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

Setting up the project

In this project, we will be creating one master composition, called Media Opener. This will have media and text placeholders that will be editable and replaceable in the MOGRT we will export from After Effects to Premiere Pro at the end of the lesson.

So, let’s first import a media placeholder graphic that can be replaced later by any other media (graphic or video) from within Premiere Pro or After Effects.

We are going to import the file needed for this project. To do so, go to File | Import | File… | Footage | Media_Template.jpg | Open.

Figure 6.1: Media_Template.jpg imported

Figure 6.1: Media_Template.jpg imported

We will use the imported media later. Now, we need a new composition for the project. Follow these steps to create it:

  1. Click on the New Composition button in the Project panel, or go to Composition | New Composition.
  2. In the Composition Settings dialog box. change the name to Media Opener.
  3. Change the preset to Social Media...