Book Image

Creative Motion Mastery with Adobe After Effects

By : Vishu Aggarwal
Book Image

Creative Motion Mastery with Adobe After Effects

By: Vishu Aggarwal

Overview of this book

Visual effects and motion graphics are everywhere, shaping the film, TV, games, websites, and application landscape. Navigating a field this complex and ever-expanding demands more than mere familiarity with tools; you need to stand out to get ahead. Creative Motion Mastery with Adobe After Effects is the definitive guide that not only equips you with the essential skills to distinguish yourself, but also takes you through real projects that you can add to your portfolio. Guided by a hands-on learning approach, you'll master the UI, workflow, and diverse projects such as text animation, shape layers, and rotoscoping. With this newfound knowledge, you’ll take your graphic design and post-production skills to the next level using chroma keying, particle simulations, and 2D and 3D tracking. You’ll progress faster than someone taking a formal course in Adobe After Effects! And it’s not all about creating; you’ll import graphics from Illustrator and Photoshop and apply post-production effects to give them a new life. Finally, you’ll discover how seamlessly you can export and manage your projects, ensuring end-to-end coverage of all you need. By the end of the book, you’ll have a thorough understanding of Adobe After Effects, equipped with the skills and practice you need to propel your career in graphic design.
Table of Contents (18 chapters)
1
Part 1: Working with Motion Graphics
8
Part 2: Post-Production and Visual Effects
13
Part 3: 2D and 3D Tracking, and Rendering

Opening the project and creating the text layer

For this, let us open the lesson2_start.aep project in which we will perform our operations for ease of learning in this chapter:

  1. Go to File | Open project | Lesson3_Start.aep.
  2. Now double-click on the basic text animation composition in the Project panel to open it in the timeline.
Figure 3.1: Project and Timeline panels showing our Basic text Animation composition

Figure 3.1: Project and Timeline panels showing our Basic text Animation composition

It is a 5-second blank composition at Full-HD resolution. Here we are first going to learn how to create a text layer:

Figure 3.2: Text tool highlighted

Figure 3.2: Text tool highlighted

  1. To create a text layer, select the text tool and click on the composition.
  2. Once you click on the composition, you can write your text. In the Composition window, write basic text animation:
    Figure 3.3: Composition displaying basic text animation text

Figure 3.3: Composition displaying basic text animation text

If the text is not in the center, then go to the Move tool and move the text...