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

Building the Media Opener composition

Before we create the template, we need to create the composition with effects, assets, animations, media placeholders, and shape layers. The template will be based on this composition.

Creating a background

In the Media Opener composition, we will add a background using a solid layer and apply the gradient ramp effect, which is a useful effect to create backgrounds with a smooth transition between two or more colors. Follow these steps to create the gradient ramp effect:

  1. Go to the Media Opener composition in the Timeline panel. Right-click and go to New | Solid…, or go to the Layer menu | New | Solid….
  2. In the Solid Settings dialog box, change the name to Background.
Figure 6.3: The new solid layer settings

Figure 6.3: The new solid layer settings

  1. Keep the other settings as default, and click OK.
  2. Select the created Background layer in the Media Opener composition, and go to Effects | Generate | Gradient Ramp.
  3. ...