lecture: Intro to After Effects

What is AE

After Effects is a 2.5D animation software. Used for animation, visual effects, & motion picture compositing; in the post-production phase of film, TV, & web video creation.

Motion graphics can be created through vector or raster based manipulations. Physical based media can be imported in the form of photogs & videos.

Pre-compositing In PS

Layers can be composited in photoshop before importing into After Effects. Layers should be arranged & renamed for ease of animation,

Pre-compositing In AE

Layers imported are not embedded, only linked, thus all layer elements will be synchronized to their external sources.

tutorial: Demo

practical: AE playtime

We had an exercise to complete. Given a set composition, we were to create a 15 second animation in After Effects, taking advantage of position, scale, & mask path keyframes. I'm pretty comfortable working in After Effects, so I took this opportunity to mess about a little. A little playing around gave me the idea of an animation where the team of graphical elements struggled to take this """group photo""", & things kept going wrong.