© 2001 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All rights reserved. Adobe After Effects 5.0 User Guide for Windows and Macintosh If this guide is distributed with software that includes an end-user agreement, this guide, as well as the software described in it, is furnished under license and may be used or copied only in accordance with the terms of such license. Except as permitted by any such license, no part of this guide may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of Adobe Systems Incorporated. Please note that the content in this guide is protected under copyright law even if it is not distributed with software that includes an end-user license agreement. The content of this guide is furnished for informational use only, is subject to change without notice, and should not be construed as a commitment by Adobe Systems Incorporated. Adobe Systems Incorporated assumes no responsibility or liability for any errors or inaccuracies that may appear in the informational content contained in this guide. Please remember that existing artwork or images that you may want to include in your project may be protected under copyright law. The unauthorized incorporation of such material into your new work could be a violation of the rights of the copyright owner. Please be sure to obtain any permission required from the copyright owner. Any references to company names in sample templates are for demonstration purposes only and are not intended to refer to any actual organization. Adobe, the Adobe logo, Acrobat, Adobe Premiere, After Effects, Illustrator, and Photoshop are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Adobe Systems Incorporated in the United States and/or other countries. All references to PostScript on the screen or in this manual are references either to the PostScript interpreter or to the PostScript language. Apple, Macintosh, and Mac OS are trademarks of Apple Computer, Inc., registered in the U. S. and other countries. FireWire, QuickTime, and the QuickTime logo are trademarks used under license. Microsoft, Windows, and Windows NT are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the U.S. and/or other countries. Macromedia and Flash are trademarks of Macromedia Inc. MPEG Layer 3 audio compression technology is licensed by Fraunhofer IIS and Thompson. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. Contains an implementation of the LZW algorithm licensed under U.S. Patent 4,558,302. Notice to U.S. government end users. 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Part number: 90027945 (3/01) iii Contents Introduction Registration ............................................ 1 ........................... 1 ........................... 1 Installing Adobe After Effects Learning Adobe After Effects Using Web resources Customer support Other learning resources ................................... 3 ............................... 5 ...................................... 5 .................... 9 An Overview of Adobe After Effects Superior Adobe product integration Powerful masking 2D & 3D compositing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Extensive motion controls Flexible media handling Web delivery Leading-edge video and audio effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Production Bundle features What's New in After Effects 5.0 Precise control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 Enhanced productivity Versatile output options Working with Projects, Windows, and Palettes Chapter 1 Working in a project Planning your project Time basics Setting up a project Correcting mistakes Setting preferences Using context menus Using windows Toolbox . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 . . . . . . 53 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 Selecting 16-bpc color depth (PB only) Customizing the workspace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 Composition, Layer, and Footage window controls Info palette . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62 iv CONTENTS Preparing and Importing Footage Chapter 2 How After Effects works with imported files . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 Preparing a still-image file for import into After Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 Importing files into a project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70 . . . . . . . . 72 . . . . . . . . . . 77 Importing a sequence of still-image files Importing Adobe Photoshop files Importing an After Effects project Importing Adobe Premiere projects Importing 3D-image files Importing an audio file Importing Cineon files Importing footage containing an alpha channel Importing an Adobe Illustrator, PDF, or EPS file . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 Preparing motion footage for import Using interlaced video in After Effects Removing 3:2 pulldown from video transferred from film . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87 Setting pixel aspect ratio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88 Building a Composition Chapter 3 Working with imported footage Creating a composition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97 . . . . . . . . . . . . 103 . . . . . . . 108 Replacing and substituting footage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101 Understanding basic composition settings Adding footage items to a composition Nesting a composition Using the Composition window Using the Timeline window Understanding advanced composition settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115 Managing Layers Chapter 4 Adding layers to compositions Creating new layers Rearranging layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139 Customizing layer work and views Understanding trimming Using markers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142 v About After Effects Audio/Video switches Altering appearances on the layer level Using audio layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153 Animating Layers Chapter 5 About layer properties Understanding keyframes Setting keyframes Moving keyframes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166 . . . . . . 170 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172 Moving and copying keyframes Determining where to set and modify keyframes Setting layer position Modifying a motion path Changing the number of visible motion-path keyframes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175 Using Motion Sketch to draw a motion path Smoothing motion and velocity Creating motion paths with masks Setting layer size . . . . . . . . . . . 175 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178 . . . . . . . 179 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182 Flipping a layer using Scale property keyframes Setting layer opacity Setting layer rotation Rotating a layer along a motion path Setting and animating an anchor point Understanding parent layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184 Setting and animating a layer property in the Timeline window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187 Setting and animating mask properties Setting and animating effects Setting preview options Previewing animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191 Setting Video Preview preferences vi CONTENTS Fine-tuning Animation Chapter 6 Controlling change through interpolation Comparing interpolation methods Changing the interpolation method . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204 Using the Value graph to change a layer property value . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210 Adding keyframes to a Value graph Factors affecting speed Fine-tuning speed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211 Controlling speed along a motion path Time-stretching a layer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222 Using the Time-Reverse Keyframes keyframe assistant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224 Reversing the playback direction of a layer About time-remapping . . . . . . . . . . . . 225 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ...