Creating Motion Graphics with After Effects, Vol. 2: Advanced Techniques (3rd Edition, Version 6.5)

2005·21.2 MB·English

by  Trish Meyer

3rd Edition
Volume2: Advanced Techniques
Trish & Chris Meyer
San Francisco,CA
DEDICATED
to the memory ofVera McGrath,
who always said I could do anything I put my mind to –Trish
and to the memory ofLeroy Meyer,
who taught me to be curious about how all things worked –Chris
Published by CMP Books
An imprint of CMP Media LLC
CMP Books,600 Harrison St.,San Francisco,California 94107 USA
Tel:[phone];Fax:[phone]
www.cmpbooks.com
Email:[email protected]
Copyright © 2000,2003,2005 by Trish and Chris Meyer.All rights reserved.No part of this publication may be
reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means,or stored in a database or retrieval system,without the prior
written permission of the publisher.
Designations used by companies to distinguish their products are often claimed as trademarks.In all instances
where CMP is aware of a trademark claim,the product name appears in initial capital letters,in all capital letters,or
in accordance with the vendor’s capitalization preference.Readers should contact the appropriate companies for
more complete information on trademarks and trademark registrations.All trademarks and registered trademarks
in this book are the property of their respective holders.
The programs in this book are presented for instructional value.The programs have been carefully tested,but are
not guaranteed for any particular purpose.The publisher does not offer any warranties and does not guarantee the
accuracy,adequacy,or completeness of any information herein and is not responsible for any errors or omissions.
The publisher assumes no liability for damages resulting from the use of the information in this book or for any
infringement of the intellectual property rights of third parties that would result from the use of this information.
For individual orders,and for information on special discounts for quantity orders,please contact:
CMP Books Distribution Center,6600 Silacci Way,Gilroy,CA 95020
Tel:[phone] or 408-848-3854;Fax:[phone]
Email:[email protected];Web:www.cmpbooks.com
Distributed to the book trade in the U.S.by:Publishers Group West,1700 Fourth Street,Berkeley,California 94710
Distributed in Canada by:Jaguar Book Group,100 Armstrong Avenue,Georgetown,Ontario M6K 3E7 Canada
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Meyer,Trish
Creating motion graphics with after effects / Trish & Chris Meyer.
– 3rd ed.
p.cm.
Includes index.
ISBN 1-57820-249-3 (softcover with dvd :alk.paper)
1.Cinematography–Special effects–Data processing. 2.Computer animation. 3.Computer graphics. 4.Adobe After Effects.
I.Meyer,Chris II.Title.
TR858.M49 2004
778.5'2345'028553–dc22 2004017343
ISBN:1-57820-269-8 (volume 2)
Printed in the United States of America
05 06 07 08 09 5 4 3 2 1 EXPERT SERIES
Table of Contents
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix
Integrating After Effects into a variety of workflows.
How to Use This Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . x
How this book is organized, typographical conventions, and what the icons mean.
DVD Roadmap . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
The enclosed DVD is an essential companion for getting the most out of this book,
including projects for most of the chapters, free plug-ins, and other goodies.
PART Type, Draw, Paint
1
1 All About Alphas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Alphas 101, background color . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Antialiased edges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Alphas in After Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Alphas in Photoshop; Straight versus Premultiplied Alphas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Remove Color Matting; Alpha Add mode; Channel Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Rendering separate alphas; luminescent premultiplied alpha . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
2 Working with Photoshop . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Creating transparency in Photoshop; saving layered files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Importing Photoshop files, including as compositions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Pixel Aspect Ratios(sidebar on Photoshop PAR tags) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Layer Sets, Styles, and Effects; Color Management(sidebar) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
Buttons for Encore DVD(sidebar on exporting files for Encore DVD) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
2B Dots,Pixels,and Inches (Bonus Chapter PDF on DVD)
Scanning artwork at the correct sizes to use in After Effects.
3 Working with Illustrator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Insider Illustrator, creating text, kerning, saving files, creating outlines . . . . . . . . . . 38
Defining the Document Size(setting the crop area, resampling) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
Importing from Illustrator; Merging Layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Importing from Illustrator as Composition; Blending Modes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
Continuous Rasterization and render order issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
More Illustrator Tricks; Release to Layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
iii
4 Paint and Clone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
Getting started, editing and managing strokes; Paint on Transparent . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
Transforming Brush strokes; Channels; Modes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
Eraser tool; erase Paint Only and Erase Last Stroke options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
Animating strokes; using Write On Mode, replacing strokes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
Rotoscoping; Brush Tips and tablets; interpolating strokes; Effects and Paint . . . . . 62
Clone Stamp tool; Clone Presets; Clone Source Overlay; Source Time Shift . . . . . . . 66
Using Motion Tracking and Expressions to automate cloning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
Random Paint Splatters: painting in a straight line, copy/pasting strokes . . . . . . . . . 73
4B Vector Paint (Bonus Chapter PDF on DVD)
This legacy paint and rotoscoping plug-in still has its fans. Since it offers some
features not supported by Paint, we demonstrate ways to use it in production.
PART Animation Assistants
2
5 Additional Assistants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
Exponential Scale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
The Wiggler . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
Keyframe Assistants from Third Parties(3D Assistants, Useful Assistants) . . . . . . . . . 81
Smart Mask Interpolation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
6 Express Yourself . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
Creating expressions, including using the pick whip . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
Mixing and matching parameters, ranges, and dimensions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
Controlling Expressions; Expression Language Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
Building more complex expressions, including wiggle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
Expression examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
Scripting Overview(sidebar on controlling After Effects with scripts) . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
6B Deeper Modes of Expression (Bonus Chapter PDF on DVD)
Diving deeper into the expression language.
Other useful math expressions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Interpolation methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Deeper into arrays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Space conversions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Comp, Footage, and Layer attributes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Managing time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Making decisions, including if/then/else statements . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Expressions for looping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
The wiggle expression . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Random numbers, including noise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
Color space conversions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Text and expressions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
iv
PART More on Effects
3
7 Professional Edition Effects Roundup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
Adjust and Channel effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
Distort effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
Noise &Grain effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
Render and Stylize effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
A Few of our Favorite Things(sidebar on third party effects) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
Sweet 16(16 bit per channel mode) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
8 Color Correction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
Levels and Curves to improve contrast . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
Colorization adjustments and tricks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
Adjusting color by channels, brightness, and with keying; “Instant Sex” . . . . . . . . . . 139
Third Party Magic(Digital Film Tools and Magic Bullet) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
Synthetic Aperture’s Color Finesse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144
9 Compound Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
How compound effects work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
Compound Blur and Texturize . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148
Displacement mapping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152
10 The Blue Riders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
Keying approaches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158
An overview of the different keying plug-ins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
Keylight . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
Inner/Outer Key . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166
Color correction and edge improvements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168
10B Color Difference Keyer (Bonus Chapter PDF on DVD)
How to use the most powerful of the Adobe keyers.
PART Working with Audio
4
11 Audio Basics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172
Reading audio waveforms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172
How to spot audio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
Controlling audio levels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176
Previewing Audio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
12 Audio Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180
Trimming layers; avoiding clipping distortion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180
The workhorse Stereo Mixer effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
Time-based effects, including Delay, Reverb, and Flange & Chorus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182
Pitch-based effects, including equalization and creating tones . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184
v
PART Time and Tracking
5
13 Time Remapping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188
Overview, including creating freeze frames . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188
Manipulating the speed of clips to change the action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192
Adding handle to a clip . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195
Manipulating keyframed animation, sequenced layers, and frame sequences . . . . 196
14 Time Games . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200
Posterize Time versus Preserve Frame Rate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200
Step-time tricks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202
Echo, Time Difference, and Time Displacement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204
Third party time-based effects, including the bundled Cycore FX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210
15 On Stable Ground . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212
Overview of the motion tracker/stabilizer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212
Tracking, and applying a track . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217
Masking and Motion Stabilization(sidebar on keeping masks stationary) . . . . . . . . 219
Stabilization practice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220
16 Motion Tracking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224
Tracking Position, including working with the Attach Point . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224
Tracking Rotation and Scale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226
Corner Pin tracking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228
Tracking practice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229
PART NLE, 3D, and Web Integration
6 17 Integration 101 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234
An overview of managing the workflow between After Effects and other
common production tools.
18 Integration with Nonlinear Editing Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 238
Adobe Premiere Pro, including AAF . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239
Media 100 i, HD, and 844/X . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241
Avid systems (using Automatic Duck Pro Import AE) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245
Apple Final Cut Pro and Motion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247
19 Integration with 3D Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250
3D Channel Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250
Importing camera moves from different 3D packages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261
Creating mattes for 3D objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 276
Multilayer compositing and compositing tricks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 282
vi
20 Integration with Web Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 288
Importing JPEGs, GIFs, and PNGs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 288
Flash SWF import issues, including frame rates and alpha channels . . . . . . . . . . . . . 288
Exporting SWFanimations from After Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 292
SWFing Textacy(sidebar on exporting text animations as SWFfiles) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293
SWFExport Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 294
PART Format Issues and Rendering
7 21 Video Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 296
Fields, Interlacing, and Frame Rates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 296
Frame sizes and nonsquare pixels; anamorphic widescreen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 298
Safe areas and colors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303
Previewing your work on a real video monitor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 306
22 Playing the Field . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 308
Fields and interlacing explained, including deinterlacing sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 308
Rendering with fields . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313
Field order problems, and how to fix them . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 315
Managing interlace flicker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319
23 3:2 Pulldown . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 324
Pulldown explained, including Advanced Pulldown . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 324
Removing pulldown from footage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 325
Advantages of removing pulldown . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 327
Rendering with pulldown . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 329
24 Luminance and IRE Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 330
The difference between computer and video luminance ranges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 330
Converting between different luminance ranges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 331
IREand Setup issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 337
Superblack(sidebar on keying based on special luminance levels) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 337
Making sure your colors are broadcast-safe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 339
25 Working with D1/DV NTSC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 342
Pixel aspect ratio issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 342
Dealing with square pixel sources, and working square . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 345
Field order and frame rate issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 348
Drop Frame versus Non-Drop timecode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 349
26 Working with D1/DV PAL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 350
Pixel aspect ratio issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 350
Dealing with square pixel sources, and working square . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 352
Field order issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 355
vii
27 Working with Widescreen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 356
Working in high definition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 356
Anamorphic widescreen standard definition video . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 358
Repurposing 4:3 content into a widescreen format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 361
Making widescreen sources fit into 4:3 video frames . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 363
Designing for both widescreen and 4:3, plus faking widescreen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 365
28 Working at Film Resolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 368
Film frame sizes and framing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 368
Scanning in and recording out . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 372
Telling Time(sidebar on feet+frames plus keycode numbers) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 375
The online/offline workflow (applies to hi-def video as well) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 377
Working with the Cineon file format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 379
29 Prerendering and Proxies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 384
Prerendering to save time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 384
Creating and applying proxies; placeholders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 385
Working with proxies, including rendering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 387
30 Advanced Rendering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 390
Consolidating, removing unused footage, and reducing projects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 390
Collect files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 391
Network rendering, including using the Watch Folder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 392
GridIron X-Factor and Rush Render Queue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 396
31 What’s Your Preference? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 398
General preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 398
Previews and Display preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 400
Import and Output preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 401
Grids, Guides, and Labels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 402
Memory, Cache, and VideoPreviews . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 402
User Interface Colors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 403
31B The Secret Preferences (Bonus Chapter PDF on DVD)
Editing the After Effects text-based preference file.
The Road Home
Bonus DVD Tutorials Overview
A number of tutorial projects are also included on this book’s DVD.See summaryon page404.
Afterword:CoSA Lives (Bonus Chapter PDF on DVD)
David Simons – one of the original creators of After Effects – takes us back in time
to learn how this program we love came into being.
viii
INTRODUCTION
Learning to Play with Others
After Effects can be applied to a dizzying variety of tasks. However,
not all jobs begin and end inside After Effects – indeed, very few
do. This book focuses on integrating with the rest of the world.
Imagery may be scanned, captured with digital still image cameras,
created in Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator, rendered from a 3D program,
or originally created as an animation for the web. Of course, a large
amount of content will be recorded on videotape or film, in a variety
of formats, pixel aspect ratios, frame sizes, even frame rates. Much of
this footage may be used roughly as is (after a bit of color correction
or enhancement, of course). However, some of it will be shot against
green or blue screens, and you will need to extract the action from
this background and composite it into a new scene. Some footage has
objects you need to track so other objects can follow their motion; By Trishand Chris Meyer
some will contain an unacceptable amount of motion or shake that
you need to stabilize or remove. And not all content is visual – audio
is a major portion of the motion graphics experience, as well.
Then there’s output! Few of your animations will be played back
only on your computer screen. Most of them will go back out to video,
As a companion book to the
film, or the web, again with a large number of technical issues and
Creating Motion Graphicsseries,we
workflow practices that must be observed.
have also created After Effects in
Of course, there are always ways to work smarter. After Effects
Production,which puts many of the
features a number of Keyframe Assistants plus the Expression language
features of After Effects to work in
to help perform complex animation tasks for you. There are ways to
a series of intermediate-to-
manipulate the fabric of time itself, plus a whole host of additional
advanced tutorials.It also includes
plug-in effects that come with the Professional edition – and other
a set of six broadcast case studies
useful ones to download or purchase. Preferences can be customized,
from award-winning studios
compositions can be prerendered to save time, and renders can be
including ATTIK,Belief,Curious
split across multiple computers to meet tight deadlines.
Pictures,The Diecks Group,and
All of this and more is what Creating Motion Graphics,Volume 2:
Fido,and well as our own studio,
Advanced Techniquesis about. After you have read Volume 1:The
CyberMotion.Look in the Goodies
Essentialsand mastered the core of After Effects, we want to help you
folder on the DVD for more infor-
take your skills further, and enable you to tackle a wider variety of
mation.As a set,we hope these
tasks – while expressing your individual creativity along the way.
books empower and inspire you
Trish and Chris Meyer to realize your own creativity with
CyberMotion this wonderful program.
April 2005
ix