Adobe After Effects Help Using Help Using Help | Contents | Index Back 1 Using Help About online Help Adobe Systems, Inc. provides complete documentation in the Adobe PDF Help system. The Help system includes information on all the tools, commands, and features for both Windows and Mac OS. The PDF format is designed for easy navigation online, and support for third-party screen readers compatible with Windows. The Help can also be printed as a desktop reference. Navigating in Help The Help will open in an Acrobat window with the bookmark pane open. If the bookmark pane is not open choose Window > Bookmarks. You can also navigate using the navigation bar, the index, or search the document. At the top and bottom of each page is a navigation bar. Click Using Help to return to this introduction. Clicking Contents, or Index will take you to that section. The Next Page and the Previous Page arrows let you move through the pages sequentially. Click Back to return to the last page you viewed. You can also use the navigation arrows in the Acrobat toolbar. Using bookmarks, the table of contents, the index, and Find The contents of Help are shown as bookmarks in the bookmark pane. To view subtopics, click the plus sign next to a bookmark. Each bookmark is a hyperlink to the associated section of the Help document. To go to the information, click its bookmark. As the information is displayed in the document pane, its bookmark is highlighted. You can turn highlighting on or off by selecting the Highlight Current Bookmark option from the bookmark pane menu. To find a topic using the table of contents: 1 Click Contents in the navigation bar at the top or bottom of any page. 2 Click a topic on the Contents page to move to the first page of that topic. 3 In the bookmark pane, expand the topic to see its subtopics. To find a topic using the index: 1 Click Index in the navigation bar at the top or bottom of any page. 2 Click the appropriate letter at the top of the page. You can also expand the Index bookmark, and click the letter in the bookmark pane. 3 Locate your entry, and click the page number link to view the information. 4 To view multiple entries, click Back to return to the same place in the index. Using Help | Contents | Index Back 1 Adobe After Effects Help Using Help Using Help | Contents | Index Back 2 To find a topic using the Find command: 1 Choose Edit > Find. 2 Enter a word or a phrase in the text box, and click OK. Acrobat will search the document, starting from the current page, and display the first occurrence of the word or phrase you are searching for. 3 To find the next occurrence, choose Edit > Find Again. Printing the Help file Although the Help has been optimized for on-screen viewing, you can print pages you select, or the entire file. To print, choose Print from the File menu, or click the printer icon in the Acrobat toolbar. Using Help | Contents | Index Back 2 Adobe After Effects Help Contents Using Help | Contents | Index Back 3 Contents Working with Projects, Windows, and Palettes 4 Preparing and Importing Footage 25 Building a Composition 50 Managing Layers 71 Animating Layers 95 Fine-tuning Animation 122 Working with Masks and Transparency 148 Applying Effects 170 3D Compositing 228 Creating Expressions 244 Managing Projects Effectively 264 Rendering a Movie 278 Using Property and Tracking Controls (PB only) 304 Using Motion Math (PB only) 317 Using Vector Paint (PB only) 333 Creating Particle Effects (PB only) 351 (5.5) Working with After Effects 5.5 to Build a Composition 377 (5.5) Layers 381 (5.5) Working with Masks and Transparency 383 (5.5) Applying Effects 387 (5.5) 3D Compositing 391 (5.5) Expressions 397 (5.5) Rendering a Movie 402 Macintosh shortcuts 408 Windows shortcuts 423 Legal Notice 438 Using Help | Contents | Index Back 3 Adobe After Effects Help Working with Projects, Windows, and Palettes Using Help | Contents | Index Back 4 Working with Projects, Windows, and Palettes Working in a project An After Effects project is a single file that stores references to all the footage you use in that project. It also contains information about how you've arranged the footage in compositions, including the details of any effects or animation you applied. Inside a project, you create one or more compositions. After you have imported source footage into the project, you can add footage items into the compositions. Where you work with footage items In a project, you work with footage items using primarily three windows: the Project window, which lists all the source footage items you import; the Composition window, which displays images as they relate in space; and the Timeline window, which displays compositions and animation events in terms of time. Add footage items to a composition by dragging them from the Project window into either the Composition window or the Timeline window. Each Composition window has a corresponding Timeline window. When you edit a composition in a Composition window, After Effects automatically displays the corresponding Timeline window, and vice versa. B C A D A. Source footage B. Project window C. Composition window D. Timeline window As you work with compositions, you also use three other types of windows: Footage windows, Layer windows, and Effect Controls windows. Using Help | Contents | Index Back 4 Adobe After Effects Help Working with Projects, Windows, and Palettes Using Help | Contents | Index Back 5 · · Footage windows are useful for viewing and evaluating footage items in their original form (see "Viewing imported footage" on page 50). To view a layer's original source independently of other layers or to trim footage, you can open a Layer window (see "Composition, Layer, and Footage window controls" on page 16). As you work with effects, you use the Effect Controls window to modify and animate the effects (see "Working with effects" on page 170). · When you render your compositions into a movie, you work in the Render Queue window to select rendering options and queue compositions for rendering (see "Using the Render Queue window" on page 279). How you start a project Starting a project involves two tasks: (1) planning your project based on the formats of the final output and (2) creating a project file. Once you have planned your project and learned how to perform some basic tasks related to working in After Effects, you'll be ready to start importing footage (see "Importing files into a project" on page 28). You then create a composition and begin working with your source footage (see "Working with imported footage" on page 50). Planning your project Planning your project before you start importing footage makes your work easier. A large part of planning is simply determining the best settings for your source footage based on the media for which you will render your finished project. This step is essential to achieving optimal image quality. Rendering order and nesting may also be part of project planning (see "Organizing a project using nesting" on page 265). Choosing the right media Before you start importing footage items into your project, decide which media you'll use for your finished movies. Then determine the best settings for your compositions and source material. For example, if you will be rendering your project to videotape, create footage at an image size, color bit-depth, and frame rate that will produce the best image quality on videotape. Likewise, if your project is intended for streaming video on the Web, the image size, color bit-depth, and frame rate may need to be reduced to work with the data-rate limits of streaming video on the Web. However, any footage item that can be imported can be used in any composition. If you will be rendering a project to more than one media format, always match the resolution setting for your composition to the highest resolution setting used for your output. Then set up the Render Queue window to render a separate version of the project for each format. Using Help | Contents | Index Back 5 Adobe After Effects Help Working with Projects, Windows, and Palettes Using Help | Contents | Index Back 6 For film and video, try to match import and composition settings with settings in the output module used to render a movie. For example, to ensure smooth playback, the footage frame rate selected in the Interpret Footage dialog box should match the setting in the Composition Settings dialog box and the output module in the Render Queue window. Also, the composition-frame size should be determined by the image size in the playback medium. However, any footage item that can be imported can be used in any composition. See "Preparing motion-footage frame rates for final output" on page 42, "Understanding basic composition settings" on page 57, and "Changing output module settings" on page 284. If you will be mixing source footage with different pixel aspect ratios, correctly specify this ratio for each footage item in the Interpret Footage dialog box. See "About D1, DV, and various pixel aspect ratio footage" on page 46. The suggestions that follow will help you select composition settings. However, the best way to ensure that your project is suitable for a specific medium is to make a test composition and view it using the same type of equipment your audience will use to view it. Film If you will be rendering for film, consider both the aspect ratio of the frame size you select for your composition and the frame rate of your source footage. For footage that was transferred from film to video using the 3:2 pulldown telecine method, you must remove 3:2 pulldown before adding effects. See "Removing 3:2 pulldown from video transferred from film" on page 45. CD-ROM When you create a movie that you plan to render for playback from a CD-ROM, you may need to specify import and composition settings that take into account the wide range of hardware that your audience may be using, possibly including older single- or double-speed CD-ROM drives. To make your final output compatible with older CD-ROM drives, try to reduce the datatransfer rate of your final output by specifying certain settings for footage items: · · Lower the frame rate as far as you can in the Composition Settings dialog box without making motion seem too jerky. Start at 15 frames per second (fps). When rendering your final composition, choose a file type and compressor/decompressor (codec) appropriate for the final media. For example, for a cross-platform CDROM, you might specify a QuickTime codec or a codec designed for low data rates, such as Indeo, Cinepak, or Sorenson Video. Regardless of which codec you select, however, it must be available on the system used by your intended audience to ensure successful playback. Also consider the key frame rate of the codec you have selected. See the Adobe Web site for more information on QuickTime compressors and codec key frame rates. Videotape If your final output will be videotape, set up your composition with a specific video format in mind, such as NTSC or PAL. Using broadcast-safe colors and maintaining frame size and compression ratios are also important considerations. These guidelines will help in setting up a composition intended for videotape: · · Select a frame size in the Composition Settings dialog box that matches the frame size of the destination video format. Use only NTSC-safe colors when adding or changing color in a project. Using Help | Contents | Index Back 6 Adobe After Effects Help Working with Projects, Windows, and Palettes Using Help | Contents | Index Back 7 · If you will be using an MJPEG codec, keep in mind that the frame sizes and resolutions available for rendering are determined by the specific MJPEG board you are using. Refer to the specifications for your MJPEG board. Animated GIF When you render an animated GIF, colors are dithered to an 8-bit palette. Before rendering your final project, render a test composition so that you can adjust colors if the results are not what you expected. If any source footage includes an alpha channel, be sure that you know how it will affect your final project before you start rendering. Streaming video over the World Wide Web Streaming video resembles a conventional television signal in that video is sent to the viewer frame by frame, instead of by downloading a large file to the hard disk. Streaming video on the Web is constrained by the limited bandwidth (56 Kbps or less) of most consumer modems, which is even lower than those used for CD-ROM playback. Use the same techniques that are listed for CDROM playback, but adapt them for further reduction in file size and data-transfer rate. You can export QuickTime streaming directly from After Effects. See "Exporting footage using QuickTime components" on page 289. Downloading video over the World Wide Web If your final output will be downloaded as a file ...