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AE Toolbox 3: AE Basics (including ones you may have missed)

hebrides

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Hi there. Whether you've gotten here through a generic site search or through this thread, welcome.

In this thread, you'll find links to tutorials that teach you some of the basics of using After Effects. If you're new to AE, this is a good place to start.

Even if you're an experienced user, though, there may be some features of AE that you're not familiar with.

For example, there are lots of "hidden" features that aren't used much in most tutorials you'll find online or in books, but that are very cool and can make your life much easier. I'm still discovering these myself, and when I do, I'll put them up here too.
 

hebrides

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First up is Kick-start your projects with AE presets by Andrew Devis at creativecow.net.

Have you ever wondered why it takes SO LONG for AE to install? One of the reasons is that it comes with many, many different presets.

You can see that they exist in the Effects and Presets panel, but have you ever bothered to go through them? I hadn't until I saw this, and I bet you haven't either. And why not? Perhaps because it's tedious to try out each preset by applying it to a given project, and there's no way to see what each preset looks like ahead of time.

Well, you're half-right. It is tedious to go through them one by one using the Effects and Presets panel. However, there is a way to preview the presets before applying them.

To do so, you need to use Adobe Bridge, a program that I couldn't see any practical purpose to until I found out about this extremely cool feature from this tutorial.

I've already learned a lot about what's available, and I've already gotten several ideas about how these effects -- which include text effects, BTW, just waiting for you to make custom titles! -- could work in my own projects.

You could probably spend hours going through the presets alone, just to see how each one works. Now that I know about how to browse and apply them efficiently, that's what I plan to do.

As Devis shows in the tutorial, these presets can help you create a project very quickly. So if you know AE already, you can save yourself a lot of time.

If you don't know AE and don't know where to start, you can build something from nothing without knowing any special techniques. If you can use a word processor or adjust your computer's volume with a slider, you already have all the mechanical expertise you need to start playing around with presets and -- yes, really -- create your first AE project.

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hebrides

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Next up is a rarity: a link to a whole batch of tutorials that teach you the basics of AE.

In almost every other post in the Box O' Tutorials, you'll find just one link to one tutorial.

This time, though, there's one resource from the amazing Andrew Kramer at videocopilot.net that features ten tutorials, each of which focuses on a specific feature of After Effects.

Be sure to check out After Effects Basic Training in its entirety. You'll learn to use just about every major feature in AE. Most other tutorials, both on Video Copilot and elsewhere, build on one or more of the basic techniques from these tutorials.

I've yet to find a better resource that can get you up and working in AE quickly. It's just about the closest thing there is to required viewing.
 

spence

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Seconded on Videocopilot.com. It's great an easy to understand. I'm computer program handicapped, and I could even get this stuff. They also sell a ton of add-ons for after effects that are very, very cool.

Thanks for these hebrides, my knowledge is expanding because of you.
 

hebrides

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Thanks, spence -- praise indeed. And while we're on the subject of Video Copilot -- and tutorials relevant to your current project, as well as those of many other faneditors -- VC has two of the best lightsaber tutorials around, including a downloadable preset that can make things much easier. I'll probably post a link to them in "cool effects for specific shots" soon.
 

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Next up is a tutorial by Rich Harrington on creativecow.net called Converting Frame Rates . This is something that you'll need to do a lot if you're working with B-roll footage or incorporating 29.97 fps footage into your 23.976 fps edit.

At least that's what you'll usually be doing.

In this tutorial, though, he's actually going from 23.976 to 29.97. When would you ever want to do this? Well, chances are, unless you work in TV, you won't.

However, the focus of the tutorial is on advanced frame blending, and it's something that is definitely worth knowing. As he says at the end of the tutorial, you may want to use advanced frame blending to slow down or stretch a shot or scene without making it obvious you've done so.

What advanced frame blending does is create entirely new intermediate frames by morphing between two existing frames. This is something that's extremely cool and useful, and it's something that (in many cases) AE can do for you without your having to know a lot of advanced techniques or how to use things like the Puppet tool.

This tutorial is also really useful because it goes over the other two main methods of creating new intermediate frames and why, in most cases, advanced frame blending is the way to go.

I'm experimenting with this technique in my KOTCS edit to extend a couple of too-quick reaction shots. So far, early results are pretty promising. I think it works best and is least noticeable when you apply the advanced frame blending to a few selected frames rather than to an entire shot, but YMMV.

Normal frame blending (notice the blur/partial dissolve between existing frames of the hand in motion):

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Advanced frame blending (notice there's no blur):

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