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Last updated 12/21/2009
USING AFTER EFFECTS CS4
Workflows, planning, and setup
Specific workflows in After Effects
Most sections of this document are organized according to general tasks that you can perform with After Effects.
However, many questions are more focused on a specific end result rather than a specific task. For example, rather than
wanting to know how to apply an effect to a layer and blend that layer with other layers, you may want to know how
to make fire, smoke, clouds, or a tornado. This section is intended as a repository for links to resources that answer
those specific, goal-focused questions.
If you add comments to this section that point to additional resources of this kind, the section will grow to be more
useful and more complete.
Fire, explosions, muzzle flashes
Mark Christiansen provides tips and detailed techniques for creating and compositing fire, explosions, muzzle flashes,
bullet hits, and energy blasts in the "Pyrotechnics: Creating Fire, Explosions, and Energy Phenomena in After Effects"
chapter of
After Effects Studio Techniques
on the Peachpit Press website.
Fog, smoke, clouds
Mark Christiansen provides tips and detailed techniques for creating and compositing fog, smoke, mist, rain, and snow
in the "Climate: Air, Water, Smoke, Clouds in After Effects" chapter of
After Effects Studio Techniques
on the Peachpit
Press website.
Daniel Broadway provides tips for compositing fog or mist into a scene on
his
website.
Camera mapping, camera projection, camera moves, camera matching
Mark Christiansen provides tips and detailed techniques for working with cameras in the "Virtual Cinematography in
After Effects" chapter of
After Effects Studio Techniques
on the Peachpit Press website. This chapter includes
information about matching lens distortion, performing camera moves, performing camera projection (camera
mapping), using rack focus, creating boke blur, using grain, and choosing a frame rate to match your story-telling.
Planning and setup
Planning your work
Correct project settings, preparation of footage, and initial composition settings can help you to avoid errors and
unexpected results when rendering your final output movie. Before you begin, think about what kind of work you'll
be doing in After Effects and what kind of output you intend to create. After you have planned your project and made
some basic decisions about project settings, you'll be ready to start importing footage and assembling compositions
from layers based on that footage.
The best way to ensure that your movie is suitable for a specific medium is to render a test movie and view it using the
same type of equipment that your audience will use to view it. It's best to do such tests before you have completed the
difficult and time-consuming parts of your work, to uncover problems early.
Aharon Rabinowitz provides an article on the
Creative COW website
about planning your project with the final
delivery specifications in mind.
For a video tutorial on creating and organizing projects, go to the Adobe website at www.adobe.com/go/vid0221.
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