[Music] [Luisa Winters] Welcome to After Effects 101, After Effects for New Users. I'm Luisa Winters. If you're new to motion graphics or just starting out, this is the right place for you. In this session, we'll go over how to use Adobe After Effects. You'll learn how to make cool animations and add cool visual effects. We'll start with the basics, like how to use the software and tools. By the end, you will feel ready to create your own projects. Let's get started. First, let's look at the After Effects screen. The panels and how they show up is called a workspace. Pretty much like other Adobe programs. Right? So you can change this workspace. Let's go ahead and do that. Go to window, workspace, and now choose default. After you choose that, you can then choose same menu, window, workspaces, and now reset workspace. Now, you're going to see the project panel here on the left. This is where you keep all your files like videos and pictures, etcetera. In the middle is the composition or comp panel. This is where you create your work. Below that is the timeline panel. This is where you decide when things will happen in your composite. On the right, you will find the Effects & Presets panel. This is what we're going to use to make your project look super cool. At the top is the toolbar. This is where you find tools like the selection tool, the pen tool, the anchor point tool, and others. There is also a preview panel here on the top righthand side. You can use this to preview your work.
At first, this screen might seem confusing, but with practice, it gets much easier. All right, let's talk about making a composition. A composition or comp is like a canvas, where you put all of your stuff. It is to the composition that you add animation, you add effects, and it is actually the composition that you export. To make a new composition, go to this top menu and click on Composition and then New Composition. You can also use shortcuts. Now this panel opens up and from here, you will need to choose settings like how big your project will be and how long it will last. These settings are important because they affect how your final project will look. There are some really useful presets in here. Make use of them. Once you set everything, go ahead and click Okay and your new composition will open up in the timeline panel. Of course, it's empty right now. You can also see the composition here in the project panel. Now, we can start adding things like videos and pictures to this composition. But before we can add them, we need to import them. Go to file, import, file, choose a video file, and you could choose several if you want. And now, click on 'Import', and you will see all of these files here in the project panel.
At this point, I really need to say that After Effects is not really importing anything into the project. It's only creating a link between the file is in your hard drive or your net network drive and the project. So it's just a link. So if you move the location of your file or delete it, After Effects won't be able to find it. All right? Now you can also bring in multi layered files from Photoshop and Illustrator. Those work a little bit differently. Let's try it. Let's go to File, Import File, and now choose a multilayered Illustrator file. You will be presented with this dialog that lets you decide how you would like to import this file. You can import it as footage. If you choose this, you can choose which layers to import. You can also import it already as a composition. If you choose this, then you can choose to retain layer sizes or to maintain the composition size. I usually choose maintain layer sizes, so let's try both. If I choose document size and now double click the comp that was created so that it opens in the timeline. Look where the anchor point is on every layer. See how no matter which layer I select, the anchor point is in the middle of the composition. Now let's import it again and this time, choose maintain layer size.
Open the composition in the timeline again, and remember, you do that by double clicking it in the project panel and now choose the different layers. Just click on them. See how the anchor point is in the middle of the individual layer and not in the middle of the composition? That makes a huge difference when animating. Now let's try the same thing but with a multilayered Photoshop file. Go to File, Import File, and choose a Photoshop file. A very similar dialog opens up, and from here, you can choose how you would like to import your file. You can also import as a composition. You can retain layer sizes or keep it the document size. So very, very similar to what we saw in Illustrator. Now, let's cancel out of here and let's talk about creating folders. We can create folders in the project panel to keep our files organized. Notice how some folders were already created when we imported those Illustrator files. The same would have happened with the Photoshop files. To create a new folder, you can right click inside of the project panel and choose new folder. You can use the shortcut Control + Shift + N or Command + Shift + N if you are on a Mac. You can also click on this little icon here at the bottom of the project panel. Name your folder anything you want. To rename anything in After Effects, select it, press Enter or Return, and then type in the new name. You can now put your files into these folders. Just drag them. You can also make subfolders for even better organization.
All right. Let's add some files to our composition. So let's select any file. I'm going to select this video and drag it to the timeline. It will show up in the composition panel. See, you can also add more files. Let's do that. And you see that they are being added as layers and you can stack them in whatever layer stacking order you want. The order of the layers in the timeline decides which ones appear in front, just like in Photoshop or Illustrator. You can change each layer's position, size, and other settings, opacity, rotation as you wish.
Now before we go any further, let's learn about some key terms in After Effects. The timeline, you already saw. This is where you organize your project. And this is where you add the layers and you decide when things will happen. Then you have the playhead, which is this little thingy here. The playhead shows you where you are in the project or rather when in time. Then you have keyframes, which are points where something changes like size, position, or rotation. Interpolation is how After Effects fills in the frames in between keyframes so that you gradually go from one set of values to the second set of values. Then you have motion blur. Motion blur is a way of fake adding blur to something that is moving really quickly on the screen so that it imitates, so that it emulates a real camera. Then you have masking. Masking is a way to hide or show parts of a layer. And compositing is putting layers together to make a scene. Now it's important to know these words because this is how After Effects artists talk to each other, and it's important to know and understand the language. All right. Now let's talk about some important tools in After Effects. The selection tool helps you move and resize the layers right here in the comp panel. The pan behind tool, it's really the anchor point tool. Right? So you can use it so that you can move the anchor point to different parts of a layer. By default, the anchor point is going to be in the middle of the layer. And the anchor point, as I'm sure you already know, is important because it determines how the layer moves, scales, and rotates.
Then you have masking tools. These help you hide or show only some parts of the layer. There are other tools too. Like, the pen tool for drawing shapes and others. Text tool for adding text, rotation tool so you can rotate directly here in the comp panel.
Then you have the properties panel, which is this right here. This is where you can change the settings of any layer. So you select the layer and then the property panel shows you the settings for that layer like position, size, rotation, opacity, etcetera. Any effects, any kind of text effects would be showing in the Properties Panel. You can make changes directly to the layer using this panel. You can also make any of these settings change over time by using keyframes. So, what is a keyframe? A keyframe is a moment in time where you tell After Effects the value of a particular property. So, keyframes belong to properties and not to layers. And one keyframe is nothing. You do nothing with one keyframe. It won't change over time or vary over time, so you need two or more keyframes so that After Effects can interpolate or make gradual changes between the values of the first keyframe and subsequent others. To set a keyframe, first determine where in time. So when. First, when. When would you like for the animation to start? I'll move the playhead there. So remember, when adding keyframes, the when comes first. When do you want to start? Move the playhead right there. Now click on the stopwatch icon next to the name of the property, and you're going to see this little diamond thingy appear in the timeline. Now move the playhead where you like or when you would like for the animation to end. Change the value of the same property and another keyframe gets added automatically. After Effects takes care of the rest. After Effects creates the interpolation so that you smoothly go from the first value. So the value of the first keyframe and the value of the second keyframe. Pretty cool, right? You can navigate in between visible keyframes. So only the keyframes that are showing up in the timeline by pressing the J and K keys. So if you have visible keyframes like what I have here. See these little diamond shaped thingies? You can place your playhead at the beginning of the composition and then press the letter K. See how the playhead moves to the next keyframe? Press it again. And now press the letter J. See how it goes backwards. So, it goes from the beginning of the composition to the first keyframe to the second and subsequent others to the end and then backwards depending on whether you press J or K. Now, let's talk effects. You can add effects to layers. Select the layer and now just go to the effects menu and let's choose from blur. Gaussian blur and double-click it. Because the layer is selected, it gets added to it immediately. Notice that you can change the value of the blurriness and you will see immediate change. But animation in After Effects, I mean, we are here to animate. So let's add keyframes. Let's finally add some keyframes. So let's go ahead and select any layer and then press the letter P which will show you position. And you don't even have to press the letter P. In fact, select the layer, go to the Properties panel, and remember, the when comes first. When comes first. So move the playhead to where you want to start. In this case, I want to start at the beginning. All right? I want to start at the beginning of the composition. Now, I'm going to click on the stopwatch to the left of the word position. Boom, I have my first keyframe. So now I am going to change the position of this layer. I can scrub the numbers. Now remember the when comes first. Now when do I want for the animation to end? Move the playhead there. Let's say it's two seconds. Right? So, two seconds. Move the playhead to two seconds. Now move the layer. You can scrub the values again. You can click and drag on the layer with the selection tool. Right? So just click and drag. Boom. You got it.
The second keyframe gets added automatically.
You can also scrub the playhead. Click on the playhead and then just move it back and forth. So that's just called scrubbing back and forth. You can see the animation going forwards, going backwards. It's an easy way to preview what you're doing, and it's just a good way for you to see where you were and where you're going. Now you see this motion that we have? We can make this motion, this movement, look more natural by using Easy Ease, which slows down the movement as it gets close or it leaves each keyframe. So it accelerates and decelerates. To add Easy Ease, select keyframes. Now go to animation keyframe assistant and choose Easy Ease. You can also use the graph editor for more control over how fast things move. So, let's go ahead and click on this icon here to go to the graph editor. You can see that it's showing us this curve. And remember, if you don't see anything, it's because the keyframes are not selected. You can actually see a value curve, which it shows you the values for x and y because this is position or it shows you the speed by clicking here. So, let's go ahead and click here and choose the speed graph. So, you can click on the word Position to select all of those keyframes and now you'll see the curve. Do you see how it just, like, goes fast? The higher the line, the faster it goes, Right? So it starts slow, it goes faster, and then goes back slow. If you click on individual keyframes. So, click on, say, this last keyframe right here. Boom. Right? Do you see the handle for the curve? You can now move it up. You can move it down. You can change the handle length. So, you are in total control on how your interpolation is accelerating and decelerating.
I'm just saying. Now we keyframed position. Let's go ahead and exit the graph editor. Let's keyframe the blurriness, right? So we added blurriness to this, right? So we might as well keyframe it. Move the playhead to when you want to start the blurriness to change. Let's say it's at the beginning, right? And move the playhead. Keyframe blurriness. And I want to start with a blurriness of 0. I don't want it blur at all. Now I'm going to move to one second. Right? So in between the position keyframes. Does it have to be? Right. And I'll change the blurriness to about-- Yeah, it doesn't matter. Choose whatever value you want. See how it adds the keyframe automatically? Right? Now I'm going to move the playhead again to two seconds. Right? So, I have three keyframes, one at the beginning, one in the middle, and one at the end. And I'm going to change the blurriness again to 0. So it's going to start clear. No blurry. It's going to become blurry and then back to clear. All right. Let's play.
Everything in After Effects is keyframed the same way. There is no difference, right? You know how to keyframe one, you know how to keyframe them all. All I'm going to ask you is, and because I've been teaching After Effects for a long time, is to remember that the when comes first. When do I want for this to begin? When do I want for this to end? And it doesn't matter. Really, the when, it doesn't have to be exact because after the keyframes have been created, you can move them. You can copy. You can paste them.
You can do whatever you want. And you can navigate directly to the keyframe by using the letters J and K in your keyboard. Remember, this is only for visible keyframes. If you want to show any keyframes that are applied or added to a layer, select the layer and press the letter U.
See how that hid my keyframes? Press the letter U again. And now, you can see the keyframes that were added to that layer. Now let's talk about masks in After Effects. Masks help you control what parts of a layer you see. To make a mask, select the layer. So click on the layer name. And then use one of the masking tools. So let's say this rectangle tool, and then with the layer selected, boom. Just click and drag, and there you have it. The part inside of the mask will be visible while the rest of the layer will be hidden. You can make the mask move or change over time by using keyframes and you can also change the mask's edges. Now if you press the letter F, do you see how it's showing you the feathering? You can change this and you can use also the mask feathering tool which lets you change the feathering of the mask depending on what edge you are. So masks in general can be combined to create more complex shapes or effects. All right. Let's go ahead and create an actual animation in After Effects. All right? So let's go back to the project panel here and let's double click on this logo file. We are going to just rotate all of these layers. All right? So select all of the layers and press R for rotation. Make sure the playhead is all the way to the beginning.
And now, click on the stopwatch to the left of the word rotation. Because all the layers were selected, do you see how all of them now get the keyframe? I like it. All right. Now, let's move to one second. All right. Move the playhead to one second and change the value of rotation. So that is one times. So a full revolution, one in just one second. Right? So, you type a one here. Now you have beginning and ending keyframes. And if you play this, everybody is rotating at the same time. All right. Select all of your layers and now let's collapse them so that we don't see the keyframes. And now you can press the letter U so that you only see the keyframes.
Right. Now press Shift + T.
This is going to show you in addition to rotation. It's going to show you the opacity. We are going to keyframe the opacity of all of the layers so make sure all of them are selected so that it starts at 0 and then at 15 frames. So half a second is going to be 100%. So, let's go ahead and do that. Playhead at the beginning. Keyframe opacity and change the value to 0. Move the play head to 15 frames. Well, this is close enough. And now change the value of opacity to 100.
If you play this animation, they're all appearing, gradually appearing, and rotating at the same time. All right. Select all of the keyframes and now go to animation keyframe assistant Easy Ease. And this will give them a gradual acceleration and deceleration as we saw before. It's just going to be a little bit more natural of an animation. All right? Okay.
Now let's go ahead and stagger these layers. So, you can select all of the layers, collapse them by clicking here. And now we're going to start with the bottom one and then move each subsequent one a little bit to the right so that things don't happen all at the same time, but they happen one after the other.
There you go. Not too bad. All right. One of the last things we're going to do is we're going to add a white background to this. It doesn't have to be white. It's anything you want. But for this, I'm just going to make it white. So go layer, new, solid, choose white, and click Okay. And there you go. Now put it in the layer stacking order. Put it all the way at the bottom. And now we have a white background to our animation because before it would have been just transparent. All right. Now let's create a composition for one of the videos. For that, simply drag one of the videos that we have to this icon here, which is for new composition. Just drag it and the composition gets created and it opens immediately. Right? Remember that logo composition that we were working on? Drag it here as a second layer. This is known as nesting. Right? So, we're putting one composition inside over the other. And now you have this logo animation on top of this video. Make sure that it is on top on the layer stacking order. And now change the scale. Change the position. I'm going to put it here on the bottom right hand side and about yay big. Player animation. You just have an animated logo as a bug on the bottom right hand side of your composition.
Now, let's talk about rendering your project in After Effects. Rendering is when you save your after effects project as a video file. So first, pick your composition in the timeline and then go to composition menu and choose add to render queue. In the render queue panel, choose the settings for your video like quality and size and then pick the file format and where you want to save it. When you're ready, click render and After Effects will create your video. Now, if you want more control, you can use Adobe Media Encoder to render your project. So, same thing. Select the composition. Now go to composition, send to Adobe Media Encoder. From here, you can choose formats, one of the many, many presets available, and of course, where you would like to save your file.
All right, guys, that's it. Now you know the basics of After Effects and how to start creating animations and visual effects. Keep on practicing. Keep on doing it. Keep on doing it. You know, the more you do it, the easier it gets, and then you start discovering new things and all of that. Listen, After Effects is not by any means an easy program, but it can be very simple to get started, to start understanding how it is that this wonderful compositing program works. All right. Best of luck to you. Thank you for attending this session, and I'll see you next time.
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