After Affects 1. Advanced Photoshop Issue Free adobe. Flag Photoshop CC Cracksdaag. Adobe Photoshop course. Dave Cross Tips Book. Logitech Keyboard G How to Use the Action. How to prepare a Roll-up Mock-up. Change of Nickname Server Date. Trevors CS4 Keyboard Shortcuts. Oasys Pdisp v Role of optimizer in neural network. Module 3 IT. Baseband Training Networking 2 Syllabus. Blockchain In Cyber Security.
Optical Computers. Activate a view in a multi-view layout in the Composition panel without affecting layer selection. Note: You can activate some tools only under certain circumstances. Temporarily activate pen tool when the Selection tool is selected and pointer is over a path Add Vertex tool when pointer is over a segment; Convert Vertex tool when pointer is over a vertex.
Set work area to duration of selected layers or, if no layers are selected, set work area to composition duration. Activate the most recently active composition that is in the same composition hierarchy network of nested compositions as the currently active composition. Go to previous or next visible item in time ruler keyframe, marker, work area beginning or end.
Toggle selection of layer by its number enter digits rapidly for two-digit and three-digit numbers. Find in Project panel. Cycle through color bit depths for project. Alt-click bit-depth button at bottom of Project panel. Option-click bit-depth button at bottom of Project panel.
Click bit-depth button at bottom of Project panel. Open Preferences dialog box. Restore default preferences settings. Panels, viewers, workspaces, and windows. Activate tools. Compositions and the work area. New composition. Open Composition Settings dialog box for selected composition. Set beginning or end of work area to current time. Open Composition Mini-Flowchart for active composition. Trim Composition to work area. New Composition from selection. Time navigation.
Effects and animation presets. Delete all effects from selected layers. Apply most recently applied effect to selected layers. Apply most recently applied animation preset to selected layers. Some operations do not affect shy layers. If no layers are selected, split all layers. Showing properties and groups in the Timeline panel.
Showing properties in the Effect Controls panel. Toggle expansion of selected effects to show all properties. Toggle expansion of property group and all child property groups to show all properties. Ctrl-click triangle to the left of the property group name. Command-click triangle to the left of the property group name. Modifying layer properties. Keyframes and the Graph Editor.
Paint tools. Shape layers. Set marker at current time works during preview and audio-only preview. Set marker at current time and open marker dialog box. Set and number a composition marker at the current time. Go to a composition marker Display the duration between two layer markers or keyframes in the Info panel. Alt-click the markers or keyframes.
Option-click the markers or keyframes. Remove marker. Ctrl-click marker. Command-click marker. Motion tracking. Move feature region, search region, and attach point 1 pixel at current magnification. Arrow key. Move feature region, search region, and attach point 10 pixels at current magnification. Move feature region and search region 1 pixel at current magnification. Move feature region and search region 10 pixels at current magnification.
Saving, exporting, and rendering. Save project. Increment and save project. Save As. Add active composition or selected items to render queue. Add current frame to render queue. Duplicate render item with same output filename as original.
Add a composition to the Adobe Media Encoder encoding queue. Keyboard shortcuts PDF. Sign in to your account. Sign in. Quick links View all your plans Manage your plans. Rename selected layer, composition, folder, effect, group, or mask.
Open selected layer, composition, or footage item. Open or close Effect Controls panel for selected layer. Open Flowchart panel for project flowchart. Close active viewer or panel closes content first.
Maximize or restore panel under pointer. Toggle activation between Composition panel and Timeline panel for current composition. Cycle to previous or next item in active viewer for example, cycle through open compositions.
Alt-click tool button in Tools panel. Option-click tool button in Tools panel. Hold down spacebar or the middle mouse button. Activate Zoom In tool. Activate Zoom Out tool. Alt when Zoom In tool is active. Option when Zoom In tool is active. Activate Rotation tool. Activate Pan Behind tool. Activate and cycle through Type tools Horizontal and Vertical. Temporarily activate Selection tool when a pen tool is selected. Activate and cycle through Brush, Clone Stamp, and Eraser tools.
Activate and cycle through Puppet tools. Temporarily convert Selection tool to Shape Duplication tool. Temporarily convert Selection tool to Direct Selection tool. Go to beginning or end of work area. Go to previous or next visible item in time ruler keyframe, layer marker, work area beginning or end Note: Also goes to beginning, end, or base frame of Roto Brush span if viewing Roto Brush in Layer panel.
This is the look of film; electronic shutters can have a higher equivalent radius, blurring nearly continuously from one frame to the next, or a very fast shutter, which permits little or no blur. Electronic shutters are variable but refer to Shutter Angle as a benchmark; they can operate down in the single digits or close to a full degrees. After Effects motion blur goes to degrees simply because sometimes mathematical accuracy is not the name of the game, and you simply want more than degrees.
Shutter Phase determines how the shutter opens relative to the frame, which covers a given fraction of a second beginning at a given point in time. If the shutter is set to 0, it opens at that point in time, and the blur appears to extend forward through the frame, which makes it appear offset.
Otherwise, the track itself appears offset. Add, Do Not Subtract Although software may one day be developed to resolve a blurred image, it is much, much harder to sharpen a blurred image elegantly than it is to add blur to a sharp image.
Motion Blur comes for free when you keyframe motion in After Effects; what about when there is motion but no blur and no keyframes, as can be the case in preexising footage?
Directional Blur, which can mimic the blur of layers moving in some uniform X and Y direction. Zoom Blur, which can mimic motion in Z depth or spin. Timewarp, which can add motion blur without retiming footage Yes, you read that last one correctly. An element perfectly matched for color and lighting will look wrong until its motion blur also matches that of the surrounding scene.
You can retime footage or mix and match speeds and timing using a variety of methods. Absolute Not Relative Time After Effects measures time in absolute seconds, rather than frames, whose timing and number are relative to the number per second.
Think of a musician playing 3 against 4; one second in After Effects is the down beat of each rhythm. Enable Frame Blending for the layer and the composition, and After Effects averages the adjacent frames together to create a new image on frames that fall in between the source frames.
There are two modes:. Frame Mix mode overlays adjoining frames, essentially blurring them together. The same underlying technology is also used in Furnace plug-ins for Shake, Flame, and Nuke.
Confusingly, the icons for these modes are the same as Draft and Best layer quality, respectively Figure 2. Pixel Motion can often appear too blurry, too distorted, or contain too many noticeable frame artifacts, in which case you can move back to Frame Mix, or move up to the Timewarp effect, with greater control of the same technology later in this chapter.
Posterize Time often breaks preceding effects. This forces After Effects to use only whole frame increments in the underlying composition, just as if the comp were pre-rendered with that frame rate. The philosophy is elusively simple: Time has a value, just like any other property, so you can keyframe it, ease in and out of it, loop and ping-pong it—basically treat it like any other animation data. All true, but the concept of animating and bending time can become complex.
Pixel Motion is an automated setting described earlier, and Timewarp adds a set of controls to allow you to improve on its result using the same basic technology. Timewarp works by calculating the motion in the footage in order to generation motion vectors; these describe how each pixel moves from frame to frame. With an accurate analysis it is then possible to generate an image made up of those same pixels, interpolated along those vectors, with different timing.
Timewarp is just like Time Remap in the following ways:. It can be used to speed up, slow down, or dynamically animate the timing of a clip.
Time Remap keyframes can even be transferred directly to Timewarp, but it requires an expression see note because one uses frames and the other seconds to measure time. However, used with the default Pixel Motion Method setting, Timewarp goes beyond Time Remap plus Frame Blending with the same setting in a couple of ways:.
Enable Motion Blur toggle kicks in when footage is sped up to add motion blur. Timewarp is most typically used to slow footage down, which requires one extra bit of setup or the layer ends short. To transform this into a slow-motion visual effect requires optical-flow retiming, and because the foreground travels in one direction and the background the other, it helps Timewarp to add a matte.
Sequence courtesy of fxphd. Matte Layer and Matte Channel menus can point to a matte channel used to isolate foreground and background motion, as in Figure 2. This can be the source alpha channel, or a matte channel from a separate layer. The following settings control how Timewarp analyzes footage:. Raising Vector Detail certainly increases accuracy; a setting of assigns one vector per pixel.
Not only does this drastically increase render time, it will in some cases simply increase artifacts with fast motion. This is because it is analyzing too much detail, similar to setting a motion track to too small and noisy a search region. Smoothing relates directly to Vector Detail; vectors must join similar pixels of adjacent frames but not be 73 Chapter 2 The Timeline noisy. You can raise Global Smoothness all vectors , Local Smoothness individual vectors and Smoothing Iterations in order to combat the noise, but go very far and lots of detail will be missed.
The Foundry claims that the defaults, which are balanced, work best for most sequences. It typically takes two adjacent images—before and after—to make a vector, but you can choose Build From One Image to use only one if that helps.
LME depends on object brightness remaining consistent throughout the shot. Error Threshold evaluates each vector before letting it contribute; raise this value and more vectors are eliminated for having too much perceived error. Block Size determines the width and height of the area each vector tracks; like Smoothing, lower values generate more noise, higher values less detail.
Weighting lets you control how much a given color channel is factored. If one channel is particularly noisy—usually blue—you might consider lowering its setting. Filtering applies to the render, not the analysis; it increases the sharpness of the result. Despite that Timewarp is included free, many knowledgeable After Effects artists still depend on Twixtor RE:Vision Effects ; like 3D trackers, keyers, and other automated solutions, this is more a question of what works for you than of one being better than another.
Timewarp can add motion blur to speed up footage; it can even add motion blur to footage with no speed-up at all, in either case using the same optical flow technology that tracks individual pixels. It looks fantastic. The Timeline and Graph Editor, once mastered, give you the control you need over the timing and placement of elements. If compositing were simply a question of taking pristine, perfect foreground source A and overlaying it onto perfectly matching background plate B, there would be no compositor in the effects process; an editor could accomplish the job before lunchtime.
Often, it is one element, one frame, or one area of a shot that needs special attention. By the clever use of selections, a compositor can save the shot by taking control of it. This chapter focuses on how a layer merges with those behind it.
Matte Mattes do not only apply when keying out the blue or green from a visual effects shoot Figure 3. You can effectively matte an image with itself—with its own highlights or color areas. Chapter 6 goes into depth about using mattes—the process involves using pixel values to create transparency. Figure 3. An alpha or transparency channel is just a matte that has already been created outside of After Effects and embedded in an imported image.
After Effects itself can, of course, also create alpha and transparency channels in rendered images Figure 3. After Effects is unique among compositing applications in that alpha channel information persists everywhere. Every image and viewer contains three channels of color and a fourth transparency channel. After Effects is also unique in that, internally, it assumes that any edge premultiplication has been removed.
Internally, all alphas in After Effects are straight see Chapter 1 for a review of how this is determined on import.
Mask A mask is a vector shape, drawn by hand Figure 3. The process of hand-animated selection is known as rotoscoping and is detailed in Chapter 7.
These are essential because they mimic real-world optics Figure 3. Fire and smoke are added and multiplied into this scene detailed in Chapter 14, respectively.
You can of course use selections combined with blending modes to get the best of both worlds. The primary useful blending modes are detailed later in this chapter. Combined Techniques Even an ordinary effects shot will typically combine more than one of the above techniques.
You will typically apply a garbage matte prior to a color key, or enhance the effect of a blending mode with a matte. The art is in knowing which approach to apply for a given situation, and for this, there is no substitute for a deep understanding of how they work.
In After Effects, it seems nearly as natural as laying one object on top of another does in the real world. In most other compositing applications even A over B is a compositing operation and that is closer to the truth—a truth that After Effects obscures in order to make the process more natural to an artist particularly one who understands Photoshop.
Not only that, but there is more to what is going on in the real world than might be obvious, because of the phenomena of optics. You as a compositor are not supposed to re-create reality on your computer screen, but rather re-create the way the camera and the eye sees the world. This affects something even so fundamental as how the edges of things should look in order for the eye to accept them. Close-Up: The Compositing Formula Do you really want to know what happens when you combine one layer with transparency data an alpha channel over another layer?
The foreground pixel values are first multiplied by the percentage of transparency, which, if not fully opaque, reduces their value. Other effects compositing programs, such as Shake, do not take this operation for granted the way that After Effects and Photoshop do.
This is not a disadvantage of After Effects—it actually makes basic compositing simpler and faster— but it can obscure important related details such as edge pixel premultiplication detailed later in this chapter.
This is the type of selection generated by the Magic Wand tool in Photoshop. You can feather or blur the resulting edge, but the initial selection contains no semitransparent pixels. This type of selection may have an occasional use, but it belongs to the world of computers, not nature or optics. An edge made up of pixels that are either fully opaque or invisible cannot describe a curve or angle smoothly, and even a straight line looks unnatural in a natural image if it completely lacks edge thresholding Figure 3.
Compare this result with that of Figure 3. Examine the edge of this book. It appears sharp. Properly feathered edges can Figure 3. Approximate organic curves Figure 3. Optics can be observed in any photo with no compositing whatsoever Figure 3. This is not due to inaccuracy in the camera; it is what happens to light as it travels around objects in the physical world and then through the lens of the camera or your eye. Natural softness is apparent along the hard edges of the sign despite that they are in focus.
This is how overlapping Opacity is calculated in After Effects. Yes, no expense is spared bringing you these real-world simulations. I: Working Foundations After Effects mimics this behavior, adding fractional and not whole Opacity values of two or more layers.
Alpha Channels and Premultiplication One major source of confusion and even derision for After Effects has to do with its handling of alpha channels and premultiplication. After Effects has a persistent concept of the alpha channel as part of every image, and this channel is expected always to be unmultiplied within After Effects, whether it originated that way or not.
Any color multiplied into edge pixels is to be removed upon import in the Alpha section of the Interpret Footage dialog , and reintroduced only on output. Provided those Alpha settings are correct, this works surprisingly well, but at some point you may need to better understand how to take control of edge multiplication within After Effects.
Premultiplication Illustrated Premultiplication exists for one reason only: so that rendered images have realistic, anti-aliased edges before they are composited. Without it, a 3D rendering of a silver spaceship against a plain black background would appear to have a crude, blocky outline because the edge pixels would not contain any of that black background. Imagine the background value to be 0,0,0 or solid black; an edge pixel is multiplied by 0 making it pure black and then added back to the source, in proportion to the amount of transparency in the alpha channel pixel.
The close-ups in Figure 3. A misinterpreted alpha either fails to remove the background color from the edge pixels or removes color that should actually be present. There is dark matting all around the edges, including areas of the canopy meant to be translucent, and around the blur of the propeller bottom. Most computer-generated images are premultiplied, unless specific steps are taken to counteract the process.
The Video Output section of the Output Module Settings for items in the Render Queue includes a menu to specify whether you render with Straight or Premultiplied alpha; by default, it is set to Premultiplied. This does not indicate some bug in After Effects, but rather a mystery you must solve.
There are two basic ways it can occur:. An alpha channel is misinterpreted in Interpret Footage. Edge multiplication is added within After Effects, probably unintentionally, by applying a matte to a layer that has already been matted. The Ask User dialog has three choices, one of which is checked, and a Guess button Figure 3.
This is confusing to most users, as it seems as if After Effects has already guessed, when it has not: It is merely using whatever was the setting the previous time. After Effects attempts to guess not only the setting but the background color of a premultiplied image; generally this is black or white, but watch out for situations where a 3D artist has become creative and rendered against canary yellow or powder blue.
For that reason, there is an eyedropper adjacent to the Matted With Color setting Figure 3. Ideally you will work on a project whose images are consistent in terms of edge multiplication and background color ; in that case, you can set an Import preference.
Remove Color Matting with Color set to pure white corrects the problem bottom , but only when applied to a precomp of the image and matte. This effect has one setting only, for background color, because all it does is apply the unpremultiply calculation the antidote to premultiplication in the same manner that it would be applied in Interpret Footage.
This effect uses black areas of the image to create transparency and removes the multiplied black from the resulting transparent pixels. A mask can be drawn in either the Composition or Layer viewer. In Layer view the source image persists in its default view; there is a Render toggle next to the Masks selection in the View menu to disable all mask selections.
Shape layers are directly related to masks; they are drawn with the same tools. If a layer that can receive a mask is selected, then After Effects draws a mask; otherwise, it creates a new Shape layer. When using a Mask Shape tool. Double-click the tool in the Tools palette to set the boundaries of the mask shape to match those of the layer.
Press Shift to constrain proportions when drawing or scaling. Look for situations where starting with a Mask Shape and editing it can help you; for example, you can make a half-circle by deleting one vertex and adjusting two others of an ellipse.
Double-click the shape with the Selection tool to activate Free Transform mode, then. Shift-drag on corner to scale the mask proportionally. Shift-drag outside corner to snap rotation to degree increments. Shift-drag anywhere else to transform on one axis only.
Press the M key twice, rapidly, to reveal all Mask options for the selected layer. The property disappears. Press the F key to solo the Mask Feather property. Feather is applied everywhere equally on the mask, equidistant inward and outward from the mask shape.
Use Mask Expansion to expand or given a negative value contract the mask area. Two masks can be used together, one contracted, one expanded, to create an edge selection. Chapter 7 has more information about drawing precise masks; big, soft masks are referenced throughout the book for all kinds of lighting, smoke, and glow effects Figure 3.
Or, as I draw a point, I can. Shift-hold and drag to move the vertex. Click a segment between points to add a point. Press the V key to activate the Selection tool. Pressing the G key switches back to the Pen. Context-click on a mask path to change settings in the Mask submenu. This includes all settings from the Timeline as well as Motion Blur settings just for the mask optionally separate from the Layer. The Mask and Shape Path submenu contains special options to close an open shape, set the First Vertex see later in this chapter and toggle Rotobeziers Chapter 7.
The same tools can be used to draw either a mask or a Shape layer. Shapes offer a different type of control in the Timeline of properties such as number of points and inner and outer roundness. Shapes display with two optional characteristics: Fill and Stroke. Shapes can be instanced and repeated in 2D space; Option-drag to duplicate as in Illustrator or use a Repeater effect to instance and array a shape.
Using the Repeater, you only have to adjust a single shape to edit all instances of it and how it is arrayed. For the time being, there is no option to array shapes in 3D. The sprocket holes in this film were made with a Rounded Corner shape and a Repeater I even added an Inner Shadow Layer Style to give a little feeling of depth and dimension.
Combine Selections By default, all masks are drawn in Add mode, meaning that the contents of the mask are added to the layer selection, and the area outside all of the masks is excluded. You can set the mask mode to.
Add to mask contents to the image as a whole Figure 3. Subtract to mask contents from displayed areas of the image Figure 3. Intersect to mask contents to show only areas overlapping with masks higher in the stack Figure 3.
Difference to mask contents to hide areas overlapping with masks higher in the stack Figure 3. None to disable the mask Figure 3. Enable it.
To keep multiple masks organized Chapter 7 demonstrates how effective rotoscoping ideally involves many simple masks working together instead of one big complex mask. Press the Return key with mask selected, then type in a unique name. Click Mask Color swatch to the left of the name to make it more visible or unique. Figures 3. These modes should be applied to the masks that are below overlapping masks in the stack in order to work.
It prevents two masks building up density as in Intersect mode right. It prevents two masks building up density as in Add mode right.
Alpha Add does just what the title implies, adding the alpha values together directly bottom right. Just as the name implies, the Alpha Add blending mode directly adds transparent pixels, instead of scaling them proportionally Figure 3.
You can cut out a piece of a layer, feather the matte, apply the inverted feathered matte to the rest of the layer, and recombine them with Alpha Add applied to the top layer. The seam disappears. Mask movement can be eased temporally, but there are no spatial curves; each mask point travels in a completely linear fashion from one keyframe to the next.
An arced motion requires many more keyframes. To arc or offset the movement of a mask animation, you can duplicate the masked layer and use it as an alpha track matte for an unmasked source of the same layer see Chapter 7 for more ; you can then keyframe and transform its position and anchor point like any animated layer, with curved paths and offsets. Move, Copy, and Paste Masks Copy a mask path from any compatible source.
A Mask Path property from a separate Mask or Layer. A Mask Path keyframe from the same or a separate Mask. A Mask Path from a separate Adobe application such as Illustrator or Photoshop If the target layer has unique dimensions, the mask stretches proportionally.
To draw an entirely new shape for an existing, keyframed Mask Path, use the Target menu along the bottom of the Layer panel to choose the existing mask as a target, and start drawing. This replaces the existing shape Figure 3. If the target mask has keyframes, After Effects creates a new keyframe wherever the new shape is drawn. Traditional optical compositing— covering all movies made prior to the s—was capable of bi-packing multiplying and double-exposing adding two source frames layers.
The calculations make more sense this way Figure 3. This also can be imperative for effects that rely on mask shapes, such as the Reshape tool described in Chapter 7. For effects work, moreover, the majority of them are not particularly recommended. So how do you tell which are the useful ones? Once you understand how your options work, you can make informed compositing decisions instead of relying on trial and error.
Whichever mode you select also carries over to the Adobe Color Picker. Contextual examples using these blending modes follow in the next section. Add and Screen Add and Screen modes both brighten the foreground image while making darker pixels transparent. Screen yields a subtler blend than Add in normal video color space but does not work correctly with linear color details in Chapter The result is clipped at 1 for 8- and bit pixels.
Add is incredibly useful with what After Effects calls a Linearized Working Space, where it perfectly re-creates the optical effect of combining light values from two images. The pixel values are inverted, multiplied together, and the result is inverted: In Screen mode, fully white pixels stay white, fully black pixels stay black, but a midrange pixel 0.
I: Working Foundations Figure 3. Multiplying two images together, therefore, actually has the effect of reducing midrange pixels and darkening an image overall, although pixels that are full white in both images remain full white.
Multiply or Add has the inverse effect of Screen mode, darkening the midrange values of one image with another. It emphasizes dark tones in the foreground without replacing the lighter tones in the background, useful for creating texture, shadow, or dark fog Figure 3. To fully comprehend the difference between Add and Screen requires an understanding of a linearized working space, which is offered in Chapter Here, an instant lava lamp texture was created using the components shown at the right: a solid with Fractal Noise applied set to Overlay mode on top of a red-to-yellow gradient.
Overlay and the Light Modes Overlay and the various Light modes do not work properly with values above 1. Overlay uses Screen or Multiply, depending on the background pixel value.
Hard Light operates similarly, instead using the top layer to determine whether to screen or multiply, so the two are inverse effects.
These modes, along with Linear and Vivid Light, can be most useful for combining a layer that is predominantly color with another layer that is predominantly luminance, or contrast detail Figure 3. Much of the lava texturing in the Level 4 sequence of Spy Kids 3-D was created by using Hard Light to combine a hand-painted color heat map with moving fractal noise patterns.
Difference Reversing layer order and swapping Overlay for Hard Light yields an identical result. Difference inverts a background pixel in proportion to the foreground pixel. Color takes both the hue and saturation from the top layer, using only the luminance or brightness from the underlying background Figure 3.
Artistic uses of this mode are explored in Chapter Stencil, Silhouette, and Preserve Transparency Commonly overlooked, Stencil and Silhouette blending modes operate only on the alpha channel of the composition. Stencil makes the brightest pixels opaque, and Silhouette the darkest. Suppose instead you have a foreground layer that is meant to be opaque only where the underlying layers are opaque, as in Figure 3. Stencil Alpha and Silhouette Alpha are useful to create custom edge mattes as well as a light wrap effect, demonstrated in Chapter Premultiplication over black causes all semitransparent pixels to become darker; removing it can cause them to appear dimmer than they should.
Luminescent Premultiply can be useful in cases where an element with transparency has been created against a black background within After Effects, bypassing the opportunity to remove premultiplication on import. Track Mattes Track mattes allow you to use the alpha or luminance information of one layer as the transparency of another layer Figure 3.
In both cases, you have pixels with a value in 8-bit color I: Working Foundations Figure 3. The small icons to the left indicate which is the image and which is the matte.
With color, the three channels are simply averaged together to make up a single grayscale alpha. To set a track matte, place the layer that contains the transparency data directly above its target layer in the Timeline and choose one of the four options from the Track Matte pop-up menu:. Alpha Matte: The alpha channel of the track matte layer is the alpha. Alpha Inverted Matte: Same but the black areas are opaque.
Luma Matte: Uses the average brightness of red, green, and blue as the alpha Share a Matte Node-based compositing programs make it easy for a single node to provide transparency to as many others as is needed. The one-to-many capacity in After Effects involves precomping the track matte and making all changes in the nested comp.
This can be a pain, but check Chapter 4 for more tips to smooth the process, such as the ability to display more than one Timeline simultaneously. Luma Inverted Matte: Same but the black areas are opaque By default, visibility of the track matte layer is disabled when you activate it from the layer below by choosing one of these four modes, which is generally desirable.
Some clever uses of track mattes leave them on; for example, by matting out the bright areas of the image and turning on the matte, setting it to Add mode, you could naturally brighten those areas even more. Track mattes solve a lot of compositing problems. They also help overcome limitations of After Effects. Chapter 7 describes how you can keep an entire sequence buffered in RAM for fast access while rotoscoping on a track matte layer, and how you can add tracking capabilities to masks in this manner.
Gotchas Even an advanced user has to pay attention when working in a composition with track mattes. Unlike parented Chapter 3 Selections: The Key to Compositing layers, track mattes do not stay connected with their target if moved around; they must occupy the layer directly above in order to work. After Effects does at least help you in certain ways.
Include the track matte when you duplicate and it also moves up two layers, so layer order is preserved Figure 3. Combine a track matte and an image with an alpha channel, and the selection uses an intersection of the two. There is a work-around that allows a matte layer to be anywhere in the Timeline, but it contains its own perils. It also offers a few custom matte handling options regarding how the matte is scaled and combined.
However, nothing you add to the other layer, including Transform keyframes, is passed through. This brings us to render order with track mattes.
DEFAULT
DEFAULT
Adobe Photoshop CS4 Keyboard Shortcuts for PC.
This document was uploaded by our user. The uploader already confirmed that they had the permission to publish it. Report DMCA. E-Book Overview This is the only book in the After Effects market to focus exclusively on the creation of visual effects, and is a one-stop resource for anyone who wants in-depth explanations that demystify the realm of visual effects and how they were created, thanks to veteran author Mark Christiansen's friendly and accessible style.
A thoroughly packed, informative read, this masterful guide focuses on explaining the essential concepts, features, and techniques that are key to creating seamless movie-quality visual effects. Users who are comfortable with After Effects will find a helpful review of After Effects fundamentals—managing footage, viewing and editing layers, animating type, and more—so adobe after effects cs4 shortcut keys pdf free can learn how to work smarter and more efficiently.
Readers of all levels will learn core techniques for effects compositing including color matching, keying, rotoscoping, motion tracking, emulating the camera, and concluding with using adobe after effects cs4 shortcut keys pdf free in After Effects, written by contributor and expert Dan Ebberts. The final section of the adobe after effects cs4 shortcut keys pdf free delves into creative explorations, demonstrating professional effects that readers might want to re-create.
Throughout the book, beautiful full-color examples demonstrate what's possible, while the companion DVD offers demos of After Effects CS4, sample footage, and software plug-ins. E-Book Content Find the media files for this eBook at: www. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
While every precaution has been taken in the preparation of the book, neither the author nor Peachpit shall have any liability to any person or entity with respect to any loss or damage caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by the instructions contained in this book or by the computer software and hardware products described in it.
Trademarks Many of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to distinguish their products are claimed as trademarks. Where those designations appear in this book, and Peachpit was aware of a trademark claim, the designations appear as requested by the owner of the trademark. All other product names and services identified throughout this book are used in editorial fashion only and for the benefit of such companies with no intention of infringement of the trademark.
No such use, or the use of any trade name, is intended to convey endorsement or other affiliation with this book. A little music video he directed and designed in After Effects adobe after effects cs4 shortcut keys pdf free featured in the L. Shorts Fest.
Mark has used After Effects since version 2. He has written three previous editions of this book as well as After Effects 5. He has also created video training and for the last couple of years has been a professor at fxphd. His site provides numerous free scripts, reference material, and links to other scripting resources. He is a frequent contributor to the various After Effects forums and has a special interest in expressions and complex algorithms.
Dan is an electrical engineer by training, with a BSEE degree from the University of California, but has spent most of his career writing software. Thank you to the After Effects team for its integrity and willingness to hear criticism with equanimity, reshaping this tool so that it remains fully viable more than 15 years into its existence.
Had I not had the opportunity to work in the studio that was pushing After Effects beyond where anyone else thought it could go, The Orphanage, I would never have gained the clear picture of visual effects fundamentals that became the foundation of this book. Jeff Almasol took on the task of taking the topic of scripting, the most technical and nerdy corner of After Effects short of writing third-party effects, and making it accessible and friendly to the code-phobic.
I really have to hand it to Jeff; he tackled the chapter, which is Appendix A on the disc, with real enthusiasm. He knows how to make them because he makes them for his own needs. Sean Kennedy and Charles Bordenave nabscripts. Thanks as always to Julie Hill and Artbeats, and my good friends and colleagues at fxphd.
Members of the worldwide community of After Effects artists offered imagery for this book. Peschiera, Shuets Udono, Adobe after effects cs4 shortcut keys pdf free E. Yang, and Kevin Miller. Other people who were helpful with technical details in earlier versions of this book include Bruno Nicoletti at the Foundry UK, Scott Squires www. A huge thank you to Peachpit, who collectively show a strong commitment to producing the highest quality books, in particular Karyn Johnson who boldly stepped in and supplied blunt insight, humor, fun, vitamin C, archival footage, patience, whatever it took to keep the book on track.
Alexandre Czetwertynski is a fellow artist I trust to give the book an honest technical read. Thanks to all of the thoughtful folks who have dropped me a line at [email protected] ; your comments and questions matter. All that sex and violence. I get enough of that at home. Apart from the sex, of course. Spielberg called and he wants the world to adobe after effects cs4 shortcut keys pdf free, if only for 90 minutes, that dinosaurs are alive and breathing on an island off the coast of South America.
Your job: make them look real. Movies are not reality. The reason we love them is that they present us with a heightened, idealized version of reality. The couple are really, really charming and impossibly good-looking—in fact, one of them is Meg Ryan. Before the surgery. Oh, and music is playing. Nothing at all—and we love it. Man, she looked good. She looked good. But mostly, that T-Rex felt real because adobe after effects cs4 shortcut keys pdf free looked good.
She was wet. It was dark. She had a big old Dean Cundey blue rim light on her coming from nowhere. In truth, you could barely see her. But you sure could hear her. They make things feel right even if they skip over the facts in the process. Move a gun half an inch and it sounds like a shotgun adobe after effects cs4 shortcut keys pdf free cocked. Get hung up on? Instant dial tone. Modern computer displaying something on the screen? Of course there should be the sound of an IBM dot-matrix printer from They bring the sex.
So do cinematographers, makeup artists, wardrobe stylists, composers, set designers, casting directors, and even the practical effects department. And yet somehow, we in the visual effects industry are often forbidden from bringing the sex.
Our clients pigeonhole us into the role of the prop maker: Build me a T-Rex, and it better look real. Not just good—impossibly good. Unrealistically blue-rim-lightouta-nowhere good. Sexy good. Have you ever argued with a client over aspects of an effects shot that were immutable facts? Do you ever get frustrated with clients who try to art-direct reality in this way? Well, stop it. And you know what else? Was It Good for You? The sad reality is that we, the visual effects industry, pigeonhole ourselves by being overly preoccupied with reality.
We have no one to blame but ourselves. Want me to do one at 48 frames? The problem is that the damage is already done. So when you attempt to break our self-imposed mold and bring the sex to your client, you will face an uphill battle.
Then all the talk of realism went away, and the shot got oohs and ahs. Your client reacts to your work emotionally, but they critique technically.
When they see your shot, they react with their gut. You may think that those are the worst kind of comments, adobe after effects cs4 shortcut keys pdf free they are the best. Bringing the sex is all about cheap tricks. Lights On or Off? There are some visual effects supervisors who pride themselves on being sticklers for detail. This is like being an architect whose specialty is nails. There will forever be something more you could add, some shortcoming that could be addressed.
Anyone can nitpick. And this is always the sex. Oh yeah: Star Wars. Audiences only care about the sex. I added a layer of smoke to technically match the surrounding shots. Still, the shot adobe after effects cs4 shortcut keys pdf free on the screen. Finally, I asked my compositor to softly darken down the right half of the shot by a full stop, placing half the plate along with our CG element in a subtle shadow.
Boom, the shot sang. What I did was, strictly speaking, the job of the cinematographer, or perhaps the colorist. And color correction is the ultimate cheap trick.
DEFAULT
DEFAULT
Keyboard Shortcuts for Adobe After Effects CS4
Notice the new feature in CS4 that shows where this comp fits in a series of precomps; each of those buttons opens the corresponding comp. Most larger facilities rely on QuickTime only for client delivery and in the edit suite. You can also assign shortcuts by clicking in the shortcut column and tapping keys on their keyboard to create fater shortcut including adding modifiers. Import multiple files or image sequences.
DEFAULT
DEFAULT
Adobe illustrator CS6 (Portable) Crack + Serial Number Download ~ GetintoPc - Get Into PC.
Graphics file formats differ in the way they represent image data as pixels or vectorsand support different compression techniques and Photoshop features. To preserve all Photoshop features layers, effects, masks, pf so onsave a copy of your image in Photoshop format PSD.
The standard bit depth for images is 8 bits per channel. To achieve greater dynamic range with or bit images, use the following formats:.
Many file formats use compression adobe after effects cs4 shortcut keys pdf free reduce the file size of bitmap images. Lossless techniques compress the file without removing image detail or color information; lossy techniques shortctu detail.
The following are commonly used compression techniques:. Most useful for images with large areas of single color. Recommended for continuous-tone images, such as photographs. JPEG uses lossy compression.
For the best effcets results, choose maximum-quality compression. A family of lossless compression techniques for black-and-white images, supported by the PDF and PostScript language file formats. For more information, see Help for the specific Adobe applications. When saving a PSD, you can set a preference to maximize file compatibility. This saves a composite version of a layered image in the file so it effecfs be read by other applications, including previous versions of Photoshop.
It also maintains the appearance of the document, just in case future versions of Photoshop change the behavior of some features. Including the composite also makes the image much faster to load and use in applications other effecgs Photoshop, and adobe after effects cs4 shortcut keys pdf free sometimes be required to make the image readable in other applications. Mac OS You can use this format to open an image in Photoshop 2.
Saving in Photoshop 2. You adobe after effects cs4 shortcut keys pdf free use DCS 2. Encapsulated PostScript EPS language file format can contain both vector and bitmap graphics and is supported by virtually all graphics, illustration, and page-layout programs.
EPS format is used to transfer PostScript artwork between applications. When you open an EPS file containing vector graphics, Photoshop rasterizes the image, converting the vector graphics to pixels.
EPS does support clipping paths. You use DCS 2. You can edit and use an opened preview image just as any other low-resolution file. The current version of Photoshop includes rasterization features for opening files that include vector data.
The Photoshop Raw format is a flexible file format for adobe after effects cs4 shortcut keys pdf free images between applications and computer platforms. Documents saved in the Photoshop Raw format can be of any pixel or file size, but they cannot contain layers.
The Photoshop Raw format consists of a stream of bytes describing the color information in the image. Photoshop designates the number of channels needed to describe the image, plus any additional channels in the image. The file creator is also kes a four-character ID. The Header parameter specifies how many bytes of information appear in ca4 file before actual image information begins.
This value determines the number of zeroes inserted at the beginning of the file as placeholders. You can enter a header when you open the file in Raw format. You can also save the file aadobe a header cd4 then use keya file-editing program, such as HEdit Windows or Norton Utilities Adobe after effects cs4 shortcut keys pdf free OSto replace the zeroes with header information. You can save the image in an interleaved or non-interleaved format.
If you choose interleaved, the color values red, green, and prf, for example are stored sequentially. Your choice depends on requirements of the application adove will open the file.
A Photoshop Raw image is not in the same file format as a camera raw image file from a digital camera. Digital Negative DNG is a file format that contains the raw image data from a digital camera and metadata that defines what the data means. BMP is a standard Windows image format on Windows-compatible computers. BMP images are normally written bottom to top; however, you can select the Flip Row Order option to write them from top to bottom.
You can also select an alternate encoding method by clicking Advanced Modes. Using the Cineon format, you afterr output back to film with no loss of image quality. The format is used in the Cineon Digital Film System, which transfers images originated on film to the Cineon format and back to film.
DICOM files contain both image data and headers, which kehs information about the patient and the medical image. GIF format preserves transparency in indexed-color images; however, it does not support alpha channels. Use raw files from Canon cameras for best results. IFF Interchange File Format is a general-purpose data storage format that can associate and store multiple types of data. IFF is portable and has extensions that support still-picture, sound, music, video, and textual data.
A JPEG image is automatically decompressed when opened. A higher level of compression results in lower image quality, and a lower level of compression results in better image quality. In most cases, the Maximum quality option produces a result indistinguishable from the original. All Photoshop features, such as layers, effects, and filters, are supported. With documents larger than 30, pixels in width or height, some plug-in filters are unavailable.
Most other whortcut and older versions of Photoshop cannot support documents with file sizes larger than 2 GB. The film format adobe after effects cs4 shortcut keys pdf free high color fidelity and a dynamic range suitable for use in motion picture production.
Based on the PostScript imaging model, PDF files accurately display and preserve fonts, page layouts, and both vector and bitmap graphics. In addition, PDF files can contain electronic document search and navigation features such as electronic links. The Touch Up Object tool is mainly for last-minute revisions to images and objects. Photoshop PDF files. Photoshop PDF files can contain only a single effecfs. Photoshop PDF format supports all color modes except Multichannel and features that are supported in standard Affer format.
Standard PDF files. Standard PDF files can contain multiple pages and images. When you open a standard PDF file, Photoshop rasterizes vector and text content, while preserving pixel content. PICT format is used in Mac OS pef and page-layout applications as an shortcuut file format for transferring images between applications.
Adobe after effects cs4 shortcut keys pdf free, Photoshop cannot save to this format. The Pixar format is designed specifically for high-end graphics applications, such as those used for rendering three-dimensional images and animation.
Pixar format supports RGB and grayscale images with a single alpha afteer. The format can be used for lossless data transfer because many applications support this format. You can even edit or create such files effectw a simple text editor. This format adobe after effects cs4 shortcut keys pdf free originally developed for the Radiance system, a professional tool for visualizing lighting in virtual environments. The file format stores the quantity of light per pixel instead of just the colors to be displayed onscreen.
Radiance HDR files are often used in 3D modeling. Contact Creo to obtain utilities for transferring files saved in Scitex CT format to a Scitex system. These files are generated for input using a Scitex scanner. Images saved in Scitex CT format are printed to film using a Scitex rasterizing unit, which produces separations using a patented Scitex halftoning system.
TIFF is a flexible bitmap image format supported by virtually all paint, image-editing, and effdcts applications. Also, virtually all desktop scanners can produce TIFF images. Photoshop can save adkbe in a TIFF file; however, if you open the file in another application, only the flattened image is visible. Photoshop can also pdc notes, transparency, and multiresolution pyramid data in TIFF format. WBMP format is the standard format for optimizing images for mobile devices, such as cell phones.
WebP format provides both lossless and lossy compression for working with images on the web. To learn more, see work with WebP files in Effscts. Buy Adobe Photoshop or start a Free Trial. Legal Notices Online Privacy Policy. Buy now. User Guide Cancel. Make it. Important Important:.
Choosing keyw file format. Formats for bit images requires Save A Copy command. Formats for bit images requires Save As command. Supported file formats in Photoshop. File Format Types. Ccs4 File Formats. Audio import formats.
DEFAULT
DEFAULT
3 comment