this to either add or subtract, we can toggle the mask option. Okay, so this is the effect we want for now. So next, I'll come and make sure mask one is selected, and I'll press Command D on Mac or Control D on PC to duplicate the mask property. Upon click, we will now see a new mask called mask two become available. So with this selected, I'll press and hold shift, and press and hold the right arrow on the keyboard. Notice, as the mask moves over to the right, the bar graphic is now disappearing. So I'll do this until it's over to the far right hand side. So now we have two mask applied to this bar graphic. Perfect. So I'll press Command colon on Mac or control colon on PC, and this will pull up the guides. What I'll do here is move mask two over to the left a little so it's crossing over the center line. I'll click on mask one and move it right, so it's again over the central line. I'll press Command colon on Mac or control colon on PC again, and this will hide the guides. So what I need here is the two masks to be overlapping in the middle like so. Now the masks have been applied, I can now look to animate them. So I'll come down and toggle down the settings for mask one. And here we have mask path, mask feather, mask opacity, and mask expansion. Here, we can also see there is a stopwatch on each property which suggests we can animate them. So I'll start by placing my time indicator near the start of the comp and I'll come down and click the stopwatch to add a keyframe for mask path. Next, I'll drag the time indicator over slightly. With the mask path selected, I'll press and hold shift on the keyboard and press the left arrow to move the mask left. As we move left, we will see the line graphic coming back. Now, in this instance, I'm only going to move the mask halfway across the line. With the mask halfway across the line, I'll come down and tweak the feather. I'll come down and drag the feather setting up to 50 pixels. As I do this, you will then see the end of the bar graphic become feathered. Next, I'll click back on the mask path and press and hold Shift and press the left arrow on the keyboard until the mask is right to the far left of the bar. I'll make sure that the mask finishes right on the end so I can retain the feathered edge of the bar like so. So if I now click and drag the time indicator over the two keyframes, we can see the mask is animating across the bar graphic to reveal the left part of the layer bar. Perfect. So once the left mask is animated, we can now animate the right part. So I'll drag the time indicator while holding Shift to snap back to the first keyframe, then come and toggle down the settings for mask two. With the mask two path selected, I'll click the stopwatch to add a keyframe for mask path. I'll drag the time indicator over to the second keyframe for mask one while holding Shift to snap. With the mask two path selected, I'll press and hold shift on the keyboard and press the right arrow to move the mask. Right. As we move it right, we will see the line graphic coming back. So I'll move the mask right about halfway. Then I'll come down and drag the feather setting up to 50 pixels. As I do this, we will then see the end of the bar graphic become feathered. Next, I'll click back in the mask path and press and hold shift and press the right arrow on the keyboard until the mask is right to the far right of the bar. Now, I'll make sure that the mask finishes right on the end so I can retain the feathered edge of the bar like so. Perfect. So I'll come up to the blue layer and press U. This will collapse all the other settings and now just show the keyframes for our mask. I'll click the time indicator just after the second keyframes and I'll press N to set the end of the workspace area and press space bar to activate preview. We can see the bar graphic appears to grow out from the center with a feathered edge. So right now, the animation is looking a little plain, so I'll come in and add some easing. I'll drag my mouse over the first two keyframes. I'll right click on the top one, come down to keyframe assistant, then come across and select Easy Ease out. Next, I'll drag my mouse over the next two keyframes. I'll right click on the top one, come down to keyframe assistant, then come across and select Easy Ease in. I'll press space bar to activate preview, and that is looking more smooth. That is how you can animate a simple mask on a layer. And now we are going to finish off the animation sequence by masking and animating the type. So I'll come and select the top type layer. Now, applying masks to type layers is a little different to applying masks to shape layers. With the type selected, I can simply come up to the Shape Builder tool, click and hold, select the rectangle tool, and just click and drag over my shape. So upon release, we will now see a new mask option become available on my type setting. Now, if we come down and click on AD and choose subtract, the type will disappear. For now, I'll click back on AD so we can see the type. What I want to do here is animate the type so it appears to rise up from the bar graphic. As it rises, it will also appear to have a nice feather effect. So I'll place my time indicator at the second keyframe from the mask above. With my type layer selected, I'll press P to activate the position settings. Then I'll come and click the stopwatch to place a keyframe for position. Next, I'll drag my time indicator across the timeline about the same distance of the keyframes above. Then I'll come and hit the diamond shape for position to add a second keyframe. Now I'll click and drag my time indicator back while holding Shift to snap to the first keyframe. Now with the type layer selected, I'll press and hold shift on the keyboard and press the down arrow a few times to move my type down and below my bar graphic like so. So now, as I move my time indicator over these two new keyframes, we can see the type start below the line and move up like so. So I'll click to toggle down the settings for the layer and I'll click to toggle down the settings for the mask. What I need to do now is place my mask below the bar graphic, so it hides the type and reveals it as it moves above the blue bar line. But right now we have a little issue. As the type animates up, we can see the mask moves with it. So we are going to have to sort this out first. So I'll place the time indicator over the first keyframe for position on the type layer. Next, I'll come and click on the stopwatch to add a keyframe for mask path. Now I'll drag the time indicator right while holding Shift to snap to the second keyframe for the type position. Notice the mask has moved up with the type. So with the mask path selected, I'll press and hold shift on the keyboard and press down to move the mask down and under the bar graphic like so. As I do this, we will see the type disappear. Now I'll move my mouse back to the first keyframe and with the mask path still selected, I'll move the mask into the same position it was for the second frame. So now we have two frames for the mask path, keeping the mask in the same position. So now I can come over to the mask settings, click on Add and change this to subtract. Now, as we move the time indicator over these two keyframes, we can see the type now appears from behind the bar graphic. Nice. But now we need to apply a feather effect to the mask here. So I'll drag the time indicator to halfway through the animation sequence. Then I'll come down and drag the feather to 50. So applying the feather, we can now see the type appear below the bar. Now, we don't want this. We need this to appear only above the bar. So I'll drag the time indicator while holding Shift to snap over to the first keyframe. Click on the mask path and move the mask up like so. There is a good portion of it above the blue bar. I'll drag the time indicator while holding Shift to snap over the second keyframe and press up on the keyboard to move the mask into the same place as the first keyframe. I'll press F two to deselect the layer and drag my time indicator between these two new keyframes. Now we can see the type layer animates in with a feather effect. I'll drag the workspace area across and beyond the type animation and press space bar to preview. Now we can see the layer bar animates in and the type appears from behind. I'll press space bar to stop the preview, and I'll come in and add some easing. I'll right click on the first keyframe for position, come to keyframe assistant, then come across and select EZ Es out. Next, I'll right click on the second keyframe for position. Come down to keyframe assistant, then come across and select eases in. I'll press space bar to preview, and that is looking smoother. Perfect. So I'll press space bar to stop the preview, and with the layer selected, I'll press U to snap the settings away and just reveal the keyframes applied. So now all that's left to do is animate the bottom type layer and apply the mask. I'll select the next type layer. I'll come up to the Shape Builder tool, click and hold, select the rectangle tool, then just click and drag over my type like so. Upon release, we will now see a new mask option become available on my type settings. So I'll place my time indicator at the second keyframe for the layer above, and with my type layer selected, I'll press P to activate the position settings. I'll come and click the stopwatch to place the keyframe for position. Next, I'll drag my time indicator across the timeline about the same distance of the keyframes above. Then I'll come and hit the diamond shape for position to add a second keyframe. Now I'll click and drag my time indicator back while holding Shift to snap to the first keyframe. Now, with the type layer selected, I'll press and hold shift on the keyboard and press the up arrow a few times to move my type up and above my bar graphic, like so. So now, as I move my time indicator over these two new keyframes, we can see the type starts above the line and then moves down. So I'll click to toggle down the settings for the type layer and I'll click to toggle down the settings for the mask. What I need now is to place my mask above the bar graphic, so it hides the type and reveals it as it moves below the blue bar line. So I'll place the time indicator over the first keyframe for position on the type layer. Next, I'll come and click on the stopwatch to add a keyframe for mask path. Now I'll drag the time indicator right while holding Shift to snap to the second keyframe for the type position. And notice the mask has moved down with the type. So with the mask path selected, I'll press and hold shift on the keyboard and press up to move the mask up and on top of the bar graphic like so. As we do this, we will see the type disappear. Now, I'll move my mouse back to the first keyframe and with the mask path selected, I'll move the mask into the same position it was for the second frame. Now we have two keyframes for the mask path, keeping it in the same position. I'll come over to the mask settings, click on add and change this to subtract. Now as we move the time indicator over these two frames, we can see the type now appears from behind the bar graphic. Nice. Now we need to apply a feather effect to the mask. I'll drag the time indicator to halfway through the animation sequence, then come down and drag the feather to 50. Applying the feather, we can now see the type appear above the bar. I'll drag the time indicator while holding Shift to snap over the first keyframe, I'll click on the mask path and move the mask down like so. There is a good portion of it below the blue bar. I'll drag the time indicator while holding Shift to snap over the second keyframe and press down on the keyboard to move the mask into the same place as the first keyframe. I'll press F two to deselect the layer and drag my time indicator between these two new keyframes. Now we can see the type layer animates in with a feather effect. Now on the first keyframe, we can still see a little bit of type appear on the feather effect. Well, this is because the mask is not big enough at this point. I'll click back onto the mask path, press V to activate the selection tool. I'll double click on the mask bounding box, and this will allow me to drag the top of the mask up to extend and hide all of the type. I'll drag the workspace area across and beyond the new type animation and press space bar to preview. And now we can see the bar animates in, and the two type layers appear from behind. So I'll press Space bar to stop the preview, and I'll come in and add some easing. So I'll right click on the first keyframe for position, come down to keyframe assistant, then come across and select Easy Ease out. Next, I'll right click on the second keyframe for position, come down to keyframe assistant, then come across and select Easy Ease in. With the layer selected, I'll press U to snap the settings away and just reveal the keyframes applied. Press space part a preview, and that is looking smoother. Perfect. That completes this dynamic animated type sequence. That is how you can animate a shape mask on a layer in after effect. Now, in this video, I showed you how to animate a simple shape mask on a layer, which is good for doing simple animation sequences like I just demonstrated. Now, masking in after effects can get even more dynamic and complex. In Aftereffects, we can also use what are called track mats. Now, these track mats will often be used by designers to mask much more dynamically than with simple shape layers. In the next video, we will be building on top of what we learned in this video and moving on to see how track mats work. So see you in the next video. 27. Track Mattes: Hello, and welcome to the 26th video in this beginner's guide to Adobe After effect. In this tutorial, I'm going to demonstrate how you can use track mats to add more dynamic masking effect in after effects. In a previous episode, I showed you how to animate a simple mask applied to a layer to create a dynamic type composition. Now, masking in after effects can get even more dynamic. In after effects, we could use what are called track mats. Now, these track mats will often be used by designers to add more dynamic masking effects to their video sequences. So in this video, we'll be building on top of what we learned about basic masking and moving on to see how track mats work. So in this video, we'll be covering the following topics. What is a track mat and how to track mat with type, an image, a video, and with an animated sequence. After this video, you will get a better understanding of masking and how track mats work. So you will feel confident using track mat in your project. So let's get into it. So here I am in After Effects, and I have a project open here that I'm going to use to demonstrate how track mats work. So, what exactly is a track mat? Well, we learned in a previous episode that masking is a way to remove parts of a layer without any destruction, keeping the original source intact. And we learned how to do this with simple shapes and using the pen tool. Now, a track mat is basically another form of mask. Track mats tend to offer a more dynamic and customized masking effect. And the method of applying a track mat is different to that of applying a mask. Let's take a quick look at a few examples. Now, if you have the project folder, you can open up the document I have here. With the project folder open, click into the S two essential Practice folder into folder 26 Track Mats, and open the track mats after effects fall, and you'll have the same document I have open here. This is a document you can use to quickly experiment with track Mats with me in this video. So now I want to draw your attention over to the project panel. Here you can see I have a folder called Track Matt examples and one called worksheets. For now, I need you to pay attention to the Track Mat example folder. So double click on the first compia masking with type, and it will appear in the composition panel. I'll make sure the time indicator is at the start of the timeline, and I'll press Spacebar to activate preview. What we have here is a video I took on the River Thames, but we can only see certain parts of the video playing through this type composition. Now, it may seem that this is a transparent image on top of the video, but this is actually a type track mat on top of the video. I'll press Space Bar to stop the preview, and if we look in the timeline panel, we can see we have a type layer on top. I come and double click this, I can come into the composition panel and change the type like so. Now we can see the video through this new type. This track mat layer is easily editable. Now, if we look down in the timeline panel, we can see that currently the visibility of the type layer is turned off. Now, if we toggle the visibility back on, we can see the type fills the shape in white. In this instance, the type layer is acting as a track mat layer, so we will need to turn this off. Now, if we carefully look on the video layer below this type layer, over on the left, near the properties, we see we have this drop down here next to the blending mode options. This is the track mat option. And if we click this, we can see that currently we have a luma mat from the River Thames type layer above. So on this layer, we have a track mat applied from the type layer above, creating this mask effect. Now, it's important to note that when we use track mats in after effects, they must be placed directly above the layer we wish to mask. So unlike the previous examples of masks where they are set in the mask options for a particular layer, a track mat must exist first as its own layer, which is then applied to a layer directly below it. And I'll be demonstrating how this is done shortly. Now, back in the project panel, this time, I want you to double click on masking with an image. So I'll make sure the time indicator is at the start of the timeline, and I'll press Spacebar to activate preview. What we have here is something similar to the previous comp, but instead of the type, we have an image layer. Now, again, it may seem that this is a transparent image on top of the video, but this is actually a track mat on top of the video, creating the transparency for the background color. If we look in the timeline panel, at the bottom, we have some solid layers. We have a light pink, a light blue, and a white. Currently, the light pink and the light blue has its visibility toggled off, so we can see the white in the image. Now, if I come and click the eye icon to toggle back the visibility of the light blue solid layer, we can see the image has changed to blue, and if I toggle the visibility of the light pink, the image is now a light pink. So this track mat is applying the transparency to the video comp, which has given us the versatility to have a variety of background colors. So I'll press space bar to stop the preview. And if we look back in the timeline panel, we can see we have an image layer on top, and currently, the visibility of this image layer is turned off. Now, if we toggle the visibility back on, we can see a black and white image. In this instance, this image layer is acting as a track mat layer, so we will need this turned off. Notice this time that instead of the track mat layer applied to a video, it's applied to a comp layer. And if we double click on the Fish video comp layer, we can see in here a video with some color effects applied and a shape layer above with a gradient applying a multiply blending mode. In order to create this effecture, we require two layers. So back in the masking with image comp, it's important to remember that a track mat can only work above one layer. So in this instance, we needed to precompose the video effect, which comprises of two layers into one simple comp layer in order to apply the track mat directly above. Now, if we carefully look on the fish video comp layer to the left near the properties, we can see we have another track mat layer applied. If we click this, we can see that currently we have a luma inverted mat from the face image layer above. So on this layer, we have a track mat applied from the image layer above, creating this mask effect. So I'm going to come back to the image layer above and toggle the visibility back. So this image is a black and white image. Now, it's important to note that track mats are essentially masks, and track mat masks work much like masks in Photoshop and Illustrator. Whatever is black is hidden and whatever is white is revealed. So when we use an image to create a track mat, the variants of black and white will create the variance in the track mat. And you will see what I mean by this in a minute. If I toggle this image back off and come back to the track mat that is applied to the video, if we click it, right now, it's a luma inverted track mat. But if we select the luma mat option here above, we can invert the mask like so. So when applying a track mat using an image like this, it's easy to invert the effect on the track mat option. Simply choose between the luma inverted mat or the luma mat option. Now, back in the project folder, this time, I want you to double click on masking with a video. I'll make sure the time indicator is at the start of the timeline, and I'll press space bar to activate preview. What we have here is something quite different. This time we are using a video to create a track mat, and the effect looks like a double exposure effect. So I'll press space bar to stop the preview, and if we look at the timeline panel, this time, we can see we have a video layer on the top. And just like in our previous examples, the visibility of this layer is currently turned off. Now, if we toggle the visibility back on, we can see a black and white video. In this instance, the video layer is acting as a track mat layer, just like the image we saw in the previous example. So for now, we will need this turned off. Notice again that this track mat is applied to a comp layer. And if we double click on the Hyde Park Lake comp, again, we have a video with some color effects applied with a shape layer above and a gradient applying a screen blending mode. So back in the masking with video just like with our previous example, we needed to precompose the video effect of two layers into one simple comp layer in order to apply the track mat directly above. Now, if we carefully look on the comp layer we can see we have a track mat layer applied. If we click this, we can see that currently we have a luma inverted mat from the video layer above. On this layer, we have a track mat applied from the video layer above, creating this mask effect. So I'm going to come back to the video layer above and toggle the visibility back. So this is a black and white video layer. But notice this time, we have a variety of gray tones. Now, remember the principle of masks. Whatever is black is hidden and whatever is white is revealed. Now, if I toggle the visibility off, we can see that all these mid tones create a softer opaque quality than the previous example, not quite as clean cut. Now, again, we can invert the mask effect by selecting the other luma mat option in the track matt drop down box, like so. But for now, I'll just toggle that back to the inverted option. Now with the top video selected, I'll click onto the Effects Control panel by clicking the Effects Control tab at the top of the project panel to this video, we can see a lot of effect we can now control, which is currently determining this track mat effect. Right now, we have a black and white effect, an auto levels effect, and a gaussianm blur effect applied. I toggle these off, we can see the change that is having on the track Mat effect. And if I toggle back the top video layer, we can see it's now color. Now, to this layer, I also have a threshold effect applied that is currently turned off. Now, if I was to click this to bring it back, you can see that this has created an effect with much more contrast. If we toggle this off, we can see the effect that is having. Similar to our previous effect, but a lot more clean cut. If I click the gaussian blur back on, we can see the effect is less sharp. And if I click the Oto levels and black and white, the effect changes once again. So for now, I'll turn off the threshold effect, and we are back to the double exposure effect. So that is an example of where you can use a video as track mat. Keep in mind that you can also apply lots of effects to your video track mat layer to alter the overall effect of the mask. Back in the project panel, I want to show you one last example. So now, double click on masking with animated comp. I'll make sure the time indicator is at the start of the timeline, and I'll press Spacebar to activate preview. So what we have here is an animated track mat on top of a video. Now, unlike the image or video that is creating the mask effect in the previous example, here the mask effect is created by an animated comp. Here we have some video playing inside an animated sequence. So I'll press space bar to stop the preview, and if we look in the timeline, this time, we can see a composition layer at the top. Now, if we double click this composition, it will open up in a new tab. And down in the timeline panel, we can see a number of shape layers. So I'll make sure the time indicator is at the start of the timeline, and I'll press space bar to activate preview. And here we can see an animation. Here we have a number of snowflake shapes falling from the top in a variety of tones from black to gray. And if we look down in the timeline panel, we can see all the layers that have been animated previously with all the keyframes for the effect. So I'll close this tab and come back to the main competition. This track mat is working exactly the same as the previous image and video track mat example. However, in this instance, instead of a video track mat, we are using a composition layer with an animation inside to use as a tracmt. If we look on the video layer below this comp layer, we can see a luma inverted track mat option applied, and we can invert this easily by choosing the other luma option like so. Easy. So those are a few common examples of how one may go about masking in after effects using track mat. Depending on the dynamic of the effect you want to achieve, you may either use a type track mat, an image track mat, a layer track mat, or an animated sequence as a track mat. So let's now have a go and see how we can apply track mats to our layers. So back in the project panel, notice under the track Mat examples folder, we have a practice folder. Well, in here, you should see the same comps as above, but without any of the track mats applied. And I have put these together for you to follow along with me. So let's begin by clicking on the first comp, Type track Mat. So in the timeline panel, we can see three layers. From the bottom, we have a blue solid layer on top of this, a video layer and on top of this, a type layer. So by now, this is an easy comp you should be able to put together yourself. What we want to do here is mask the video so we can only see it inside the type, so we can see the blue solid layer behind. So on top of my video, I will need to play some white type. Now, remember the principle of masking. Whatever is black is hidden and whatever is white is revealed. Now, we have to make sure the type is directly above the layer we want to mask, not below, or it will not work. It has to be directly above. So when I'm happy with my type on top of my video, I'll come to the video layer below and make sure I can see the track mat option drop down. You cannot see this, make sure you have the Control panel switch second from the left turned on in the bottom right corner of the interface. By clicking this, you can toggle the visibility of the blending mode and track mat switches here. Okay, so on the video layer, if I come to the track Mat option, I'll click this and select Lumar Mt. And notice it will state the name of the layer above. Upon click, a mask will be applied to the video layer, and the visibility of the type layer will be automatically turned off because this is now a track Mat layer. So just like that, we applied a track mat to the video layer. Pretty easy. Now, remember, if you want to invert the effect, you can simply click on the track mat option and select Invert. Now, once we have applied the track mat, the type is still editable. If you double click on the type layer and come into the composition panel, you can edit the type and even move it around to tweak the track mat. Easy. So that is the principle of applying track mats to layers in after effects. The only difference is the type of track mat layer you wish to apply. So back in the project panel in the worksheets folder, now double click on image track mat. So again, we have a solid layer at the base, a comp layer at the top, and a black and white image layer on top of this. Now, if we double click into the video comp layer in between, we can see it consists of two layers, a video layer with some effects applied, and a shape layer with a blending mode applied. So back in the image track Mat comp, Remember, if you want to apply a track mat to a number of layers that make a particular effect, be sure to pre compose the layers first in order to apply the track mat. A track mat can only be applied to one layer directly below it. So if we want to apply this image layer as a track mat, first, make sure it's on top of the layer you wish to mask. Then into the Track Matt options of the layer you wish to mask, in this instance, select Luma mat and it's applied. So back in the project panel in the project folder, now double click on video track Mat. So again, we have a solid layer at the base, a comp layer on top of that, and this time a ler video layer at the top of the layer stack. Again, if we double click into the video comp layer in between, we can see it consists of two layers, a video layer with some effects applied, and a shape layer with a blending mode applied. So back in the video track mat comp, just like in the last example, this has been set as a comp layer in order to apply the track mat directly above. So if we want to apply this video layer as a track mat, first, make sure it's on top of the layer you wish to mask, then into the track mat option of the layer you wish to mask below it, select luma mat and it's applied. Though in this instance, I'll select the luma invert, and now we have a nice double exposure effect. Now we can also apply some effects to the video mat in order to tweak the overall effect. So up in the effects and presets panel, I'll type in black. Below this, I'll drag the black and white effect onto the track Mat layer. Next, I'll type auto into the effects and presets panel, and below this, I'll drag the auto levels effect onto the track mat layer, and over in the effects controls, I can toggle the black and white levels like Z to tweak the overall effect. Next, I'll type blur into the effects and presets panel. Below this, I'll drag the gaussian blur effect onto the track mat layer, and then I can toggle the blur effect, which will tweak the overall effect. I'll make sure the time indicator is at the start of the timeline, and I'll press spacebar to activate preview, and that is looking really nice. I'll press Spacebar to stop the preview, and now if I want to add more drastic effect, I'll type threshold into the effects and presets panel. Below this, I'll drag the threshold effect onto the layer and I'll toggle the threshold. Now, if we want to apply the blur to this, simply drag the blur effect in the effects controls down under the threshold effect. And here we can see a much softer effect. Now, remember, we can toggle effects on and off in the effects controls by hitting the FX icon next to the effect names. Should we want to further tweak the overall effect. Easy. So that is how you can use track mats in after effects. Remember, they can only be applied to one layer directly below them, and they work much like masks in Photoshop and Illustrator. Whatever is black is hidden and whatever is white is revealed. So now we can move on from masking and onto a new topic. Now, over the past few episodes, we have looked at precomps and how they help to group layers together to apply effects and track mats as a whole. Now, in after effects, there is another way we can group multiple layers and manage things like position and scale of multiple layers at once. In after effects, we can create what is called a null object and use something that is called parenting. In the next video, I'll be discussing null objects and parenting and how this works in after effect. So see you in the next video. 28. Null Objects and Parenting: Hello, and welcome to the 27th video in this beginner's guide to Adobe After effect. In this tutorial, we are going to look at how to create null objects and parent layers in after effects. Now, over the past few episodes, we have looked at precomps and how they help to group layers together to apply effects and track mats as a whole. Now, in after effects, there is another way we can group multiple layers and manage things like position and scale of multiple layers at once. In after effects, we can create what is called a null object and use something that is called parenting. In this video, I will be discussing null objects and parenting and how these work in after effects. So in this video, we'll be covering the following topics. What is a null object? What is parenting, and how to create a null object, and how to parent layers. After this video, you will get a better understanding of what null objects are and how parenting works, so you will feel more comfortable and confident moving forward. So let's get into it. So here I am in after effects, and I have a project open here that I'm going to use to demonstrate how null objects and parenting works. So right now, I have an animation of a swarm of butterflies flying over a field of daisies. Also, as they fly over, the scale of them all is changing to create an appearance of zooming out a little. Now, if I look in the timeline panel, we can see that each butterfly is on its own layer. So there is quite a few butterfly layers here, and they are all flying together. Now, up until this point on the course, we have learned about how to animate layers individually, applying keyframes to each layer, for example, position and scale to animate specifically. Now, if I select all the butterfly layers and press P to activate position, we can see that there are no keyframes for position. If I press S to activate scale, again, there are no keyframes for scale. So how are all these butterflies moving and changing scale altogether without any position or scale keyframes applied? Well, what is happening here is that we have a null object that is moving and all the butterfly layers are parented to that null object. So what exactly is a null object? Well, in after effects, we can create what is called a null object layer. A null object layer is essentially an invisible layer that exists with no visual content. The null object acts like a bearing, and just like any other layer, position and scale key frames can be applied. And just like any other layer, animation can be applied, such as position or scale. Now, a null object on its own is pretty useless, but we could use them in after effects to parent other layers too. So what exactly is parenting? Well, in after effects, we can parent multiple layers to one layer. It will help to think of parington as linking one layer to another. And in after effects, you can link multiple layers to just one layer. For example, if we wanted to animate one layer instead of animating 20 individual layers, we can link 20 layers to one layer and only animate the one layer. Think of this as an aeroplane dragging lots of boxes. The aeroplane is the object that moves, and the boxes are the static layers without movement that get linked to the aeroplane, which drags them around. Wherever the aeroplane moves in whichever direction, so do the boxes. Now, just to come back to the null object, in this instance, our aeroplane can be a null object because the null object is invisible, it can appear like the boxes are moving around in a group by themselves. Now, in after effects, it is common when creating complex animation sequences to parent layers to a null object to move multiple layers around in unison. So if we look in the timeline panel at the layers, at the top, we can see we have a null layer. And here we can see that there are position and scale keyframes applied. What is happening here is the invisible null object is moving from left to right, as well as scaling down, and all the butterfly layers are parented to this one null object. So as the null object moves and changes scale, so do all the butterfly layers below. So instead of having to spend lots of time animating each butterfly layer individually, I have simply animated one layer and parented all the butterfly layers to that. So let's take a look at how we can do this in after effects. Now, if you have the project folder, you can open up the document I have here. With the project folder open, click into the S two Accenture Practice folder into folder 27, Null Object and parenting and open the Null Object and parenting After effect file. And you'll have the same document I have opened here. This is a document you can use to quickly experiment with null objects and parenting with me in this video. So now I want to draw your attention over to the project panel. Here you can see I have a folder called preview and one called worksheets. For now, I need you to pay attention to the worksheets folder. Double click on the composition here. Butterfly flyover test. I'll make sure the time indicator is at the start of the timeline and I'll press space bar to activate the preview. Right now, we have a bunch of butterflies positioned in the composition. As we preview this, we can also see all the butterflies are flapping their wings in unison. Each butterfly looks to be the same size, and there is a static image below them. Now looking at the butterfly layers in the timeline panel, we can see they are all composition layers. Now, if we come and double click on one of the comp layers, it will open up in another tab and we can see that this is a separate animation sequence of its own. I'll make sure the time indicator is at the start of the timeline and I'll press space bar to activate preview. Here we have an animation of the wings changing scale, creating the appearance that the butterfly is flapping its wings. This is something I have prepared earlier. I'll close this and come back to the main comp. Each butterfly is a comp layer of a separate animation. Now I want to create an animation of all these butterflies flying together from left to right over the field of daisies below. Now, I could animate each comp layer separately, but that might take a while. So what I could do here is create a null object, animate that one layer, and parent all the butterfly comp layers to it. So to do this, first, we will want to create a null object layer. To do this is easy. I'll come up to layer, scroll down to Nu and come across and click Null Object. Upon click, you will have a new null object layer on top of the layer stack. Now, if you look carefully in the compositions panel, we will now have this square shape appear. Now, if for whatever reason you cannot see this, come up to view and make sure show layer controls is checked. Now, this null object layer is essentially invisible, but we have to see this square outline in order to know where exactly the null object is positioned. So when we move it around, we know where it is, and this is what we can click and move around and animate. That is how we create a null object. Next, we need to parent all the butterfly layers to this null object. So if we look carefully in the timeline panel, we can see the controls and switches of our layers. Here we can see the blending mode and track Mat options we have used previously. But now we are looking for something new. Now, right now, I cannot see it on my panel. So what I'm going to do is carefully come up to the top of the panel where it says mode and Tracmt. I'll right click and come down to columns. What I need to do is come down to parent and Link and click this. Upon click, we should now see a new parent and Link column. Now notice this little squiggle here. This is called the Pick Whip. If we select a layer, and in this instance, I'm going to select the top butterfly layer I can click and drag the pick whip on this layer around like so. This is after effects asking me which layer I would like this to parent to. In this instance, I'm going to drag my pick whip onto the null object layer at the top. Easy. So next, I want to link the rest of the butterfly layers to the null object. So I'll click on the next layer down, hold Shift and select the bottom butterfly layer, and with them all selected, I can grab a pick whip and drag it onto the null object. Upon release, all these layers are now parented to the null object layer. Also, notice that on the parent link dropdown for each layer it will state which layer it's parented to. So if I click off the layer to deselect or press F two, if I select the null object layer and press V to activate the selection tool and click and drag the box around in the composition layer we can now see that they all move around together in unison. So now what I can do is animate this null object layer using the same techniques we learned previously. So I'll place my time indicator at the start of the comp with my null object layer selected, I'll press P to activate position. I'll come over and place the first keyframe by clicking the stopwatch and with my arrow keys, I'll move my null object left while holding Shift to move across enlarger increments, and I'll move the butterflies off screen. Next, I'll drag my time indicator over to the end of the comp, and with my arrow keys, I'll move the null object over to the far right while holding shift to move over in larger increments. I'll do this until the butterflies are off the screen. So just like that, I have moved multiple layers quite easily. Now we can also apply scale to the null object. I'll place my time indicator at the start of the comp. With the null object layer selected, I'll press S to activate scale. I'll come over and place the first keyframe by clicking the stopwatch. Then in the settings, I'll drag the scale up to 120. Next, I'll drag my time indicator over to the end of the comp. Then in the settings, I'll drag the scale down to 70, and upon changing the scale settings, we will get a new keyframe for scale. I'll make sure the time indicator is at the start of the timeline, and I'll press Spacebar to activate preview. So now the butterflies are moving and changing scale as a group. And I'll press space bar to stop the preview. Now, the really cool thing about parenting layers like this is that it allows you to then make changes to the individual layers that are parented. For example, what if I want to change the formation of the group and perhaps change the scale of some of these layers? Well, that's really easy. So I'll click on the timeline in the middle so I can see all the butterflies and with the selection tool, simply click on a layer. I'll press S to activate scale and scale down the layer like so, and we can do this to any layer. So I'll click around on some of the butterflies and change the scale by pressing S and scaling them down like so. Now, we can even move them around with the selection tool active, simply click and drag them into new positions. So I'll make sure the time indicator is at the start of the timeline, and I'll press space bar to activate preview. And now we have a variety of shapes and sizes. So when we animate a null object, any parented layers will follow. This will give us the flexibility to tweak the individual parented layers themselves. We can change position, change the scale, or change the opacity. Now, we can even change time here, too. So right now they are all flapping their wings at the same time. This is because each animated comp has the same animation to the same time. To create a more dynamic effect, we can mix it up a bit, so they all appear to flap on their own time. To do this is easy. Simply come down into the timeline panel and click and drag each layer slightly left or right. This will break the unison they all currently have. So some will start earlier and some will start later than others, which will create a more random, flapping appearance. Easy. Now we can even go one step further and add animation sequences to each layer. For example, I'll move my time indicator to the middle and let's grab a butterfly layer. Now, let's say, as the butterfly flies over, I want it to scale down and then back up again. So it looks like it's diving and flying back up. Can press S to activate scale. I'll come over and place the first keyframe by clicking the stopwatch. I'll drag my time indicator over a little, and I'll click the scale down like so, where the butterfly dives. I'll drag my time indicator over a little again. I'll select the second keyframe, press Command C on Mac or Control C on PC to copy, and press Command V on Mac or Control V to paste the same keyframe with the same value. Next, I'll drag my time indicator over a little again. This time, I'll select the first scale keyframe, press Command C on Mac or Control Con PC to copy, and press Command Von Mac or Control on PC to paste the same keyframe with the same value as the first keyframe, the butterfly will be back to the original size. Here we have four keyframes applied. First, the butterfly scales down, stays small for a few frames here, and then scales back up. Now I'll quickly add some easing to the keyframes. By right clicking on the frames, I'll add an Ease out to the first keyframe and an E's in to the last keyframe. I'll click before the sequence on the time ruler, press B to set the beginning of the workspace area, then click after the sequence and press N to set the end of the workspace area. I'll click into the workspace area and press space bar to activate preview. Now, as the butterfly moves along, it now performs its own animation, swooping down, then swooping back up again. That's how a null object can be created and how it can be used to parent multiple layers in order to control multiple layers at once. Remember, you can parent multiple layers to one null object to animate as a group. When we parent layers to a single layer, we still have the flexibility to control layers individually and apply their own animations. This allows you to animate and manage very complicated sequences in after effects. So now we are coming to the end of the essential practice section on this course. Once we have finished our animation sequences and built our video presentations, it's time to export. Now, there are a few ways to export in after effect. In the next video, I'll be demonstrating the ways you can export your finished project off in after effect. So see you in the next video. 29. Exporting in After Effects: Hello, and welcome to the 28th videos beginner's guide to Adobe After effect. In this tutorial, we are going to look at how we can export our project from After effect. So now we are coming to the end of the essential practice section on this course. Once we have finished our animated sequences and built our video presentations, it's time to export them. Now, there are a few ways to export in after effects, but there is only one you should really consider using. In this video, I'll be demonstrating how you can export your finished projects off in after effects. So in this video, we'll be covering the following topics the Export checklist, exporting, using the media encoder, exporting, using the rendic and exporting the work area. After this video, you will get a better understanding of how to export your projects in after effects. So let's get into it. So here I am in after effects and I have a project open here that I'm going to use to demonstrate how to export in after effects. What I have here is a number of video sequences we have created over the past few videos. Let's have a go at exporting some of these compositions. Now, if you have the project folder, you can open up this document I have here with the project folder open, click into the S to Accenture Practice folder into folder 28 exporting and open the exporting after effects file. And you'll have the same document I have open here. This is a document you can use to quickly experiment with exporting with me in this video. So now I want to draw your attention over to the project panel. Here you can see I have a folder called Export and in here, I have a number of compositions. These are some of the exercises we undertook over the previous videos and you can choose any of these to export. For now, I'm going to double click on the first comp, video Edit. This is a composition we created earlier in the course when we looked at precomposing layers. Here we have the intro section, a Hyde Park section, and the aquarium section. Once happy with the sequence, let's export it. Before that, there are a few things we need to check before we export any project out of after effects. Before we export anything out of after effects, we first need to check the workspace area and the resolution factor. For example, I want to export this composition. But right now, if we look at the workspace area on the timeline, we can see that it's currently set between the middle section only. Now, if we were to export like this, we would only export this section. Work area on the timeline panel can be used to export specific sections of a composition. Now, we will come back to this a little later. But for now, if we want to export the entire composition, we will need to make sure the work area is across the whole comp. I could come and drag the edges of the work area and drag them to the far end of each side, or a cool little tip is to simply double click on the work area to expand it to the full area of the timeline. Perfect. So that's the work area sorted. Now the last thing we need to make sure is that the resolution factor is set to full. Right now, my resolution factor is set to half. I typically use half because I find it a lot smoother previewing on my computer as I develop my project. Now, if you export with the resolution factor at half, you will of course, have an exported video with half the quality. Before you export, make sure to set the resolution factor to full. With these two things checked, you are now ready to export. So the first way you can export in after effects is using Adobe Media Encoder. So when we are ready, come up to composition and click Add to Adobe Media Encoder. Upon click, you will see a new app open. So it's important to mention that there was once a time where all rendering was done inside after effects. But since 2014, it has been advised to render in Adobe Media Encoder for a few reasons we will come to shortly. But for now, let's see how the media encoder works. Now, if any of you are using After effects before 2014 and don't have the media encoder, don't worry. I'll be showing you another way shortly. So with Adobe Media Encoder open, we will see the composition appear in the list. And from there, we can define a few settings. First, we can click on preset. Upon click, this will give us a list of options we can choose from. So first, we can click Format. Now from this list, we can choose an array of formats. But in this case, we are going to stay with the popular h.264 format. Now, for those of you not familiar, the h.264 format is good for compressing video while at the same time retaining good quality. Files exporting using this format, produce a video with a dot MP four extension and are generally quite light and not too large. Easy for sharing online, uploading to social media and YouTube, and this is exactly the format I use to export my videos. So under this, we can choose the preset. Again, we have a list of options here that will change the rendering settings. But I always set mine to match the source for maximum quality. Next, we can choose the output name and destination. If we click this, we can choose where we want to export the video. I'll navigate to the project folder and into the Exports folder. I'll name it to video Export one and click Save. I will make sure we export audio and video, but in this instance, we have no audio. Now, if you have audio and wish not to export it, you could toggle this off here. Below this, we have the summary which we can look at to make sure everything looks good. Below this, we have a series of tabs, which we don't need to worry too much about at this point. All the settings in here have been set by our format and preset above. Below, we have a couple of checkboxes, but in this instance, I will leave those alone. Once we are happy with the settings, it's now a case of setting the composition to render. To do this, we can hit the play button at the top right of the menu box. Upon click, we will trigger the render and see a render progress bar at the bottom of the panel, along with the output preview. To the right of the review is all the details for the video. Here is another moment where you can look over the settings. Once the video has completed rendering, we will see a tick to the right of the row. Now we can navigate to the export location and notice that the file format is a.p4. I I double click on the video file, I can proof for quality. Once happy, I can then share my video and publish it online. Excellent. That's how you can render a comp using the media encoder. Back into Afterefact remember what I mentioned about the work area. So if we come back to the video edit comp, there may be occasions where you will only want to export a certain amount of your video as a preview. So if, for example, I only wanted to export this last section of the comp, I can do this by setting the work area. So if I click on the timeline to place the time indicator at the start of the third section and press B to set the beginning of the work area, the work area now set covering just the third section, I'll come up to composition and click Add to Adobe Media Encoder. Upon click, Media Encoder will open, and I'll see the new comp on that list. I I choose where to export it and hit the render button, after effects will only render that part of the video out. Easy. Keep in mind, it's important how your workspace is set before rendering a video. Next, I want to show you something quite cool when exporting with the media encoder. Back into after effects, over in the project panel, this time, I will select another composition, and I'll go with wish you were here. With this composition open, I'll make sure that the resolution factor is set to full and the top work area spans the entire comp. I'll come up to composition and click Al two Adobe Media Encoder. Again, upon click, Media Encoder will appear, and we will see the composition added to the Queue. Now before hitting render, I'll come back into after effects. This time, I'll select the dreamy comp. I'll make sure that the resolution factor is set to fall and the work area spans the entire comp. I'll come up to composition and click Add to Adobe Media Encoder. Again, media encoder will appear and we will now see this new composition added to the Q. Now we have two. Now back into after effects, this time, I will select the old history comp. I'll make sure that the resolution factor is set to full and the work area spans the entire comp. I'll come up to composition and click Add to Adobe Media Encoder. Again, Media Encoder will appear, and we will now see the new composition added to the queue. Now we have three compositions in the list. What we can do here is essentially stack a list of compositions we want to export and you can stack as many as you wish. I'll click on the output for location for each comp and navigate to the project folder on my computer. Once happy, I'll come up and click on the Render Play button in the top right. This will then trigger my three coms to start rendering. Once the first composition is rendered, the next one will start automatically. Now, the cool thing about this is that when a video is rendering, you can jump back into after effects and keep working. You can even open another file and start working on another project. Adobe Media Encoder offers you the flexibility to keep working while rendering in the media encoder. Pretty cool. Once the renders are finished, you will see the tick next to the comps, if we want to remove these from the list, we can simply click them and press Delete on the keyboard. That's how simple it is rendering multiple comps in Media Encoder. Now there is another way to render in after effects, though this technique is not used as common as the media encoder. As mentioned earlier, the video encoder was launched back in 2014. Now, the media encoder is used to render really streamlined compressed video at maximum quality for things like presentations and uploading to YouTube. Before rendering Immediate encoder, we had to render in after effects. Now, for those of you using previous versions, this is how you will export in after effects. So back in after effects with the comp open, come up to composition and this time, click Add to Render Queue. Upon click, you will see the timeline panel change to the render queue. This will present a bunch of settings we can define before we export our video. So this is similar to the media encoder. Here we can change the render settings. If we click this, it's much like we saw in the media encoder. For now, I'll just cancel that. And next, we have the output module. If we hit that, a bunch of output settings will appear. Again, this is much like we saw in the media encoder. Now, if you're using an older version of After effect, you should be able to select the Hdt 264 format in this dropdown. However, in newer versions of after effects, with the media encoder, we won't have this option here. In newer options of after effect, here we can only export as QuickTime, which is going to create a huge file. For newer versions of after effects, this is why we should really use media encoder. But if you're using an older version, select your Hdt 264 format here. For now, I'll click Cancel. With the rendering and output setting sorted, all that's left is to choose where we want to export the video by clicking on the last setting on the right output two. Upon click, we will get a dialog box asking to name the video and where to save. On this occasion, I'll navigate to the project folder and select the Export folder. I'll keep the name and click Save. Now, once you are happy and ready to render, click the render button on the top right of the Render Queue panel. Now, upon clicking Render, you will now see a progression bar appear along the top of the render cue panel and you will see the video play as it progresses in the composition panel. Now, unlike with the media encoder, when we render this way, we cannot keep using after effect. If you render this way, you will have to wait until it's finished to continue working. Once the render is complete, we will hear the infamous ding sound. And if we navigate to the project folder, we can see our video as a QuickTime video. And if you're using an older version, you should be able to see your dot mp four here. So that is how you can export your project out in after effects. Now, remember, if like me, you are only going to use after effects to create videos to share on social media or upload to YouTube, I would strongly recommend you use the Adobe Media Encoder to export nice streamline video files. So that's it. We are now done with the second section of the course. Over the past 28 videos, I have covered everything you need to know as a beginner to Adobe After effect, ready to start your own project. Now it's time to take all of what we've learned and create a project from scratch. Now, after this last section on the course, you should be able to undertake projects alone and create more work comfortably in after effects. So see you in the next video. 30. 10 Handy Tips: Hello, and welcome to the 29th video in a beginner's guide to Adobe After effect. In this tutorial, I'm going to showcase ten handy tips you will need to know as a beginner in after effects. So now we are at the end of the essential practice section. Over the past few episodes, we have practiced some of the basic tools and familiarized ourselves with some of the features in after effects. Now we are ready to embark on a full project exercise. But before that, I want to recap and cover some essential tips which will help you before we get into the nitty gritty of creating a project from scratch in after effects. Now, the tips I'm going to cover in the next few minutes are things that are going to improve your workflow and help you use the program effectively and also bring you up to speed with how the program works and what to look out for in future. So it will help you a lot to remember what we are about to cover. So in this video, we are going to be covering tips in the following areas. One, workflow tips, two Zoom and maneuvering tips, three interface tips, four visual aid tips, five creative tips, six timeline panel tips, seven layer tips, eight editing tips, nine keyframe tips, and ten exporting tips. The topics covered in this video are listed in the description along with their times. So if at any point you wish to skip ahead or back, be sure to check them out in the description. Now, I am also about to cover a huge amount of shortcuts. Now, these are going to help improve your workflow and your efficiency. Now, if you want to take a closer look and refer to the shortcuts, I'll be covering in more depth you can check out the shortcut page on the course PDF that comes free with this course. Download link is in the description. After this video, you will get a huge insight into some of the tips that are going to help you use the program more productively. So let's get into it. So here I am in after effects, and I have a document open here which I'm going to use to demonstrate all the essential tips you will need to know as a beginner. To follow along with this video, you will need to open this document I have prepared, especially for this tutorial. With the project folder open, click into the S two essential Practice folder into folder 29, ten handy tips, and open the ten handy tips after effects fall. And you'll have the same document I have opened here. So I want to draw your attention over to the project panel. Here we can see a folder called after effects Tips. And in this folder, we can see a number of compositions. Now, along this video, I'm going to use these to demonstrate particular tips. So double click on the first composition here under the C and let's start with the first Tipset. One, workflow tips. So the first workflow tip is shortcut for the selection tool. The shortcut key to activate the selection tool is V. With the selection tool active, you can click on elements in your composition panel to select them and move them around like so. Next tip, free transform. So with the selection tool active, you can click and select an object in the composition panel. With it selected, you should see a bounding box around it. Now, this allows you to transform the object quickly. For example, if you carefully click and drag on one of the squares on the bounding box, you can easily change the scale and reverse the image like so. By holding Shift on the keyboard, you can change the scale to the original ratio like so. Next tip, undo. Whatever you do in after effects, for example, move objects, scale the object, apply any effects or move layers around. If you wish to undo, simply press Command Z on Mac or Control Z on PC. Each time you press it, it will take you back a step. Next tip, the Type tool. If at any point you want to add type to your comp, simply press Command T on Mac or Control T on PC. This will activate the type tool, which you can click and add type easily. To edit size, typeface, and color, simply change it in the character panel over on the right. Next tip, the shape tool. Now, at any point, if you want to add a shape to your comp, simply press on the keyboard. This will activate the Shape Builder tool. Now, if you keep pressing Q on the keyboard, notice up in the tools menu, the shape will toggle through the five possible shapes you can choose. Simply keep pressing Q until you see the shape you want, then click and draw like so. By holding Shift, you can set the correct scale for the shape. Next tip, managing the anchor point. Now, every time you click on an object, you will notice a crosshair. This is the anchor point and it's important, as this is the point that effects take their bearing from, such as scaling, rotation and animation across a path. If we want to change the position of the anchor point on an object with the object selected, select the anchor point tool up in the top menu. And this will allow us to click and move the point around. Now, if I press V to activate the selection tool and activate free transform, you can see how it scales based on the anchor point. If I press R to rotate and tweak the rotation of the object, you can see how it rotates around the anchor point. Now, if we want to put the anchor point back into the center of the object, simply come up to layer down to transform and click center anchor points in the layer content. You will now see the anchor point be placed right in the center of the object. Now, if we scale and rotate again, we will see it will be based on our new anchor point position. So the last tip, use folders to organize your media files. So as you develop your project in after effects, you will soon build up a lot of media components over in your project panel. If you are building a big presentation, you will soon find yourself with lots of images, videos, and compositions. One of the best ways to manage all this in the project panel is with folders. Looking at this document here, I have carefully organized all my components into their respective folders. Here I have an assets folder containing all my images, videos, and presets. In each folder, I have additional folders, organizing them further. Using folders keeps everything in order and makes it easy to find your content and refer to your links later on. To add folders is really easy. Simply click on the folder icon at the bottom of the project panel. And this will create a new folder, which you can rename and start dropping media into. Now, you can create as many folders as you like and drag and drop them into each other easily. So the next tip set is Zoom and maneuvering. So back in the project panel, double click on the second comp, London I. So the first Zoom tip is free Zooming. If you have a scroll wheel on your mouse, by scrolling in and out, you will easily be able to zoom in and out of your composition panel like so. Now, if you don't have a scroll wheel on your mouse, you can use the keyboard shortcuts. Pressing the comma and full stop buttons will zoom in and out in increments like so. Next tip, easy Pan. When you are zoomed in close on a composition, an easy way to pan across your Canvas area is to press and hold space bar and click and drag. When you press Space Bar, the mouse icon will change to a hand icon. With Spacebar held down, you can easily click and drag to maneuver around your canvas area like so. Next tip, Zoom to 100%. At any point, while you are zooming, if you wish to zoom in or out to approximately 100%, simply press the shortcut key, which is the forward slash button on the keyboard. Next tip, fit Canvas area to your composition panel. At any point while you are zooming, if you wish to fit the Canvas area to the composition panel, simply press the shortcut key Alt forward slash on the keyboard. This will snap the Canvas area to fit in the visible composition panel area. The next tip is interface tips. So back in the project panel, double click on the Fifth comp video Edit. The first interface tip is working with custom workspaces. In after effects, there are a variety of workspaces you can choose from which can help you with your workflow. If you come up to Windows, you will see an option called workspace. If you come into this, you will see a variety of workspaces you can choose from such as animation, effect, motion tracking, and text to name a few. If you click on any of these options, you will notice the workspace change to focus more on a particular workflow. Up until this point on the course, I have been using the all panels, so I'll just click back on that. The next tip is reset workspaces. Now, if for whatever reason you accidentally move panels around in after effects, which can happen occasionally and accidentally, for example, I accidentally close the composition panel and click and move a panel from one place to another. Now I cannot see my composition panel and my timeline panel is moved to the side of the screen. So right now it's a bit of a mess and I can't continue with the work. Simply come up to window into workspace and scroll down and click Reset all panels, and this should reset all the panels back to the way they were previously. Next tip, toggle panels. Now, the after effects interface can seem cramped at the best of times. Often, there won't be enough screen space to see everything. Now, if you carefully place your mouse cursor over the edge of your panels, you will see the mouse cursor change to arrows pointing up and down or left and right. This is after effects suggesting you can click and drag. If we click and drag, we can push the panels away or pull out our panels to reveal the contents inside. This may help to see more layers in the timeline panel or see more details in the project panel or see more options in the side panel. For those of you using more recent versions of after effects, another mistake that can happen is sometimes you may double click on a panel by accident. If this happens, it can fill the screen, like so. If this happens, just simply double click the panel again and it should snap back. Next tip, editing columns in panels. Another thing you should keep in mind is that we can control the columns that appear in such panels as the project panel and the timeline panel. For example, over in the Project panel, and let's just drag this out at the top here, we can see a range of columns for the panel. If we right click in the little area, we can select which column we want to see, and with our columns visible, we can place our mouse cursor just next to them and expand or collapse the width, like so, and we can even click and drag to reorder them. In this instance, I like to have the color labels before the file names. Now, down in the timeline panel, we can also control which columns are visible. As you use after effects, you will want to access the blending mode, the track mat, and the parent link columns. Now, these do tend to take up a lot of space here. So if you want to toggle the visibility of these columns, you can right click and select hide this. If you want to bring them back, you can again right click come down to columns and click the specific column to bring them back. Now, you can also use the keyboard shortcut F four to toggle the view of the switches in the timeline panel. Next tip, open the effects controls. Now, as you apply effects to your layers on your timeline, you can control the settings in the Effects Controls panel. A quick way to access the effects controls, if you cannot see it is to use the shortcut. So first, select a layer with an effect applied. In this case, I'll select the third layer down by pressing F three on the keyboard, you will be able to bring up the Effects Controls panel on the left to see the effects applied to your layers where you can make further modifications. So the next tip set is visual aids. So back in the project panel, and I can access this by clicking on the project tab at the top of the panel on the left, next, double click on the fourth comp, Tower Bridge. The first interface tip is rulers, guides and grids. Now, as you work in the composition panel, you will be composing all the visual elements that make up your video sequence. Now, there are a number of visual aids you can use. By pressing Command R on Mac or Control R on PC, we can activate rulers. This will allow us to click and drag guides out from the rulers on the far left and the top of the composition panel and into the composition. These can be helpful for aligning to the center of the frame or to specific parts of a composition. To toggle the guides on and off, simply press Command colon on Mac or control colon on PC. Remember to press Command R on Mac or Control R on PC to toggle away the rulers. Now, if at any point we want to activate the grid, we can press Command apostrophe on Mac or control apostrophe on PC, if we want to change the properties of the grid, we can come up to after effects on Mac or edit on PC, then down to preferences, come down to grid and guides and toggle the values at the top. Now, at the bottom of the composition panel, you will have a grids and guide button. If you select this, you will be able to activate the title safe, grid and proportional grid. Next tip, view bounding box and layer controls. Now, as you click on your elements in your video sequence, you should see what is called a bounding box around it. This indicates you have the layer selected and gives you the ability to quickly transform the layer. Now, if whatever reason you cannot see the bounding box, you can activate it quickly by pressing the keyboard shortcut. By pressing command shift H on Mac or Control Shift H on PC, you can toggle the bounding box on and off. Can also come up to view and make sure show layer controls is checked. Next tip, flip horizontally. If there is an element in your video sequence, you wish to flip horizontally like a video or a graphic element. Let's click on this cloud here with the element selected, simply come up to layer, then down to transform and click flip horizontally. Next tip, RAM preview. As you compose your video sequences and create animations, you will want to preview your project. This can be done by simply hitting Spacebar on the keyboard to start the preview and Spacebar to stop the preview. Next tip, render quality. Previewing a video sequence relies heavily on your system RAM. If you have a simple comp like this, then you can easily preview at full resolution. However, if you are previewing a super high resolution video or perhaps a complex effect, then you can simply change the resolution factor on the drop down at the bottom of the composition panel. Here you can toggle between full, half or quarter. Setting the resolution to half or quarter will appear pixelated in your composition panel, but will have a smoother preview. As well as setting the resolution factor in the drop down, you can also use the shortcut key for full resolution, you can press Command J on Mac or Control J on PC. For half resolution, you can press Command Shift J on Mac or Control Shift J on PC. For quarter resolution, you can press Command Shift Alt J, on Mac, or Control Shift Alt J on PC. Next tip, region of interest. The last tip was about smoothing out a preview. Now another method you can use to improve the smoothness of a preview is to use region of interest. Now, if you have a really complex transition or effect, perhaps a particle effect or a three D effect, then you can use region of interest. This can be located at the bottom of the composition panel next to the resolution factor. If you select this, then you can click and drag on a particular area of your composition. When you preview this, you will only focus on a specific area, which will again put less stress on your processor and RAM resource. To edit the region of interest, simply click and drag the bounding box and click the button to turn it off. Next tip, purge memory. Now, while we're on the topic of smoothness and system efficiency, there is something else you should be aware of. As you use after effects, you will build up memory and disk cache. This uses up your system resources and over time can slow your performance down. What you can do here every so often is come up to Edit, down to purge and click Purge or memory or purge or memory and disk cache. This can clear your memory and cache and speed things up for you. The next tip set is creative tips. The first tip is New comp. At any point, if you wish to create a new composition in your project, simply press Command N on Mac or Control N on PC. This will bring up the new comp dialog box, which we can name and change the settings. I'll just name this new comp and click Okay for now. Remember, upon creating your new comp, you will see it appear in the project panel. Next tip, new solid layer. As you work in after effects, sometimes you may want to set a background color or you want to create a full color layer to work with. We can do this by creating a solid layer and using the shortcut. If we press Command Y on Mac or Control Y on PC, we can bring up the new solid settings. Here we can specify the size of the solid layer and the color. In this instance, I'll leave it set to 1920 by 1080 and select a red color and click Okay. Notice, we will now have a new red solid layer in the timeline panel. Next tip, add media easily to a comp. So as you begin to bring media into your project like images and video, you will then want to bring them into your composition. An easy way is to use the keyboard shortcut. For example, if we come to the project panel and toggle down the assets folder to reveal the video folder, I'll toggle down the aquarium folder, and here we will see some video. So to easily add a media file to your comp, simply click it and use the keyboard shortcut. If we press Command Fordslash on Mac or Control fordslash on PC, we can place the media file straight into the comp. This can be done with any media. I we come into the images folder and toggle down the PNG folder, click on the Fish orange file and again press Command forward slash on Mac or Control Ford slash on PC, and the media will be placed straight in. Next tip, fit to comp height. Now, there may be times you want to fit an object to the height of the composition. With the item selected, if we press Command Shift Alt G on Mac or Control Shift Alt G on PC, we can quickly fit an object to the height of the comp. Next tip, fit to comp width. Now, there may be times you want to fit an object to the width of the composition. For example, if we come into the assets folder into the images folder and into the JPEG folder, we can click an image and press Command forward slash on Mac or Control forward slash on PC to easily place the image into the comp. Now sometimes an image may be a lot bigger than the canvas size. To fit the image to the comp width, we can press Command Shift Altag on Mac or Control Shift Altag on PC, and that will fit the image to the width of the comp. Next tip, fit to comp. Now, there may be times you want to fit an object to the width and height of a composition. For example, I'll click off the picture to deselect it. I'll come up and click on the Shape Builder tool, select a square, draw a small square in the composition, click on the fill, set it to a gradient, then click on the color and set the gradient to a light pink into a green, and then take away any stroke that might be applied. Now, if I want to set this shape to the size of the comp, I can use the keyboard shortcut. If we press Command Alt F on Mac or Control Alt F on PC, we can easily fit the shape to the comp, and now we have a quick gradient background where we can grab the gradient handles and change like so. Now, if we were to come down to the timeline panel over on the left and hit a quick blending mode and choose overlay, we can apply a funky color effect to the image there. The next tip set is timeline panel tips. Back in the project panel, double click on the sixth comp, Fish swim. The first tip is time indicator navigation. Now, in after effects, everything revolves around the time indicator, both in the timeline and in the composition panel. This is what we use to pinpoint a certain part of your video sequence and display it in your composition panel and to set keyframes for effect. We can navigate the time indicator along the timeline easily by either clicking and dragging it along the timeline or simply clicking on the timeline where we want it to go. Next tip, setting your work area. As you begin to develop your video sequences over time, there may be instances where you will want to preview just a small part of your sequence or even simply export part of your sequence. To quickly set the start of your workspace, you can press B on the keyboard. So first click on the timeline where you want the work area to start and press B. You will notice the beginning of the work area snap to the time indicator. To quickly set the end of the workspace, you can press N on the keyboard. If we click on the timeline where you want the work area to end and press N, you will notice the end of the work area snap to the time indicator, and now we have this work area set here represented by this bar on the top. Now, if we place the time indicator inside this area and press space bar, we can preview just this section of our video sequence, and this will loop. Next tip, timeline markers. Now, as you create your video sequence, you may want to organize your sequence into sections, so you can focus on one part at a time. Or you may simply want to reference one part of your sequence for later. A handy feature you can use here are markers. So to the far right of the timeline panel, we can see this icon. If we click and drag this out, we can place a marker anywhere we want. Upon release, we will have a marker. Now, by default, the marker is numbered one. Now, if we move our time indicator further along the video sequence, we can press Shift two. This will add another marker. If we move along the timeline further and press Shift three, we can add another marker. Now you can do this up to nine. Now with the marker set, we can simply jump to the various parts of the video sequence by pressing the number on the keyboard at any time. This is good if you have a really long video sequence, so you can navigate easily and quickly. Next tip, snap to the time indicator. In after effects, everything revolves around the time indicator. Now, we need to have precise control of the time indicator to navigate through the timeline and around our media elements. One tip is to snap the time indicator. As we click and drag the time indicator across the timeline, if we press and hold shift on the keyboard, the timeline will snap to important things. For example, if we move the time indicator across some frames by holding shift, the time indicator will snap to the keyframes, allowing us to precisely place the time indicator on top. We can snap to the beginning of layers and snap to the end of layers. This helps us precisely pinpoint the time indicator without having to manually place it, which can be fiddly. Next tip, moving along one frame at a time. Now, if we press and hold Command on Mac or Control on PC and press left or right on the arrow keys, we can move the time indicator left or right, one frame at a time. This is great for those times where we will want to move across the timeline in super small increments. The next tip set is layer tips. So back in the project panel, double click on the third comp, layer tips. The first tip is select multiple. As you begin to add multiple media elements to your video composition, there may be times when you want to select a few layers to move them around in one go. To select multiple layers, simply press and hold command on Mac or Control on PC and select the layers. With the more selected, you can click and drag them together. Now, if for whatever reason you decide to deselect a particular layer at any point, simply press and hold Command on Mac or Control on PC and click back on the layer to deselect it. Next tip, select layer above or below. Now, if you have a particular layer selected in the timeline panel and you want to select the layer above, you can press and hold Command on Mac or Control on PC and press up or down on the keyboard. This will allow you to scroll quickly up or down without having to use the mouse cursor to select the layer. Next tip, move a layer up or down. So as you build your video sequence and start to organize the layer structure, you may want to move your layers either up or down. A really quick way to do this is to use the keyboard shortcut. With the layer selected, simply press Command open square bracket on Mac or control open square bracket on PC to move a layer down, or press Command close square bracket on Mac or control close square bracket on PC to move a layer up. Next tip, de select a layer. Now as you work with your media elements in the composition panel, there will be times where you want to deselect a layer. Now, you can do this by clicking off a layer or into the gray area in the composition panel with the selection tool. However, another really fast way to do this is to use the keyboard shortcut. To deselect a layer fast, simply press F two. Next tip, duplicate layers. As you build the media elements in your video sequence, there may be times where you will want to quickly duplicate a layer. For example, if I have this fish image here and I want to get a few more in, now I can come into the Assets folder and drag them. Or I could use a really simple shortcut. With a layer selected in your timeline panel, simply press Command D on Mac or Control D on PC to duplicate the layer. Upon click, a new layer will appear directly above which you can click and move around with the selection tool. I'll hit Command D on Mac or Control D on PC again to duplicate. And just like that, I have a few more fish images. This is a really easy way to quickly duplicate elements in your video sequence. Next tip, replacing layers. Now, this is a really useful tip. Sometimes you will have immediate element in your timeline, for example, these fish image issue and you may want to replace them with other images. If I come into my images folder in the assets folder and come into the P and G folder, now, what if I want to change one to orange or one to green? Well, I could drag it in, but then I would have to resize it and reposition it, and that would take some time. An easier way to do this is to first select the layer you want to replace, in this case, the fish with the layer selected in the timeline panel. I'll come to the project panel, click the layer I want to replace it with, and press and hold Alt on the keyboard, and click and drag it down onto the layer name and release. Upon release, the layer will be replaced with a new asset. I'll select my other fish image. I'll come into the project panel, click on the layer I want to replace it with, and press and hold Alt on the keyboard, and upon release, the layer will be replaced with a new asset. Easy. Now this can be done for any media. For example, this video here. We can see here it's nicely cut into the video edit. If I wanted to replace it with a different video, first, I will select the layer, then come into the assets folder into the video folder and drag a new video down while holding Alt onto the layer name. Upon release, the new video will drop in like so, maintaining the edit. Easy. Next tip, scale rotation, opacity and position. As you bring your media elements into your video sequence, there will be times where you will want to quickly edit the scale, rotation or opacity of your elements. With the layer selected, if you press S on the keyboard, this will quickly reveal the scale settings on your layer, which you can easily toggle. With the layer selected, if you press T on the keyboard, this will quickly reveal the opacity settings. Now, there will be times where you want to animate the position of the element. With the layer selected, if you press P on the keyboard, this will quickly reveal the position settings on the layer. Next tip, applying layer colors. As you bring in your media elements into your video sequence, there will be times where you will want to manage your layers, so at a glance, you know what kind of layers they are. On the timeline, we have a neat feature where we can color the layers. Over next to the layer names is a colored box. If you click this, you will have a choice of colors. Simply choose one of these to assign a distinct color to your layer. Next tip, snap layers. As we work with layers, we are able to click and drag them across the timeline. Now, if we press and hold shift while dragging a layer, we can snap the beginning or the end of a layer to the beginning or end of another layer. We can also use the time indicator to help us position a layer in a particular place. If we place the time indicator we want a layer to begin or end, then we can click and drag a layer while holding Shift and it will snap the beginning or end of the layer very easily. This is a little feature that helps us quickly and accurately move our layers around and position on the timeline. Next tip, quickly navigate to the beginning or end frame. With a layer selected, a quick way to navigate to the end or the beginning is to press I or O. Pressing I will snap the time indicator to the start of the layer. Pressing O will snap the time indicator to the end of the layer. This can help a lot when quickly navigating through your layers in your video sequence. The last tip is show effects on layer. To demonstrate this, I need to come back to the project panel and double click on the fifth comp. Video edit. As you work on various projects, there may be times where you open up someone else's work or you want to keep track of what you have done on your layers. A really quick tip to reveal all the effects you have applied to your layers is to select the layer you wish to see. In this case, I'll look at each layer, so I'll select them all, then simply press E on the keyboard. Upon click, this will reveal any effects that have been applied. If no effects are applied, then you will see nothing. But if there is an effect applied, you will see the effect appear under the ayername and circle dots over to the right representing the keyframes. The next tip set is editing tips. Back in the project panel, double click on the seventh comp, Hyde Park and the first tip is trimming clips. Now, when you drop a video onto your timeline, its length will be represented by a bar here in the timeline panel. As we scroll our time indicator over, we can see the video play in the composition panel. There may be occasions where you will want to trim your video layer. A really swift way of doing this is to use the keyboard shortcut. First, place the time indicator where you want the video layer to start and with the layer selected, press Alt open square bracket and that will trim the layers beginning. Next, place the time indicator where you want the video clip to end and with the layer selected, press Alt close square bracket, and that will trim the layers end. Now remember, you will still see the remainder of the beginning and end of the layer content, but it will not be visible. Once clipped, this will allow you to move your video clip around in your video sequence. Next tip, split a clip. Another handy tip to know when editing video is how to quickly split a clip. Simply place the time indicator where you would like to split the clip and press Command Shift D on Mac or Control Shift D on PC. This will split the clip and create two layers which you can then flexibly move around your timeline. The last tip is create a pre comp. Once you have edited a video sequence together using multiple video clips, you may want to turn this into one single layer in order to streamline your layers. A quick way to do this is to use the keyboard shortcut. With all the layers you wish to place into a precomp selected, simply press Command Shift C on Mac or Control Shift C on PC and this will bring up the precomp settings box. Here, I can name this to new video comp and make sure to move everything into the new comp and set the duration to span the layer contents and click Okay. Now we have placed all the layers into one simple layer. Now remember, upon precomposing, we will create a new comp which will be present in the project panel. The next tip set is keyframe tips. Back in the project panel, next double click on the sixth comp, fish swim. Here I have an animation sequence of a bunch of fish swimming from the left hand side of the screen to the right. The first tip is revealing keyframes. By selecting a layer and pressing U on the keyboard, this will reveal any keyframes applied to any effect. This can also be done to quickly reveal keyframes on multiple layers. Simply select all your layers and by pressing, this will reveal all the keyframes on all the layers. Next tip, expand a keyframe sequence. So if I select a particular layer here, we can see that this animation sequence contains a number of keyframes and spans a certain amount of time. Now, if we want the animation to happen faster or slower over time, we can easily expand or contract the keyframe sequence. To do this, simply select all the keyframes involved, and with them all highlighted in blue, by holding Alt on the keyboard, you can click and drag the first or last keyframe in or out. This will expand or contract the keyframe sequence, which will in turn speed up the sequence or slow it down. Next tip, move along keyframes one at a time. So with the keyframes visible on a layer, if we press K on the keyboard, we can move forward one keyframe at a time. If we press J on the keyboard, we can move back one keyframe at a time. This is really useful when analyzing an animation sequence. However, keep in mind that when using this feature, if you have multiple layers with their keyframes displayed, it will travel across each keyframe on each layer. Next tip, move position on an animation. Now, this is a tricky one. If you create an animation with certain position keyframes and try and move the animation to another place, you will notice instead of moving the animation, it simply adds another position keyframe. I'll press Command Z on Mac or Control Z on PC to undo that. Now to move an animation that consists of lots of position keyframes to another position in the scene, first select all the keyframes for the layer and then make sure to place the time indicator over one of the keyframes. Now, it doesn't matter which, but just make sure it's on top of one of the keyframes. With the keyframe indicator on top of one of the keyframes, simply click and drag the object and you will notice the position animation path will move with it. The last tip is remove easing. When creating animations in after effects, you will no doubt use easing on your keyframes to add smoothness to your animations. There may be times where you want to set your keyframes back to default or change the easing applied. By holding Command on Mac or Control on PC, you can click on keyframes with easing. As you click it, it will remove the easing and set it back to the default keyframe, the diamond shape, ready to apply a different kind of easing. The final tip set is exporting tips, and the first exporting tip is export a still image. At any point in your project, if you wish to save out a still image of your sequence to share, simply come up to composition, scroll down to save frame as and click on file. Upon click, you will notice the timeline panel change to the Render Queue. Down on the bottom left, you can click on the output module and select which frame you like. Here you can set this to JPEG and click where to save the file to, and then hit render on the top right and you will save out a still. The last and final tip is add a composition to the Adobe Media Encoder. So once you've completed your composition and you are ready to render your video, you can either come up to composition and select Add to Media Encoder or you can use the keyboard shortcut. By pressing Command Alt M on Mac or Con 31. What we will be creating on this course: Hello, and welcome to the 30th video in this beginner's guide to Adobe After effect. In this video, I'm going to discuss what we are going to be creating over the next 18 episodes in this third and final section of the course. So now we are getting into the create a project section of this course. Over the past 29 videos, I introduced you to after effects, showcased some handy tips, and we practiced some essential tools and techniques. Now it's time to take all that we have learned and create a project from scratch. After this section, you should be able to undertake projects alone and create more work comfortably in after effects. So before we start on the journey into building a video presentation, I just want to go over exactly what we will be creating so you have a good idea of what's in store ahead. So let's get into it. So here I am in after effects, and I have a project open here. This is what we are going to be creating over the next 18 episodes. So let's take a quick look at this document. Now, if you have the project folder, you can open up this document I have here. With the project folder open, click into the S three Creator Project folder into the folder at the top, final document, and open the final document after effects file. And you will have the same document I have here. Now, when you open up this document, you may get a few warnings that state a file is missing and a font. Now, if you get this error message, click Okay to open the Doc, then come up to file and select close project. Now, before you open this document, it is strongly advised you first install a font and also download an audio clip that goes with this presentation. The instructions for this can be accessed on the What to do First page on the free PDF document that comes with this course. So before you go any further, pause this video, open the What to do First page on the PDF course index. And if you don't have this, it can be downloaded for free. The link is in the description. This will give you the instructions to get the font and the audio file for free, which will enable you to follow along perfectly. So once you have the font installed and the audio file downloaded, we can proceed. Now, before I get into the details of this after effects file, let's take a look at the finished video presentation that all this is going to amount to. So back into the project folder, click back into the S three Creator Project folder, into the folder at the top, final document, into the final export folder and open the watch here document. Now, I have had to upload the end result because it contains audio that I have not been able to provide as part of the downloadable folder. But if you click the link here this will take you to a video on my YouTube channel where you can preview the final result. So let's now watch the final video together. So this is what we will be creating together over the next 18 episodes. We are going to create an advert for a travel blog, and the theme will be five muss destinations in London. This is going to include all the key techniques we learned in the previous section, which will put you in good stead to create your own project in future. We are going to be working with video, images, and animating some two D layers. So let's now jump back into after effects and take a look at the document that created this video. So when you open the document in after effects, you will initially find yourself in the main comp. This is a main composition. I have managed all the main sections of my video presentation. This video presentation consists of seven sections, an introduction section, five sections in between with video and an outro section at the end. We also have an audio layer at the bottom, which is the background track for the video. Now, if we look over into the project panel, we can see all the compositions that make up the video on our main compia one through to seven. And if we look on the top of the timeline panel, we can see the tabs for each section one through seven. Now, you can either click on these tabs across the top of the timeline panel or you can double click on the comp layers down in the timeline panel. So if we click on Tab one, we can see the layers that create this section. So all these sections have been created separately in their own composition and then placed and managed efficiently in the main compia, which is looking really neat and organized. Now if you come over to the folder structure, you can see I have organized my project neatly. If you toggle down the assets folder, everything has been organized into three key folders, audio, images and video. And if we click these down, you will see the contents within. So this is what we are going to be creating over the next 18 episodes. I'll be talking in depth about each step in the process and showing you exactly how to do everything. So before you begin, feel free to have a look around the after effects file to familiarize yourself with the project structure. Once you are happy, we can now embark on the journey to create this project from scratch. Now, creating video presentations like this can be complex and time consuming. I always find it helps to have a plan before jumping into after effects as it gives me something to work too. Once you know or have a rough idea of what you are creating, it's a lot more fun putting it together rather than making it up as you go along. Before I start any project in after effects, I typically take a little time to plan and design my video presentation. This can often entail planning a timeline guide, sketching storyboards, and designing my video keyframes in Photoshop. In the next video, we are going to start from the very beginning of a project process. In the next video, I'll be discussing the steps I take to plan and design a video presentation from scratch and offer some tips which I hope will help you. So see in the next video. 32. Plan & Design for your video presentation for After effects: Hello, and welcome to the 31st video in this beginner's guide to Adobe After effects. In this tutorial, I'm going to demonstrate how you can plan and design for your video presentation in after effects. Now, creating video presentations can be complex and time consuming. I always find it helps to have a plan before jumping into after effects as it gives me something to work too. Once you know or have a rough idea of what you're creating, it's a lot more fun putting it together rather than making it up as you go along. Now, before I start any project in after effects, I typically take a little time to plan and design my video presentation. This will typically include the following steps. One, project preparation and checklist, two, planning the structure, three planning my timeline, four storyboarding, and five designing my artwork in Photoshop. In this video, I'll be discussing these steps and how I plan and design a video presentation and offer some tips which I hope will help you. So before I start any video project, I typically start with step one, project preparation. So this is a quick step I undertake to make sure I have everything I need to undertake a project and ensure I have thought everything through. To do this, I use a project prep and checklist sheet. So this is a sheet I have prepared earlier, and I use this at the very start of each project. First, I recap on the project and write a quick project description. Now, if you already have a brief, you can take your information from there. But sometimes I like to break it down and make some minor notes of reference to come back to as I develop my project. Next, I'll write any notes I need to keep in mind, and then I go through an asset list to make sure I have everything I need to start a project. Before I start any project, I will make sure I have all the assets I need to include in the presentation, such as graphics, video, audio, or any typefaces. Now, I generally don't start any project until I have all these boxes ticked. Once I'm happy with this, I will move on to the next step, step two, planning the structure. So next, I will give some thought to the overall video presentation. To do this, I use another sheet I have prepared earlier. Before starting a video presentation, I like to have a rough idea of how I'm going to structure a presentation and what I'm going to develop. Now, this may not be the final outcome, but it's an initial guide to work from. Here, I will ask myself questions like, will I create the presentation in sections? Will I include any animated video or image sequences? Will the video be in sync to music? And are there any logo idents I need to include? As I think about this, I will plan my structure on this sheet and make any further notes to keep in mind. Once I'm happy with this, I will move on to the next step. Step three, planning my timeline. So once I have thought through the structure of my presentation, I can start to visualize the structure and think about how this may take shape over a timeline. To do this, I use another sheet I have prepared earlier. This is simply a blank sheet with some lines which I can sketch down some thoughts. Here I can plan how I want to structure the presentation over time in sections. So once I'm happy with this, I will move on to the next step, step four, storyboarding. So once I have thought through my timeline, I can start to design how my presentation may look. To do this, I use several sheets I have prepared earlier. These are frame boxes printed on a few pages in a variety of sizes. Now, I use these sheets to bring the timeline plan to life and start to visualize how each key section may look. Now, I typically sketch out some layouts if I have initial thoughts and ideas. Once I'm happy with this, I will move on to the last step. Step five, designing my artwork in Photoshop. During the storyboard stage, I will sketch and think about how I may want my presentation to look. After this stage, I will start to bring my initial sketches to life and design everything in Photoshop. This is a way to prepare all my layouts and artwork and get everything ready to put together in after effects. Now, in this process, I may prepare lots of images, typography and graphics I will later bring into after effects. Now, I generally spend quite a lot of time on this process, getting this right before I take everything into after effects and animate. So those are my five key steps I take before I even start in after effects. Now, to help you with your process, I have provided these planning sheets in the downloadable project folder. With the project folder open, click into the three creator Project folder into folder 31, plan and Design, into the planning sheets folder. And in this folder, you will find blank templates for the project prep and checklist, project structure, timeline sheet, and the storyboard sheets. Now, if you print these out, you will be able to use them in your video presentation design process. So let's now take a quick look at how I use this plan and design process for the project we are about to create. So with the project folder open, click into the S three Creative Project folder into folder 31, plan and design, into the first folder, plan and design, and you will see the same documents I just demonstrated though with my workings. Now, if you have access to a printer, I would recommend printing these out as we are going to be referring back to these as we progress through this section of the course. If you can't print, just make sure you have them to hand ready to look at as I refer to them. So first, come and open sheet one, Project prep checklist. So this is a scan of my Project prep and checklist. Here are some notes I have taken down before starting my project. So the project title is London top five, and the duration needs to be around 1 minute. For the project description, I have noted, create a two D advert for a travel blog showcasing five top venues to visit in London. The presentation will need to run the duration of the audio file which has been provided, and ideally, the video sequence will run in sync with the audio. So this is something I will need to keep in mind when creating my presentation. For my notes, I have destinations are Hyde Park, the aquarium, Shoreditch, Camden Town, and Tower of London. Graphics are provided, but you will need to create additional artwork to build the presentation. So this is the main criteria I need to keep in mind. For my asset checklist, I can check off everything as I have received them and have them all ready to use. So next, come back into the project folder and this time open project structure. So here I am thinking about possible sections for the video. Now, the video is about the five destinations to visit in London. So already, there are some clear sections I can structure my presentation with. To this, I want to include an introduction section and an outdoor section. So from my initial thoughts, I will have around seven sections to my video presentation. For each, I have given some thought as to what they will be. The introduction will be an animation. The five destination sections will be video or image edits, and the outdoor section will be an animation. For notes, I have written, keep in mind that I will need to somehow sync the sections to the music provided. Listen to the music and see if there are any ways I can sync each section up. So next, come back into the project folder and this time open timeline sheet. So here I have taken the blank sheet I showed earlier and planned a timeline based on the previous project structure. Here I am thinking about the seven sections I just established and how they might work on a timeline and what I may include. So on the timeline, we can see seven clear sections, which I can organize my video into. For the introduction, I'm thinking about creating an animated sequence with typography and images. For the Hyde Park section, I'm thinking of creating a video edit of clips and images with type on top. And if this formula works, I will apply it to the other destination sections. And for the outro section, I will create an animated sequence to finish the presentation. So with this initial timeline plan, I can now start to think about how my presentation may look. So next, come back into the project folder and this time come into the storyboarding folder open storyboard overview. So this is a quick idea and a really rough sketch of how some of the frames can work. This is based off the previous timeline sheet I created, and here I have used the same colors for the sections. Here we can see Section one through seven, and here I have thought about what I may include on each keyframe. For the intro, I am thinking of three frames. Frame one will state five top places. Frame two will state to visit in and frame three will state London. For the next frames, I have thought about maybe having the destination title in bold and then including some type beneath it. So once I have a rough outline like this, I then spend a bit of time thinking more about the details of the layouts. So next, come back into the project folder and this time, open the next PDF. Number two, storyboard. So here I have taken the previous storyboard sketch a little further and started to think about each keyframe visually. Here I have thought about Section one, two, and seven. So if I zoom in here, for Section one, I'm thinking of starting with a map in the background and using some destination pin graphics. This will lead onto the next frame where we will build up to London on top of the British flag. Coming down to Section two, here I have thought about starting this section with a destination icon with a number. This would lead into a image or video where the type destination will appear on top in bold typography. And then this will lead onto a frame where the title pans up to reveal the description copy below. This will then lead onto the next sections. Though here, I have not drawn out the frames for my other sections, as I want them to follow the same formula as seen here for Section two. And lastly, I finish with Section seven. After all the destination sections, I want to end with an animation that starts with simple bold type and then an illustration that builds up and appears underneath. So once I'm happy with my initial planning and storyboarding, it is now time for me to start to design and build the layouts in Photoshop. So next, come back into the project folder and this time come into the design folder and open the project design Photoshop file. So here I am in Photoshop, and this is where I took all my storyboard sketches and brought them to life. So if we look over in the layers panel, you can see I have folders and each is named with the sections one through seven I planned previously. Now, I suggest you have a little look around in here and see how I have prepared my layouts. This is very typical of the type of document I will prepare before I even get into after efect. Before I jump into after effects, I like to think carefully about every element and design it just how I want it. So when it comes to building my presentation in after effects, I have done the hardest part, and all I have to do is simply build it in after effects. So in each folder, I have carefully designed the layout of each section from my storyboard. So in the first folder, one introduction. If we toggle this down, inside, I have frame one, two, and three, which again is a reference to my storyboard. So right now we are looking at the very first frame, which is the same frame I initially sketched. Here I have my type, the pins, and the map background. This is the look and feel I want to create in my video presentation. Now, during my design process, I chose to include round pins instead of the square pins, as I thought that would look a little better. My idea here is to have these pins animate in at the start as the type animates in. So next is frame two, and here I'm going with another color and then frame three. So looking at my storyboard, here I wanted the type to be placed on a British flag. So here I have composed how I want that to work. My idea here is to have all these flag shapes animate in so it has a nice dynamic effect. I think this would look pretty cool if I can achieve that. The next folder above is Hyde Park. If I toggle the visibility of this folder and toggle down the folder, we have three frames. Again, referencing the storyboard I created earlier. First, we have a number pin, and this is how I want that to look. My idea here is to have the pin bounce down just before we move on to the next frame. I think this would look pretty cool if I can do that. So this is how I see the frames building up for the destination sections. The type will sit on top of a background image or video edit. Now, I think if these bars were to animate in, this would look pretty cool. Now, the same goes with the other sections. For these, I want to use the same formula throughout. So if you look into each folder, you will see the same layout. Though what I have done differently is change the color of the number pins at the start of each section. So it goes red, blue, red, blue, and so on. So finally, the last section, Section seven, the Otro section. So on the storyboard, I wanted the type to appear, and then some buildings animate in below. So back in Photoshop, for frame one, we can see the type, and here I have decided to include the pin as part of the type, as it's become a bit of a theme throughout the video, and then onto frame two, which would build up into a scene with lots of London buildings below, just like my storyboard sketch. Now, during my design process here in Photoshop, I chose to include some clouds here for added visual effect. Now, my idea here for this composition is to have a few things animate. I'd like the clouds to animate in and move across the sky. I'd like the helicopter to fly across the sky, the London buses to move across the bridge and the London eye to rotate around. If I can achieve this, this might look pretty cool. So this is my design I have in store for the video presentation. Like I said earlier, I typically spend a lot of time in Photoshop designing my layouts, graphics, and visual style before getting into after effects. Once I am happy, I have everything covered. It is now time to get into after effects and start to bring the whole presentation to life. So this whole process of planning and design starts with simple ideas and builds into visual solutions, which I can create in after effects. Now, this is a method I always use as it encourages me to really think about what I'm doing. It makes something that at first appears complex and difficult, just that little easier to manage. Now, you don't have to undertake this process, though I would recommend it as it really works for me. So once we have a good idea of what we want to create, it's now time to jump into after effects and make a start. In the next video, we are going to start by setting up our document in after effects and preparing our project folder. So see you in the next video. 33. Prepare & Set up a document for After Effects: Hello, and welcome to the 32nd video in this beginner's guide to Adobe After effect. In this tutorial, I'm going to demonstrate how you can prepare for a new project and set up a new document in after effects. In the last video, I demonstrated the plan and design process I go through when I start a video presentation. Now, once I have spent time planning and designing my video presentation, I will then start to bring it all to life in after effects. In this video, we are going to start by reviewing the things we will need to keep in mind before and after we begin a after effect project. So in this video, we'll be covering the following topics, making a project folder and setting up a new after effects document. After this video, we'll be ready to proceed and start building our video presentation. So before we jump into after effect, I want to quickly talk about preparation. In my experience, I have created lots of small projects in after effects, and it's always helped me to be organized. When working with a project in after effects, it's as important to be organized out of after effects as it is in after effect. A typical after effects project will include a wide variety of media, so it helps to be organized with the media before you bring it into after effect. To solve this, I always start with a project folder. This is where I organize and keep all my media elements before I place them into after effects. This way, I know exactly where everything is, so it's not scattered about on my computer. So let's get into it. So here is my project folder. And as you start to use after effect, I recommend you have something similar. This is a blank template, and every time I start a new after effects project, I will duplicate this to have a fresh copy for a new project. So let's take a look at this. So with the project folder open, click into the S three Creator Project folder into folder 32 preparation and open the Blank Project folder, you will see my blank project template folder. So this folder contains four main folders. One plan and design, two work three assets and four exports. So all my plan and design files will go into the first folder. This will be all the documents we may create before we start in Aftereffects, as featured in the previous episode. Now, as we work in Aftereffects, we will save our documents into the work folder, as there are often various versions. All media we use for the project will go into the assets folder, and later when we export, we will place the exported video into the export folder. So in the plan and design folder, I have a number of folders. We have a folder for the planning. This could be where I keep a brief and by planning sheets. I have a folder where I keep my storyboard sketches and a folder where I will keep my design files such as my Photoshop documents. In the assets folder, I have a number of folders separating the media types. Here we have audio, images, typefaces, and video. And into these, I will place the specific types of media. In the image folder, again, I have a number of folders, though this time separating out the specific media types. Here I have AI for Illustrator vector documents, a JPEG folder for flat images, a PNG folder for images with Alpha channels, and a PS folder for Photoshop compositions and graphics. Before starting a project, if I have any media to start, I will place them all into these appropriate folders. This is a blank template I will always start a new project with. What I'm going to do now is copy and paste my template folder onto the desktop. I have a brand new folder ready for my project and I know where it is, and I'll rename this folder to London top five. Now, you can either copy my folder structure, make your own, or simply copy and paste my template folder. Whatever you do, make sure you know where your project folder is for later. Okay, so once we have the project folder ready, it's time to set up the document in after effects. So I'll open up after effects and begin by coming up to file new and click New Project. Upon click, we will be presented with a blank interface ready to start. Now, the first thing I always do when I start a fresh new project is set up my folder structure over in the project panel. So the idea here is to try and match the folder structure in the project folder, again, so we know where everything is. I'll begin by clicking the new folder button at the bottom of the project panel, and I'll name this to Assets. With the folder selected, I'll click back on the new folder button at the bottom of the project panel, and I'll name this folder Images. With the folder selected, I'll click back on the new folder button at the bottom of the project panel, and I'll name this folder JPEG. This time, I'll click back on the images folder and add a new folder, and I'll name this folder PNG. I'll click back on the images folder and add a new folder, and I'll name this folder vectors. Again, I'll click back on the images folder and add a new folder, and I'll name this folder Ps comps. Next, I'll click back on the Assets folder and add a new folder, and I'll name this folder video. Again, I'll click back on the assets folder and add a new folder, and I'll name this folder Audio. So to finish off, I'll click off the assets folder and add a new folder, and I'll name this folder comps. With the folder selected, I'll add a new folder, and I'll name this folder pre comps. So when naming this folder, I'll make sure I place a hyphen at the start, as this ensures the folder will always stay at the top as I add more content into this folder. So I'll select the comps and the pre comps folder, click on the colored square and change the color to red. On this occasion, I'll click and drag the color box column header and carefully drag before the folder names like so. Next, I'll select all the assets folders and set these to a yellow color. So now we have a nice neat folder structure ready to manage media contents. This is going to make everything super organized and make our workflow in after effects much easier. So one last thing I'm going to do here is come up to file and scroll down to project settings. Now, upon click, a menu box will open. So here, I'll come and click the second tab from the left time display style. Now for this, I'm going to make sure that for time code, footage start time is set to zero. So I'll click on the drop down and make sure time code is set to zero. With this set, I'll click Okay. So now come up to file and click Save. Navigate to your project folder, click into the work folder, and in here, save the new document. Name it London top five and click Save. So now we have a new project ready to start the video presentation. In the next video, we are going to start with the first section of the video presentation. We are going to look at how to create the first section and animate type and graphic elements. So see you in the next video. 34. Animating Type With an Image In After Effects: Hello, and welcome to the 30th video in this beginner's guide to Adobe After effects. In this tutorial, we are going to kick off our project, and I'm going to demonstrate a number of procedures to follow in after effects. In this video, we are going to start with the first section of the video presentation. We are going to look at how to create the first section and animate type and graphic elements. In this video, we are going to create this animated type with a map background image. So in this video, we are going to be covering the following topics, animating type and animating an image. So let's get into it. So here I am where we left off in the previous episode, where we set up a new document in after effects. Now, if you're following along for the first time, I suggest going back to the previous episode where we set up this document ready to start our video presentation. Now, if you're continuing on from the last episode, make sure you have your document open ready. So with our document open, let's proceed. So let's start by creating our first composition. So I'll use the keyboard shortcut here and press Command N on Mac or Control N on PC. Upon click, we will get a new comp settings box. From here, I will name it Min comp. For the preset, I will set this to HDTV 108025. Now, this will set the dimensions to 1920 by 1080 and the frame rate to 25. For the resolution, I'll set this to full and for the duration, I'll make sure this is set to 1 minute 20 seconds. That's zero colon, 01 colon. 20 colon, zero, zero. I'll set the background color to black and click Okay. Upon click, the new comp will open, and if we look in the project panel, we can see it has appeared, and I'll quickly drag this comp into the comp folder. And I'll click on the square color box and click red. So with the comp ready, let's start to bring in our media. If I now come into Photoshop and look back at my design, I can see the design I created for my first frame. This is a scene with a map in the background, the type in the middle, and these five destination pins around. Now, if you want to check this out, remember you can open it. With the project folder open, click into the S three Creator Project folder, and then into folder 31, plan and design, then into folder one, plan and design, then into the design folder and open the project design Photoshop document. So back in after effect, I'm going to start by creating my background layer. To do this, I'll create a solid layer. So I'll press Command Y on Mac or Control Y on PC, and up we'll pop the solid settings. So here, I'll make sure the width and height is the same as my comp, 1920 by 1080, and I'll come down to set my color. So I'll quickly jump into Photoshop. Come over to the tools menu and select the eyedropper tool. With this, I'll click on the dark blue. Then I'll click on the color at the bottom of the tools menu. I'll copy the hex value at the bottom of the color picker menu. Then back in after effects, I'll click on the colored box. U we'll pop the solid color, and I'll come into the hex value and paste the value I just copied from Photoshop, and I'll click Okay. Then click Okay on the solid setting, and now I have a new solid layer in my timeline. Now, when you create a solid, it will span the entire length of the comp. For now, this is not an issue, so I'll just leave it as it is. Next, I'll come down and click on the colored square for the solid layer and select Peach. Now, when you create a solid for the first time, you will notice a new folder appear in the project panel called solids. In here will be the solid we just created. So let's click and drag this folder up and into the acids folder, and I'll place it into the images folder. Nice. So let's now bring in the map image. So with the project folder open, click into folder two project assets, then into the Images folder, then into the JPEG folder, then into the location folder, and you will see the London dot JPEG. Now, simply click and drag the image into the project panel in After effect, and in After effect, we will see our new image asset ready to use. So before I do anything else, I'll quickly click and drag this new JPEG image into the JPEG folder in the image folder. So now we are going to select the image and place it into our comp. We can do this really easy by using the keyboard shortcut. So with the image selected in the project panel, press Command forward slash on Mac or Control forward slash on PC. This will place the map image into the comp at the top of the layer stack in the timeline panel. So right now, this image is too big for the frame. So I'll press S on the keyboard and that will reveal the scale settings on the layer. So I'll come down and click and drag on the scale settings and bring the image down until it fits the frame like so. Okay, so right now, this is a black and white image. Now, looking back in Photoshop at my design, the map blends nicely with the background blue. So back in after effects, we can use a blending mode. I'll come over to the file name and look for the blending mode option for this layer. If you cannot see it, simply right click on the column headers. Come down to column and make sure modes is ticked. I'll click on the blending mode option for the London Map image layer and select screen. Upon click, this will blend with the background blue color nicely. However, it's a bit bright. I want to tone this map down a bit. So this time, I'll press T on the keyboard to reveal the opacity settings. I'll come across and drag the settings down to 30%. So now the map background is looking pretty good there, the same as my design. Next, I'll come down and click on the colored square for my image layer and select yellow. So next, I'm going to bring in the type layer. Looking back at my design in Photoshop, I can see that for the first frame, we have the words five top places in big bold type. So back in after fact, I'll press Command T on Mac or Control T on PC to activate the type tool. I'll click somewhere over on the left hand side once, and then I'll come over to the right and click on the character panel. I'll set my font to size 150. I'll click on the color and select a white color, and I'll set the font to lemon milk regular. I'll click back onto the comp and type five top places dot dot dot. Now, if you don't have the font installed, you can get this font online for free. With the project folder open, click into folder two Project Assets, then into the typeface folder. In here, you will find an instructions document that will lead you to the font to download. Once installed, you can continue. So I'll come up to my type and double click on it to select it. Next, I'll come over to the right and click on the paragraph panel. If you cannot see it, come up to window, scroll down and click on paragraph. And in this panel, I'll click on the center Type button. Once clicked, I'll click on the selection tool in the tools menu and click and drag my type into the center. So now I want to make sure my type is set to the middle. So I'll come and select my solid layer at the bottom in the timeline panel, and now I can see the square bounding box around it with the horizontal midpoint and the vertical midpoint. Now, if you cannot see the bounding box, simply press Command Shift H on Mac or Control Shift H on PC to toggle the visibility of the bounding box. With the squares around, we can see where the center point is. Next, I'll press Command R on Mac or Control R on PC to reveal the rulers. Next, I'll drag a guide out from the left and place it right in the center point like so. While I'm at it, I'll drag one from the top as well to meet in the middle. Just like that, we now have two guides. I'll press Command R on Mac or Control R on PC again to remove the rulers and click on the type layer to select it. With a visible bounding box around my type, I'll align it to the center of the complex. Perfect. Right now, I can see that my anchor point is at the bottom of the type. Now, I don't want this at the bottom. I need this to be in the center. I'll come up to layer down to transform and I'll come over and click center anchor point in layer content. Upon click, my anchor point will be right in the middle, right where I want it. That's my type sorted. Next, I'll come down and click on the colored square from my type layer and select green. So now in the timeline, I have my new type layer and notice that it spans the entire length of the comp. Now, this happens by default when you create a type layer, for now we will just leave it as it is. So now I'm happy my type is in the center of the comp. I can press Command colon on Mac or Control colon on PC to toggle away the guides. So now my type and map image is in place. I want to animate them. For the type, I want a Zoom effect in with a subtle expansion afterwards. And for the map image, I want to capture a nice subtle Zoom behind. So first, I'll place my time indicator at around 5 seconds on the timeline. And I'll press N to set the end of the workspace area. Then I'll zoom in so I can focus on just this work area. I'll start by dragging my time indicator right to the start of the comp. I'll select the type layer and press S to activate the scale settings. I'll click the stopwatch icon to place my first scale keyframe. Then I'll move my time indicator across the timeline to about not 0.5 seconds and click on the diamond icon to add a second scale keyframe. Next, I'll drag the time indicator back to the start of the timeline, making sure it's directly above the first keyframe. With the time indicator above the first keyframe, I'll come and drag the scale of the type down to around 15%. Now the type is really small. Now, if I drag the time indicator between these frames, we can see the animation sequence. Next, I want to add an effect that makes the type keep expanding after it zooms in. So I'll move the time indicator over to 4 seconds, and I'll click and drag the scale settings up to around 130%. So I'll press space bar to activate preview, and that is looking just fine. The type zooms in and then continues to expand nicely afterwards, up to 4 seconds. So I'll press space bar to stop the preview. Next, I want to add an effect to my type so it fades in on Zoom. First, I'll move my time indicator towards the second frame holding shift to snap my time indicator to the keyframe. With the time indicator on top of the second keyframe, I'll press T to activate the opacity settings for the layer. Next, I'll come down and click the stopwatch to add my first opacity keyframe. Next, I'll drag my time indicator right back to the start of the timeline and then click and drag the opacity settings to zero. Upon doing this, it will create a new keyframe. I'll press space bar to activate preview, and that is looking pretty cool. The type fades in on Zoom and expands nicely. So I'll press space bar to stop. So now with the layer selected, I'll press U on the keyboard to reveal all the frames for the layer. Now, this animation is almost complete. What I will do now is smooth out the Zoom part of the animation with some easing. I'll come down and focus on the scaling keyframes. I'll right click on the first scale keyframe. I'll come down to keyframe assistance and add Easy Ease out. Then I'll right click on the second scale keyframe. I'll come down to keyframe assistance and add Easy Ease in. I'll drag my time indicator to the start of the timeline and press space bar to activate preview. And now we can see that the Zoom animation is a little more fluid. Perfect. So next, I want to animate the background. So as the type zooms in and expands, so does the background. So I'll drag the time indicator back to the start of the comp, and I'll select the London map layer and press S to activate the scale settings. I'll click the stopwatch icon to add a scale keyframe, then I'll drag the time indicator across to 4 seconds and come down and drag out the scale, expanding the image just slightly. I'll press Spacebar to activate preview, and that is looking pretty cool. The image is expanding nicely behind the type creating this nice sequence. So this is the first part of the animated sequence for the introduction section. This point, I would recommend saving your document so we can continue in the next episode. So looking back at the Photoshop design, we can see these five destination pins around the type. In the next video, I'm going to show you how to animate a bouncing pin, which we will then add around the type to complete the first part of the intro animation sequence. See you in the next video. A 35. Animating a Bouncing PIN In After Effects: Hello, and welcome to the 34th video in this beginner's guide to Adobe After effect. In this tutorial, I'm going to demonstrate how to create a simple bouncing pin animation in After effect. So in the previous episode, we made a start on our video presentation where we animated some type and a background image. In this video, we are going to continue on and add the next animation element. In this video, I'm going to show you how to animate a bouncing pin like this, which we will then add to complete the first part of the intro animation sequence. So in this video, we'll be covering the following topics, animating a graphic and animating position, scale, and opacity. So let's get into it. So here I am where we left off in the previous episode, where we animated a type layer and a background image. Now, if you're following along for the first time, I suggest going back to the previous episode where we set up this document and animated the first sequence. Now, if you are continuing on from the last episode, make sure you have your document open ready. With our document open, let's proceed. So looking back at the Photoshop design, in frame one, in the Layers panel, we can see these five destination pins are on the type. So let's go ahead and put these in. So back in after effects, we are going to bring in a new media element. So with the project folder open, click into folder two Project assets, and then into the Images folder, then into the AI folder, then into the objects folder, and you will see a file called pin.ai. Now, simply click and drag the Pin file into the project panel in After effect. Upon release, we will see our new image asset ready to use. So I'll quickly drag this new image into the assets folder, then into the images folder, and into the vector folder because it's an AI file, an Illustrator file. So with the asset selected in the project panel, press Command forward slash on Mac or Control forward slash on PC. This will place the image into the comp and at the top of the layer stack in the timeline panel. So looking in the timeline panel, we can see that this is an Illustrator layer because we can see the Illustrator file icon next to the name. And right now, the color of the pin is black. This is a graphic that has been prepared using Adobe Illustrator. Now, in after effects, we can convert this to a shape. I'll come down and right click on the layer. I'll come over to create and select Create Shapes from vector layer. Upon click, a new shape layer will appear, and the previous layer below will toggle off. For now, we can select the layer below and simply delete it. Next, I will select the new Pin shape layer and press Enter. This will allow me to change the name of the layer and I'll rename this layer to pin. So now if I select a new shape layer I can come up to the top menu, click on the fill color box and select a white color and click Okay. Now we have our pin graphic to work with. Now I can click on my pin with the selection tool and place it wherever I want. However, I am not going to do that right now. I'll press Command Z on MAC or Control Z on PC to put it back in the middle. What I'm going to do next is create the first animation. What I want are five icons to appear into the frame around the type. So what I'm going to do here is animate one pin and then duplicate it a bunch of times. Okay, so let's start by animating the pin. Now, right now, I just want to focus on this one graphic here. I'm going to turn it into a pre comp. With the layer selected, I'm going to right click and select precompose. Upon click, the settings will appear. So I'm going to name this pin then I'm going to select move all attributes into the new comp. For now, I'll select a just composition duration to the time span of the selected layer, and I'll check open a new composition, and I'll click Okay. Upon click, we will now open a new comp with just my white pin inside. In the project panel, we can see our new comp appear. The first thing I'm going to do is shorten down the duration of this comp. Right now, it's 1 minute 20 seconds and that's far too long. I'll press Command K on Mac or Control K on PC and this will bring up the composition settings. Down in the duration, I'll change this from 1 minute 20 seconds to 5 seconds and click Okay. If we select the pin layer right now, the anchor point is around the middle of the shape. For the animation I'm about to create, I need this anchor point to be set at the baseline, right at the bottom point of the pin. With the pin selected, I'll come up to the tools menu and select the anchor point tool. Then I'll come and carefully click and drag the anchor point down to the baseline and in the middle like so, right at the point here. Next, with the layer still selected, I'll press S to activate the scale settings and just drag up like so. You will see because we place the anchor point at the base when it scales, it scales from the bottom where the anchor point is. Nice. Now my pin is ready to animate. What I want to do here is have the pin fall from above with a little rubber bounce effect when it lands. So I'll zoom in on the pin. I'll press Command R on Mac or Control R on PC to activate the rulers, and I'll drag a guide from the top and down right to the baseline of the point. And I'll also make sure the pin is nicely aligned center to the guides. Perfect. So I'm going to start with position. So I'll drag my time indicator right to the start of the comp and I'll press P to activate position. I'll come down and click on the stopwatch to place my first keyframe for position. So next, I'll click on the Zoom inter frame level switch and drag that all the way right. Now, we have zoomed so far into the timeline, we can now see the individual frames. So I'll move my time indicator across the timeline so it's placed at the sixth frame and then come and click on the diamond icon to drop a new Kframe for position. So if I zoom out here, we can see that the time between these two keyframes is quite short, just a matter of frames here. I'll zoom back in to focus on my keyframes. With my second keyframe in place, I'm going to drag my time indicator back over my first keyframe and make sure it's on top of the first keyframe. Then I'll click on my pin, press and hold shift on the keyboard and press up about ten times. And this is where I want the pin to start. Now, as I drag my time indicator across to the next keyframe, this is where I want my pin to land. So now I'm going to drag my time indicator a little further on from the second keyframe and I'll press N on the keyboard. This will set the work area around these two keyframes. I'll click somewhere in the work area and press Space bar to activate preview, and we can have a quick look at this animation, and that is looking just fine. So I'll press Spacebar to stop. What I want to do now is add a little bounce effect when it lands. So I'll place my time indicator right over the second keyframe. I'll press S to activate the scale settings, and I'll click the stopwatch to place down a keyframe for scale. So I'll move my time indicator across to frame ten. Then I'll come up into the composition panel and click on the top center square on the bounding box and drag down like so. Upon dragging, we will add a new keyframe automatically for scale. Next, I'll drag my time indicator across a little further to the 14th frame. Then I'll select my first scale keyframe, press Command C on Mac or Control C on PC to copy, and then press Command V on Mac or Control V on PC to paste. Upon pasting, a new keyframe will appear where my time indicator is, and the pin will go back to the original size. So if I drag my time indicator over the keyframes, we can see the effect that is having. First, it falls, and when it lands, it has a little bounce effect. So I'll press Spacebar to activate preview, and that is looking pretty cool. So I'll press Spacebar to stop, and what I want to do next is have the pin fade in as it falls. So I'll drag my time indicator to the first frame for scale. I'll press T on the keyboard to activate the opacity settings. I'll click the stopwatch to drop down my first opacity keyframe, then I'll drag the time indicator right back to the start. Next, I'll click and drag the opacity settings right back to zero. And I'll press Spacebar to activate preview, and now the pin fades in as it falls. So I'll press Spacebar to stop. And now I'll select the layer and press U. This will now show me all the keyframes I have applied to the layer. Now, this animation is almost complete. What I will do now is smooth out some of the animation with some easing. I'll press Spacebar to activate preview, and we can see that the animation is a bit rigid. I'll press Spacebar to stop and I'll come down and focus on the position keyframes. I'll right click on the first position keyframe. I'll come down to keyframe assistant and add Easy Ease out. Then I'll right click on the second position keyframe. I'll come down to keyframe assistant and add Easy Ease in. Next, I'll click on the second scale keyframe. I'll right click. I'll come down to keyframe assistant and add Easy Ease. Then I'll select the last scale keyframe. I'll right click. I'll come down to keyframe assistant and add Easy Ease in. So I'll press space bar to activate preview, and we can see that the animation sequence is much more fluid. Perfect. And I'll press space bar to stop. So now there is one last thing I'm going to do to this animation, and that is to add motion blur. Now, I'll come down to the bottom corner of the interface and make sure that the layer and switches icon is activated. The first one on the left. What we need to see here is this stacked circular icon here. So on this pin layer, I'll come across and click the square just under the circle stack icon. This is the motion blur icon. With this clicked, motion blur will be applied. Now also we will need to click the motion blur icon located on the top of the timeline panel. This will enable the effect to work. I'll press space bar to activate preview, and now we can see a very subtle motion blur as the pin falls. Perfect. I'll press spacebar to stop. Now I'll come and click back on the main Comp tab, and back in the main comp, we can now see this new Pin comp layer in the timeline. If we look over in the project panel, we can see the Pin comp. So I'll select the Pin comp layer in the project panel and drag it up and place it into the preComps folder. Next, I'll come down and click on the colored square for my comp layer and select blue. So looking back at the Photoshop design, we can see where I have positioned them and to what size. So back in after effects, I'll select my Pin comp layer and press S to activate the scale settings for the layer, and I'll come and drag the scale down to around 40%. Next, with the selection tool, I'll click and drag my pin into the first position, taking reference from my Photoshop design. Okay, so now I need another four of these. So with the layer selected, I'll press Command D on Mac or Control D on PC to duplicate the layer. With the new layer in the timeline panel, I'll click and drag it into the next position, taking reference from my Photoshop document. So now I need another three of these. So with the layer selected, I'll press Command D on Mac or Control D on PC to duplicate the layer. With the new layer in the timeline panel, I'll click and drag it into the next position, taking reference from my Photoshop design. So using this technique, I'm going to duplicate the layer a further two times and position them in place taking reference from my Photoshop document. So now we have five pins that are in position. And if I scrub the timeline indicator over these layers, we can see that all five pins bounce in at the same time. Now, I want these pins to animate in at various intervals. What I can do here is simply click and drag each pin comp layer and drag it further across the timeline at various points so as the animation start and end at different times. I'll drag them across one at a time until I have something that looks like this, and now we can see these layers are starting at various times. I'll drag the time indicator to the start of the timeline and press space bar to activate preview, and now we can see the pins are animating in at various times. Perfect. So this is the first part of the introduction section covered. At this point, I would recommend saving your document so we can continue in the next episode. Now, looking back at the Photoshop design, if we toggle off the visibility of frame one in the Layers panel, we can look at frame two. So frame two uses the same typestyle and map background, but set on a red color instead of the blue. In the next video, I'm going to show you how to animate a simple transition from frame one to frame two. So see you in the next video. 36. Animating a Simple Transition In After Effects: Hello, and welcome to the 35th video in this beginner's guide to Adobe After effect. In this tutorial, I'm going to demonstrate how to create a simple animated transition in after effects. In the previous episode, we continued our animation intro sequence and added in the bouncing pins. In this video, we are going to continue on and add the next animation sequence. In this video, I'm going to show you how to animate a simple transition from frame one to frame two. So in this video, we will be covering the following topics, editing shapes with the pento, animating a graphic, and animating position. So let's get into it. So here I am where we left off in the previous episode where we animated a bouncing pin and duplicated the animation to complete the first part of the intro sequence. Now, if you're following along for the first time, I suggest going back to the previous episode where we set up this document and animated the initial sequences. Video links are in the description. Now, if you're continuing on from the last episode, make sure you have your document open and ready. With it open, let's proceed. So looking back at the Photoshop design, we can see that frame two in the introduction section uses the same typestyle and map background, but set on a red color. What I want to do here is transition from the first frame into the second. I want this Chevron shape to slide in from the right, cover the first frame, then zoom away to reveal the next frame. So back in after effects, to do this, I'm going to use a shape layer. So I'm going to make sure that my work area is still set to 4 seconds here. So I'll click on 4 seconds on the timeline and press N to set the end of the work area. And I'm going to zoom in and focus on just this area. Now, I'll make sure I have no layer selected in the timeline panel. I can either click off the layer into the gray area in the composition panel or I can press F two on the keyboard to deselect. With no layer selected, I'll come up to the Shape Builder tool and click on hold and select a rectangle shape. With the tool active, I'll come and draw a small rectangle shape like so. Upon release, we will have a new shape layer in the timeline panel. With the new shape layer, I'll come up to the top menu, and I'll click on the fill color box and select a white. Then I'll click on the word stroke up or pop a settings box. In here, I'll make sure to select no fill and click Okay. So all I want here is a white box with no stroke. On my new shape layer, I'll come down and click on the colored square and select purple to change the layer to purple. And I'll press Enter on the keyboard and name this layer to white transition. Perfect. So now I need this white shape to cover the entire screen. Next, I'm going to press Command Alt F on Mac or Control Alt F on PC to fit the shape to the entire canvas area. Now, when you create a shape, it will span the entire length of the comp. So next, I'm going to trim the layer in the timeline panel. Though I need this to appear at a specific time. I'll start by placing my time indicator at 2 seconds. With the layer selected, I'll press Alt open square bracket on the keyboard, and that will trim the first part of the layer. I'll move my time indicator over to about 3.5 seconds, and I'll press Alt, close square bracket on the keyboard, and that will trim the end of the layer. Perfect. As I drag my time indicator over this new shape, we can see it only appears for a limited amount of time. What I need to do next is edit this white shape so it's a Chevron shape and not simply a box. So I'll select the white layer and press and hold shift and press the left arrow to move it so the left part of the box is in the center of the screen, like so. And what I'm going to do next is add a point to the left side. So I'll come down into the timeline panel and toggle down the settings for the shape. So I need to toggle down the settings until I can see the rectangle path, shape, and fill option. With the rectangle path visible I'll right click and select Convert to Bezier path. Doing this will allow me to edit the shape with the Pen tool. Next, I'll come up and click and hold on the Pen tool and select the add vertex point. I'll come and carefully click halfway down on the edge of the shape. This will add a new vertex point to the shape. With the new vertex point added, I'll simply press the left arrow while holding Shift on the keyboard to move the vertex point out. This will put a point on the left side of my white shape. Perfect. So once I'm happy, I'll press V to activate the selection tool and I'll click the shape and start to drag it left. As I do that, I'll press and hold shift on the keyboard and slide the white shape layer across the canvas in line. And I'll do this until it's halfway across the frame. So again, I'll come up to the pen tool, click and hold and select the Add Vertex tool. Then come down and click on the middle edge of the right side of the shape to add a new vertex point. So this time, we are going to select the top and bottom point. So I'll press V to activate the selection tool. I'll select the top right corner point, press and hold shift and select the bottom right corner. The two points selected, I'll tap the right arrow button while holding Shift to move the points out, and I'll push the points out until I have a nice point into the shape like so. Now, I'll press V to activate the selection tool and I'll click on the shape to select it. Then I'll carefully drag the shape while holding shift to drag along a straight path and cover the frame like so. Once happy, I'll come down into the layer and toggle up the settings. So now I have my white shape layer. It's time to animate this. What we want to do here is animate the shape in, hold for a second, and then animate out to reveal the next frame. Let's start with the animate in. With the layer selected, I'll press P to reveal the position settings for my layer. I'll drag the time indicator towards the beginning of the shape layer while holding Shift, and that will snap the time indicator to the start. I'll come and hit the stopwatch on the position setting to add my first position keyframe. Next, I'll drag my time indicator along the timeline about half a second, 2-3 seconds and click the diamond icon to add a second keyframe. Next, I'll drag my time indicator towards the beginning of the shape layer while holding Shift, and that will snap the time indicator to the start over my first keyframe. Okay, so with the time indicator over the first keyframe, I'll press and hold shift and press and hold the right arrow on the keyboard. This will now move my white shape over, and I'll do this until the white shape is just out of view. Now, if I scrub my time indicator over these two frames, we can see the shape animates in. Nice. So I'll click on the timeline at 1.5 seconds and press B to set the start of my work area, and I'll press Spacebar to preview our new transition. Now, on this occasion, I feel this is a little slow. So I'll move in on the timeline, and I'll come and drag my second keyframe a little closer to my first here between frame five and ten. I'll press Spacebar to preview, and that is looking just about right. Okay, so that's the intro done. Now I need to animate it moving out of the frame. So I'll zoom out of the timeline a little so I can see the seconds on the timeline ruler, and I'll drag my time indicator across the timeline to about 3 seconds. I'll come down and click on the diamond shape to add a new keyframe for position. Next, I'll drag my time indicator over to match the same space between the first two keyframes with my time indicator in place, I'll press and hold shift and press and hold the left arrow on the keyboard. This will now move my white shape over, and I'll hold this until the white shape is just out of view. Upon doing this, we will add a new position keyframe on the layer. And I'll press Spacebar to activate preview, and that is looking just fine. But maybe the pause in the middle is a little too long. So I'll press Spacebar to stop, and I'll click and drag over my last two keyframes to select them. With them selected, I'll just drag them close to the second. So the two keyframes sit with the 3 seconds set in the middle. I'll press Spacebar to activate preview, and I think that is looking much better. Perfect. And now I have the animation done. Next, I want to smooth it out a little with some easing. So I'll come and click on the first keyframe for position. I'll right click, scroll down to keyframe assistant, come across and select EZ Es out. Next, I'll click on the second keyframe for position. I'll right click, scroll down to Keyframe assistant, come across and select EZ E's in. Next, I'll click on the third keyframe for position. I'll right click, scroll down to keyframe assistant, come across and select eases out. And lastly, I'll click on the fourth keyframe for position. I'll right click, scroll down to keyframe assistant, come across and select Easy Es in. So now I can see the keyframes have changed to these arrow shapes indicating we now have easing applied. So I'll press space bar to activate preview, and the transition is looking just a little more smooth. So I'll press Spacebar to stop, and I'm going to finish this effect off by adding motion blur. So over on the right on the timeline panel, I'll make sure that the motion blur icon is activated at the top of the panel. They should be set to blue, and I'll come down and click the blur box for this layer. So with the blue box checked and the blue icon active, I'll press space bar to activate preview again. And now, as the white shape moves in, instead of the straight edge, it now has blur. Perfect. And I'll press Spacebar to stop. So once I'm happy with the animation, we can see that there is some layer bar lagging over the end of the keyframe here. So now I'll trim this up by dragging my time indicator towards my last keyframe while holding Shift, and that will snap to it. Then I'll press Alt, close square bracket, and that will trim the end of the layer. Easy. Now we have the transition effect in place. It's now time to add the elements for the second frame. Looking back in the Photoshop design, we can see that frame two uses the same type style and the map background but set on a red color. So back in after effects, I'm going to prepare for the next visual elements. So now we have the transition, we can use this as a gauge. I'll place my time indicator right bang in the middle of the transition, so all I can see is white. Next, I'll come down into the timeline panel, and I'll start by selecting the top pin layer. I'll hold shift and select the type layer. Now, I'll make sure not to select the map layer and I'll press Alt close brackets on the keyboard. This will trim the layers to this point. Next, I'll select the bottom solid layer and again, press Alt closed bracket on the keyboard to trim this layer. As I scrub across the timeline, what we see here is the white transition appearing, and as it slides away, we only see the map. Nice. So let's bring in the first part of frame two. I'll press F two on the keyboard to make sure I have no layer selected. Then I'll press Command Y on Mac or Control Y on PC to create a new solid layer. So I'll quickly jump into Photoshop. With the eyedropper tool, I'll select the dark red color. I'll double click on the square color in the tool menu. I'll come to the hex value code and copy this. Then back into After effects. I'll click on the colored box, paste in the hex code color, click Okay, and then click Okay to create the new solid layer. Upon click, we will now see a new solid layer appear on top of the layer stack. What I want to do here is drag this layer down and under the map layer. So I'll click and drag the layer down and under the map layer like so. And if I scroll across with the time indicator, we can now see the map is blending nicely with the red layer. But right now it's on top of the blue layer as well. So we will need to trim this quickly. So I'll drag my time indicator to the end of the trimmed layers at the middle of the white transition while holding Shift to Snap. And with the red solid layer selected, I'll press Alt open square brackets on the keyboard, and that will trim the start of the layer. So now we have the blue transitioning into red. Perfect. So all that's left to do is create the next animated type layer. Well, to do this is really easy. Now, we have already animated one piece of type here. So what we can do is simply duplicate this. So I'll select the type layer and press Command D on Mac or Control D on PC to duplicate the layer. Now, I want this second type animation to appear just as the white shape transitions away. So I'll drag my time indicator between the last two position key frames of the white transition. Then I'll select the type layer and drag across while holding Shift, and it will snap the start of the layer to the time indicator. So if I scrub my time indicator over the sequence, it's appearing just how I want it at the right time. Perfect. So looking back at the Photoshop design, the type for this is to visit in dot dot dot. So back in after effects, I'll double click on the type layer to select the type, and I'll type in to visit in dot dot dot. I'll click off the layer to deselect. Now, I'll drag my work area right back to the start of the timeline, and I'll drag the end out to around 5 seconds. I'll press Spacebar to activate preview, and the transition is looking great. So I'll press Space Bar to stop. And I'll click on the London map layer and press U to see the keyframes. Right now, the second keyframes at 4 seconds. I'll quickly click this and drag this to 5 seconds. I'll press Spacebar to activate preview, and now the map expands nicely across the entire sequence as well. Perfect. I'll now press Command A to select all the layers and then press U to snap away all the keyframes so I can just see the layer bars and press F two to deselect them. That is the animation sequence sorted between frame one and two of the Outro sequence. At this point, I would recommend saving your document so we can continue in the next episode. So now looking back at the Photoshop design, if we now come into the Layers panel and toggle the visibility of frame two, we can now see the word London on a British flag. In the next video, we are going to animate the last frame of the introduction section, where I'll be showing you how to animate a British flag scene. So see you in the next video. 37. Animating a British Flag Sequence In After Effects: Hello, and welcome to the 36th video in this beginner's guide to Adobe After Effects. In this tutorial, I'm going to demonstrate how to animate layers brought in from a Photoshop document. In the previous episode, we continued our animation intro sequence and added in the transition sequence between frame one and two. In this video, we're going to continue on and add the next animation sequence for frame three. In this video, I'm going to be demonstrating how you can animate a British flag scene. So in this video, we'll be covering the following topics, importing a Photoshop doc into after effects and editing Photoshop layers. So let's get into it. So here I am where we left off in the previous episode where we added in the transition sequence between frame one and two. Now, if you're following along for the first time, I suggest going back to the previous episode where we set up this document and animated the first two frame sequences. Video links are in the description. Now, if you're continuing on from the last episode, make sure you have your document open and ready. With your document open, let's proceed. Looking back at the Photoshop design, we can see the word London on a British flag. So this is a different composition entirely from frames one and two. We have the word London placed in the center of a British flag. What I want to do next is create a really dynamic transition where frame two transitions into complete white and the flag builds up from nothing, and the word London appears. So back in after effects, I'm going to start by creating the transition into white for the flag to build on. So this step is pretty easy. In the last episode, we created this nice white transition. What I'm going to do here is select the white transition layer and press Command D on Mac or Control D on PC to duplicate the layer. Next, I'll move my time indicator over to around 4.5 seconds. Then select the new white transition layer and drag over towards the time indicator while holding Shift, and the start of the layer will snap to the time indicator. Now I have the white transition into frame two and the same transition out of frame two. Now at this time, I do not want the white to transition out, but only in. So with the layer selected, I'll press U on the keyboard to show the keyframes for position. I'm going to place my time indicator right in the middle of the layer. Next, I'm going to click and drag over the last two position keyframes. With them selected, I'll press delete to remove them. Okay. So with my type indicator in here, I'm going to select the type layer below and press Alt close brackets on the keyboard to trim the layer. Next, I'll select the London image layer, and I'll press Alt close brackets on the keyboard to trim that layer. And lastly, I'll select the red solid layer and press Alt close square brackets to trim that layer. Now the white transitions in and stays without animating out, and our layers are nicely trimmed below. Perfect. But what I need now is more of the white layer. What I'll do next is click and drag the edge of the white layer to around 8 seconds. I'll click my time indicator on the timeline at 8 seconds and press N on the keyboard to set the end of the workspace area. I'll click on the timeline at 4 seconds and press B to set the start of the work area. For now, we just want to concentrate on the sequence 4-8 seconds. Now we are ready to animate our British flag sequence. Looking back at the Photoshop design, we can see that this design is rather complex. We have a lot of shapes here. Now, in the previous episode, I showed you how you can create a shape in after effects and animate it. Now, we could do this for each shape here, but that would take a long time, and I have already created this composition here in Photoshop. If we look in the folder at frame three, we can see we already have all the layers we need. So what we are going to do this time is something a little different. This time, we are going to bring in a Photoshop composition and animate the layers individually. So before we bring in the file, let's see what we are going to be working with. So with the project folder open, click into folder two Project assets, and then into the Images folder, then into the PS folder, and you will see a British flag Photoshop file. So let's take a look at this in Photoshop. I'll double click on the file and open with Photoshop. Now, this is the same composition we just saw in the design file. But here I have created a separate document with just the flag layers. For the flag, we only want to bring in these layers and not all the other design files. So this is a document I have prepared earlier. And over in the layers panel, we have a layer for each segment of the flag. And what I have done here is color and name the layers appropriately. The blue parts are highlighted in blue, and the red are highlighted in red. So what I want to do is create a dynamic two D animation where the parts of the flag animate in and build from nothing. As you can see here, the sequence starts with a red arrow animating in. So in Photoshop, I'll toggle the visibility of all the blue layers and the top Landon layer. Now, what I have done here is prepare these layers in such a way that will make for a cool animation in after effects. Let's look at the vertical strip. Now, if we click and drag this down, we can see that there is more to this layer than initially seems. What I have done here is place a point at the end which goes out of the canvas area. Now, if we toggle the visibility of this layer, we can see the horizontal layers below meet in the middle with points. Like the vertical strip, I have prepared these two strips here as individual layers with points on. So I'll talk to the visibility of the blue layers and we can see that these are all just individual layers. So the plan here is to bring in all these layers and animate them individually in after effects. So I'll close the document, but I'll make sure not to save. I want to keep all the layers in their original position. So back in after effects, let's now bring in this Photoshop flag file. So with the project folder open, click into folder two Project assets, and then into the Images folder, then into the PS folder, and you will see the British flag Photoshop file. What I have done here is prepare the flag Photoshop document separately. This is something you would also want to do when bringing in an asset into after effects from Photoshop. Now, we will look at this in a little more detail in a second, but for now, drag the file into the project panel in after effects. Now, this time, when you attempt to drag in a Photoshop file including multiple layers, you will get a menu box up here. Now, it's important to mention that this Photoshop document includes multiple layers which we will want to have access to to animate. In this instance, when we import a Photoshop file into after effects, we need to click the Import kind drop down and select composition retain layer styles. Really important, you select this option. Also, make sure that editable layer styles is checked and hit okay. Now, upon click, you will import the file into after effects as a composition. Note, in the project panel, we now have a new comp called British flag. Now, if we come and double click into this new comp, it will open, and we will see it contains all the layers that we just saw in the Photoshop document. Now I will close the tab and come back to the main comp. Now, you should also notice a new folder called British flag layers. If you drop this down, you will see included all the layer segments that make up the British flag. These again, are all the layers we just saw in Photoshop. For now, toggle up the folder and drag it into the assets folder. Then toggle down the assets folder and make sure to place the British flag layers folder into the PS artwork folder in the images folder. I'll toggle up the assets folder and lastly, drag the new British flag comp into the preComps folder. So now we are ready to animate the British flag. So I'll zoom out of my timeline, and I'll click the British flag comp in the project panel, and I'll press Command forward slash on Mac or Control Forward slash on PC to quickly place the comp layer into my main comp. Now, I'll place my timeline at 5 seconds into the comp to place my time indicator, and I'll drag the new comp layer across while holding Shift to snap the start of the layer to the timeline indicator. My British flag comp in place, I'll come over, click on the colored square and set this to a blue color. Next, I'll double click on the comp layer so I can go into the comp where I can see all the layer segments for the flag. The first thing I want to do is change the duration of this comp. I'll press Command K on Mac or Control K on PC, and up we pop the composition settings. Down in the duration, I'll change the current time and set this to 5 seconds, then click Okay. Right now, there are a lot of layers here. So to help make sense of this, I'm going to color them. I'll begin by selecting the top blue layer segment, a press and hold shift, and select the bottom blue layer segment. I'll click on the color square and select blue. This will change the layers to blue. Next, I'll select the top red layer segment, I press and hold shift, and select the bottom red layer segment. Click on the color square and select red. So at the start, I'm going to toggle off the visibility of each layer apart from the white base layer. And I'm going to start with the top red layer here. So I'll toggle back the visibility of the red vertical strip layer. So I'll start by dragging the time indicator to the start of the timeline, and with my red vertical strip selected, I'll press P to reveal the position settings. Next, I'll come and click on the stopwatch to add the first position keyframe. I'll drag my time indicator over to about not 0.5 seconds, and I'll click the diamond shape to add my second position keyframe. Next, I'll drag my time indicator back to the start of the timeline, making sure the time indicator is over the first keyframe. I'll press V to activate the selection tool, and I'll click on the strip. With Shift heel down on the keyboard, I'll press and hold down on the arrow key to move the stripe down and out of the frame. Notice, as we do this, we can see the point on the red stripe, exactly how we prepared in Photoshop. As I scrub my time indicator over the keyframe, we can now see the animation sequence, and that is looking good for now. So when the stripe animates up, I then want the two horizontal stripes to come and join in the center. I'll toggle the visibility of the two horizontal stripes below, and I'll start with the left one. So first, I'll drag my time indicator while holding Shift over the second position keyframe for the vertical strip to snap on top. With the red horizontal strip left selected, I'll press P to reveal the position settings, and I'll come over and hit the stopwatch to add a position keyframe. We want here is to place the first keyframe right under the second keyframe of the red vertical strip layer above. I'll move my time indicator over to 1 second, and I'll hit the diamond icon to add a second position keyframe. Once placed, I'll drag my time indicator back over to the first keyframe while holding Shift to Snap. With the time indicator on top of the first position keyframe, I'll press and hold Shift and press the left arrow button on the keyboard to move the strip across and out of view. So that's the left strip done. I'll now move onto the right strip. I'll select the red horizontal strip right layer and I'll press P to reveal the position settings. I'll come over and hit the stopwatch to add the position keyframe. I'll move my time indicator over to the second keyframe on the layer below, while holding Shift to snap, and I'll hit the diamond icon to add a second position keyframe. Once placed, I'll drag my time indicator back over to the first keyframe while holding Shift to snap on top. With my time indicator on top of my first position keyframe, I'll press and hold shift and press the right arrow button on the keyboard to move the strip right and out of view. Nice. So now if I move my time indicator over these frames, I can see the sequence. So the first stripe rises up and the two horizontal strips come in and join in the middle. Great. So now I'm going to toggle back the visibility of the other red stripe layers. What I'm going to do next is apply the animation to these. So to start, I'm going to select the red top right layer. I'll press and hold shift and select the bottom. With them all selected, I'll press P on the keyboard, and this will reveal the position settings for each layer. With them all selected, I'll come and hit the stopwatch for the top layer. Now upon click, because we have all the layers selected, it will apply a keyframe to each layer like so. Next, I'll drag my time indicator over to 1.5 seconds, and I'll click on the diamond icon for the top layer to add another position keyframe. Again, because we have all the layers selected, we have added a new keyframe for each. With those four layers selected, I easily added multiple keyframes. Okay. So next, I'll drag my time indicator back to the first keyframe while holding Shift to snap it on top of the first keyframes. Now I want to deselect the layers. I'll either click off into the gray area in the composition panel or I'll press F too. Now I'll come and select the top layer red top right. With the selection tool, I'll simply click and drag it out of the screen like so. Now, as I drag out, we will see the movement path. Here, I want to try and set the movement path in line with the shape. So as I animate in, it travels in at the same angle. Next, I'll select the layer below, and I'll do the same. With the selection tool, I'll click and drag it out. I'll select the layer below, and I'll do the same. With the selection tool, I'll click and drag it out. Once again, with the last layer, I'll select the layer below, and I'll do the same. With the selection tool, I'll click and drag it out. Now if I drag the time indicator over these frames, we can see the animation sequence. Perfect. So that's the animation done for the red layers. Next, I need to add the animation sequence to the blue layers. I'll select the top red layer, hold shift, and select the last but one red layer and press U to hide the keyframes. What I need here is the visibility of the keyframes for one of the last layers here. Next, I'll toggle the visibility of the blue layers back. And using the same technique we just used for the red segments, we are going to do the same for the blue segments. So I'll begin by dragging my time indicator over the last keyframe on the red layer while holding Shift to snap in place. I'll select the top blue layer, press and hold shift, and select the bottom blue layer. Then I'll press P to activate the position settings on each layer. Come down and click the stopwatch on the top left and I'll add the first position keyframe for each layer. Easy. Next, I'll drag the time indicator over to 2 seconds, and I'll click the diamond icon for the top layer to add a second keyframe for each layer. I'll drag my time indicator back across to the first keyframe while holding Shift, so it snaps in place exactly over the first set of keyframes. Now I'll press F two to deselect the layers, just like we did earlier, I'll select the first layer and with a selection tool, I'll move it off and out of the screen like so. I'll select the layer below and move it out, select the layer below and move it out. Select the layer below this and move it out. Select the layer below this, move it out, and I'll make my way down, selecting the layers and moving them out of the screen like so. Once I have moved my last blue segment out of the screen, I'll drag my time indicator over the frames. I'll click in the timeline at 3 seconds, and I'll press N on the keyboard to set the end of my workspace area, and I'll press Spacebar to activate preview to assess the sequence. Right now, that is looking just fine. I'll press Spacebar to stop. I'll select all the layers by pressing Command A on Mac or Control A on PC and press U to hide the key frames, and that is our British flag animation done. But what I want to do now to finish off the sequence is add some easing. So I'll select all the red layers again by selecting the top layer, press and hold shift and select the bottom layer, then I'll press U to show the keyframes. So I'll come and click on the first keyframe for position on the top layer. I'll click right, scroll down to keyframe assistant and across and select EZ Es out. Next, I'll come and select the second keyframe for position. I'll right click, scroll down to keyframe assistant, come across and select EZ Es in. Next, I'll click and drag over the two keyframes for the next two layers. I'll right click on the top one, scroll down to keyframe assistant, come across and select EZ Es out. And that will apply Es to both keyframes. Next, I'll click and drag over the two last keyframes. I'll right click on the top one, scroll down to keyframe assistant, come across and select EZ Es in that will apply the Es to both keyframes. Next, I'll click and drag over the first keyframes for the next four layers. I'll right click on the top one, scroll down to keyframe assistant. Come across and select EZ Es out, and that will apply the Es to all the keyframes. Next, I'll click and drag over the last four keyframes. I'll right click on the top one, scroll down to keyframe assistant, come across and select EZ E's in, and that will apply the Es to all the keyframes. Nice. I'll select all the red layers and press to hide the keyframes. Then I'll select all the blue layers and press to reveal these keyframes. I'll click and drag over all the keyframes for the layers. I'll right click on the top one, scroll down to keyframe assistant, come across and select EZ Es out, and that will apply the Es to all the keyframes. Next, I'll click and drag over the last keyframe for all the layers. I'll right click on the top one, scroll down to keyframe assistant, come across and select EZ Es in. And that will apply the Es to all the keyframes. So with all the blue layers selected, I'll press U to hide the keyframes. I'll press Spacebar to activate preview. And the movement for each segment is smoother. And I'll press Spacebar to stop. To finish off, I'm going to add motion blur. Over on the right on the timeline panel, I'll make sure that the motion blur icon is active at the top of the panel, this should be set in blue, and I'll come down and click the blur box for every layer. With the blur box ticked on each layer and the blur icon active, I'll press Spacebar to activate preview again. Now as the stripes swoosh in, we have a nice motion blur effect. Perfect. And I'll press space bar to stop. Right now, we have this London layer at the top, which was brought in from the PSD doc. Now, we don't need this anymore, so for now, I'll select the layer and simply delete it. Once we are happy with the British flag sequence, I'll close the comp tab and come back to the main comp. Now, if we move the time indicator over the frames, we can see as the white transitions in the flag starts to build. Perfect. So now we have the British flag animation complete. We now need to finish off with the animated word London, which appears when the flag is complete. What we can do here is simply use the same type format we created earlier. I'll come down and click on the second type layer and I'll press Command D on Mac or Control D on PC to duplicate the layer. Next, I'll move the layer up to the top of the layer stack, and I'll come and place my time indicator right where the blue segments start to appear. Then I'll click and drag the top type layer across while holding Shift to snap the beginning of the layer to the time indicator. So as I move the time indicator across, we can see the type zooms as we want it. Now, I'll double click onto the type and type in London, and that is looking pretty good. So with my work area set 4-8 seconds, I'll press F two to deselect the type layer and I'll press Space Bar to activate preview. So the animation is looking great. But right now, I feel that the overall sequence is happening a bit slow. I want the word London to appear faster, so I'll press Spacebar to stop. Now, it would be quite a bit of work to have to go into the British flag comp and tweak all the keyframes. So I'm going to use a different approach. So now I'm going to right click on the British flag comp player. Come up to T and scroll across and click on Time Stretch. Upon click, a settings box will appear. Initially, it will have 100% on the box, but I'm now going to change this to 70% and click Okay. Upon click, you will see the bar for the British flag shorten. What I have done here is shorten the time of the comp to essentially speed it up. Now, if I move my time indicator over the sequence, we can see the blue segments appear earlier. I'll place my time indicator over the new spot where the blue segments appear and drag the type layer to the new position. I'll press spacebot to activate preview, and now that is looking just a little sharper. And I'll press Spacebar to stop. So now I'll drag the start of my workspace right back to the start of the timeline, and I'll also drag my time indicator to the start. And I'll press Spacepot to activate preview, and now we can watch the whole sequence as one. On our press space bar to stop. This now completes the animation sequence for the introduction section of this video presentation. With this section now complete in the main comp, I am now going to place all these layers into its own comp. So I'll select the top layer and while holding Shift, I'll select the bottom layer. With all the layers selected, I'll right click on the layer and select pre compose. Upon click, a settings box will appear. So to start, I'll name this composition one hyphen introduction. I'll click to move all attributes into the new comp. I'll click to adjust the composition duration to the time span of the selected layers, and I'll deselect the open new comp and click Okay. Upon click, we will now place all the layers into this new comp layer in the main comp. Now, if I scroll out on my timeline, can see that now we have a single layer comp for the introduction section 1-8 seconds. Now, if we double click on the introduction comp, we can still go back into it. But for now, I'll close the comp tab and return back to the main comp. In the project panel, we will now see the new one hyphen introduction comp layer. What I'll do here is click and drag it into the comps folder, and I'll come down, click on the square color for the layer and select blue. This now completes the animation sequence for the first introduction of the video presentation. So at this point, if you've been following along, I would recommend saving your document so we can continue in the next episode. Now we are ready to move on to the next section of the video presentation. So looking back at the Photoshop design, the next section is Hyde Park. What we're going to do next is build up this layout in after effects. But before that, there is one thing we need to keep in mind. So looking back at the project plan, one of the big things we need to do this video presentation is structure it in time with music. In the next video, I'm going to bring in the music file, and we are going to look at how we can prepare to sync the video presentation to music. So see you in the next video. 38. Synchronising to Music After Effects: Hello, and welcome to the 37th video in this Beginner's Guide to Adobe After effects. In this tutorial, I'm going to demonstrate how you can synchronize a video presentation to music in after effects. Now, most of the time, when people use audio for their videos, it's commonly simply played in the background where it just plays, and there is no real connection between the visual and the audio. Now, sometimes you will see a video presentation that is edited to an audio clip, and the edit is in time with the background track. For the video presentation we are creating, we are going to edit it alongside an audio track. Now, editing a clip along a audio track can be a little complicated and tricky to do. In this video, I'm going to share a technique I often use, which works quite well for me, which I hope will help you. In the previous episode, we finished the introduction section to our video presentation by animating the last frame, the British flag. Now, before we move on and look at how we are going to animate the next part, we are going to think about how we are going to structure the presentation to a background track. So looking back at the project plan, one of the big things we need to do with this video presentation is structure it in time with music. In this video, I'm going to bring in a music file, and we're going to look at how we can prepare to sync the entire video presentation to music. So in this video, we are going to be covering the following topics, working with audio in after effects, listening for audio cues in music, planning structure around music, and synchronizing a presentation to music. So let's get into it. So here I am where we left off in the previous episode where we completed the introduction section to our video presentation. Now, if you're watching for the first time and wish to follow along, you can find this document in the project folder which you can download. With the project folder open, click into folder three, create a project, then click into folder 37, synchronizing to Music, and open the synchronizing to music document. Now, if you are continuing on from the last episode, make sure you have your document open ready. So with our document open, let's proceed. So what we are going to do now is think about the background track we are going to use for this presentation and how we are going to structure our video presentation around it. A process I use to synchronize my audio around a music track is one, listen to the track, two, visualizing the parts, I need to section on the track, three, listen for structural cues and mark the track, and four place my sections on the timeline. So let's start with step one, listening to the track. With the project folder open, click into folder two, Project assets, and then into the Audio folder. Here I have an audio file I have downloaded free from the YouTube audio library. If you have already downloaded it, great. However, if you have not, simply click on the instructions document contained in this folder, and this has a download link which you can access the audio file for free from the YouTube library. So once you have downloaded the audio file, be sure to place it in this audio folder. Let's take a look at this audio file and listen to it. So this is an audio file from the YouTube audio library called Roll and Drop. Now, I suggest you listen to it yourself a few times to familiarize yourself with the track. But for now, let's listen to this together. Step we So this is what we are going to work with. Next, we are going to need to think about how we can break this up to place in our sequences. So once you have familiarized yourself with the track, let's move on to step two, visualizing the parts I need to section on the track. So what we're going to have to do here is break the track up into various sections which we will structure our presentation around. Now, earlier on in this course, right at the beginning, before I even started in after effects, I undertook a planning and design process. So let's now quickly look back at the planning document. So looking back at the project sheet and the timeline plan I did earlier, I initially planned for this presentation to have seven sections. One, introduction Two Hyde Park, three, the aquarium, four Shoreditch, five Camden Town, six Tower Bridge, and seven the Outro sequence. So what we are dealing with in this presentation is seven parts. Now, whenever you think about synchronizing music to a track, it helps to have an initial idea of your sections so you can visualize them. So for this presentation, I have to work with seven sections. Once I know the sections I am working with, I can move on to step three. Listen for structural cues and mark the track. Now I'm going to come back to my audio track and listen again for cues where I can possibly place my sections. To do this, I'm going to listen to the track and place markers to get an initial idea of how we could possibly edit the track. So I'll begin by placing a marker at the start. And now let's listen to the track together. Okay, so there 0-8 seconds, there is what feels like an introduction buildup. So here I can place a marker on the music timeline at 8 seconds. There is my second marker. So let's continue on from 8 seconds. Okay, so there was a change there. Let's look at that again. And the music seems to change there at 23 seconds. So here I can place a marker there at 23 seconds, and there is my third marker. So let's continue on from 23 seconds. Okay, another change there. Let's look at this again. So the music changes there at 39 seconds. So here I can place a marker at 39 seconds. And there is my fourth marker. So let's continue on from 39 seconds. Okay, another change there. Let's look at that again. So the music changes there at 46 seconds. So I'll place a marker there at 46 seconds, and there is my fifth marker. So let's continue on from 46 seconds. Okay, and that's the end of the track. So right now, I have five markers on my timeline with four obvious changes in the music. These changes will work really easy to cue the sections. So right now, we have five markers, but seven sections to place on the timeline. So we need to find another two markers. So what I'm going to do next is look back at how we can place additional markers on the track to give me more to work with. So looking at my timeline, I can see there is a gap here 8-23 seconds. So I'll come back to 8 seconds and listen up to 23 seconds. Okay, so this section is quite repetitive. There seems like there could be a marker in the middle here. So let's listen to that again. Okay, so at 15 seconds, the music section plays again. So let's put a marker down here at 15 seconds, and that seems to fit nicely in between marker two and three. Okay, so that's working well for now. Let's look at trying to find the last marker. Now, the last marker is currently at 46 seconds, and I have to keep in mind there is going to be an end sequence to this video presentation. So I now want to come and find a marker I can place towards the end to give me a cut where I can place the end sequence. So now I'll come to 48 seconds and listen. Okay, so at 58 seconds, the music seems to build up to the end. So I'll drop a marker here. Now, for this presentation, we only have to establish seven sections. If I needed more, I would have to continue this process and try to identify more markers. So it really helps to listen to the track over and over again and identify markers on the track, you can potentially add to your video sequence too. For this example, I showed you how I did this on screen, but this is how it looks when I did this originally. To do this, I always draw a line on a sheet of paper and mark the line with the time code of the music track. I listen repeatedly and put down markers. So when I have established the amount of markers I need, I can then move on to step four, place my sections on the timeline. So now I have identified seven markers that work on my audio track. I can now make sense of what I'm going to do and how I'm going to edit my video presentation going forward. So now I'm going to come back to my after effects document, and this is where we left off in the previous video. So first, I'm going to bring in the audio file. So with the project folder open, click into folder two Project assets, and then into the audio folder. So now you should have the roll and drop audio file here ready, which we looked at earlier. Next, simply drag it into the aftereffects project panel like so. So now we have the audio file in the project panel ready to place in our comp. So before that, let's toggle down our assets folder and drop the audio file into the audio folder. Nice. So with the audio file ready, I'll simply click and drag it into the comp and release like so. Upon release, we now have a new layer in the timeline panel. Also notice the layer bar only goes as far as 1 minute 5 seconds. This represents how long the audiople is. Next, I'll just select the layer and drag it to the bottom of the layer stack. What I'm going to do now is place down some markers to match my audio markers. So first, I'll come right over to the far right of the timeline panel, and we will see this little marker icon here. Now, we can use these to place markers on the timeline, which we are going to use as reference points. So I'll click and drag this out like so and place it right at the start of the timeline. Now we have our first marker. So looking back at my audio timeline, my second marker is at 8 seconds. So what I'll do here is come over to my time code on the timeline panel and double click on the time. So I'll type in 8 seconds and press Enter. This will place my time indicator right at 8 seconds on my timeline. With my time indicator in place, I'll come right over to the far right of the timeline panel. I'll click and drag a marker out while holding Shift and snap it over my time indicator like Z. And now we have our second marker. Looking back at my audio timeline, my next marker is at 15 seconds. So I'll come over to my time code on the timeline panel and double click on the time and Enter 15 seconds and press Enter. And that will place my time indicator at 15 seconds. I'll click and drag another marker out while holding Shift and snap it over my time indicator like so. And now we have our third marker. So looking back at my audio timeline, my next marker is at 23 seconds. I'll type in 23 seconds on the timecode and press Enter. I'll click and drag another marker out while holding Shift and snap it over my time indicator. And now we have our fourth marker. Now notice as we drag out the markers, they will have numbers on them. Now we are starting to clearly define the sections on our timeline. Looking back at my audio timeline, my next marker is at 38 seconds. I'll type in 38 seconds on my time code, press Enter, and I'll click and drag another marker out while holding Shift and snap it over my time indicator like so. Now we have our fifth marker. Looking back at my audio timeline, my next marker is at 46 seconds. I'll type in 46 seconds on my time code, press Enter. I'll click and drag another marker out while holding Shift and snap it over my time indicator like so. And now we have our sixth marker. Lastly, back into my audio timeline, my last marker here is at 58 seconds. I'll type in 58 seconds on my time code, press Enter, and I'll click and drag another marker out while holding Shift and snap it over my time indicator. So now I have my audio file in place with my seven markers. But now we need to come in and really check they are in the right place. I'll come in and zoom in on Marker two. I'll place my time indicator just a little before Marker two and I'll press Space Bar to activate preview. Now, that looked like the music changes sooner than where the current marker is. So I'll place my time indicator a little before and press space bar to preview. Okay, so I'll just bring my marker in a little, and that now appears to be right on cue. The marker is placed right where the music changes. So next, I'll come over and inspect Marker three. I'll place my time indicator just a little bit before Marker three and press space bar to preview. Okay, so this one is a little out. So I'll just bring my marker out a little. And that's right on. Perfect. So next, I'll come over and inspect Marker four. I'll place my time indicator a bit before Marker four and press space by the preview. Okay, so this one is a little out as well. So I'll bring my marker out a little. And now that's right on Q. So next, I'll come over and inspect Marker five. I'll place my time indicator a bit before Marker five and press space by a preview. Okay, this one is a little out as well. So I'll just bring my marker out a little. Brain Mining. Brain Mining. Brain winning. And that's a lot better. That's right on Q. Next, I'll come over and inspect Marker six. I'll place my time indicator just a little bit before Marker six and press space by the preview. Okay, so this one is a little bit out as well. So I'll drag my marker out a little. And the marker is now right on Q. Excellent. So, lastly, I'll come over and inspect Marker seven. I'll place my time indicator just a little before Marker seven. And this one is actually just right. So I'll zoom out on my timeline, and now I'm 100% happy with the positioning of my markers. These markers are now going to help me edit and produce my video presentation around the music track. So once we have established the timeline structure, we can now move on. Now, at this point, if you are following along, I would recommend saving your document so we can continue on in the next episode. So that is the process I always use to synchronize my video presentations to a background music track. With my sections in place, I am now ready to proceed with the rest of my video presentation. So looking back at the Photoshop design, the next section is Hyde Park. So what we are going to do next is build up this layout in after effect. We are going to create a video sequence and then animate type to appear on top. And in the next video, we are going to begin with the background part and look at how we are going to edit a video clip. So see you in the next video. 39. Edit a Video Sequence In After Effects: Hello, and welcome to the 38th video in this Beginner's Guide to Adobe After effect. In this tutorial, I'm going to demonstrate how you can edit a video sequence in After effect. In the previous episode, we analyzed a music background track and placed markers on the timeline which we are going to structure our video presentation around going forward. What we're going to do next is build up this layout in after effects. We are going to create a video sequence where type will appear on top. Though for this video, we are going to start and focus just on the background video sequence. In this video, I'm going to demonstrate how you can edit a video sequence in after effects. So in this video, we are going to be covering the following topics, video editing and video transitions. So let's get into it. So here I am where we left off in the previous episode where we analyzed a music background track and placed markers on the timeline, which we are going to structure our video presentation around going forward. Now, if you are watching for the first time and wish to follow along, you can find this document in the project folder, which you can download. With the project folder open, click into folder three, create a project, then click into folder 38, edit a video sequence, and open the Edit a video sequence document. Now, if you are continuing on from the last episode, make sure you have your document open and ready. So with our document open, let's proceed. So now I have my markers. I can continue to create the next six sections in the right place. So let's start here by zooming in on the timeline between Marker two and three. This is where we will be focusing our attention on for the next section. So this is what we are going to create in this tutorial. We are going to create a video edit that consists of five videos for Hyde Park, and each video is going to transition into the next with a diagonal transition. Back in after effects, let's begin by bringing in our video footage. So with the project folder open, click into folder two Project Assets, then into the video folder, then into folder one, Hide Park. In here, you will see a few folders that include Hide Park videos. Now, we are about to import these into after effects. So back in after effects, let's import these videos. So I'll double click in the gray area below the folders in the project panel, and up we'll pop a browser window. This is after effects asking us what we want to import. I'll navigate to the project folder, click into folder two Project assets, and then into the video folder. So now we should see the folder one Hide Park. Next, simply select the Hide Park folder and click Open. On click, we will see the folder structure import into after effects in the project panel. If we toggle this down, we can see the folders inside, and if we toggle down these folders, we can see the videos. Perfect. Next, I'll quickly drag the Hide PAC folder into the Assets folder and toggle down the assets folder and make sure the HydPAC folder is placed into the video folder. So with my videos now placed into after effects, I can now start to add them to the comp. But before that, I just want to create a new composition. Looking at the timeline, we already have one hyphen introduction as its own comp. What I want to do next is create a new comp for the next section between Marker two and three. Now, there are a variety of ways we can do this, but I'm going to do this quickly using a solid layer. So I'll press Command Y on Mac or Control Y on PC to create a new solid layer. Upon click, the solid settings options will appear. So I'm going to name this solid layer two hyphen Hyde Park, and for now, I'll set the color to white and click Okay. Now, upon click, it will set the layer to the entire length of the comp. Now, what I can do next is simply press number two on the keyboard. What this will do is snap my time indicator to Marker two on the timeline. Easy, right? So with the time indicator over Marker two, I'll press Alt open square bracket to trim the start of the layer like so. Next, I'll simply press the number three on the keyboard. Then my time indicator will snap to Marker three on the timeline. With the time indicator over Marker three, I'll press Alt close square bracket to trim the end of the layer. Now I have a solid layer that is the right length of what I want the second section to be. With my solid layer prepared, I'll right click on the layer, scroll down and select precompose. Upon click, I'll get the precompose settings box. So for the name, we already have that set to Hyde Park. But here it's added comp one on the end. First, I'll get rid of that. Next, I'll make sure to move all attributes into a new composition. I'll adjust the composition duration to the time span of the selected layer and I'll click to open the new composition and click Okay. Upon click, we will now have a new comp to the exact time we want. Also, we will have a new comp layer in the project panel, and I'll make sure to select this and drag it into the comps folder. Perfect. Now, looking at the timeline, if we zoom out and you cannot see seconds and only frames, make sure to come up to composition, hit composition settings and make sure that time code is set to zero, zero, zero, zero. So it's all zeros in here. Click Okay, and now we should see seconds in the timeline. So now we can focus and create the video sequence for Section two in this new comp. Now before we start, we should notice here that when we pre compose the comp from the main comp, it has also brought in the markers up here on the timeline. Now, we don't need these in here, so I'll come up and right click on the marker, click Delete or markers, and that will remove them. So let's now bring in some video layers. So I'll come across and toggle down my assets folder to reveal my hide Park folder in the video folder. Then I'll toggle down each folder to reveal the contents inside. Here we have lots of videos to choose from. But first, I'm going to start with the Stills folder. In this folder, I'll select path one dot mp four and I'll press Command forward slash on Mac or Control forward slash on PC to quickly place the video layer into the comp. Upon click, the layer will be placed on top. So with my first layer placed, I'll come back to the Assets folder and this time come into the close up folder. At this folder, I will select the fountain underscore one.p4 file, and I'll press Command Ford slash on Mac or Control Fordslash on PC to quickly place the video layer into the comp. Next, I'll come back to the Assets folder and this time come into the wildlife folder. In this folder, I'll select the B video file, and I'll press Command forward slash on Mac or Control Forward slash on PC to quickly place the video layer into the comp. Next, I'll come back into the Wildlife folder. In this folder, I'll select the Swan file, and I'll press Command forward slash on Mac or Control Ford slash on PC to quickly place the video layer into the comp. Lastly, I'll come back into the Assets folder, back into the Stills folder. In this folder, I'll select the video bench, and I'll press Command forward slash on Mac or Control Forward slash on PC to quickly place the video layer into the comp. Now I have five video clips in my comp. I'll select the top layer, press and hold shift, and select the bottom video layer and click on the colored box for the layer and choose a red to set the red color for the video bars. Now I'm going to start to create my video edit. Now, I want to start with the path one layer, but right now it's at the bottom. I'll quickly select this and drag to the top like so, and I'll start here by adding the first video transition. For the transition, I want the video to slide away and reveal the next video, and I want the video transition to be at an angle. So to do this is quite easy. To create my transition, I'm going to use an effect and preset. So now I'll come over to the right of my interface and look for the effects and presets panel. So I'll click this once or drag it down to expand. And for this transaction, I'm going to use a linear wipe effect. So I'll click into the top search bar of the effects and presets panel and type in linear. With linear typed in, we will see the linear wipe transition appear in the results below. So now I'm going to come and place my time indicator at 1 second, and then I'm going to come over to the effects and presets panel and drag the linear wipe effect from the transitions wipe folder at the top and down onto my layer in the timeline. Upon release, the video will appear to have vanished. So now with the layer selected, I'll press to show the keyframes for the effect. Now, if I scrub my time indicator over the keyframes, we can see the linear effect is happening in the wrong order that I want it. Instead of transitioning away, it transitions in. I can change this quite simply. So I'll drag my time indicator towards the first keyframes while holding Shift to Snap. Now, when we add an effect, the effect controls panel will appear where the project panel is over on the left. So what I want to focus on here is the transition completion setting. Right now, this is set to 100%. Now, I'll drag this down to zero, and on the keyboard, I'll press K. Pressing K will skip me to the next keyframe. So with my time indicator over the next keyframe, I'll come back up to the transition completion setting and push this up to 100%. So what I have done here is essentially reverse the transition. So now if I move my time indicator over the keyframes, we can see the video is now transitioning away rather than in perfect. So I'll place my time indicator just before the first keyframe and I'll press B on the keyboard to set the start of the work area. Next, I'll click to place the time indicator just after the second keyframe and press N to set the end of the work area. Now I'll click inside the work area, and I'll press Spacebar to activate preview, and we can see the transition is fine. But right now it's a little slow. So I'll press Spacebar to stop, and I'll click and drag the second keyframe in just a little like so. I'll press Spacebar to activate preview, and that is looking a little better. So I'll press Spacebar to stop. So now I have the timing right. I want to change the angle of the transition. So I'll just place my time indicator in the middle here so I can see the angle of the transition in the composition panel. And with a keyframe selected, I'll come to the effect and presets panel, and this time, I'll tweak the settings for the wipe angle. So I'll click and drag the wipe angle to about -75. Then I'll press Space bar to activate preview, and that is looking good there. So I'll press Spacebar to stop, and all that's left to do here is add a bit of easing. So I'll come and click on the first keyframe, I'll right click, scroll down to keyframe assistant. Come across and select Easy Ease out. Next, I'll click on the second keyframe, I'll right click, scroll down to keyframe assistant. Come across and select Easy Ease in. I'll press Space bar to preview, and that is looking pretty good. And I'll press Spacebar to stop. So that's the first video done. What I'll do next is drag my time indicator to the last keyframe while holding Shift to Snap, and I'll press Alt closed bracket to trim the end of the layer. Now, I don't need to do this, but I like to because it gives me a good visual reference where the end of this layer is. So now I'm going to edit the next layer, and I want the first video to reveal into the fountain layer, which is currently set at the bottom. So I'll click this and drag it up and under the first layer like so. So as I scrub my time indicator across the transition, my first video transitions into the fountain clip. So now I'm going to add the same transition effect to the clip. Now we have established the transition on the first video, we could use this again. So I'll place my time indicator where I want my transition to start on my new layer, and I'll place the time indicator just after 2 seconds, and now I'll come and select the two keyframes that are creating the effect for the first layer above. I'll copy them. Then I'll make sure I have the new video layer selected below, and I'll paste. So with the new layer selected, I'll press to reveal the keyframes for the layer. And now we can see I have pasted the same effect on top of the new layer. However, if I scrub my time indicator over the keyframes, the effect is not the same. What I have to do here is come back up into the effect controls and change the white angle. Here I can just double click into the white angle settings and just type in -75 to match the transition of the first video. I'll press Enter and it's applied. I'll drag my work area out a little and press Space Bar to activate preview, and that's looking just fine. I'll press Spacebar to stop. Just like I did with the previous video, I'll drag my time indicator over towards my second frame while holding Shift to snap and I'll press Alt closed bracket to trim the end of the video layer. Now, on this occasion, I'll also drag my time indicator back over the first frame of the first transition. With my video layer below still selected, I'll press Alt open bracket to trim the start of the layer. What I want to see is where each video clip is essentially starting and stopping. So now I'm going to edit the next layer. Now I want the second video to reveal into the B layer, which is currently set at the bottom. So I'll click this and drag it up under the second layer like so. So as I scrub my time indicator across the transition, my fountain clip now transitions into the B clip, and now I'm going to add the same transition effect to this clip. But before that, I want to pay close attention to what part of my video is playing. Right now, the B clip is spanning the entire length of the comp. So I'll click to place my time indicator just after the transition above where the B video starts playing, and I'll click and drag my B layer left or right like so. Here, I can control the time of the video and which part is playing when the transition above reveals the video layer below. So on this occasion, I'll drag the video clip so the B is coming nicely out from under the flower upon transition. Now once I'm happy with the placement of my video, I'll add the transition effect to this layer. I'll place my time indicator where I want my transition to start. I'll place the time indicator just before 4 seconds. Now I'll come and select the two keyframes that are creating the effect for the video above and I'll copy them. Then I'll make sure I have the new B layer selected and I'll paste. With the B layer selected, I'll press U to reveal the keyframes for the layer. So I'll scrub my time indicator over the keyframes, and again, the effect is not the same. Once again, I'll come back up into the effect controls and change the white angle. I'll double click into the white angle setting and type in -75 to match the other transitions. I'll press Enter and that's applied. So I'll click and drag my work area across to span the two new transitions, and I'll press Spacebar to activate preview, and that's looking just fine. So I'll press Spacebar to stop. Just like I did with the previous video, I'll drag my time indicator towards my second frame while holding Shift to snap, and I'll press Alt close bracket to trim the end of the video like so. I'll also drag my time indicator back over to the first key frame of the transition above. And with my video below still selected, I'll press Alt open bracket to trim the start of the layer. Nice. So now we just have two videos left. Now I want the B video to reveal into the Swan video, which is currently set at the bottom. I'll click this and drag it up under the B layer, and I'll quickly drag my video left or right along the timeline to find a nice part I want the B video to transition into. Once I'm happy with the placement of my video, I'll add the transition effect. So I'll place my time indicator where I want my transition to start. So I'll place the time indicator just after 5 seconds. Next, I'll come and select the two keyframes that are creating the effect for the video layer above, and I'll copy them. Then I'll make sure I have the new swan video selected and I'll paste. With the swan layer selected, I'll press U to reveal the keyframes for that layer, and I'll scrub my time indicator over the key frames. And again, the effect is not the same. Once again, I'll come back up into the effects controls and change the white angle. Double click into the white bangle setting and type in -75 to match the other transitions. I'll press Enter and that's applied. So I'll drag my time indicator over towards my second frame while holding Shift to Snap, and I'll press Alt closed bracket to trim the end of the video, like so. I'll also drag my time indicator back over the first frame of the transition above. And with the video layer below still selected, I'll press Alt open bracket to trim the start of the layer. Now I am left with the last layer. Now, this video is not transitioning into any other video, so I don't have to add a transition to this layer. However, what I will do is try and find another nice part of the video to show, and I'll drag my video left along the timeline to find a nice part I want to end at. Now, this is a long clip, so I'm going to keep dragging left like so. Now, what I'm looking for is the nice part at the end where the people on the bicycles ride past. Here they are. So I'll place my time indicator at the end of the sequence, and I'll carefully drag the video so at the end, the cyclists are just about to pop out of the frame on the left. So I'll drag my time indicator back over the first keyframe of the transition above, and with my video layer below still selected, I'll press Alt open bracket to trim the start of the layer. Perfect. So now I'll select the top layer, press and hold shift, and select the bottom layer, and I'll press U to hide the keyframes. I'll come back up to the work area and double click in the middle, and this will expand to the entire width of the comp. I'll drag my time indicator to the start of the comp, and I'll press Space Bar to activate preview. And there is my video edit complete for the first section. Perfect. So that's the video sequence complete for the background of Section two of the video presentation. Now, at this point, if you're following along, I would recommend saving your document so we can continue in the next episode. Now, looking at my sketch timeline I planned earlier on in the project, I want to include a pin animation at the start of each section with a number on it. What we are going to do next is duplicate the pin animation we created earlier in the process and make some changes to include it at the start of the hide part section. In the next video, I'm going to demonstrate how you can easily do this. So see you in the next video. 40. Duplicate & Edit an Animation Sequence in After Effects: Hello, and welcome to the 39th video in this beginner's guide to Adobe After effect. In this tutorial, I'm going to demonstrate how you can easily duplicate and edit an animation sequence in after effects. In the previous episode, we created the video sequence that will play in the background of the first section of the video presentation. In this video, we're going to focus on the animation sequence right at the start of the section. We are going to look at how we can create this pin animation sequence. So in this video, we will be covering the following topics, duplicating comps, editing comps, and parenting layers. So let's get into it. So here I am where we left off in the previous episode where we created this video sequence for the Hyde Park section. Now, if you're watching for the first time and wish to follow along, you can find this document in the Project folder, which you can download. With the project folder open, click into folder three, create a Project, then into folder 39, duplicate and edit and animation sequence, and open the duplicate and edit and animation sequence document. Looking at my sketch timeline I planned earlier on in the project, I want to introduce a pin animation at the front of each section with a number on it. Now, back in after effects, if I come back to the main comp and drag my time indicator over the first part of the presentation, we can recall that earlier in the process, we animated these pins. So this animation already exists. So what we're going to do is use the same animation but make a few changes. So I'll come back to the Hyde Park comp by clicking on the tab. And I'll come over to the project panel. Now, if I look inside the preComps folder, we should see the animation comp we created earlier called pin. This is the animation we used for the first section. So let's go ahead and use this. Now, before I drag in the pin animation, I'm first going to duplicate it. Now, I need to duplicate the comp because I am about to make some changes, and I don't want to affect the pins being used on the first intro sequence. With the Pin comp selected in the project panel, I'll press Command D on Mac or Control D on PC to duplicate the comp layer. Upon click, we'll get a new comp and the name will change to pin two. Now, in this instance, we don't want this to be called Pin two. This needs to be called pin one. I'll press Enter on the new comp layer, which will allow us to change the name and I'll rename this comp to pin one. Now I'm ready to place it into my Hide PA comp. I'll press Command Forward slash on Mac or Control Forward slash on PC to place the comp into my Hide PAC comp. I'll click on the colored box for the new comp layer and change this to blue. And now I can come into the comp and make some changes. So I'll double click on the new comp layer to open it up, and here we can see a copy of the pin we animated earlier. So what we're going to do is change the color of the pin, remove the circle part of the graphic in the middle and replace it with a number. Let's start by changing the color of the pin. I'll select the layer and come up and click on the color box at the top of the interface next to the word fill. So down below, I'll type in the following hex code, and I'll type 274. E9d and click Okay. Now I need to get rid of the circle part in the middle. I'll come down into the timeline panel and toggle down the layer to reveal the content. I'll toggle the contents down to reveal the two shapes that make up this pin. Here we have group one and two. Right now, group one is the circle in the middle and group two is the outer bit. I'll select group one and just press delete, and that will remove the centerpiece. Nice. I'll just press U on the layer to remove all the other info and just reveal the keyframes. Now, I'm going to place a number inside the circle. I'll press Command T on Mac or Control T on PC to activate the Type tool, and I'll click near the center of the circle like so and type the number one. In the character panel, I'll change the type to around 190 so it fits nicely into the circle, and I'll click on the color box and make sure it's set to a white color. Then I'll click on the selection tool in the tools menu, click the new type layer, and move it into the center of the circle like so. Nice. But now we have a little problem. If I scrub my time indicator over the first keyframes for the pin, we can see the animation is happening, but the type layer is not moving anywhere. What we need to do now is animate this number one so it moves in time with the pin animation. Now, to do this would be fiddly and a little time consuming. But here we can use a really simple technique that is going to solve this problem right away. What I can do here is parent the type layer to the pin below. With the number in place, I'll come down into the timeline panel and look over to the left of the panel. I need to see here is the parent and link option for the type layer. Now, if you cannot see this, simply click on the column title area, scroll down to columns and make sure parent and link is ticked. So with the parent and link option available, first, select the type layer, then move the time indicator along the timeline so it's placed after the animation sequence. Then carefully come and click the Pick Whip icon, drag it out, like so, and place it on top of the pin layer below. Upon release, we should now see the parent and link option for the type layer set to two pin. Now, if we scrub the time indicator over the first frame for the pin, we will now see that the type layer moves and bounces with the pin. By parenting the type layer to the pin layer it will assume its movements. Perfect. But in this instance, it does not take the opacity sequence. So what we will need to do is animate the opacity to make a transition the same as the pin. To do this is easy. So what I'll do here is come and select the opacity keyframes from the pin layer below. With them both selected, I'll copy them. Then drag the time indicator right to the start of the comp. I'll select the type layer and paste. Now, if I press U to show the keyframes, we can see the same keyframes from the pin below, which we just pasted onto the new type layer. So as I move my time indicator over the keyframes, we now have the opacity matching. Great. So to finish this off, I'm going to add Motion blur. Notice, we have the motion blur icon checked on the pin layer below, which we set earlier. I'll now just come and check this on the type layer. So I'll press Spacebar to activate preview, and we can see that it's looking just fine. So I'll press Spacebar to stop, and I'll click back onto the Hyde Park tab to come back to the main comp. So now we can see we have our new pin at the start, but right now it's looking a little small, and it's not positioned correctly in the frame. So I'll press S on the keyboard to activate scale. I'll come down and drag the scale settings to scale up the pin, and when happy, I'll position in the middle of the frame. Now, what I want to do next is transition the pin out once it bounces in. What I'll need to do here is move my time indicator to where I want my pin to transition out. I want it to transition out just before the video edits to the next video. With my time indicator in the right place, I'll double click back onto my Pin comp layer. Now, what will happen is the comp will open up and my time indicator is placed exactly where I want it in relation to the previous comp. So now I'll come down and click on the diamond icon to add a new position keyframe on the pin layer. Now, I'll drag my time indicator back a little, and I'll click the diamond icon again to add another position keyframe. With my two keyframes, I'll drag my time indicator back to the last keyframe while holding Shift to snap, and with the time indicator over the last frame, I'll press and hold the down arrow on the keyboard while holding Shift to quickly move the pin out of shot. Next, I'll come and click on this new third keyframe for position. I'll right click, scroll down to keyframe assistance and come across and select Easy Ease Out. Next, I'll click on the last keyframe for position. I'll right click, scroll down to keyframe assistant, come across and select Easy Ease in. So now if I come back to my hide Park comp and drag my time indicator, we can now see the pin animating away. If this looks a little too fast and not quite right, we can double click back into the Pin Comp and just click and adjust the last two keyframes like so. Then back into the Hyde Park comp and see how that looks. What we want to achieve here is the pin transitioning out just as the video is sliding in like so. So now what we currently have is this big long layer. Next, I'm going to clean this up. So I'll double click back into the Pin comp, and we don't really need the layer to be any longer after the pin has animated away. So I'll put my time indicator over the last keyframe and just under the composition panel, it will state at which time we are set on the timeline. I'll click on this to pull up the time menu. I'll come into the time, select it, and copy, and hit Okay. Next, I'll press Command K on Mac or Control K on PC to pull up the composition settings. When the box appears, I'll come down into duration. Right now, we can see this is set to 5 seconds. I'll come into this, select it all and paste. This will paste in the new timestamp we just copied, and I'll click Okay, and the comp will now be set to the new time, which is approximately the time of my pin animation. So now I'll click the X on the tab to close it and come back to the Hyde Park comp tab. And now we can see the layer is trimmed, so we can see exactly how much time that sequence takes. I'll place my time indicator at 1.5 seconds and press N to set the end of the workspace area and I'll press space bar to activate preview. So that's how we can easily duplicate an animation sequence in after effects and make changes to repurpose for other parts of a video presentation. Now, it really pays to be savvy when creating your animated sequences, as you can save a lot of time and work recycling your animations. So that's the first animation part complete for the Hyde Park section. Now, if you're following along, I would recommend you save your document so we can continue on in the next episode. Now we can move on and create the rest of the animation sequence. So looking back at the Photoshop design, we can see a number of layers here. We have a title, subtitle, these decorative elements here in the middle, and some type below. So what we are going to do next is build up the layout on top of the video edit we just created. In the next video, we are going to build this layout and add animation. So see you in the next video. 41. Build a Complex Layout & Animate in After Effects: Hello, and welcome to the 40th video in this beginner's guide to Adobe After Effects. In this tutorial, I'm going to demonstrate how you can build a complex layout and animate in after effects. In the previous episode, we created the pin animation that appears at the start of the Hyde Park section. In this video, we're going to focus on the animation sequence that follows and builds up on top of the video. So let's get into it. So here I am where we left off in the previous episode where we created the pin animation that appears at the start of the Hyde Park section. Now, if you're watching for the first time and wish to follow along, you can find this document in the project folder which you can download. With the project folder open, clicking to the S three Create a Project folder. Then click into folder 40, Build A Complex Layout and open the Build a Complex Layout document. Now, if you are continuing on from the last episode, make sure you have your document open and ready. So with our document open, let's proceed. Now, looking back at the Photoshop design, we can see a number of layers here. We have a title, subtitle, this decorative element here in the middle, and some type below. So what we're going to do next is look at how we can build this layout and add animation. So let's start by building the layout. Now, looking back at the Photoshop design, we can see that the alignment of all these elements is down the center. So back in after effects, I'll press Command colon on Mac or Control colon on PC to activate the guides. Now we should see the center guide down the center of the screen which we created in an earlier episode. So I'll start by creating the top type layer. So I'll move my time indicator over into the next video edit so I have a clear screen, and I'll press Command T on Mac or Control T on PC to activate the type tool. And I'll click into the composition frame and type Hyde Park. Then I'll come over and click on the character panel, set the type to 170, and set the tracking to 40. I'll also click on the color box and make sure this is white. Next, I'll click on the paragraph panel and make sure my type is aligned to center. I'll click the selection tool and click and drag my type into the center and align it to my guide and place it towards the top of the frame, like so. Now, if for whatever reason you cannot see your bounding box, simply press Command Shift H on Mac or Control Shift H on PC. So with my new type layer selected, I'll come over to the colored square by the name. I'll click this and choose a green color. With my title in place, I'll now create my subtitle. With the type layer selected, I'll press Command D on Mac or Control D on PC to duplicate the layer. I'll press V on the keyboard and move the type layer down like Z. Now, I'll paste in some new copy to replace this. With the project folder open, click into folder two Project assets, then click into the copy folder and open the presentation copy document. So here is the copy we are going to use for this presentation. So let's come up to the Hyde Park section and select the sub header copy, the stage of London's natural life. I'll copy this, then come back into after effects. I'll begin by double clicking on the new type layer to select it. And over in the character panel, I'll set the type size to 55 and increase the tracking to 100. Then I'll paste. So I'll click on the selection tool and I'll select the type layer and move it up and under the title, like so. Now, looking back at the Photoshop design, we can see that there will be another type layer at the bottom. So while we are dealing with the type layers here, I'll create the next one. Just like before, with the type layer selected, press Command D on Mac or Control D on PC to duplicate the layer. I'll press V on the keyboard and move the type down like so. And now I'll paste in some new copy to replace this. So back in the copy document we just looked at, I'll come and select the next bit of copy below. So I'll copy this, then come back into after effects, and I'll begin by double clicking on the new type layer to select it. And over in the character panel, I'll set the type size to 33, and then I'll paste. So right now, the copy line is way too long. So I'll click into the type layer to place my cursor just in front of the word and, and I'll press Enter to create a line break. Now, if the leading of the type is too wide, I'll just double click on the type to select it all, and I'll come into the character panel and click and drag on the leading and set this to 50. And that is looking just like the original Photoshop design. The issue we have here is that the white type on top of the video below is not quite as clear as it could be. What I'm going to do next is add a subtle gradient layer below, which will darken the video slightly and make the white type on top of the video pop a bit more. Okay, so I'll press F two to make sure I have no layer selected in my timeline panel. Then I'll come up to the shape tool. I'll click and hold and select a rectangle tool. And I'll just come and click and draw a little rectangle shape like so. With my new shape layer created, I'll press Command Alt F on Mac or Control Alt F on PC to fit the shape to the entire canvas area. Perfect. With my shape now filling the screen, I'll come up to the top of the interface and click on the word fill. Upon click, the fill options will appear. From this option, I will select a linear gradient and click Okay. Next, I'll come and click on the square color box, and this will pull up my gradient editor. So what I will do here is click the first gradient color and select a black. Then I'll select the next gradient color and select another black. Then I'm carefully going to come up to the gradient bar, and when the mouse cursor changes to the hand shape, I'll click once to add a new gradient color. With this active, I'll select a white color. So now we have a gradient here consisting of three colors, a black into white and the white into black. With this set, I'll click Okay. Selection tool active, I now need to pay close attention to the gradient handles on the shape. What I'll do here is carefully click and drag the left handle across close to the end of the screen, and then I'll drag the right handle close to the right edge of the screen. I have a gradient effect that looks like this. Next, I'll come down into the timeline panel and come across to the left and look for my blending mode option. Now if you cannot see the blending mode option, simply right click on the column title, scroll down to columns and come across and make sure modes is ticked. So with the modes option visible and my layer selected, I'll click on the modes option and select multiply. Upon click, we will now see the layer blending with the background. Next, I'm going to click and drag the new shape layer down below my type layers, and I'll press T to activate the opacity setting. I'll come down and drag the opacity down to 30%. So now we have a subtle linear vignette effect in the background. This will allow the type to pop just a little bit more on top of the video. So with the layer selected, I'll press Enter, and this will allow me to change the name of the layer and I'll call it gradient overlay and press Enter. Next, I'll click on the colored square for this layer and choose a purple color. Now, there is one more thing we can do to the type to make it more clear and readable. I'll select the middle type layer to select the subheader, then I'll come over and click on the Effects and Presets panel. With it visible, I'll come up to the top and type in drop. This will reveal the drop shadow effect in the perspective folder. Now I can click and drag this drop shadow effect from the effects and presets panel and down onto my type layer. Upon release, I will see my effect controls over on the left. I'll come over and set the opacity to 60%. I'll tweak the direction so the angle is directly below. I'll set the distance to seven and set the softness to ten. Now we have a nice drop shadow on the subheader, and the type is just a little bit more clear on top of the background video. So now I'm going to apply the same effect to this type below. I'll select the top type layer, which will select the bottom type layer in the composition panel and drag the drop shadow effect from the effects and presets panel and down onto my type layer. Upon release, I will see my effect controls over on the left. I'll come over to this, set the opacity to 60%, I'll tweak the angle so it's directly below. I'll set the distance to seven and set the softness to ten, and now we have a nice drop shadow on the bottom type. Perfect. Now looking back at the Photoshop design, we can see in between the type we have these visual elements, a swan image with 2 bars either side. So back in after effects, let's place these into the comp. But first, we need to have clear visibility of the project panel. So I'll come over to the panel here, and at the top right corner of the panels, we have these two arrows pointing out right. If we click this, we can see we click back on the project panel. So now, with the project folder open, click into folder two Project Assets, then click into the image folder, then click into the AI folder, then into the location specific folder, and you will see some illustrated documents. So I'll click on the Swan document and just drag it into after effects into the project panel like so. I'll come back to the project folder and click on the bar document and again, drag it into after effects into the project panel. So now I have the swan and the bar asset in my project panel. With these two files now in the project, let's drop down the assets folder so I can see the vectors folder in the images folder, and I'll drop the two new files into the vector folder like so. I'll start here with the Swanimage so with its selected in the project panel, I'll press Command Fordslash on Mac or Control Ford slash on PC to quickly place the comp layer into my main comp. With my new layer in the timeline, I'll come down and right click on the layer. I'll scroll to create and click Create Shapes from Vector Layer. Upon click, we will see a new shape layer appear in the timeline panel. For now, I can click the original Swan layer below and just delete it as I will not be ding it any longer. So I'll click back on my new swan shape layer. I'll come up to the top of the interface and click on the fill color box and set this to a white color and click Okay. So now I have my white swan, but right now it's a little too big. So I'll press S to reveal the scale settings for the layer. I'll come down and drag the scale to 35%, and then I will drag the swan down in between the subheader and the bottom type layer. With the layer selected, I'll press Enter, and this will allow me to change the name of the layer, and I'll call it swan and press Enter. Next, I'll click on the colored square for the layer and choose a purple color. That's the swan image in my comp. Now I'm going to follow the same procedure before my bar graphic. With the bar asset selected in the project panel, I'll press Command Forward slash on Mac or Control forward slash on PC to quickly place into my main comp. With my new layer in the timeline, I'll come down, right click on the layer, I'll scroll to create and click Create Shapes from Vector Layer. Upon click, we will see a new shape layer appear in the timeline panel. Now I can click the original bar layer below and just delete it as I will not be needing that any longer. So I'll click back on my new bar shape layer. I'll come up to the top of the interface and click on the fill color box and set this to a white color and click Okay. So now I have my white bar, but right now it's a little too big. So I'll press S to reveal the scale settings for the layer, and I'll come down and drag on the scale setting to 60%. I'll press V to activate the selection tool and drag the bar down and to the right of the swan here. With the layer selected, I'll press Enter, and I'll name the bar bar, right, and press Enter. Next, I'll click on the color square for the layer and choose a purple color. Now, with the layer selected, I'll press Command D on Mac or Control D on PC to duplicate the layer. And with the selection tool, I'll drag it over to the left while holding Shift to drag it smoothly over like so. With the layer selected, I'll press Enter, and I'll name the layer bar, left and press Enter. Next, I'll click the colored square on the layer and I'll choose a purple color. So that's all the elements in the composition done. What I will do now is just make sure the layout is correct and balanced. So with the selection tool, I'll just click on the top header here and move it up like so. I'll click on the bottom type and move. And click on all the other elements and carefully move them up and down until I get a nice, balanced layout that looks like this. Now, I'll also jump back into Photoshop to look at the design to make sure I've positioned all the elements in the right place. So once I'm happy with the layout, I'll press Command colon on Mac or Control colon on PC to turn off the guides. And once I'm happy with the layout, I can start to think about animating the layers. Now, if I drag my time indicator over to the start of the comp, we can see all the layers are visible. So at this point, we don't want this. What we want are the layers to start to animate in right after the pin drops. So now I'll carefully drag my time indicator just after where the pin drops away. I'll select the top layer, hold shift, and select the type layer just above the gradient overlay layer. We don't want to select the gradient layer here, just the layers above, and with them selected, I'll press Alt open bracket, and that will trim the start of the layers. What we're going to do now is animate the type layers, keeping in mind that they're going to appear in at different times. Let's start with the transparency transitions. I'll press F two to deselect all the layers. Then select the swan layer, press and hold Shift and select the top type layers. With them selected, I'll press T to activate the opacity settings. With the time indicator at the start of the layers, I'll come down and click the stopwatch and this will add the first opacity keyframe for each layer. Next, I'll drag my time indicator across a little like so and hit the diamond icon to add a second opacity keyframe to each. So now I have two keyframes for opacity. Next, I'll drag my time indicator towards the start of the layers holding shift to snap with the time indicator perfectly over my first set of opacity keyframes, I'll click and drag the opacity to zero. Now, if I scrub my time indicator over my frames, we can see the type and the swan shape fades in, like so. So now what I want to do is position the layers across time so the transition happens differently. I'll press F two to deselect the layers, and I'll start by clicking on the middle type layer. So what I'll do here is click and drag the layer so the first keyframe meets the second keyframe for the type layer below. Then I'll select the type layer above and just drag it further across like so. Next, I'll select the swan layer above and drag it further across to match the type layer below. For now, we don't need to worry about these two layers. Next, I'm going to select the two bar layers above and drag them down on top of the middle type layer like so. Then I'll drag them to the end of the last keyframe of the second type layer. So now if I scrub my time indicator over the sequence, we can see that the title appears first, then straight after the subheader, and then the bars. And if we continue to move the time indicator, the swan and the last bit of type appear after that. So that's the opacity transition applied. All that's left to do is apply the scale transition to the title. Now, as the title fades in, I also want it to scale up. So I'll drag my time indicator back to the second key frame of the Hyde park type layers while holding Shift to Snap. With the type layer selected, I'll pay close attention to the anchor point that is currently applied to the type. For this layer, we want the anchor point to be set right at the baseline and in the center. Now, if your anchor point is not set at the baseline, simply come up to the tools menu and select the anchor point. With the anchor point tool selected, you can click and drag the anchor point on your layer like so to set a new place. For this layer, I want to set it right at the bottom on the baseline and positioned in the center like so. So with the type layer selected, I'll press S to activate the scale settings for the layer, and I'll come down and click on the stopwatch to add a scale keyframe. Next, I'll press until the keyframes are revealed, and I'll drag my time indicator back to the first keyframe while holding Shift to Snap. And I'll click the diamond icon to add a new keyframe for scale. So right now, I cannot see the type, because the opacity at this moment is set to zero. What I'll do is come and drag the scale down to 20%. Now, as I scrub my time indicator over the keyframe sequence, we can see the title fades in and zooms up. Then the subtitle appears just after that and the bars after that. Perfect. So I'll place my time indicator at 5 seconds and press N to set the end of the workspace area. I'll click into the work area and press space bar to activate preview. So this is now starting to come together nicely. We have the pin animation and the layout starting to build. So what we are going to do next is the last part of the animation sequence. Next, we are going to focus on the animation that happens to the bars. To animate the bars, in like this, we are going to use a mask. In the next video, we are going to apply masks to the bar layers and animate the mask so we can create this nice animation effect where they appear to draw in. Once applied, this will finish the animation sequence for this section. So see you in the next video. 42. Animate a Shape Layer Mask in After Effects: Hello, and welcome to the 41st video in this beginner's guide to Adobe After effects. In this tutorial, I'm going to demonstrate how you can animate a mask in after effects. In the previous episode, we continued with the second section where we introduced the type and shape elements and animated the type in like so. In this video, we are going to complete the sequence and focus on the shape elements that also animate in this composition. Next, we are going to look at how we can animate a mask, so these bar graphics in the middle appear to draw in from the outside like so. So in this video, we are going to be covering the following topics, applying a mask to a shape layer and animating a mask. So here I am where we left off in the previous episode where we brought in the type and shape elements and animated the type. Now, if you're watching for the first time and wish to follow along, you can find this document in the project folder which you can download. So with the project folder open, click into folder S three, create a project, then into folder 41, animate a mask and open the animate a mask document. Now if you are continuing on from the last episode, make sure you have your document open ready. With our document open, let's proceed. What we're going to do next is look at how we can animate the lines in between the two type layers to make them look like they draw in from the outside. In this instance, to create this effect, I'm going to use a simple mask and I'm going to start with the bar line on the left hand side. Before I begin, I'll zoom in here so I can see exactly what we are working on. Now this bar line is a simple shape layer, which we created in the previous episode, and we know it's a shape layer because of the star icon next to the layer name. Now, there is a specific way to create masks on a shape layer. So down in the timeline panel, I'm going to drag my time indicator while holding shift over to snap to the beginning of my bar layers, and then I'll select the top bar layer. With the layer selected, we will now see a bounding box around it in the composition panel. Now, I'll come into the timeline panel and toggle down the layer properties to reveal the contents and transform properties. With the layer still selected, I'll come up to the top of the interface and click layer. Upon click, I'll scroll down and place my mouse on mask, then scroll across and click on new mask. Upon click, we will now see a mask property become available in the layer properties. This has now applied a new mask to our shape layer, but right now nothing has changed. I'll press F two to deselect the layer and next, I'll come down and toggle down this new mask property. Inside, we will see a new property called mask one. Now, if we look closely to the right of mask one, we will see a dropdown box with the word add inside. Now if we click this and select subtract, notice the line graphic now disappears. By clicking subtract, we have inverted the mask, now it's hiding the shape layer. By setting this to either add or subtract, we can toggle the mask option. Though for now, I'll just click this and set it back to add. Now if we toggle down mask one, we will see the mask properties, and here we have mask path, mask feather, mask opacity, and mask expansion. Here we can also see there is a stopwatch on each property which suggests we can animate them, which is exactly what we are going to do next. Now, at this point, it's important to note that when we create a mask like this for a shape layer, the mask will fit exactly to the size of the shape. When we select this mask property on the we will see a bounding box in the composition panel. This is actually the mask path and not the shape layer selected. Now let's look at animating this mask. So we want the line to appear as if it's drawing in from left to right. So with my time indicator right at the start of the layer bar, I'll come and click on the stopwatch for mask path and add my first position keyframe. Next, I'll drag my time indicator over to 3 seconds. Then come back down and click on the diamond shape to add the second keyframe for the mask path. So now I'll drag my time indicator back to the first keyframe while holding Shift to SNAP. And now I'll press and hold shift on the keyboard and press the left arrow. And as we do this, we will move the mask to the left and away from the line shape. When the mask is fully off the shape, the line will now appear invisible. So I'll press Alt forward slash to fit my screen arrow to the composition panel, and I'll scrub my time indicator from the first keyframe to the second, and now we can see the sequence. Next, I'll drag my time indicator over to the second keyframe. I'll select the two layers above, the swan shape layer and the type layer, and I'll drag them back left while holding Shift to snap the beginning of the layers to the time indicator. Now the line appears to animate in from the left, and when it's full, the swan image and the type layer below appear right on Q. That's the first bar done. To finish the sequence, I'm now going to create a mask and animate on the next bar. Now we have the timing of the first bar. This is going to make it super easy. With the top bar layer selected, I'll press U to collapse the properties and just show the keyframes. Next, I'll select the right bar layer above, and like earlier, I'll come and toggle down the properties to reveal content and transform. With the layer still selected, I'll come up to the top of the interface and click Layer. Upon click, I'll scroll down and place my mouse on mask, then scroll across and click on new mask. Upon click, we will now see a new mask property become available in the layer properties. I'll toggle this down until I can see the properties for the mask, and I'll drag my time indicator while holding shift over to the first position keyframe for the mask above so it snaps on top. Next, I'll come and click on the stopwatch for mask path to add my first keyframe. Then I'll drag my time indicator over to the second keyframe while holding Shift to snap and I'll come down and click on the diamond shape to add the second keyframe. Next, I'll drag the time indicator back to the first keyframe while holding Shift to snap. With the mask property selected, I'll hold Shift on the keyboard and press the right arrow until the mask is away from the shape layer below. I'll press F two to deselect my layers and I'll scrub my time indicator over the keyframes to see the effect that has had. Now the two lines draw in from either side. Perfect. So I'll place my mouse cursor over the workspace area and double click. This will extend the work area to the entire comp timeline. I'll drag my time indicator over to the beginning of the timeline, and I'll press space bar to activate preview. And that completes the second section of the video presentation. First, we have the destination icon appear. Then after it drops away, the type and shape elements animate on while the video transitions in the background. Perfect. So now the second section is complete, we can now move on to the next sections. Now, if we click back into the main comp and we can do this by clicking on the first tab on the top left of the timeline panel, we can see we still have another one, two, three, four, five sections to create. Now, if you've been following along with this, I recommend you save your document so we can continue on in the next episode. Now, it may seem like a lot of work to create the next five sections, but in this instance, it's going to be fairly easy. The next four sections are going to follow the same formula we just created for Section two. So a really easy way to speed up our workflow is to simply duplicate the composition and make subtle changes. So in the next video, I'm going to demonstrate how easy it can be to duplicate compositions and replace all the media elements to speed up the creative process. In the next video, we are going to create sections three, four, five, and six, which is going to progress us along nicely, which will take us almost up to the end of the video presentation. So see you in the next video. 43. Duplicate & Edit comp Sequences In After Effects: Hello, and welcome to the 42nd video in this beginners guide to Adobe After effect. In this tutorial, I'm going to demonstrate how to easily duplicate and edit compositions in after effects. In the previous episode, we animated a mask on a shape layer to complete the second composition section in the video presentation project. In this video, we are going to move on and create the next sections in our video presentation. In this video, we are going to create sections three, four, five, and six, which is going to progress us along nicely, which will take us almost to the end of the video presentation. So in this video, we'll be covering the following topics, duplicating compositions and editing composition links. So let's get into it. So here I am where we left off in the previous episode where we completed the second section in our video presentation. Now, if you're watching for the first time and wish to follow along, you can find this document in the project folder, which you can download. So with the project folder open, click into folder S three, create a project. Then click into folder 42, duplicate and Edit comp sequences, and open the duplicate and Edit comp sequence document. If you're continuing on from the last episode, make sure you have your document open ready. So with our document open, let's proceed. So right now, I have the main composition open, and we can see that we have our two sections, one introduction and two Hyde Park. What we are going to do now is look to create our next sections. So looking back at the Photoshop design, we can see the Hyde Park composition we used as a reference to create the previous section. Now over in the layers panel, we can now toggle the visibility of the next sections. The next section we are going to create is the aquarium section. Now, if I continue to toggle the selections above, looking at the layouts, we can see it's pretty much the same as the previous layout, though with different content. Back in after effects, I'm going to use a technique which is going to make it easy and quick to create this. So to do this, I'm going to duplicate the Hide Park composition and then change the contents. So let's see how this works. So to start, I'm going to come over and focus on the project panel. In the comps folder, I'm going to click on the second comp Hyde Park we finished in the previous episode. With it selected, I'm going to press Command D on Mac or Control D on PC. Upon click, we will duplicate the comp, and we will now see a new comp called to Hide Park two. So with the new comp now selected, I'll press Enter on the keyboard and this will allow me to change the name. I will go ahead and change the name to three hyphen aquarium and press Enter to set the new name. With my new comp selected, I'll press Command forward slash on Mac or Control forward slash on PC to quickly place the comp layer into my main comp. Now I'll come and click on the new comp and drag it right while holding Shift and snap the start of my layer to the end of the layer below. So now my aquarium comp is starting right at the end of the second section, aligning nicely with my third marker on my timeline. Now we are not going to stop there. Back in the project panel with my new comp selected, I'll press Command D on Mac or Control D on PC again. Upon click, I will duplicate the comp again. This time, I'll press Enter and type the name four hyphen Shoreditch and press Enter to commit. With my new comp selected, I'll press Command Forward slash on Mac or Control forward slash on PC to quickly place the comp layer into my main comp. Now I'll come and click the new comp and drag it right while holding Shift to snap the start of my new layer to the end of the layer below. Now my new shortage comp is starting at the end of the third section and aligning nicely with my fourth marker on my timeline. Now notice that the time space on this comp is not stretching to meet Marker five. Well, don't worry about that right now. We will be addressing this a little later. Back in the project panel with my new comp selected, I'll press Command D on Mac or Control D on PC again. Upon click, I will duplicate the comp. This time, I'll press Enter and type the name five hyphen Camden Town and press Enter to commit. With my new comp selected, I'll press Command Forward slash on Mac or Control forward slash on PC to quickly place the comp layer into my comp. Now I'll come and click on the new comp and drag it right while holding Shift and snap the start of my Lu layer to the number five marker on the timeline. For the last time, back in the project panel with my new comp selected, I'll press Command D on Mac or Control D on PC and upon click, I will duplicate the comp. This time, I'll press Enter and type the name six hyphen Tower Bridge and press Enter to Commit. With my new comp selected, I'll press Command forward slash on Mac or Control forward slash on PC to quickly place the comp layer into my new comp. Now I'll come and click on the new comp and drag it right while holding Shift and snap the start of the layer to the number six marker on the timeline. Just like that, we have created four new compositions and placed them into the main comp. All that's left to do now is edit each comp. I'll begin with Section three. Aquarium. So what I can do here is now come and double click on the aquarium complex so, and here we will be able to see all the layers we built in the previous section. Now, these are all here ready to change. So in this instance, I'll start with the video. Now, up in the assets folder, right now, we only have the Hyde park video content in the video folder. So let's now import some new video to include. So I'll put my mouse cursor in the blank area in the project panel and double click. I'll navigate to the project folder and click into the project assets folder, then into the video folder, and here we can see our folders. Now, we already have the Hyde Park video in our document. So in this instance, I'm going to click and drag over all the next four folders and click Open. Upon click, the folder structure will now appear in the project panel, which includes all the videos. Once they are in my project folder, I'll select them and drag them into the video folder in the Assets folder. So now we have all the video we need. So down in the timeline for our aquarium comp, I am now going to replace the Hyde Park videos with some aquarium videos. I'll place my time indicator over the top of the video layer so I can see it, and I'll select the first video layer. I'll come up to the aquarium folder and toggle it down, and I'll click to select the deep blue MP four file. Next, I'll press and hold Alt on the keyboard. Then I'll carefully click and drag from the video file in the project panel and down and over my selected video layer name. As I put the mouse cursor over the layer name, it will change with a plus sign. Now, if I release on top of the selected layer name, the video will be replaced with the new video. So now instead of the previous video, we now have a new video. Now if I press U on the layer, it will reveal the keyframes applied to this layer. Previously, we edited this video and added a transition effect. By replacing the video in this way, we have maintained the video edit and the transition effect applied. So we do not need to repeat the workflow, just simply replace the video. However, right now we have a certain part of the video here. Now, what if we don't want this part of the video? Well, here I can click to select the keyframes and move them over to the right. I can click on the edge of the edited video and expand. Then I can click and drag the video layer to find a spot I prefer. Once happy, I will select the keyframes and drag them back left, while holding Shift to snap them back into place like so, where the first keyframe meets the start of the layer below. I'll drag my time indicator while holding Shift to snap to the second keyframe and I'll press Alt close square bracket to trim the layer. That's how you can quickly replace a video layer and adjust which part of the video is visible in the edit. So now I'm going to follow the same process for the next videos. I'll come and click on the next video layer below. Then I'll click on the timeline so I can see the indicator is above the video layer. I'll come to the project panel and click on Fish Under Scoe five. I'll press and hold Alt on the keyboard and click and drag down and over the selected layer name. I'll release click and the video will change. I'll come and click the next video layer below and place the time indicator above it, and I'll come over to the project panel and click on horse Under Scoe one. I'll press and hold Alt on the keyboard and click and drag down and over the selected layer name. I'll release, click and the video will change. Next, I'll come and click on the video layer below and place my time indicator above it, and I'll come over to the project panel and click on Fish Under Sco two. I'll press and hold Alt on the keyboard and click and drag down and over the selected layer name. I'll release click and the video will change. Lastly, I'll come and click on the next video below and place the time indicator above it. Then I'll come over to the project panel and click on Jelly One underscore. I'll press and hold Alt on the keyboard and click and drag down and over the selected layer name. I'll release click and the video will change. So if I now scrub my time indicator over the timeline, we can now see that all the old videos have been replaced with aquarium videos, and the transitions are all still intact. So that's the video edit sorted. Now, if I scrub my time indicator over the start of the section, we will see the blue pin bounce in with the number one inside. So let's look at changing this. I'll come into the project panel and now toggle up the aquarium video as I no longer need this, and I'll come into the comps folder and into the preComps folder. And here we can see the pin one comp we created earlier. So just like we did earlier, I'll click on Pin one and press Command D on Mac or Control D on PC to duplicate the comp. Upon click, this will create a new comp called Pin two. With the Pin one layer selected in my aquarium comp, I'll press and hold Alt and click and drag my new Pin two comp over and release on pin one. Upon release, this will now replace pin one with Pin two. With Pin two, now in my comp, I'll double click on the comp layer to open it up in its new tab. Now I can double click on the top layer and type in two. I'll activate the selection tool and just use the arrow keys to make sure that number two is placed nicely in the middle of the circle like so. Next, I'll select the bottom pin shape layer. Then up to the top of the interface, I'll click on the colored square of fill and change the blue to a red color. In this instance, the hex value is E, zero, zero, zero, zero, C, and I'll click Okay. With the layers changed, I'll click on the cross on the tab to close it and come back to the aquarium co. And now we can see we have replaced the old pin with the new one. So next, it's just a case of editing the type and image elements. So to do this, I'll come back to the project folder, and in the project assets folder, I'll come into the copy folder. In here, I'll open the presentation copy we referred to earlier in the course. With this open, I'll now come and focus on the aquarium part. I'll select the headline and copy that. Then back into after effects, I'll come and find the Hyde Park type layer I'll double click and paste in the new header like so. Back into the copy document, I'll copy the next line of type. Then back into after effects, I'll click and find the subheader layer. I'll click it and make sure I have it selected by making sure I can see the bounding box around it and paste in the new subheader. Back into the copy document, I'll copy the last line of text, then back into after effects, I'll come and find the bottom type layer. With it selected, I'll double click and paste in the new copy like so. Now upon paste, it seems to be too wide for the screen. So now I'll click into the type and click just before the letter A. Then I'll press Enter for a line break, and that is looking much better. So now all that's left to do is replace the graphic in the center of the screen. So in the project panel, I'll double click in the gray area below the folders. I'll come into the project assets folder, into the images folder, into the AI folder, into the location specific folder, and in here, I will see many graphic files. So just like the video here, I'm going to select a few files. I'll make sure I have crown, lamp, Seahorse, and spray can selected, and I'll click Open. On click, they are now visible in the project panel. I'll click all these image files and drag them into the Assets folder and into the Images folder. Then in the images folder, I'll drag them into the vectors folder like so. Next, with the selection tool active, I'll click to select the Swan image in the composition panel. With it selected, we will now see the Swan layer selected in the timeline panel. Now I'm going to come into the project panel and click into the image folder and into the vectors folder. Now I'm going to click on the Seahorse file. Now, unfortunately, we cannot replace the Swan image with the Seahorse image because the Swan is currently a shape layer, and the Seahorse is an Illustrator layer. So we will have to do some manual adjustments here. So first, I'll press Command forward slash on Mac or Control forward slash on PC to quickly place the image into my main comp. Upon click, we will see the new black Seahorse image. So first, I'll right click on the layer and come down to create. Then come across and click Create Shapes from vector layer. Upon click, a new shape layer will be created from this, and I can click on the layer below and delete it. I'll click my shape layer and drag the time indicator across the timeline so I can see my new seahorse graphic compared to the swan image below. Next, I'll press S to reveal the scale properties, and I'll click and drag to scale the Seahorse down and place it over the swan like so. Next, I'll come up and click on the fill color square box and set this to a white. Once I'm happy with the scale of the new graphic, I'll click and drag the time indicator while holding Shift to the start of the layer below. Then I'll press Alt open square bracket to trim the start of this layer to match the layer below. Next, I'll select the layer and press U to reveal the keyframes. I'll select the keyframes and press Command C on Mac or Control C on PC to copy. Then I'll select the top shape layer with my time indicator right at the start above the first keyframe, I'll press Command V on Mac or Control V on PC to paste. Next, I'll press U to reveal the keyframes, and now we can see we have the opacity keyframes applied to this new shape layer. So with that done, I can select the Swan layer below and delete it. I'll click on the color box of the layer and change this to a purple. Now if I click and drag the time indicator right back to the start of the comp, I'll press Spacebar to activate preview, and now we can see we have a brand new aquarium composition, which we created quite quickly by just replacing all the previous links. I'll press Spacebar to stop and I'll now click back onto the main comp. If I scrub my time indicator over the first two sections, we can now see that is looking great. Section two cuts nicely into our new aquarium section. Now let's move on and edit our next sections, and we are going to undertake the same technique as previous. Let's move through this quickly. We'll come to the next comp above Shoreditch and double click to open. Here we will have all the Hyde Park assets. So let's go ahead and change these. So starting with the video, I'll select the top layer, then come over to the project panel and toggle down the video in the Shoreditch folder. I'll click Shoreditch four, a press and hold Alt on the keyboard and click and drag down and over the selected layer name. I'll release click and the video will change. So I'll come and click on the next video below and place the time indicator above it. Come over to the project panel and click on Shoreditch one. I'll press and hold Alt on the keyboard and click and drag down and over the selected layer name. I'll release, click and the video will change. I'll come and click on the next video below and place the time indicator above it. I'll come over to the project panel and click on Shoreditch two. I'll press and hold Alt on the keyboard and click and drag down and over the selected layer name. I'll release, click and the video will change. I'll come and click on the next video below and place the time indicator above it. I'll come over to the project panel and click on Shortage three. Press and hold Alt on the keyboard and click and drag down over the selected layer name. I'll release, and the video will change. And lastly, I'll come and click on the next video below and place my time indicator over it. I'll come over to the project panel and click on Shortage five. I'll press and hold Alt on the keyboard and click and drag Down and over the selected name. I'll release, click, and this time, something different will happen. Now, in this instance, the video has not changed. In this instance, there is no video at all, and in the timeline panel, we can see no layer bar. So why is this? Well, the video we tried to replace was quite long. We just tried to replace a long video clip with a short video clip. Upon doing that, the new video is not long enough to replace. So it appears like there is no video at all here. Now, this is a rare occurrence, but can sometimes happen. So when this does happen, we will need to click on the layer and delete it. Then just come back into the project panel and click on the video we want to place in. In this instance, shortage five. Then press command forward slash on Mac or Control forward slash on PC to place in the video, drag it to the bottom, and then over to the right and place it under the video like so. That the video is done. Next, I'll click towards the beginning of the comp and select the pin layer. In the previous comp, we changed this to a red color, but in this comp, we want to keep the blue, but just change the number. Over in the project panel, I'll come into the preComps folder. I'll select pin one and press Command D on Mac or Control D on PC to duplicate the comp. This will now create a new comp called pin three. So with the Pin one layer selected in my comp, I'll press and hold alt and click and drag my new Pin three comp over and release on pin one. Upon release, we will now replace Pin one with Pin three. So with Pin three now in my comp, I'll double click the comp layer to open it up in a new tab, and I'll double click on the top type layer and type in three. And that's all I want to do to this. So with the layer changed, I'll click on the cross on the tab to close it and come back to the shortage comp. And now we can see we have replaced the old pin with the new easy. Next, it's just a case of editing the type and image elements. I'll click on the timeline to move my time indicator across so I can see the type and image layout. I'll click back to my presentation copy file. With this open, I'll come and focus on the shortage part. I'll select the headline and copy that. Then back into after effects, I'll come and find the Hyde Park title layer. I'll double click and paste in the new header. Back into the copy document, I'll copy the next line of text. Back into after effects, I'll find the subheader layer, double click and paste in the new header like so. Back into the copy document, I'll copy the last line of text. Then back into after effects, I'll come and find the bottom type layer, and I'll double click and paste in the new copy like so. So now all that's left to do is replace the graphic in the center of the screen. So I'll come back to the project panel and click into the image folder into the vectors folder. This, I'm going to click on the spray C file, and I'll press Command Fordslash on Mac or Control forward slash on PC to quickly place the artwork layer into my comp. Upon click, we will see this new black spray can image. First, I'll right click on the layer and come down to create, then come across and click Create Shapes from Vector layer. Upon click, a new shape layer will be created, and I can click the layer below and delete it. I'll click my shape layer and drag my time indicator right across so I can see it compared to the Swan image below. Next, I'll press S to reveal the scale properties, and I'll click and drag to scale the spray can down and place it over the Swan image using the selection. I'll come up and click on the fill color square box and set this to a white. Once happy with the scale of the new graphic, I'll come and drag the time indicator while holding Shift to the start of the layer below. Then I'll press Alt open square bracket to trim the start of the layer to match the layer below. Then I'll select the layer below and press U to reveal the keyframes. I'll select the keyframes and I'll press Command C on Mac or Control C on PC to copy. I'll select the top ship layer and with my time indicator right at the start above the first keyframe, I'll press Command V on Mac or Control V on PC to paste. I'll press U to reveal the keyframes, and now we can see we have the opacity keyframes applied to the new shape layer. So with that done, I can select the swan layer below it and delete it. I'll click on the color box of the layer and change this to a purple. Now if I click and drag the time indicator right back to the start of the comp, I'll press Spacepot to activate preview, and we can now see we have a brand new Shoredig composition. Great. I'll press Spacepot to stop, and I'll now click back onto the main comp. Now, if I scrub my time indicator over the first three sections, we can now see that it's looking great. Section three cuts nicely into our new Shoredig section. However, we can see here that this comp currently does not reach to mark a five. Now, don't worry about this. We will be fixing this in the next episode. For now, let's move on and edit our next sections. And we are going to undertake the same technique again. So I'll come to the next comp above, Camden Town and double click to open. So again, in here, we will have all the Hyde Park media assets. So let's go ahead and change these. So starting with the video, I'll select the top video, come over to the project panel and toggle down the video in the Camden folder and click on Camden seven. I'll press and hold Alt on the keyboard and click and drag down and over the selected layer name. I'll release click and the video will change. So I'll come and click on the next video below and place the time indicator above it, and I'll come to the project panel and click on Camden four. I'll press and hold Alt on the keyboard and click and drag down and over the selected layer name. I'll release, click and the video will change. So I'll come and click on the next video layer below and place the time indicator above it. I'll come over to the project panel and click on Camden eight. I'll press and hold Alt and click and drag down and over the selected layer name. I'll release, click and the video will change. I'll come and click on the next video below and place the time indicator above it. I'll come over to the project panel, click on Camden five. I'll press and hold Alt and click and drag down over the selected layer name. I'll release click and the video will change. Lastly, I'll come and click on the next video layer below and place the time indicator above it. I'll come to the project panel and click on Camden nine. I'll press and hold Alt and click and drag down over the selected name. I'll release click and the video will change. So that's the video done. Next, I'll click towards the beginning of the comp and select the pin layer. In the previous comp, we changed this to a blue color. But in this comp, we want to go with the red color again we used in the second section. So over in the project panel in the preComps folder, I'll select Pin two, which was the red one and press Command D on Mac or Control D on PC to duplicate the comp. That will now create a new comp layer called Pin four. So with the Pin one layer selected in my comp, I'll press and hold Alt and click and drag my new Pin four comp over and release on pin one. Upon release, this will now replace Pin one with Pin four. With Pin four now in my comp, I'll double click the comp layer to open in a new tab and I'll double click on the top type layer and type in four. That's all I want to do to this, but I'll make sure to move it into the center correctly with the selection tool. With the type layer changed, I'll click the cross on the tab to close it and come back to the Camden comp. Now we can see we have replaced the old pin with the new one. Easy. Next, it's just a case of editing the type and image elements. I'll click on the timeline to move my time indicator across so I can see the type and image layout. I'll come back to my presentation copy file with this open, I'll come and focus on the Camden part. I'll select the headline and copy that. Then back into after effects. I'll come and find the Hyde park tight layer. I'll double click and paste in the new header like so. Into the copy document, I'll copy the next line of text. Then back into after effects, I'll come and find the subheader layer and then double click and paste in the new subheader. Back into the copy document, I'll copy the last line of text. Then back into Aftereffects, I'll come and find the bottom type layer. Double click and paste in the new copy. Upon paste, it seems to be too wide for the screen. Now I'll click into the type and click just before the word alternative. Then I'll press Enter for the line break, and that is looking much better. So now all that's left to do is replace the graphic in the center of the screen. So I'll come back to the project panel and click into the image folder and into the vectors folder. For this, I'm going to click on the Lamp file, and I'll press Command Forward slash on Mac or Control Ford slash on PC to quickly place the comp layer into my main comp. Upon click, we will see the new black lamp image. So first, I'll right click the layer and come down to create and click Create Shapes from Vector Layer. Upon click, a new shape layer will be created, and I can click on the layer below and delete it. I'll click my shape layer and drag the time indicator across so I can compare it with the Swan image below. Next, I'll press S to reveal the scale properties, and I'll click and drag the scale of the lamp down and place it over the Swan image like so using the selection tool. Next, I'll come up and click on the fill color square box and set this to a white. Once I'm happy with the scale of the new graphic, I'll click and drag the time indicator while holding Shift to the start of the layer below. Then I'll press Alt open square bracket to trim the start of the layer to match the layer below. Next, I'll select the layer below and press U to reveal the keyframes. I'll select the keyframes and I'll press Command C on Mac or Control C on PC to copy. Then I'll select the top shape layer with the time indicator right at the start above the first keyframe, I'll press Command V on Mac or Control V on PC to paste. Next, I'll press to reveal the keyframes, and now we can see we have the opacity keyframes applied to the new shape layer. So with that done, I can select the swan layer below and delete it. I'll click on the color box for the new layer and change this to a purple. So now I can click and drag the time indicator right back to the start of the comp. I'll press Spacebar to activate preview, and now we can see we have a brand new Camden composition. Great. So I'll press Spacebar to stop, and I'll now come back to the main comp. Now all that's left to do is the final comp, and we are going to undertake the same technique again. For the last time, I'll click the next comp above, Tower Bridge and double click to open. Again, we will have all the Hyde Park media assets. So let's go ahead and change these. Starting with the video, I'll select the top video layer. I'll come over to the project panel and toggle down the video in the Tower Bridge folder and click on T Bridge three. I'll press and hold Alt and drag down over the selected layer name. I'll release click and the video will change. So I'll come and click on the next video layer and place the time indicator above it. I'll come over to the project panel and click on T Bridge six. I'll press and hold Alt and drag down and over the selected layer name. I'll release click and the video will change. I'll come and click on the next video below and place the time indicator above it. I'll come over to the project panel and click on T Bridge eight. I'll press and hold Alt and drag down and over the selected layer name. I'll release click and the video will change. Now on this occasion, I want to move my video so I can see more of the soldier. So I'll press you to reveal the keyframes. I'll select the two keyframes and drag them right. I'll drag my video left until I can see the soldier enter the frame as the video transitions. Then I'll move my keyframes back into place and trim the video bar accordingly. So now, as I scrub my time indicator over the video, we can see the soldier march across. Perfect. So I'll come and click on the next video layer below and place the T indicator above it. I'll come over to the project panel and click on T Bridge seven. I'll press and hold Alt and drag down over the selected layer name. I'll release click, and the video will change. So, lastly, I'll come and click the next video layer below, place the time indicator above it, and I'll come over to the project panel and click on T Bridge 12. I'll press and hold Alt and drag down over the selected layername. I'll release click and the video will change. So that's the video done. Next, I'll click towards the beginning of the comp layer and select the pin layer. So in the previous comp, we changed this to the red color. But in this comp, we want to keep the blue but just change the number. So over in the project panel in the pre comps folder, I'll select Pin one, which is the blue version, and I'll press Command D on Mac or Control D on PC to duplicate the comp. This will now create a new comp called Pin five. With the pin one layer selected in my co press and hold Alt and click and drag my new Pin five comp over and release on pin one. Upon release, this will now replace Pin one with Pin five. So with Pin five, now in my comp, I'll double click on the comp layer to open up in its new tab, and I'll double click on the top type layer and type in five. And that's all I want to do to this. So with the type layer changed, I'll click on the cross on the tab to close it and come back to the Tower of London comp. And now we can see we have replaced the old pin with the new one. So next, it's just a case of editing the type and image elements. So I'll click on the timeline to move my time indicator across so I can see the type and image layout. I'll come back to my presentation, copy file. With this open, I'll come and focus on the Tower of London part. So I'll select the headline and copy that. Then back into after effects, I'll come and find the Hyde Park title layer. I'll double click and paste in the new header. Back into the copy document, I'll copy the next line of text. Then back into after effects, I'll come and find the subheader layer, then double click and paste in the new subheader. So back into the copy document, I'll copy the last line of text. Then back into after effects, I'll come and find the bottom type layer and I'll double click and paste in the new copy. Now, upon pasting, it seems to be too wide for the screen. So now I'll click into the type and click just before the word the and press Enter for a line break, and that is looking much better. So now all that's left to do is replace the graphic in the center of the screen. So I'll come into the project panel and click into the image folder and into the vectors folder. So I'll click on the Crown file, and I'll press Command forward slash on Mac or Control forward slash on PC to quickly place the artwork layer into my comp. On click, we will see the new black Crown image. So first, I'll right click on the layer and come down to create, then come across and click Create Shapes from vector layer. Upon click, a new shape layer will be created from this, and I can click on the layer below and delete it. So I'll click my shape layer and drag the time indicator across so I can compare to the Swan image below. So I'll press S to reveal the scale properties, and I'll click and drag to scale the crown down and place it over the swan like so using the selection tool. Next, I'll come up and click on the fill color square box and set this to a white. Once I'm happy with the scale of the new graphic, I'll click and drag the time indicator while holding Shift to the start of the layer below. Then I'll press Alt open square bracket to trim the start of the layer to match the layer below. Next, I'll select the layer below and press U to reveal the keyframes. I'll select the keyframes and press Command C on Mac or Control C on PC to copy. Then I'll select the top shape layer with my time indicator right at the start above the first keyframe, I'll press Command V on Mac or Control V on PC to paste. Next, I'll press U to reveal the keyframes and now we can see we have the opacity keyframes applied to the new shape layer. With that done, I can select the Swan layer below and delete it. I'll click on the color box of the layer and change this to a purple. So now I can click and drag the time indicator right back to the start of the comp and press Spacebar to activate preview. And now we can see we have a brand new Tower of London composition. So I'll press Spacebar to stop, and now I can click back into the main comp. So now we have all five compositions in place, and we are almost at the end of the presentation. All that's left to do now is edit the third section and add the last section to complete the video presentation. Now, at this point, if you've been following along, I recommend you save your document so we can continue in the next episode. What we are going to do next is look at how we can add some extra dimension to the presentation. So next, we are going to jump back into the third section and animate some still images as part of the sequence. So in the next video, I'm going to demonstrate how easy it can be to animate still images in after effects. So see you in the next video. 44. Animating Still images in After Effects: Hello, and welcome to the 43rd video in this beginner's guide to Adobe After effect. In this tutorial, I'm going to demonstrate how to easily animate still images in after effects. In the previous episode, we made some serious progress for the video presentation, where we easily created more sections by duplicating compositions and simply changing the contents inside. In this video, we're going to jump back into one of the sections to include some animating images to add more dynamic to the video presentation. So in this video, we are going to be covering the following topics, importing images into compositions and animating still images. So let's get into it. So here I am where we left off in the previous episode where we placed in these four new sections. Now, if you're watching for the first time and wish to follow along, you can find this document in the project folder which you can download. So with the project folder open, click into folder S three, create a project, then click into folder 43, Animating still Images and open the Animating Stills document. Now, if you are continuing on from the last episode, make sure you have your document open ready. So with our document open, let's proceed. So right now, I have the main composition open, and we can see that we have our six sections. Now, if we look at Section four here, we can see that it does not stretch to meet the start of Section five. Now, I'll double click on Section four to open it in its own tab, and this includes the video and type layout we created in the previous video. So right now, this composition is only 8 seconds. And if I quickly click back on the main sequence tab, we can see it only goes so far. So I'll double click to go back into the shortage comp, and I'm going to make this comp longer. So to do this, I'm going to press Command K on Mac or Control K on PC to pull up the composition settings. Now, if we look towards the bottom, we can see that the duration of this comp is currently around 7 seconds and just change the comp to 17 seconds and click Okay. Now, if we zoom out on the timeline panel, we can see we have extended the length. Perfect. So next, if I click onto the main comp tab, now we can see the layer bar reaches to Section five. But right now only part of the bar is highlighted. So I'll place my mouse cursor over the end of the highlighted section and click and drag right to fill the bar. So right now, this bar is extending over Section five. Now, we don't need it to go this far. So I'll drag my time indicator towards the beginning of Section five while holding Shift, so it snaps to mark a five. So now the time indicator is placed at a particular point on the Section four layer here. With the time indicator in place, I'll double click on the Section four comp, and when we open this up, the time indicator will be placed in the exact position, corresponding to where we just placed it on the main comp. Now, if we look over to the far left at the top of the timeline indicator, we can see it says 15 seconds. So I'll click into this region and copy the time code. Now, I'll press Command K on Mac or Control K on PC to pull up the composition settings. This time, I'm going to come to the bottom where it states duration. Click into the number box and paste, and we'll see our new time code. I'll click Okay, and that will shorten the time of the comp. Now if we click back into the main comp, we can see the clip is now trimmed perfect to meet the start of Section five. I'll double click back into the shortage comp, and now we can see the remaining time we have left on the comp. So for this comp, we are going to keep the video sequence at the start and lead into some images which we are going to animate to add some dynamics. Let's begin by bringing in some images. So first, I'll come over to my project panel and toggle up my folders to make sure everything is tucked away. And I'll double click on the blank space in the project panel. Upon click, a browser window will appear. Here I'll navigate to the project folder. In the project folder, I'll come into the project assets folder, then into the Images folder, then into the JPEG folder, and into the location folder and click on Shoreditch. With the folder selected, I'll click Open. And the folder will be imported into after effects, and inside the folder will be all the images. Perfect. So what I'll quickly do here is drag my new folder into the assets folder, and in the assets folder, I'll drag it into the images folder and into the JPEG folder. So now it's neatly organized. So now I'll start to bring in some images. So I'll toggle down my shortage folder. I'll click to select Shortage one JPEG, and I'll press Command forward slash on Mac or Control forward slash on PC to quickly place the image into the comp. Upon click, the image is now in the comp, and we can see it has become the top layer in the timeline panel. If I zoom out of the control panel here, with the image selected, we can see that this is a large image, much larger than the screen area here. Now, it's important to mention that whenever you bring in an image into after effects and place it into the composition, depending on its actual size, you will get different results. In this instance, we have placed in a very large image. We'll be tweaking the scale and position shortly. But before that, let's place in some more images. So now I'll come back to the project panel. I'll click to select Shortage two JPEG and press Command Forward slash on Mac or Control forward slash on PC to quickly place the image into my comp. Next, I'll select Shortage three. I'll press Command forward slash on Mac or Control Ford slash on PC to quickly place that image into my comp. Click to select Shortage four. I'll press Command forward slash on Mac or Control Forward slash on PC to quickly place the image into my comp. And lastly, I'll click to select Shortage five and press Command forward slash on Mac or Control forward slash on PC to quickly place the image into my comp. And now we have five image layers at the top of the layer stack in my timeline. So I'll select the top image layer, then hold Shift and select the bottom image layer. I'll click on the color box of the layer and change this to yellow. Next, I'm going to trim these layers. I'll click on the timeline to place my time indicator at 5 seconds. Now, with all the image layers currently selected, I'll press Alt open square bracket, and that will trim the start of the image layers like so. Next, I'll click to place my time indicator at 7 seconds. And with the image layers still selected, I'll press Alt close bracket, and that will trim the end of the image layers. Now I'll click and drag Image two while holding Shift to snap the beginning of the layer to the end of the layer above. Then I'll click and drag Image three while holding Shift to snap the beginning of the layer to the end of the layer above. I'll do this to each image so each image appears one after the other like so, and that will take us to the end of the comp. Now, if there is a little gap at the end of the comp, I'll simply click and drag the end of the last image bar across and over the end of the comp like so. Perfect. So with the top image selected, I'll press Shift and select the bottom image. With them all selected, I'm going to click on the name of the layers and drag them down just on top of the video layer like so. Now, if we click to place the time indicator above the first image, we can still see the type layout on top of the image. Right now, we don't want this. So I'll click and drag my time indicator while holding Shift towards the start of my first image layer to snap it like so. With my time indicator in place, I'll now select the top layer and the bottom layer of my type layout composition, and I'll press Alt close square bracket, and this will trim all these layers so now they do not overlap with the image. Next, there are a few layers under the image layers that we will need to sort out, but we will do this later. For now, we are going to look at how we can animate these images. So what I want to happen here is that as the images appear, instead of them just appearing as static images, I want to give them a bit of movement to zoom in on some of the details to really draw attention to the cool graffiti on the walls in these pictures. I'll come and start with the first image, and with the first image selected, I'll click and drag my time indicator while holding Shift to snap to the start of the image bar. Next, I'll press S to activate the scale property on the layer and I'll come into the scale property and click and drag left like so, just to zoom the image out. Also, I'll press on the left and right arrow buttons on the keyboard just to adjust the position of the image in the frame. So with my image zoomed out, I'll come and click on the stopwatch for scale and add the first scale keyframe. Next, I'll drag my time indicator while holding Shift to snap to the end of the image layer. And I'll come back to the scale property, and this time click and drag right to scale up my image to zoom in on the graffiti. Upon scaling up, we will now have a new keyframe for scale applied to the layer. So if I scrub my time indicator between these two new keyframes, we can see the effect that is having. When the image appears, it also zooms nicely into the graffiti. So that's a really simple animation on an image. All we applied there was Zoom. But let's look at adding position. So next, I'll drag my time indicator while holding Shift to snap to the start of my second image. With my time indicator in place, I should now see my second image. I'll select the next image and press S to activate the scale property. Just like earlier, I'll come and scale it down and I'll click and drag the image to the left to place the image in the frame nicely where I want it to start. Then I'll press P to reveal the position settings. I'll come and click the stopwatch to add a position keyframe, and I'll drag my time indicator while holding Shift to the end of the image layer. This time, I'll click and drag the image to the right while holding Shift to move it in a straight line where I want the image to end. Upon doing this, it will add a new position keyframe to the layer. So now as I scrub my time indicator between these two frames, we can see that this image simply pans across the screen. By adding position keyframes, we can create this nice effect for panning the image. So on the next image, let's look at how we can add both scaling and position. I'll drag my time indicator while holding Shift to snap to the beginning of my third image. With my time indicator in place, I should now see my third image. This time, I'm going to keep my image zoomed out and simply click and drag to change the position in the keyframe. I'll press S to activate the scale property on the layer, and I'll come down and click the stopwatch to add a keyframe for scale. Then I'll press P to reveal the position settings, and I'll come and click the stopwatch to add a position keyframe. Now I'll press and you again to reveal the two keyframes applied to my image layer. I'll drag my time indicator while holding Shift to the end of the image layer and I'll come back to scale and click and drag left to zoom the image out like so. And this will apply a new keyframe for scale on my layer. Now I'll click and drag my image to position in the frame. Upon doing this, it will add a new position keyframe to the layer. So now as I scrub my time indicator between these two keyframes, we can see that the image zooms out and pans across. So now it's just a simple case of using the same technique but changing up the animation stars. Next, I'll drag my time indicator while holding Shift to snap to the beginning of my fourth image. With my time indicator in place, I should now see my fourth image. For this image, I want to zoom in. I'll press S to activate the scale property on the layer. I'll come down and click the stopwatch to add a keyframe for scale. I'll click and drag on the scale property to just zoom out, and I'll click and drag the image to the right to reposition the image in the frame. Then I'll press P to reveal the position settings, and I'll come and click the stopwatch to add a position keyframe. Then I'll press U and U again to reveal the two keyframes applied to my image. I'll drag my time indicator while holding Shift to the end of the image layer. I'll come back to scale and click and drag right to zoom in on the image. This will apply a new keyframe for scale on my layer, and I'll click and drag my image to position in the frame. Upon doing this, it will add a new position keyframe to the layer. So now, as I scrub my time indicator between these two keyframes, we can see that this image zooms in and pans across. So all that's left is my last image. So I'll drag my time indicator while holding Shift to snap to the beginning of the fifth layer. With my time indicator in place, I should now see my fifth image. Now for this image, I just want to zoom out. So I'll press S to activate the scale property on the layer. I'll come down and click the stopwatch to add a keyframe for scale. I'll click and drag the image to reposition in the frame, then I'll press P to reveal the position settings. Next, I'll come and click the stopwatch to add a position keyframe, and I'll press and again to reveal the two keyframes applied to my image. I'll drag the time indicator while holding Shift to the end of the image layer. With the time indicator placed at the end, I'll come back to scale and click and drag left to Zoom out of the image. This will apply a new keyframe for scale on my layer, and I'll click and drag my image to position in the frame. Upon doing this, it will add a new position keyframe to the layer. So now as I scrub my time indicator between these two keyframes, we can see that the image zooms out and pans across. I'll place my time indicator at the start of the first layer, I'll press B on the keyboard to set the start of the workspace area, and I'll make sure the end of the workspace area is set to the end of the comp. I'll place my time indicator at the start of the workspace area, and I'll press space bar to activate preview. And now we can see the animated sequence for the images. And that is how you can animate still images in after effects. So adding a little scale and position effect can add more dynamics to your presentation, and I'll press Space Bar to stop. Now, before we end this tutorial and move into the next episode, there are just a few things we need to do to finish up this comp. So I'll select the top image, and while holding Shift, I'll select the bottom image. Right now, we can see the keyframe, so I'll press you and you again to hide the keyframe. So I'll zoom out on my timeline panel, and now I can see there are some video layers that can no longer be seen. And this is because they are under the image layers above. So I'll come and click these last videos at the bottom, and I'll simply press Backspace to delete them. So now we have three video layers and our image layers here. So now I'll select the top image layer and press and hold Shift and select the bottom image layer. With them all selected, I'll click on the name of the layers and drag them down below the video layers. Right now, we need the video layers to be on top. Now I'll come and click the first video layer with Shift held down, I'll select my third video layer. With them selected, I'll press to show the keyframes for each. On these layers we have transition effects at the end, which we created earlier. I'll drag my time indicator while holding Shift to snap to the start of the first image layer. I'll press F two to deselect the three video layers and then I'll click and drag my third video layer across. The first keyframe for the transition meets with the time indicator. Now, if I scrub my time indicator across these two keyframes, we can now see that the third video nicely transitions into the image below. So next, I'll come to the second video layer and drag the bar to the right across and over the top of the video layer below. This is going to reveal more of the video layer. Now, I'm going to click and drag over the keyframes under this layer and simply click and drag them to the right and make sure that the first keyframe starts at the start of the video layer below. Now if I scrub my time indicator over these keyframes, we can see the second video transitions into the video below. So all we have done here is extend the second and third video clip further along the timeline. Okay, so that sorts out the video and images. All that's left to do is clear up the type and image layout. Now, if I scrub my time indicator over the end of the type layers above, they abruptly disappear. So to these layers, I want to add a nice fade out effect. So I'll select the top layer and press and hold shift and select the bottom layer, the gradient layer. I'll click and drag my time indicator while holding Shift to snap to the end of these layers, and I'll press T to activate the opacity settings. Now we will see that some of these layers will already have opacity keyframes applied. So now I am carefully going to come and click the diamond on the layers that already have opacity keyframes applied. And for the layers that do not have opacity keyframes, I'll click the stopwatch. Do this correctly, and we will now see an opacity keyframe on each layer. I'll drag my timeline indicator a little over to the left like so. Then I'll come in and click on the diamond on any layer, and then we will see another keyframe applied to each layer. I'll drag my time indicator to the last keyframes while holding Shift to Snap, and I'll come and drag transparency to zero. Now, as I scrub my time indicator over these keyframes, we will now see that the type layers fade away just before the image sequence appears. I'll just quickly press Command A on Mac or Control A on PC to select all the layers, and I'll press to hide all the keyframes for each layer. I'll come up to the work area and double click to expand that across the full comp. I'll place my time indicator at the start of the comp, I'll press space bar to activate preview, and that completes the section of the presentation. At the start, we have our video intro, which then fades away to reveal the animated image sequence. Perfect. So I'll press Space Bar to stop, and I'll click back to the main com tab up in the top timeline panel. So now we are starting to get somewhere. Now we have sections one, two, three, four, and five complete. Now, looking at Section six here, we have this complete, but we are having the same issue we had right at the start of this video. Currently, Section six is too small, and it really needs to lead up to Mark seven here. So before we end this video, let's address this quickly. So I'll double click into Section six here at the top, and we will open the sequence up in its own tab. Now using the same technique we used earlier, I'll press Command K on Mac or Control K on PC to pull up the composition settings. The duration at the bottom is currently set to 7 seconds. I'll come in here and change this to 17 seconds. I'll click Okay and scroll out like so, and now we can see we have extended the time in this comp. Now I'll click back into the main comp tab and we can see that this comp bar now exceeds further than Marker seven. I'll click the end of the highlighted area on the layer bar and drag it right across to fill. Then I'll click and drag the time indicator while holding Shift over to Snap to Marker seven. With the time indicator over Mark seven, I'll double click back into Section six. And looking over to the left of the timeline panel, we can see that the time indicator is now placed at 11 seconds. I'll come and click into the time code and copy the time value. I press Command K on Mac or Control K on PC to pull up the composition settings, and in duration, I'll click into it, select all the type, and then paste in the new value and click Okay. I'll click back into the main comp, and now we can see it's the perfect length. Back into Section six, I now need to tweak some of these layers to adjust to our new comp length. I'll start with the top layers for the type. I'll select the top layer while holding Shift, I'll select the bottom layer including the grading overlay. With them all selected, I'll drag my time indicator to the very end of the comp and I'll press Alt close bracket. This will then extend each layer right to the end of the comp. Perfect. Next, I'll select the first video layer, and while holding Shift, I'll select the fourth video layer. With four of them selected, I'll press U to reveal the keyframes applied. What I'll do now is just click and drag on one of the video layer bars at the end and drag it out a little and each video layer will extend like so. I'll click off to deselect. Next, I'll click and drag over the first set of keyframes for the first video layer and I'll drag them right while holding Shift so the last keyframe snaps to the end of the video layer. What I will do now is make my way down on each video layer, click and drag over the keyframes and drag them right while holding Shift, so the last keyframe snaps to the end of the video, and I'll do this for each video layer. So now with the keyframes at the end of each video layer, I'll click and drag the second video layer so the start of the highlighted bar meets with the first keyframe above. Then I'll drag the layer below across again so the start of the highlighted bar meets the first keyframe above. I'll make my way down dragging the video layers across until I have something that looks like this. What we have done here is simply extend each video so they spread out further over time. I'll come up to the work area and double click to expand it across the full comp. I'll press Command A on Mac or Control A on PC to select all the layers, and I'll press and again to hide all the keyframes. I'll place my time indicator at the start of the comp and I'll press Spacebar to activate preview and that is looking just fine. The videos are now extended a little further across the timeline, and the type comp remains until the end. Perfect. So I'll click back on the main comp tab up on the top of the timeline panel, and now we have everything done. Every section fits perfectly on the timeline as planned. Now, at this point, if you've been following along, I recommend you save your document so we can continue in the next episode. So all that's left to do is the final section, Section seven. But before that, there is something we need to look at. Now, working with video, you will always want to make sure it looks the best it can. Sometimes, when we bring video into after effects, it can look a little flat. Now, after effects is really good at color grading and adding color enhancements to our video footage. In the next episode, we are going to be looking back at some of the video we have placed in the video presentation so far and use some of the helpful effects and presets in after effects to enhance the color. So I'm going to be demonstrating how easily this can be done in after effects. So see in the next video. 45. Colour enhancing footage in After Effects : Hello, and welcome to the 44th video in this beginner's guide to Adobe After effects. In this tutorial, I'm going to demonstrate how to easily color enhance your video footage in after effects. Now, working with video, you will always want to make sure it looks the best it can. Sometimes, when we bring video into after effects, it can look a little flat. Now, after effects is really good at color grading and adding color enhancements to video footage. In this video, we are going to look back over the video presentation we have been working on up until this point. We are going to look at some of the video we have placed into the video presentation so far and use some of the helpful effects and presets in after effects to enhance the color and quality. And in this video, I'm going to demonstrate just how easy this can be done in after effects. So in this video, we are going to be covering the following topics using the autocontrast preset, using the edit levels preset, and using the edit curves preset. So let's get into it. So here I am where we left off in the previous episode where we completed these five sections. Up until this point on the project, we have mainly been focusing on the structure of the presentation and getting all the animated sequences right. Now, before we start working on the last section to finish, I want to reflect back on what we have done so far. So let's take a look. Now, if you're watching for the first time and wish to follow along, you can find this document in the project folder, which you can download. With the project folder open, click into folder S three, create a project, then click into folder 44, color enhancing footage, and open the color enhancing document. If you are continuing on from the last episode, make sure you have your document open and ready. With our document open, let's proceed. Right now, I have the main comp open and we can see we have our six sections. If I click and drag the time indicator right back to the start and slowly scrub along the timeline, here we can see our intro sequence. Section one, which plays out and leads nicely into Section two. We have Section two with the video and type transitions, and this leads into Section three, the aquarium. Now, looking at some of the video in this sequence, it's nice, but it does look a little flat in part. What I want to do here is quickly enhance the video. To do this, I'll double click into the aquarium composition. If we look towards the bottom of the timeline panel, we can see the video layers we placed into the comp in a previous video. I'll click and drag my time indicator towards the start of the comp so I can see the first video in my composition panel above. The first video is the underwater scene, what I want to do is make the blacks a little darker to punch out the blues. I'll start by selecting the video layer in the timeline panel. Next, I'll come over to the right hand side of the interface and click on the effects and presets panel. This will reveal all the effects and presets we can use. Now, if for whatever reason you cannot see the Effects and Presets panel, you can come up to Window, scroll down and click Effect and presets. In this panel, I will come and toggle down the color correct category, and at the top, you will see three really useful presets, Autoclor, autocontrast, and auto levels. Now, we can use these to apply simple and immediate effects to our video. On this occasion, I'm going to use the Auto Contrast. With my video selected in the timeline panel, I'll click and drag the Auto Contrast preset across and out of the effects and presets panel and onto my selected video layer. Upon release, we will see a subtle change to the video as the autocontrast is applied. Now upon release, we should now also see the effects controls appear where the project panel is on the left. In the effects controls, we can see that as well as the linear wipe transition effect we applied earlier, we now have an autocontrast effect. Now if I come and click the FX icon, we can turn the effect on and off and see a before and after. So when you apply an auto contrast, it will apply contrast to your video. But if you want to tweak this further, you can come up to the effect controls panel and tweak the settings. So here, I'll come down and drag the black clip over to 5%. And if I click the FX button, we can toggle it on and off and see the before and after effect. Now, should you tweak the effect and feel you have overdone it or it's not to your liking, we can come to the top of the autocontrast settings and simply click the reset button. That will put the settings back to what they were at the start. But right now I'm pretty happy with this, so I'll just leave it for now and move on. I'll drag my time indicator further right along the timeline to see my next video. So again, I want to boost the contrast here to make the blacks darker, to make the colors pop. So I'll select the video layer, come over to the Effects and Presets panel, and again, drag the autocontrast preset out and drop it onto my selected video layer. Upon release, I can see that has had the effect I want. In the effects and controls panel to the left, if I click the ex button, we can see the before and after effect. So moving on, I'll drag my time indicator further along the timeline to see my next video. Again, I want to boost the contrast here to make the blacks darker and make the colors pop. I'll select the video layer, come over to the Effects and Presets panel, and again, drag the autocontrast preset out and drop it onto the selected video layer. Upon release, I can see that has had the effect I want. Again, in the effects and Controls panel to the left, if I click the Effect button, we can see the before and after effect. For this aquarium sequence, I'm going to apply the autocontrast to each video layer. So moving on, I'll drag my time indicator further right to my next video. Again, I want to boost the contrast, so I'll select the video layer come over to the Effects and Presets panel and drag the autocontrast preset onto my selected video layer. Next, I'll drag my time indicator further right to see my last video in the sequence. I'll select the video layer come over to the Effects and Presets panel, and drag the autocontrast preset out and onto the selected video layer. Nice. So just like that, I subtly enhance the contrast of each video clip in this sequence. Overall, this makes the underwater video look more rich and vibrant in the background. So once I'm happy, I can click back into the main comp tab in the top left of my timeline panel and I'm back to my main comp. I'll drag the time indicator over the next section, the Shoreditch section. And I can see that the videos and images here are looking fine. I'm not going to apply any color effects to these. Now, if I drag over to the Camden section, I can see that there are some clips in here that could do with a little enhancing. So I'll double click into the Camden composition. And it will open up in its own tab. If we look towards the bottom of the timeline panel, we can again see the video layers we placed into the comp in a previous video. So I'll click and drag my time indicator towards the start of the comp so I can see the first video in my composition panel above. So what I want to do here is again make the blacks a little darker to punch out the colors. So I'll start by selecting the video layer in the timeline panel and I'll come back over to the Effects and Presets panel, and this time, instead of using one of the autocorrect presets, I'm going to come down the panel about three thirds of the way and select levels. This time, I'm going to click and drag levels out from the effects and presets panel and drop it onto the video layer. Now, upon release, nothing will happen because what we have to do now is come into the effects controls over on the left and tweak the settings. So here, I'm going to come and focus on the input black. I'll come and drag this in a little to around 15. Next, I'll come and tweak the gamma and push this up a little to around 1.3. And if I come and click the effects button for the levels effect, we can see the before and after effect. So using the levels has allowed me to manually tweak the input black and gamma to enhance the video clip. So I'll continue to drag my time indicator over the remaining video clips, and these are looking okay. But when I get to the fourth clip here, we can see it looks a little flat. I'll start by selecting the video layer and I'll come back over to the Effects and Presets panel. This time, instead of using the levels preset, I'm going to come and select curves. This time, I'm going to click and drag curves out from the effects and presets panel and drop it onto my video layer. Now, upon release, nothing will happen because we will have to now come into the effects and controls over on the left and tweak the settings. Now, for any of you that are familiar with using curves in Photoshop, you will understand how it works here. Over in the effects and controls panel, we will see our grid and the curve. Now, I'm going to drop three points on the curve here, one in the middle, one towards the bottom left, and one towards the top right. I'll start by clicking and dragging the far right point up and I'll drag down the far left point a little and drag the center point up a little. Doing that, we have boosted the colors and made the blacks deeper. This has created a more dynamic effect. Now, if I come and click the FX button for curves, we can see the before and after effect. So using the curves has allowed me to create a more dynamic effect to the video. Now, with curves applied, you can come into the effects controls and change the channel. For example, I'll click the dropdown and change the tab to blue. I'll click to drop down three points like I did a second ago, one in the middle, one towards the bottom left, and one towards the top right. If I start to click and drag these, we can change the channel of specific colors and change the color effect of the video. For now, though, I only want to boost to blacks. I'll hit the reset button at the top of the setting. I'll make sure the tab is set back to RGB and I'll click my three points, one in the middle, one towards the bottom left, and one towards the top right. I'll click and drag the left one down a little, the far right up, and the center one up just a little again to enhance the video. Perfect. Looking at the next video, this is looking okay. So that finishes the Camden section. Now I can click back into the main comp by clicking on the top left tab, and now I am back to my main comp. I'll click after Marker seven and press, clip the end of the workspace. I'll drag my time indicator back to the start of the comp, and I'll click on the resolution factor at the bottom of the composition panel and set this to half. Now, on this occasion, I don't want to hear the music, so I'm going to come down and click on the second icon on the audio layer. To toggle this off. For now, this will mute the audio layer. But if you are following along, I recommend you leave this on. So with my time indicator at the start, I'll press Spacebar to activate preview. So now I can preview the entire video presentation in real time. As it previews, I can see my intro, which leads into the video sections. Now, if you're following along, you should also hear the music and see how the sections cut nicely to the music. Also, we can now see the enhancements we have just made to some of the video clips in the aquarium section and the Camden section. This is all looking good. That completes the six sections. We are now ready to move on to the last and final section in this video presentation. Now, at this point, if you are following along with your own document, I would recommend you save so we can continue on in the next episode. So what we are going to do next is build the last section of our video presentation. This is going to be similar to the introsection where we use some simple two D graphics. In the next video, we are going to create a simple two D scene consisting of graphics and type, where later, I'll be showing you how to animate them. So see you in the next video. 46. Create a 2D Scene in After Effects: Hello, and welcome to the 45th video in this beginner's guide to Adobe After Effects. In this tutorial, I'm going to demonstrate how you can build a simple two D scene in After Effects. So in the previous episode, we looked back at some of the videos we placed into the video presentation and used some helpful effects and presets to color enhance the footage. This completed sections one through six. Now, in this video, we are going to build the last section of our video presentation, Section seven. This is going to be similar to the introsection where we animated some simple two D graphics. In this video, we are going to begin by building the two D scene. So in the next episode, we can learn how to animate it together. Now, this is going to be a long episode. There's going to be a lot to do. We are about to bring in a lot of elements into our after effects composition to build the two D scene. And along the way, we are going to be repeating some of the techniques over and over to build our scene. This is going to be a good exercise to follow because this is the type of thing you will find yourself doing in after effects as you build your own video presentations. Eventually, we will end up with a nice two D scene which we can then animate. So let's get into it. So in the previous episode, we looked back at some of the videos we placed into the video presentation and used some helpful effects and presets to color enhance the footage. This completed Section one through six. In this video, we are going to build the last section of our video presentation, Section seven. This is going to be similar to the intro section where we animated some two D graphics. In this video, we are going to begin by building the two D scene. So in the next episode, we can learn how to animate it together. So here I am where we left off in the previous episode where we finalized the first six sections here in the main comp. Now, if you're watching for the first time and wish to follow along, you can find this document in the project folder, which you can download. With the project folder open, click into folder S three, create a project, then click into folder 45, create a two D scene, and open the create a two D scene document. Now, if you're continuing on from the last episode, make sure you have your document open and ready. With our document open, let's proceed. So right now, I have the main composition open, and we can see that we have our six sections. Now looking back at the Photoshop design, I'm going to toggle the visibility of the last composition layer folder back on the folder at the top. Now, this Photoshop document can also be accessed from the project folder. With the project folder open, click into the S three, create a project folder, then click into folder 31, plan and design, then into folder one, plan and design, then into folder five design, and then open the project design Photoshop document. If we toggle the visibility of the last composition layer folder back on the folder at the top and toggle off the frame one folder here we will have a two D illustrated scene of London. This is what we have planned for the final section of the video presentation. What I want to do here is have the buildings animate in, but instead of them just fading in, I want them to spring up. This will make the transition a bit more dynamic. As the buildings spring up, I then want the clouds to appear and then the type to spring up on top of that. This comp is going to have a little bit of depth to it. Back in after effects, we're going to start by bringing in the graphics for the comp. I'll come over to the project panel. I'll double click into the negative space below the folders, and upon click, a browser window will appear. So here, I'm going to navigate to the project folder. I'll come into the project assets folder, into the images folder, then into the AI folder, and then into the Buildings folder. So in here, we can see a bunch of Illustrator files. Now, these are some artwork I have prepared earlier. What we want to do here is import them all into after effects. So an easy way to do this is to back up and select the Buildings folder. With the Buildings folder selected, I'll click Open. Back in after effects, we will see the folder placed into the project panel. If I toggle this down, we can see all the files within. Now, I'm going to need some more graphics for the two D comp. Again, I'll double click into the negative space below the folders. This time in the AI folder, instead of clicking the Buildings folder, I'll click into the Objects folder and click onto the Clouds folder. With the clouds folder selected, I'll click Open. Back in after effects, we will see the folder placed into the project panel. So first, I'm going to drag both these folders into the assets folder, then into the images folder, and into the vectors folder, nice and organized. So with the graphics, now in after effects, it's time to create the last section. So right now in the main comp, we can only see the first six sections. We don't have a seventh. So to start, I'm going to create the comp for Section seven. I'll press Command Y on Mac or Control Y on PC to create a new solid layer. Upon click, the solid settings will appear. Here I'm going to come down and click on the colored square and set this to a solid white color. I'll leave the other settings alone and just click Okay. Now we have a solid layer at the top of the layer stack going across the top of the entire comp. I'll drag the time indicator while holding Shift to snap to mark seven. With the solid layer selected, I'll press Alt open square bracket, and this will trim the start of the layer like so. Next, I'll drag the time indicator while holding Shift to snap to the end of the audio layer at the bottom. Now, the audio file ends at this point, but at the end of my video presentation, I want the section to linger a little so it does not end so abruptly. So I'll just drag my time indicator a little further out about 10 seconds. With my solid layer selected, I'll press Alt close bracket, and this will trim the end of the layer. So now I have a white solid layer that is exactly the right time I want my last section to be. Next, I'll right click on the solid layer, scroll down and click pre compose. Upon click, the precompose menu will appear. I'll start by naming the comp seven hyphen Outro. Then I'll make sure to check the box for, move all attributes into the new composition. Then I'll make sure to select the box for adjust composition duration to the timespan of the selected layers. I'll check the box on new composition, and I'll click Okay. Upon click, we will now open a new comp tab. Now, if for whatever reason you see frames in the timeline and not seconds, come up to composition, click on Composition Settings, and down in start timeline, we need to make sure this is all set to zero. Now, if this is not set to zero for you, come in and set zero for each and click Okay. And now you should see seconds in the time ruler. Now, when we created our new comp from the main timeline, it has also brought in these markers. Now, we don't need markers in this comp, so I'll come up and right click on the marker and click Delete all markers. Now, if we just jump back into the main comp by clicking on the comp tab, we can see that over by the layer names, we now have our last comp in place. I'll click on the colored box next to the name, set this to blue, and I'll come and double click on the new comp layer and we will jump back into comp seven. So with our last comp set, we can now bring in our graphics and start to animate. Now looking back at the Fogg shop design, we can see that this is quite a complex layout. There are a lot of elements that make up this composition with particular sizes and positions. This is going to be quite tricky to build in after effects. So what I can do here to make this process easier is bring a screenshot of this composition into after effects, so I can trace it and use it as a guide. So with my two D comp visible here in Photoshop, I'll come up to file and click Save As. I'll navigate to my project folder, and I have mine on my desktop, and I'll click into the Images folder, then into the JPEG folder. I'll click on the dropdown box to make sure I set this as a JPEG and I'll name the file two D comp and click Save. I'll come back into after effects. I'll come over to the project panel, and I'll double click into the negative space below the folders. This time, I'll navigate to the project folder on my desktop and click into the Images folder, into the JPEG folder, click on the two D comp image and click Open. Upon click, we will see the image now appear in the project panel. I'll click the image and press Command forward slash on Mac or Control forward slash on PC to quickly place the comp layer into my main comp. Easy. Next, I'll click the image layer in the timeline panel. I'll press T to activate the opacity settings, then I'll come down and click and drag the opacity down to 20%. With the opacity set, I'll then come over and click on the lock icon to the right of the layer name for both the image layer and the white solid layer below. So I don't accidentally click and move these around in future. So now we have a guide for the comp we want to build here in after effects. This is going to make the whole process a lot easier. So let's start by bringing in the buildings. So I'll scroll on my mouse to zoom in here and I'll press and hold Spacebar to click and move down to the bottom left corner. And I'll click the resolution factor to make sure I'm looking at the comp at full. So the first thing I want to focus on here is the baseline. Now all the buildings sit on a baseline here, which I can see from the guide. So to help me get this right, I'll press Command R on Mac or Control R on PC to activate the rulers. Then from the top, I'm going to drag a guide down and place it right on the baseline. Perfect. So the first building I want to place here is the London I. I'll come over into the Assets folder and toggle it down to reveal the vector's folder and the buildings folder within. I'll click on the London Ifile and press Command forward slash on Mac or Control Forward slash on PC to quickly place the comp layer into my main comp. With the vector building now in my comp, I'll come and drag it down and on top of my guide like so. Next, I'm going to come and right click on the vector layer in the timeline. I'll place my cursor over Create and click Create Shapes from Vector Layer. Upon click, we will create a new shape layer on top of the original Illustrator layer. Now I can come and click the Illustrator layer and delete it. So what we did there is take the illustrator file and create shapes from it. Now, the Illustrator file was created previously in Adobe Illustrator and then brought into after effects. When using these files in after effects, I like to create shapes from them, as this gives us more control over the vector illustrations once in after effects. For example, if I click down on the contents, we have access to each part of the illustration, and we can do things like change the color and add a stroke and effect, if we so please. Now, as we add each building into this comp, we are going to create the shapes as we just did with this building. So moving on with the London I selected, I'll use the arrow keys to just fine tune the position of the building to place it on top of my guide like so. Now I'm going to bring in the next building. So back in the project panel, I'll click Big Ben and press Command forward slash on Mac or Control Fordslash on PC to quickly place the comp layer into my main comp. With the vector building in my comp, I'll come and drag it down to the baseline and on top of my guide like so. Next, I'll right click on the vector layer in the timeline. I'll place my cursor over create and select Create Shapes from Vector layer. Upon click, we will see a new shape layer on the top of the original Illustrator layer and I'll come and click the Illustrator layer below and delete it. Right now, Big Ben is way too big. I'll press S to activate the scale settings for the layer and I'll come and drag left on the settings to scale the building down like so. As I do this, I'll drag it back to the baseline to scale the building down to match the guide. Once I'm happy with this, I can move on to the next building. So back in the project panel, I'll click Tower Bridge. Then press Command forward slash on Mac or Control Ford slash on PC to quickly place the comp layer into my main comp. With the vector building in my comp, I'll come and drag it down to the baseline and on top of my guide. Next, I'll come and right click on the vector layer. I'll place my mouse cursor over create and click Create Shapes from Vector Layer. Upon click, we will create a new shape layer on top of the original Illustrator layer. Next, I'll come and click the Illustrator layer below and delete it. Right now, the tower bridge is way too big. I'll press S to activate the scale settings. I'll come and drag left on the settings to scale the building down, and I'll do this as I drag the building back to the baseline to scale the building down to match the guide. Once I'm happy, I can move on to the next building. So back in the project panel, I'll click St. Paul's, press Command forward slash on Mac or Control forward slash on PC to quickly place in the image, and I'll come and drag it down to the baseline and on top of my guide. I'll right click on the layer, place my cursor over Create and click Create Shapes from vector layer. Then I'll come and click the Illustrator layer below and delete it. So right now, St. Paul's is too big, so I'll press S to activate the scale settings, and I'll come and drag left on the settings to scale the building down. I'll drag the building back to the baseline and scale the building to match the guide, and I'll use the arrow keys to fine tune the position of the building. Once happy, I'll move on to the next building. Back in the project panel, I'll click St. Mary X. Press Command forward slash on Mac or Control forward slash on PC to quickly place in the image, and I'll come and drag it down to the baseline and on top of my guide. I'll right click on the layer, place my cursor over Create, and click Create Shapes from vector layer. Then I'll click the Illustrator layer below and delete it. So right now, St. Mary X is a bit big, so I'll press S to activate the scale settings, and I'll come and drag left on the settings to scale the building down. I'll drag the building back to the baseline and scale the building to match the guide, and I'll use the arrow keys to fine tune the positioning of the building. Once happy, I'll move on to the next building. So back in the project panel, I'll click the Shard, press Command forward slash on Mac or Control forward slash on PC to quickly place in the image, and I'll come and drag it down to the baseline on top of my guide. I'll right click on the layer, place my cursor over create and click Create Shapes from vector layer. Then I'll come and click the Illustrator layer below and delete it. And again, the shard is looking too big, so I'll press S to activate the scale setting, and I'll come and drag left on the settings to scale the building down. I'll drag the building back to the baseline and scale the building to match the guide, and I'll use the arrow keys to fine tune the position of the building. It's happy, I'll move on to the next building. So back in the project panel, I'll click City Hall. Press Command Forward slash on Mac or Control Ford slash on PC to quickly place in the image. I'll come and drag it down to the baseline and on top of my guide. I'll right click on the layer, place my cursor over Create and click Create Shapes from Vector Layer. Then I'll come and click the Illustrator layer below and delete it. Again, the building is looking way too big, so I'll press S to activate the scale settings, and I'll come and drag left on the settings to scale the building down. I'll drag the building back to the baseline and scale the building to match the guide, and I'll use the arrow keys to fine tune the position of the building. So once happy, I'll move on to the last building. So back in the project panel, I'll click War Museum. Press forward slash on Mac or Control forward slash on PC to quickly place in the image, and I'll come and drag it down to the baseline on top of my guide. I'll right click on the layer, place my cursor over create, and click Create Shapes from Vector layer. Then I'll come and click the Illustrator layer below and delete it. Right now, the war Museum is looking too big, so I'll press S to activate the scale settings, and I'll come and drag left on the settings to scale the building down. I'll drag the building back to the baseline and scale the building to match the guide, and I'll use the arrow keys to fine tune the position of the building. That's the last building. Now, I'll press Alt Ford slash and that will zoom out to fit the composition frame to the panel like so. Now, looking back at the Photoshop design, we can see that behind the main building, we have some other silhouettes of a building skyline on the left and right. So back in Aftereffacts, let's quickly place these in. Over in the project panel, I'll click Buildings left. I'll press Command Ford slash on Mac or Control Ford slash on PC to place in the image. I'll come and drag it down to the baseline on top of my guide, and I'll have to zoom in here to see this. I'll right click on the layer, place my cursor over Create, and click Create Shapes from vector layer. Then I'll come and click the Illustrator layer below and delete it. Right now, these buildings are too big. I'll press S to activate the scale settings on the layer. I'll come and drag left on the settings to scale the building down. I'll drag the buildings back to the baseline and scale the building down to match the guide. Now, these buildings need to be a lighter shade of red than the buildings in front. I'll press T to activate the opacity option and this time, instead of dragging the settings, I'll double click on the percentage value and type 20 and press Enter. This will quickly set the opacity to 20%. Once happy, I'll do the last Building silhouette over on the right. Back in the project panel, I'll click Buildings right, press Command forward slash on Mac or Control forward slash on PC to quickly place in the image. I'll come and drag it down to the baseline on top of my guide. Then I'll right click on the layer, place the cursor over create and click Create Shapes from vector layer. Next, I'll click the Illustrator layer below and delete it. I'll press S to activate the scale settings, and I'll come and drag left on the scale settings to scale the building down. I'll drag the building back to the baseline to scale the building to match the guide, and I'll use the arrow keys to fine tune the position of the building. So like with the left buildings, I'll press T to activate the opacity option. I'll double click on the percentage value and type 20 and press Enter, and this will quickly set the opacity to 20%. I'll press Alt forwards, and again, that will zoom out to fit the composition frame to the panel like Z. Now, I'll come down to the bottom of the layer stack and toggle off the visibility of the two D guide layer, and I'll press Command colon on Mac or Control colon on PC to toggle off the guides. So now we can see all the buildings placed into our comp. Now, to make sure they are all aligned perfectly to the baseline, I'll come and select the top building layer. I'll hold Shift and select the bottom building layer. So with all the building layer selected, I'll come over to the right hand side of the interface and look for the align panel. Now, if you cannot see this for whatever reason, you can come up to window and make sure it's ticked here. So I'll click on the align panel and then click the align bottom panel. Upon click, this will snap each layer to the baseline. So now we know they are all aligned to the bottom. With the layers still selected, I'll press to close the settings for each layer and click on the layer color box and choose purple. Now, looking back at the Photoshop design, we can see that the buildings have been placed in such a way that some are in the foreground and some are in the background. Back in after effects, when we added these buildings, we did them one at a time from left to right. Now I'm going to quickly reposition the layers in the right hierarchy so they match the design I created earlier. Looking back at the Photoshop design, we can see the silhouette buildings are set at the back. I after effects, I'll select the two building layers which are currently at the top and click and drag them to the bottom under the other buildings. Next, I'll select Big Ben and drag that to the top. Then I'll drag City Hall up and under the Big Ben layer and that should match the design. I'll press F two to deselect any layers, and now we have the buildings in place and composed correctly. Looking back at the Photoshop design, we can see we have these clouds that appear behind the big type. Now let's get these into our comp. Back in after effects, we are going to use the same technique we used for the buildings, but this time for the clouds. I'll come back down to the bottom of the layer stack and toggle the visibility of the guide layer back on. And I'll come into the project panel into the vector folder, and I'll toggle down the Clouds folder. Here I'll start with Cloud one. I'll click Cloud one and press Command forward slash on Mac or Control forward slash on PC to quickly place the image. With the vector Cloud in my comp, I'll drag it across on top of my guide and I'll zoom in so I can get a better look. Next, I'll come and right click on the vector layer. I'll place my mouse cursor over Create and click Create Shapes from Vector file. Then I'll come and click the Illustrator layer below and delete. I'll press S to activate the scale setting, and I'll come and drag left on the settings to scale the cloud down. I'll do this until I match the guide. Once happy, I can move on to the next cloud. Back in the Project panel, I'll click on Cloud two, press Command fordslash on Mac or Control fordslash on PC to quickly place in the image. With the vector Cloud in my comp, I'll drag it across on top of my guide. I'll right click on the layer, place my cursor over Create and click Create Shapes from Vector Layer. Then I'll come and click the Illustrator layer below and delete it. I'll press S to activate the scale settings, and I'll come and drag left on the settings to scale the cloud down to match the guide. Once happy, I can move on to the next cloud. Back in the project panel, I'll click on Cloud three, press Command Ford slash on Mac or Control forward slash on PC to quickly place in the image. With the vector Cloud in my comp, I'll drag it to the middle on top of my guide. I'll right click on the layer, place my cursor over Create, and click Create Shapes from vector layer. Then I'll come and click the Illustrator layer below and delete it. Press S to activate the scale settings, and I'll come and drag left on the settings to scale the cloud down to match the guide. Once happy, I can move on to the next Cloud. Back in the project panel, I'll click on Cloud four, press Command Fordslash on Mac or Control forward slash on PC to quickly place in the image. With the vector cloud in my comp, I'll drag it over to the left on top of my guide. I'll right click on the layer, place my cursor over Create, and click Create Shapes from Vector Layer. Then I'll come and click the Illustrator layer below and delete it. I'll press S to activate the scale settings to scale the cloud to match my guide. Once happy, I'll move on to the next Cloud. So back in the project panel, I'll click on Cloud five, press Command forward slash on Mac or Control forward slash on PC to quickly place in the image. With the vector cloud in my comp, I'll drag it to the middle right on top of my guide. I'll right click, place my cursor over create, click create shapes on vector layer, delete the Illustrator layer below, press S to activate the scale settings, and drag left on the settings to scale the cloud down to match the guide. Once happy, I'll move on to the next cloud. So right now we have Cloud one to five in our comp. We can see on the guide, there is a few more to add. Well, these are the same clouds we have already placed in. So what we're going to do here is duplicate some of the layers. So I'll click the Cloud five layer I just placed into the comp and press Command D on Mac or Control D on PC to duplicate the layer. With the new layer, I'll press S to activate scale, and this time, I'll scale the cloud up. Now, on this occasion, I want to flip this cloud horizontally. So with the cloud selected, I'll come up to layer, scroll down to transform, and scroll down and click flip horizontal. This will flip the cloud and I'll move it right and place it over the guide. Next, I'll come and click Cloud five again, the layer below the one we just made, and I'll press Command D on Mac or Control D on PC to duplicate the layer. I'll move it down and to the right and press S to activate scale and scale it down a little to match the guide. Now there is just one more left. I'll come down and select Cloud two. I'll press Command D on Mac or Control D on PC to duplicate the layer. With the new layer, I'll drag it up and over to the right just above the big cloud. So now we have every cloud in the comp. Perfect. Now, looking back at the Photoshop design, we can see that some of the clouds are different shades and they seem to be overlapping each other. So now we are going to come back and change the opacity of the clouds. So back in after effects, I'll come down and start with the first cloud we placed in. I'll click the Cloud one layer and press T to activate opacity. I'll click directly into the percentage value, type 50 and press Enter. Next, I'll click the Cloud two layer above and press T to activate opacity. I'll click directly into the percentage value, Type 30 and press Enter. Now, I'll leave the next layer set to 100 and I'll click the Cloud three layer above and press T. I'll click directly onto the percentage value, Type 40 and press Enter. Next, I'll click the Cloud four layer above and press T. I'll click directly onto the percentage value, Type 20 and press Enter. I'll click the cloud layer above and press T. I'll click directly onto the percentage value, type 20 and press Enter. Next, I'll click the Cloud five layer above, press T, click directly onto the percentage value, again, type 20 and press Enter. Lastly, I'll click the Cloud five layer at the top and press T. I'll click directly onto the percentage value, and again, type 20 and press Enter. Once I have set the opacity for the clouds, I'll come to the bottom of the timeline panel and toggle the visibility of the two D guide layer off. Now we can see we are starting to get somewhere with this two D scene. I'll select the top cloud layer, press and hold shift, and select the bottom cloud layer. I'll press U, and that will hide the settings. So now all we can see are the layer bars. So now with all the cloud layers selected, I'll come and click a layer color and choose a blue. This will help us distinguish the cloud layers from the building layers at a glance. So all that's left to do now is add the type to finish the composition. So let's go ahead and do this. I'll begin by pressing Command T on Mac or Control T on PC to activate the type tool. Now, before I add my type, I'll come and click into the character panel. I'll click onto the color box, then click onto the color picker, then I'll come into the comp and click on the red color of the buildings. This will set my color to red. I'll click Okay. I'll make sure the font is set to lemon milk, and I'll come and click up in the top left corner and click to Start. And I'll type five top places to visit in. Next, I'll click on the paragraph panel and make sure the type is aligned to the center. Click on the selection tool in the menu to select the type frame, and I'll press Command colon on Mac or Control colon on PC to toggle the guides on. Now I'll carefully come and place my type to align to the middle guide like so and also on top of my guide below. Next, I'll double click into the type. Here, I want to set my type to match the guide in the background. Over in the character panel, I'll set the type size to 11, three, and I'll click and drag the tracking out to about 97. This should then match the type guide in the background. Perfect. So now to place the last type layer, London. I'll click the type layer I just created and I'll press Command D on Mac or Control D on PC to duplicate the layer. I'll press and hold Shift and press the down arrow on the keyboard to move the new type layer down to align with London below. So when it's placed roughly in the middle, I'll double click on the type and replace the type with London. I'll click into the character panel and drag the type size out to 350. Now it's not perfect, but it's close. Now looking back at the Photoshop design, we can see that for the word London, the letter O is replaced with a destination pin, the same destination pin we animated earlier. Back in after effects, I'll double click into the type and remove the letter O and change the font size to 390. Now the type size matches the guide in the background, but we now need to push the tracking between the D and the N so we can place the pin inside. I'll click to place the type cursor between the letter D and N, and I'll press and hold Alt on the keyboard and press right to push the tracking out. Though now we can see that the tracking for the other type is not perfect. So to solve this, I'll double click into the type. I'll come into the paragraph tab and click the left align button. I'll click the selection tool in the tools menu and click and drag the word London to the left so the letter L is nicely on top of the letter L on the guide. Next, I'll double click into the type again and place my type cursor between the letter L and O. I'll then press and hold Alt and press left to pull in the tracking like so. And I'll do this until it matches the guide below. Then I'll click between O and N. I'll press and hold Alt and press left or right to alter the tracking again to match the guide. Then I'll click between N and D. I'll press and hold Alt and press left or right to alter the tracking to match the guide. Lastly, I'll click between D and N. I'll press and hold Alt and press left and right to alter the tracking to match the guide. Perfect. Now I have the word London that aligns to my guide below. So with the type selected, I'll come into the character panel, click on the color box, and for the hex value at the bottom, I'll type 274 e9d and click Okay. And this will set my London type to the blue color. So to finish, I'll select both the type layers, come over and set the layer color to green. So now there is only one last thing to do, and that's to place the pin to create the letter O in London. And to do this is going to be easy and fast. Now, at the start of the video presentation, we built the white pin animations. What we can do here is use the same pin. So over in the project panel, I'll come into the precomps folder and here we can see the pin comps we created previously. What I'm going to do here is click on the first pin and press Command D on Mac or Control D on PC to duplicate the comp. Now, this will duplicate the comp and name it Pin six. What I will do here is select the new Pin six comp and press Enter to rename, and I'll rename this to pin red and blue and press Enter. With my new Pin comp selected, I'll press Command forward slash on Mac or Control forward slash on PC to quickly place the new comp layer into my comp. Now upon doing this, we will see it's currently white. Now I can change this by double clicking into the comp layer and this will reveal a copy of the animation we did earlier. What I want to do here is change the color of the pin to blue and the dot to red. I'll come and toggle down the pin shape layer to reveal the contents, and here we can see group one and two. So if I click and toggle down group one, we can see that this group is the circle part of the shape and the current fill color is white. So I'll click on the color box and set this to red. For the hex value below, I'll set this to e20 613. Click Okay, and now the dot is red. So next, I'll click Group two and toggle this down to reveal the fill color. This time, I'll click on the white square and set the hex value to 274 e9d and click Okay. This will set it to a blue, and now we have the pin in the correct colors we want. So I'll click the X on the tab to close the comp, and we will go back to the two D scene. And now we will see the pin will update. Now, this pin is an animation. If we drag the time indicator to the start of the comp and drag across, we will see the pin animate in. Now, we don't have to worry about this right now. We just want to place the pin in the right place. So I'll move the time indicator across so I can see the end state. The selection tool, I'll drag it across and over to where it needs to be. I'll press S to activate scale, and I'll drag left on the scale settings to scale down the pin like so. I'll do this until the pin is the right size, and I'll drag it into place to match the guide. With my pin in place, I'll come down for the last time in the timeline panel. And toggle off the two D guide we have been using throughout this exercise. I'll press Command colon on Mac or Control colon on PC to toggle off the guides, and now we can see the two D scene fully complete. Now, at this point, if you've been following along with your document, I would recommend you save so we can continue on in the next episode. So that's how to build a two D scene in after effects. Now, this may have seemed tedious and complex, but this is what it can take to build something like this. My advice when attempting to create a two D scene like this in after effects, is to first create your composition in a program like Photoshop or Illustrator. Those programs are a lot easier to design and create in. Once you have your design, you can then import a screenshot like we did and use that as a guide to position all your elements. Using this technique will allow you to focus just on the animation in after effects. So now we have the two D scene complete. We can now look at how we can animate this. So in the next video, we're going to animate all the elements we placed into our composition to complete the last section of the video presentation. So see in the next video. 47. Animate a simple 2D Scene: Hello, and welcome to the 46th video in this beginner's guide to Adobe After effect. In this tutorial, I'm going to demonstrate how you can animate a simple two D composition in after effects. So in the previous episode, we built up a two D scene for the last section in the video presentation. We brought in a series of Illustrator artwork that we placed in to create this two D London city scene. In this video, we are going to apply some simple animation to our elements to complete the last section of this video presentation. We are going to create a dynamic transition where the building seem to pop up from the baseline, the type appears, and the clouds animate in behind. So let's get into it. So here I am where we left off in the previous episode, where we brought in all the illustrator artwork and built the two D scene with the type layers above. So with the project folder open, click into the S three, create a project folder, then click into folder 46, Animate simple two D scene, and open the animate simple two D scene document. Now, if you're continuing on from the last episode, make sure you have your document open and ready. So with our document open, let's proceed. So right now, I have the outdoor composition open where we left off in the previous episode. And if we look down in the timeline panel, we can see all the layers that make up this composition. So the first thing we're going to do is look to animate these buildings so they pop up to start the animation sequence. So what I'll do first is just come and click the eye icon for all the layers apart from the buildings to toggle off the visibility. What I want to focus on right now is just the buildings. So I'll just zoom in a little here so I can see what I'm working with. Now with the selection tool active, if I start to click on the buildings, we will see the bounding box appear around them. Now, if for some reason you cannot see the bounding box, simply come up to view and make sure show layer controls is active. Now, with the building selected, as well as seeing the bounding box, we also see the anchor point. This is the circle point in the middle with the cross hair, and this will be visible on each layer as you select it. Now what we want to do first before we start to animate these buildings is change the positioning of the anchor point for each building. So let's start with Big Ben here, and I'll zoom in a little closer. So with the selection tool, I'll select Big Ben so I can see the bounding box and the anchor point in the middle. So I'll come up to the tools menu at the top left of the interface and make sure to select the anchor point tool. With the anchor point tool active, the mouse cursor will change, and we will see this little box shape with arrows next to the mouse pointer. I'll carefully come and click on the anchor point of the big burn layer and drag it down to the bottom, down to the baseline and in the middle, like so. Now, if you are wondering why we are doing this, you will find out very shortly. So once I'm happy, the anchor point is set at the baseline, I'll come and click the next building. So with the tower bridge selected, I'll come and click and drag the anchor point from the middle and again down to the baseline and set it in the middle. Once I'm happy, I'll come and click the next building. With St. Paul selected, I'll come and click and drag the anchor point from the middle and again down to the baseline to set in the middle. Once I'm happy, I'll come and click on the next building. So with the next building selected, I'll come and click and drag the anchor point from the middle and again down to the baseline and set it in the middle. So I'll do the same again for the next building. Same again for the next building and the next building. Now, I'll carefully select the silhouette buildings in the background and drag the anchor point down. Then I'll scroll across to the far left, click on the London I building, and move the anchor point down to the baseline. And lastly, I'll select the silhouette building behind that and drag the anchor point to the baseline. Perfect. So I'll press Alt forwards on the keyboard, and that will zoom out to fit to the screen, to the composition panel like so. So after that, each anchor point on each building should now be at the baseline. Now we can start to animate the buildings. So to help me do this, I'm just going to place my mouse cursor between the composition panel and the timeline panel. I'll see the mouse cursor change to arrows pointing up and down, and I'll click and drag up. Just so I can see more of the layers below in the timeline panel. So first, I'll click and drag the time indicator back to the start of the composition, and in the layers panel, I'll come and select the first building layer Big Ben. I'll press and hold Shift on the keyboard and select the bottom layer. With them all selected, I'll press S on the keyboard, and this will reveal the scale settings for each layer. Next, I'll come and click the stopwatch on the first layer. By clicking this, it will set a scale keyframe for every layer like so. So next, I'll drag the time indicator over to not 0.5 seconds. Then I'll come and click the diamond shape on the top layer over on the far left by clicking this, it will set a second scale keyframe for every layer. With the second keyframe set, I'll drag the time indicator back to the start of the comp, so it's perfectly placed on top of all the first keyframes. Next, I'll need to carefully come into each layer and click the lock icon by the scale settings. What I need to do here is toggle off the lock icon for every layer. It's really important that right now the lock icon is off for each of the building layers. So I'll carefully scroll down and make sure the lock icon is off. Then I'll press F two to deselect the layers. So next, I'll need to select each building one at a time. So first, I'll select the top layer and click into the right setting for scale. With it selected, I'll type zero and press Enter. Upon click, the building will appear to have disappeared. So I'll click on the next layer down. I'll click into the right setting for scale. With it selected, I'll type zero and press Enter. Upon click, the building will again appear to have disappeared. So what I'm going to do now is make my way down the layers, click into the right settings for scale on each layer, and type zero for each one and press Enter. As we do this, each building will seem to disappear. This is exactly what we want. So I'll do this until each building is gone like so. Now, if I click and drag the time indicator from the start to 1 second, we will now see the buildings spring up. If we scrub the time indicator back and forth, we will see the buildings spring up and reverse back down. This is exactly what we want right now. So we achieve this effect by first placing the anchor point at the bottom of each layer and then apply the scale animation. Because we uncheck the constrained proportions, we only change the scale on the vertical axes instead of both. So we get this nice scaling up effect from the baseline. This makes the buildings look like they spring up. Perfect. Okay, so now I have applied the animation to each building. Next, I need to tweak the placement of the layers. Right now, all the buildings spring up at the same time. What I want to do here is have the buildings pop up at different times instead of popping up at the same time. So to do this, I'm simply going to click and drag the lays across the timeline at different intervals. So I'll start with Big Ben. I'll click the layer and drag it over a little. On this occasion, I'll drag it to place my first keyframe in between the first and second of the layer below. Next, I'll select the layer below and drag the layout across to place the first keyframe between the first and second keyframe of the layer above. Next, I'll select the building below, the war Museum layer. And I'll drag the layer across to place the first keyframe between the first and second of the layer above. So now we are starting to create delays in the building animations. I'll select the layer below, the shard, and I'll drag the layer across to place the first keyframe to match the top big bend layer. I'll leave the next layer where it is, and I'll select the layer below, St. Paul's, and I'll drag the layer across to place the first keyframe just under the second keyframe of the layer above. Next, I'll select the layer below, tower bridge, and I'll drag the layer across to place the first keyframe between the first and second of the layer above. I'll leave the next layer where it is, and I'll finish by selecting the last two layers and dragging them out so the first keyframe matches the position of the tower bridge layer. So once I'm happy, my building layers are in place. I'll click on 2 seconds on the timeline ruler to place my time indicator at 2 seconds, and I'll press N on the keyboard. This will set the end of the workspace area on the timeline ruler. So I'll click to place my time indicator inside the work area, and I'll press space bar to preview the sequence. So here we can see the buildings are now animating in more sporadically, which creates a more dynamic animation sequence than them all animating at the same time. Perfect. So I'll press space bar to stop the preview for now, and what I want to do next is add a motion blur effect to the animations to add more dynamics. So I'll select the top building layer. With Shift held down on the keyboard, I'll select the bottom layer to select them all. Next, I'll come into the layer settings to the left on the layer names, and at the top of the layer, I'll click the motion blur switch. Upon click, it will activate the motion blow switch on each layer that is selected. Next, at the top of the timeline panel, I'll make sure the main motion blur button is active and checked in blue. So I'll press Spacebar to activate preview, and now we have a subtle blur effect applied to the building layers as they quickly animate in. Now, this is a very subtle effect, but does add just a little more dynamic to the sequence. So I'll press Spacebar to stop the preview, and with all the building layers selected, I'll press U to toggle away the keyframes. So now we can think about the next part of the animated sequence. So with the buildings done, let's move on to the clouds. So to start, I'll toggle the visibility back for the clouds by clicking on the eye icon for each layer. What I want to do here is animate the clouds in as the buildings start to rise up and move across the screen slowly behind the type after it falls into place. So to do this, let's start with the fade effect of the clouds. So I'll come and select the top cloud layer. I'll press and hold shift and select the bottom cloud layer. With them all selected, I'll drag the layers over to the right so the start of the layer bars start at 0.5 of a second. Next, I'll drag the time indicator while holding Shift to snap to the start of the cloud layer bars, and I'll press T to activate the opacity settings for the layers. With the opacity setting visible, I'll come and click on the stopwatch for the first layer. Upon click, this will set an opacity keyframe for each layer. Next, I'll drag the time indicator over to 1 second. I'll come and click the diamond shape for the first layer to add a second opacity keyframe, and upon click, this will apply a second opacity keyframe to all the selected layers. So with the second keyframes placed, I'll drag the time indicator while holding Shift to snap to the start of the cloud layers. So the time indicator is directly on top of the first set of keyframes. All the layers still selected, I'll click into the opacity percentage value of the first layer. In there, I'll type zero and press Enter. Upon pressing Enter, the zero percentage value should be applied to each selected layer, and all the clouds will appear to have disappeared. So I'll press space bar to activate preview, and now we can see that first the buildings start to rise, and just after that, the clouds all fade in nicely, and I'll press Spacebar to stop. Next, I need to animate them across the sky. So with all the layers selected, I'll press P to activate the position settings for each layer. So just like with the paste, I'll start by dragging the time indicator while holding Shift back to snap to the start of the cloud layers. With the position setting visible, I'll come and click on the stopwatch for the first layer. Upon click, this will set a position keyframe for each layer. Now, I'll drag the time indicator all the way to the very end of the comp. I'll come and click the diamond shape for the first layer to add a second keyframe for position. Upon click, this will apply a second keyframe to all selected layers. Now what I want to do is place each cloud where I want it to be at the end point in the timeline. I'll press F two to deselect all the cloud layers, and to begin, I'll click on just the top cloud layer. So here I can see it's the big cloud in the top right. With it selected, I'll press and hold shift on the keyboard and press the left arrow a few times to move the cloud over to the left slightly. Now, I won't do this too much as I don't want the cloud to move too far across the screen. So once done, I'll select the cloud layer below. With it selected, I'll press and hold shift on the keyboard and press the left arrow about five times to move the cloud over to the left. Next, I'll select the cloud layer below, and again, with it selected, I'll press and hold shift and press the left arrow about seven times to move the cloud over to the left just a bit further. I'll select the next cloud layer below, and this time, it's the big cloud over on the left. With it selected, I'll press and hold shift and press the right arrow about three times to move the cloud over to the right. Then I'll select the next cloud layer below, and with it selected, I'll press and hold shift and press the right arrow five times to move the cloud over to the right. I'll select the next cloud layer and with it selected, I'll press and hold shift and press the left arrow three times. With the next cloud layer selected, this time, I want the cloud on the right to move right as well. With it selected, I'll press and hold shift and press the right arrow about five times to move the cloud over to the right. Lastly, I'll select the last cloud layer, press and hold shift and press the right arrow about three times to move the cloud over to the right. With the time indicator, at the end of my section, I'll press N on the keyboard to set the end of the workspace area. So now it spans the entire section, and now I'll press Spacebar to activate preview. Now we can see after the clouds fade in, they now move slowly across the skyline. As we moved some of the clouds across the sky further than others, we can see some move faster than others. This gives us a little more dynamic to the sequence, and I'll press space bar to stop. That's the buildings and the cloud sorted. All that's left to animate is the last part of the sequence, the type. I'll select each cloud layer and press U, and this will toggle away the key frames. I'll come back to my type layers and the pin and click the I symbol to toggle back the visibility. What I want to do here is animate the type in just after the buildings have finished rising. As soon as the city scene is established, I want the five top places to visit in, type to fade in, and the London type to swush up underneath. When this lands, we will have the pin animation fall into place to complete the animation sequence. So to start, I'm going to drag my time indicator across to find a time just after the buildings finish rising. So I'll drag my time indicator over to about 1.5 seconds on the timeline. At this point, everything has finished animating in. So I'll begin here. So I'll select the top pin layer, and while holding Shift, I'll select the bottom type layer. With them all selected, I'll drag them over while holding Shift to snap the beginning of the layer bars to the time indicator. So first, I'll start with opacity. For now I don't want to focus on the pin layer at the top, so I'll just click the eye icon to toggle the visibility off. I'll press F two to deselect the layers, and I'll click back onto the top type layer and also select the layer below while holding Shift. With these two layers selected, I'll press T to activate the opacity setting for both layers. With the opacity setting visible, I'll come and click on the stopwatch for the first layer. Upon click, this will set the opacity keyframe for both layers. Next, I'll drag the time indicator over to 2 seconds. I'll come and click the diamond shape for the first layer to add a second opacity keyframe. Upon click, this will also apply a second opacity keyframe to the layer below. With the second keyframe in place, I'll drag the time indicator while holding Shift to snap to the start of the type bar. The time indicator is directly on top of the first set of keyframes. With the layers still selected, I'll click into the opacity percentage value on the first layer and in there, I'll type zero and press Enter. Upon pressing Enter, the zero percentage value should be applied to each layer and the type will appear to have disappeared. Now, if I scrub my time indicator over the keyframes, we will see the type appear as we reach the second keyframe. No, I don't want the two type layers to fade in at the same time. I want the London part to appear just afterwards. So what I'll do next is click and drag the London layer bar left. So the first keyframe sits directly on top of the second keyframe for the layer below. So now, as I scrub the time indicator over the keyframes, we will see the top layer animate in first and then the second. So now I need to add movement to the London type layer. So I'll drag the time indicator while holding Shift to snap to the start of the London type layer. With the London type layer selected, I'll press P to activate the position setting for the layer. Position setting visible, I'll come and click on the stopwatch. Upon click, this will set a position keyframe for my layer. Next, I'll press U on the keyboard and the keyframes will disappear. I'll press you again, and now I will see the keyframes for both position and opacity. What I want to do next is place the second position keyframe to match the second opacity keyframe. I'll drag the time indicator over while holding Shift to snap to the second keyframe of opacity. Come and click the diamond shape for position to add the second position keyframe. So now I'll drag the time indicator back while holding Shift to snap to the first keyframe. With the time indicator directly on top of the first position keyframe, I'll press and hold shift on the keyboard and press the down arrow about 16 times to move it down considerably. Right now we can't see the type, but what we can see is the path over the anchor point to show us how far the type is moving. So once I have moved the type down on the first position keyframe, I'll place my time indicator at 3 seconds and press N on the keyboard to snap the end of the workspace area, and I'll press spacebar to activate preview. So here we can see the buildings and clouds animate in, and then the type animates in nicely afterwards. Though right now the movement of the London type is a bit plain. So now I'm going to add some easing. So I'll press Spacebar to stop, and I'll come and focus on the keyframes applied to the London type layer. To begin, I'll right click on the first keyframe for position. Scroll down to keyframe assistant, scroll across and select Easy Es out. Next, I'll right click on the second position keyframe, scroll down to keyframe assistant, and move across and select eases in. So now we have easing applied to both keyframes. So I'll press Space Bar again to activate preview, and now the movement of the London type layer is moving much smoother. All that's left to do now is bring back the pin animation to finish the sequence. So I'll come and click the eye icon for the pin layer to toggle back the visibility and then drag the pin layer so the start of the layer starts on the second keyframe for the London type layer. So the effect I want here is the pin to animate in once the London type layer lands. So I'll carefully drag the workspace area out a little to 4 seconds, and I'll press space bar to activate preview. So just after the London type lands, the pin drops to complete the word London. Perfect. And that completes the animation sequence. But now we have one small issue we need to resolve. So I'll press Space bar to stop, and if we look at the pin layer, we can see it does not last the full duration of the composition. Now, this is because we duplicated this Pin comp from an instance used elsewhere on the video presentation. We have to do now is simply extend the duration of this Pin Comp to last the full duration of this comp. So I'll double click into the PICmp to open in a new tab. With the comp open, I'll press Command K to open the composition settings, and right now we can see this comp is set to 5 seconds. So I'll come in and change it to 10 seconds and click Okay. Then I'll come and click and drag the pin layer right to the end like so. Then click X on the Pin Comp tab to close. Back in the Otro comp, we can now see the pin comp layer has been extended, but the edit is still short. So I'll click the end of the highlighted edit on the layer and drag it right to the end. So to finish, I'll come and double click on the workspace area to span it to the entire length of the comp. I'll drag the time indicator to the start of the comp, and I'll press space bar to activate preview. And that completes the animation sequence. First, the buildings rise up, the clouds animate in, the type appears, the pin drops into place, and the clouds nicely pan across the skyline in the background. That's how to animate a simple two D scene in after effects. Now, this may have seemed tedious and complex, but this is what it can take to animate something like this. Now, at this point, if you've been following along, I would recommend you save your document. This completes the last section in the video presentation. Everything is now in place, and we are now almost ready to finish and export the video. However, there are a few more cool things we can do to add to this final city composition. What I want to do next is add some further animation to some of the buildings to add details. In this example, we can see at the start the tower bridge lowers, the London eye rotates, a helicopter flies across the sky, and some London buses then travel across the bridge. In the next video, we are going to look at how we can isolate some of the artwork and apply some really nice to D animation. So in the next video, we are going to finish off our video presentation by adding these subtle animation details to the sequence. This will be the final video in this project where we will complete the video presentation ready to export. So see you in the next video. 48. Simple 2D Animation in After Effects : Hello, and welcome to the 47th video in this beginner's guide to Adobe After effects. In this tutorial, I'm going to demonstrate how to undertake a simple two D animation in after effects. So in the previous video, we animated a simple two D scene. We took the two D composition we built in a previous episode and applied animation to create this animation sequence. This completed the final section to our video presentation. Now, in this video, we're going to apply some further animation to some of the buildings to add some details. So in this example, we can see at the start the tower bridge lowers the London eye rotates, a helicopter flies across the sky, and some London buses then travel across the bridge. In this video, we are going to look at how we can isolate some of the artwork and apply some simple two D animation. So we are going to finish our video presentation by adding these subtle animation details to the sequence. And this will be the final video in this project where we will complete the video presentation ready to export. So here I am where we left off in the previous episode where we animated the two D scene. So with the project folder open, click into the S three, creative Project folder, then click into folder 47, simple TD Animation and open the simple two D animation document. Now, if you're continuing on from the last episode, make sure you have your document open and ready. So with our document open, let's proceed. So right now, I have the Otro composition open where we left off in the previous episode. And if we look down in the timeline panel, we can see all the layers that make up this composition. So I'll click on the timeline at 5 seconds to place my time indicator, and I'll press N on the keyboard to set the end of my workspace area. With that set, I'll press space bar to activate preview. So this is what we created in the previous episode. We have the buildings rising up, the clouds fade in and move across the sky, the type appears and the pin drops into place. So what I'm going to do now is isolate some of the buildings and apply some further animation so we can bring the cityscape to life a little more. To do this, I'm going to start with the London Eye. What I'm going to do here is make it so the London eye wheel rotates around. So back in the Otro comp, I'll come down in the timeline and click on the London eye layer, and I'll zoom into the London eye Building so I can take a closer look. And if that's looking a little pixelated, I'll change the resolution factor to full. So looking in the layers panel, we can see the single layer that is currently the London I. With the layer selected, I'll press U, and we can reveal the keyframes applied to scale that creates the rising animation. Now, if I toggle down the contents of the layer, we can see there are two parts to this artwork, group one and group two. When I developed this artwork in Illustrator, I created the illustration in two parts, the main wheel at the top and the base below. If we select the main layer name, we will see the entire layer is selected. And if I click to select each group, we will see the bounding box select each part of the layer, the bottom base part, and the top wheel part. And if I click on the eye icon for each group, we can toggle off the visibility of the base part and the wheel part like so. So right now, I have the scale animated sequence applied to the entire artwork. What I need to do now is apply some animation to the wheel part separately. So first, I'll select the top group and press Enter to rename the layer part, and I'll name this base. I'll select the group below, press Enter and rename this to wheel. So now I'm going to add the rotation animation to the wheel. So I'll click on the wheel layer part and click the triangle to toggle down its contents. Now, what we can see here are all the parts that make up this artwork part, and there's quite a lot here. Now, if I scroll down to the very bottom, we can see some transform options. So on a layer, we have transform options for the entire layer as a whole and transform options for the individual parts of the layer. So I'll click down to reveal the transform option for the wheel part of the layer, and here we can see all the typical animation settings we can apply. I'll click and drag the time indicator while holding Shift to snap to the second keyframe already applied to the entire artwork. Next, I'll come down and click on the stopwatch for rotation to add the first rotation key frame. Next, I'll drag the time indicator all the way to the end of the comp. Then I'll come and click the diamond shape to add a second keyframe for rotation. With my second keyframe in place, I'll double click the diamond keyframe, and up will pop the rotation properties. So at the top here we have revolutions. So in here, I'll click and type one and press Okay. So now, between the first keyframe and this second keyframe, this wheel is going to rotate once. So I'll double click on the workspace area to set it to the entire duration of the comp. I'll press Alt forward slash to snap the comp to fit the composition panel, and I'll press space bar to activate preview. So we have the rotation just right. But right now it looks like it's rotating way too fast. So I'll press Spacepot to stop, and I'll come back and double click on the second rotation keyframe. I'll click back into Revolutions and enter no 0.5 and click Okay. I'll press Spacepot again to activate preview, and again, it's still a little too fast. So I'll press Spacepot to stop, and I'll come back and double click on the second rotation keyframe. I'll click back into Revolutions and this time enter nought 0.2 and click Okay. I'll press Spacebar to activate preview, and that is looking about the right speed. I'll press Spacebar to stop and I'll scroll up in the timeline panel so I can see my selected layer. Then I'll press U on the keyboard to simply reveal the keyframes applied to the layer and I'll press Spacebar again to activate preview. So that is the first building sorted. The London eye is looking really nice there, rotating slowly on the cityscape. Now we can move on to the next building. So next, I'm going to focus on the tower bridge building. What I'm going to do here is make it so the tower bridge starts with the bridge up. Then I'll animate it down, and after it lands, I'll have some London buses travel across. So back in the Outro comp, I'll come down in the timeline panel and click on the Tower Bridge layer. With it selected, I'll right click on the layer and click pre compose. Upon click, the pre compose window will appear. For this, I'm going to rename the comp Tower Bridge animation. I'll make sure adjust composition duration to the time span of the selected layers is checked, and I'll make sure open in New comp is checked, and I'll click Okay. Upon click, we will now open in New Tab with just the tower bridge artwork inside. I'll zoom into the Tower Bridge building so I can take a closer look, and if it's looking a little pixelated, I'll make sure the resolution factor is set to full. So why have I created a pre comp here when I didn't for the previous London eye layer? Well, in this instance, we are going to add some artwork to this comp, which we will be doing shortly. Composing it in this comp as opposed to the main comp will enable us to focus just on this part and keep the main composition as streamlined as possible. So looking in the layers panel, we can see the single layer that is currently Tower Bridge. And if we select the layer and press U, we can reveal the keyframes applied to scale that creates the rising animation. Now, if I click to toggle down the contents of the layer, we can see there are lots of parts that make up this tower bridge artwork. So I'll press V to activate the selection tool, and now if we click group one and two, we can select these and see the bounding box area around the left and right bridge part of the artwork. For now, we only want to pay attention to these two parts. I'll click on group one and press Enter to rename the layer part, and I'll rename it to bridge left. Next, I'll click on group two and press Enter to rename it to bridge right. I'll zoom right in so I can see the two bridge parts nice and clear and now I want to rotate each bridge part so the position is set up. Begin with the left bridge part. I'll select the left bridge part and focus on the anchor point. Notice that the anchor point for this group is set in the middle. Now, what I want to do here is reposition the anchor point to the bottom left. With the layer part selected, I'll come up to the top of the interface to the tools menu and click on the anchor point tool. With this active, I'll come and click on the anchor point in the center and click and drag it to the bottom left of the bridge like so. Next, I'll click the right bridge part layer, and with the anchor point tool still active, I'll click on the anchor point in the center and drag it down to the bottom right. Perfect. So I'll click back onto the bridge left part and this time toggle down to reveal the transform options. For rotation, I'll come down and click and drag to -40. Upon drag, we will now see the bridge part rotate up exactly how we want it because we place the anchor point in the bottom left, when we rotate, it will rotate from that point, allowing us to rotate the bridge up from the bottom left like so. So I'll drag my time indicator to 1 second, which is just after the building rises, and I'll click the stopwatch for rotation to add the first rotation keyframe. Next, I'll click on the bridge right part of the layer, and I'll do the same. I'll toggle down to reveal the transform settings, and I'll come down and this time click and drag the rotation to plus 40. Then I'll come and click the stopwatch for rotation to add the first rotation keyframe. Now I'll come up and select the main layer and press to quickly snap to reveal the keyframes applied to the layer. So now we have the first scale keyframes for the rise part of the animation and our first keyframes for the rotation for the bridge part of the artwork. So next, I'll drag my time indicator over to 2 seconds. And for the bridge left part, I'll click into the rotation settings, which is currently set to -40, and here I'll type zero and press Enter. Upon pressing Enter, the bridge part will snap back to its original place, and we will see our second keyframe applied. I'll do this again to the bridge right part. Click into the rotation setting and type zero and press Enter. Upon pressing Enter, the bridge part will snap back to its original place, and we will see our second keyframe applied. I'll click on the timeline at 4 seconds and press N on the keyboard to set the end of the workspace area, and I'll press space bar to activate preview. Now we can see the animation of the bridge. The building rises up with the bridge open, and then the bridge lowers down. Perfect. I'll press Space Potter stop, and now I need to bring in the London buses. I'll come over to the Project panel and double click into the gray area, and upon click, we will get a browser window. I'll navigate to the project folder and click into the Project Assets folder. In there, I'll click into the Images folder, then into the AI folder, and I'll click on the vehicles folder and click Open. On click, we will have a new folder in the project panel, and inside, we will have two vector artwork files, London bus and helicopter. Now, these are some artwork files I have prepared earlier. So first, I'll click and drag the vehicles folder into the assets folder, then into the images folder, and then into the vectors folder. So I'll click on the London Bus file and press Command forward slash on Mac or Control forward slash on PC to quickly place the image layer into my comp. With the vector layer now in my comp, I'll right click on the layer, scroll down to create and click Create shape from Layer. Upon click, we will get a new shape layer and the vector layer below will still remain. I'll click the layer below and press backspace to delete it from the layer stack. So now I'm going to scale down the bus and animate it traveling across the bridge. I'll press V to activate the selection tool. I'll select the bus and click and drag it down and over the bridge, like so. I'll press S to activate the scale settings for the layer. I'll click into the scale settings and type ten and press Enter. Then I'll drag the bus over to the left just on top of the left pillar like so. Now, I want two buses to travel on the bridge, one on the left and one on the right. So with the layer selected, I'll press Command D on Mac or Control D on PC to duplicate the layer. This time, I'll click and drag the layer over to the far right of the bridge. I'll come up to layer, transform, and click Flip Horizontal. So with my buses in place, I'll now animate them. So I'll drag the time indicator while holding Shift to snap to the last keyframe for the bridge parts. I'll select the top bar and press and hold Shift to select the layer below. Them both selected, I'll press Alt open square bracket to trim the start of both of the layers. With both layers still selected, I'll press P to activate the position settings for each layer. Then I'll come and click the stopwatch for position for the top layer, and we will set a keyframe for position on both layers. Next, I'll drag the time indicator right to the end of the comp and press F two to deselect the layers. Next, I'll come back and click on the top layer and drag the bus from the right and over to the middle of the bridge while holding shift so it drags in a nice straight line. On dragging, this will set a second keyframe for position on the layer. Next, I'll select the layer below and click and drag the bus over to the far right of the bridge while holding shift so it drags in a nice straight line. Upon dragging, this will set a second keyframe for position on the layer. Perfect. I'll come and double click on the workspace area to fill the entire duration of the comp and I'll press space bar to activate preview, and we can see the buses now travel across the bridge nicely once the bridge is lowered. Right now the buses are on top of the bridge. So I'll press Spaceport or stop, and I'll click and drag the Tower Bridge layer on top. Now I'll click the X on the Tower Bridge animation tab, and we will come back to our Otro comp. Now down in the layers, we can now see we have a comp player for Tower Bridge, which we can tell by the comp icon next to its name. Also notice, we have a new comp player over in the project panel. So I'll come into the project panel and click and drag the new comp layer into the preComps folder. Then I'll come down and click into the timeline and press Space Bar to activate preview. So now, after Tower Bridge rises, the bridge lowers and we can see some London buses travel across. Perfect. So now I'm going to focus on the final animation for the city scene. Next, I'm going to animate a helicopter flying across the city skyline. And what I'll do here is apply a very simple effect to make it look like the helicopter blades are spinning as it flies across the city skyline. So back in the Otro comp, I'll come over to the project panel and into the vehicles folder we brought in previously and place it into the vectors folder. I'll click on the helicopter file and press Command Ford slash on Mac or Control Ford slash on PC to quickly place the image layer into my main comp. With the vector layer now in my comp, I'll right click on the layer, scroll down to create and click Create shape from Layer. Upon click, we will get a new shape layer and the vector layer below will still remain. I'll click the layer below and press Backspace to delete it from the layer stack. So now I'm going to scale down the helicopter and animate it traveling across the sky. I'll press V to select the helicopter and click and drag it down and over to the far right like so. I'll press S to activate the scale settings, and I'll click into the scale settings and type 25 and press Enter. So with my helicopter in place, I will now animate it. So I'll drag the time indicator while holding Shift to snap to the start of the pin layer below. I'll press Alt open square bracket to trim the start of the layer. Next, I'll press P to activate the position settings for the layer. Then I'll come and click the stopwatch for position. Next, I'll drag the time indicator right to the end of the comp. Then I'll drag the helicopter from the right over to the left just before the shard building like so, while holding shift so it drags in a nice straight line. Upon dragging, this will set a second keyframe for position on the layer. Next, I'm going to animate the propeller blades to give the illusion they are rotating. I'll zoom right in on the helicopter, if we toggle down the helicopter layer, we can see the contents. Here we can see some groups that make up the helicopter artwork and if we click on these, we can see the bounding box around each part. Right now, we just want to focus on the propeller blades of the helicopter, which are group one and two. So for group one, I'll toggle down to reveal the transition settings for the layer part. So with my time indicator at the start of the layer, I'll click the stopwatch to add a keyframe for opacity. With my first keyframe set, I'll zoom right in on the timeline panel as close as I can go. Now, I'll press and hold command on Mac or control on PC and press the left arrow two times. This will move the time indicator two frames along the timeline. Next, I'll come and click the diamond shape to add a second keyframe for opacity. Next, I'll press and hold command on Mac or control on PC and press the right arrow once. This will move the time indicator one frame along the timeline. Now I'll come and drag the opacity to zero, and that will apply a third keyframe. Next, I'll press and hold command on Mac or Control on PC and press the right arrow two times, and this will move the time indicator two frames along the timeline. Next, I'll click the diamond shape to add a second keyframe for opacity, and now we have four keyframes. The first two keyframes are to reveal the right blade and the second two keyframes are to hide the right blade. So what I'm going to do now is duplicate these frames across the layer to repeat the on and off sequence. So with my time indicator over the fourth keyframe, I'll press and hold Command on Mac or Control on PC and press the right arrow once to move the time indicator one frame along the timeline. Now I'll come and click and drag over the four previous keyframes, and I'll press Command C on Mac or Control C on PC to copy, and I'll press Command V on Mac or Control V on PC to paste. Upon paste, we will replicate the keyframes from before. So now we have eight keyframes. So I'll click and drag my time indicator while holding Shift to snap to the last keyframe. I'll press and hold Command on Mac or Control on PC and press the right arrow once. This will move the time indicator one frame along the timeline. Now I'll come and click and drag over all the previous keyframes, and I'll press Command C on Mac or Control C on PC to copy. And I'll press Command V on Mac or Control V on PC to paste. Upon pasting, we will replicate all the keyframes from before. So now it's just a case of repeating this process until these keyframes are replicated across the entire duration of this layer. So I'll come to the last keyframe, I'll press Command on Mac or control on PC and press the right arrow once. This will move the time indicator one frame along the timeline. Then I'll come and click and drag over all the previous keyframes. I'll press Command C on Mac or Control C on PC to copy, and I'll press Command V on Mac or Control V on PC to paste. Upon paste, we will replicate all the keyframes from before. I'll continue to repeat this process until they cover the duration of the layer like so. Once they are across the entire duration of the layer, I'll press Alt forward slash to fit the comp to the composition window. With the workspace area set to the entire duration of the comp, I'll press space bar to activate preview. Now we can see the right rotablade is flicking off and on to give us the illusion of the blade spinning and I'll press Spacebar to stop. Now all I need to do is copy the same keyframes onto the left rotablade. So I'll select all the keyframes for opacity and I'll press Command C on Mac or Control C on PC to copy. I'll click on the group two part of the layer and toggle down to reveal the transform options. With my time indicator right at the start of the layer, I'll press Command V on Mac or Control V on PC to paste. And this will paste all the keyframes. So I'll come up to the layer and press to snap it closed and reveal all the keyframes applied. So I'll click to place my T indicator just before the helicopter layer and I'll press space bar to activate preview. Okay, so the blades are flickering as I want them, but right now it's looking a little bit slow. I'd like them to flicker a bit faster, so I'll press Spacebar to stop. Now, we have applied a lot of keyframes to this layer, and it would be a lot of work to go in and tweak them all. So one handy trick I can do here is use the time stretch feature. So I'll right click on the layer, come up to time, come across and click on Timestretch. Upon click, the Timestretch window will appear. So in the stretch factor, I'll type in 50 and click Okay. Upon click, we will notice the layer bar is now half of what it was. So again, I'll click the time indicator just before the helicopter layer and press space bar to activate preview. So the blades are flickering faster, but on this occasion, I'd like them to flicker just a bit faster. So I'll press space bar to stop, and I'll right click on the layer, scroll up to time, come across and click on Time Stretch again. This time, in the stretch factor, I'll type in 30 and click Okay. Upon click, we will notice the layer bar shrink again and is now slimmer than what it was. Again, I'll click on the timeline just before the helicopter layer and I'll press Spacebar to activate preview. So now the blades are animating just right, but now the helicopter is moving way too fast. So I'll press Spacebar to stop, and I'll place my mouse cursor over the far right end of the layer bar, and I'll click and drag it to the end like so. Next, I'll click the last position keyframe and drag that to the end. So I'll click the time indicator just before the helicopter layer, and I'll press Spacebar to activate preview, and that is much better. But now the keyframes do not extend the duration of the comp. So I'll press Spacebar to stop and I'll zoom right in on the keyframes. First, I'll click and drag to select any keyframes that do not match up with the two parts, and I'll delete them. Next, I'll click and drag to select all the keyframes for opacity. I'll press Command C on Mac or Control C on PC to copy. Then I'll move the time indicator to the end of the opacity keyframes. Make sure the gap is roughly the same, and then I'll press Command V on Mac or Control V on PC to paste. If the keyframes still don't extend to the duration of the comp, I'll click again to the end of the opacity keyframes and move the time indicator to the end, making sure the gap is roughly the same, and then I'll press Command V on Mac or Control V on PC to paste. Once the keyframes extend to the duration of the comp, I'll press U on the keyboard to hide the keyframes away to just see the layer bar. I'll double click on the artwork area to expand to the full width. I'll place my time indicator at the start of the comp and I'll press Space bar to activate preview. That now completes the full animation sequence for this last section on the video presentation. I'll click back onto the main comp tab over on the far left of our timeline panel, and now we can see we have all seven sections complete. At this point, if you've been following along, I would recommend you save your document. I'll drag the workspace area over the end of Section seven. I'll place my time indicator at the start of the composition, and I'll press spacebar to activate preview. So right now, I don't have the sound on for the background music. In this instance, I have toggled the sound off for the music layer at the bottom. Though, if you are following along with the file, you should be able to hear the background music just fine. So over the last 17 episodes, we have built up all the individual elements that make up all seven sections of this video presentation. We have covered loads of techniques and ways to build a project, manage content and animate in two D to create a video presentation like this. So that's it, guys. We have finished the video presentation. All the hard work is done, which now brings us to the final video in this section on the course. So once we have finished our video presentation, it is now time to export. In the next and final video, I'll be showing you how to wrap up this project and export it off ready to share. Now, I'll also be giving you some good pointers on where you can go next after this course to continue your learning and build on top of everything we have learned in this course. So see you in the next and final video. 49. Exporting in After Effects: Hello, and welcome to the 48th and final video in this beginner's guide to Adobe After effect. In this tutorial, I'm going to demonstrate how to export out a video presentation ready to share in After effect. So in the previous video, we completed the last section of the video presentation by adding the final animation details to our city scene. Once we have finished our video presentation, it is now time to export ready to share. In this video, I'll be showing you how to wrap up your video project, export it off, ready to share, and I'll give you some good pointers on where you can go next after this course to continue your learning and build on top of everything we have learned on this course. So let's get into it. So here I am where we left off in the previous episode where we completed the video presentation. With the project folder open, click into the S three, creative project folder, then click into folder 48 exporting in after effects and open the exporting a video presentation document. Now, if you are continuing on from the last episode, make sure you have your document open and ready. So with our document open, let's proceed. So now we have finished the presentation, we have a set duration. Right now, we can see that the main comp extends further than the actual presentation content. The first thing I'm going to do is adjust the duration of this comp to fit the presentation nicely. So if I drag my time indicator while holding Shift to snap to the end of Section seven, I can see over on the far left of the timeline panel that the entire video presentation is about 1 minute and 9 seconds long. So what I'll do is come and click into this time value, select it and copy. Next, I'll press Command K on Mac or Control K on PC to pull up the composition settings. So right now, we can see this composite to 1 minute 20 seconds. So I'll come in here and paste in the time value I just copied and click Okay. Upon click, it will now trim the comp to that time. Perfect. So with my comp complete, I can now export this off ready to share. However, before we do that, there are some quick checks we need to make. First is the resolution factor. Before we export, we need to make sure this is set to full. And next, we need to check the workspace area is spanning the entire duration of the comp. I can do this really easy by double clicking on the workspace area, and this will snap to the entire duration of the comp. Next, we need to make sure that the audio layers are on so we can hear the audio. Right now, the audio is toggled off for my sections, but the audio is on for my background music track. That is all I want to hear. So once all the checks are done and I'm ready to export, I'll come up to position and click Add to Adobe Media Encoder. Upon click, we will see the Media Encoder load up. Now, for those of you using older versions of after effects without media encoder, you will need to choose Add to render Q instead. So once Media Encoder loads, we should see an item in the list. This is our main comp ready to export. Now, if we select this row and hit the green play button at the top right, this will render the video straightaway. But before that, we want to adjust some of the settings. So first, I'll click on the output file settings on the right, and this will bring up a browser window. Here we can select where we will place the exported video, and I'll navigate to my project folder and click into the Export folder and click Save. So next, if I want to set a preset, I can click on the preset settings. Here, I'll go with h.264, as that's the good standard codec, and for the preset, I'll choose high quality ten ATP HD. Now, there are a bunch of other settings, but right now, I'm not going to mess about with these. My preset and my format are just fine. So once happy, I'll click Okay, and this will bring me back to the queue. Now for those of you using older versions of after effects, upon clicking Add to rendic, you will see the timeline change where you can specify your settings. Simply follow the previous steps as shown in the media encoder, but in the rendic instead, as the process is similar. Now, back in Media Encoder, once I have specified the settings, I can hit the green Play button. In older versions, you will hit the render button to the far right of the RenderqPanel. Upon click in Mediacoder, the video will begin to render and we will see the progress as it happens down in the encoding panel below. Depending on your processing power, this could take anything from a few seconds to a few minutes. Once rendered in the media encoder or the rendic I can then navigate to the project folder into my Exports folder, and I should see the video file there, which I can open with whatever video player I have on my computer. This video is now ready to upload to the Internet and share over social media. 50. Final thoughts and where to go next: So that's it. That's how you can create a video presentation in after effects and Export ready to share. In this series, we covered a lot of basic techniques to get you up to speed with the program and understand how everything works. Now, if you have enjoyed using after effects and want to learn more, be sure to check out the What to earn next page in my PDF document that goes along with this course. On this page, I have some links and suggested content that you will find really beneficial to keep you learning more in this program. On this page, you will find some links to some topics I did not cover on this course, so be sure to check this out. So that completes this beginner's guide to Adobe After effect. What a journey. If you've been following along since the start, well done. I truly hope you have enjoyed this series. If you are not familiar with after effects before this course, I hope I have helped you get up to speed with some of the basics to help you create your own project in future. If you like the course, be sure to share it with your friends who also may be interested in learning after effects. If you wish to hear more about up and coming video tutorials and general creative news and updates, you can follow me on Twitter, Instagram, and like the Facebook page. Well, that's it for another video course. My name is Gareth David. Have fun, guys, and I'll see you next time.