Having learned many of its ins and outs, I also find it fun to work with. I use it not only to complete shots, but even to just arrange my thoughts and problem solve the process. (upbeat music) I'm Mark Christiansen, and I've been using After Effects for decades because it's the most versatile video tool I know of.
Sure, many techniques require more than that, but with a better understanding of After Effects as a whole, you'll have a much better idea of what and how to create with this tool set. The examples are designed to be achieved in just a few steps each.
This course is designed to reveal the foundational elements of the software and to give you a direct experience working with each of them. If you find yourself wondering what After Effects even does or if you're looking for your first success creating a composition from start to finish using the software, you've come to the right place. Have you heard amazing things about what can be done with Adobe After Effects, only to open the application and have no idea where to begin? There's no shortage of tutorials that go deep into specific techniques, but without an understanding of the basics, (upbeat music) any of them may leave you with more questions than answers. Mark is a founding author at ProVideo Coalition and an instructor at fxphd and the Academy of Art University, as well as a guest host on podcasts including "The VFX Show." He is located in the San Francisco Bay Area. Mark's roles have included production, direction, design, and on-set and post-production supervision.
Mark's clients include Sony, Adobe, Cisco, Sun, Cadence, Seagate, Intel, and Medtronic, and his broadcast motion graphics work has appeared on HBO and the History Channel. He has also created visual effects, animations, and designs for Avatar, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, The Day After Tomorrow, Spy Kids 3-D, and more. In addition to writing the definitive book about creating visual effects with the world's most popular compositing application, Mark has supervised visual effects for feature films such as All About Evil. He is also the author of After Effects Studio Techniques. If you accidentally closed a tool panel and you want to get it back, you can simply re-enable it from the Window menu.Mark Christiansen is a creator and leader. These can be configured and generally, you can drag any tool panel around and dock it wherever you like to fully customize your After Effects interface. On the right side of the window you will find a number of tool panels.
As you play back your or scrub through your composition, the preview window will update automatically. The preview window in the middle of the screen will show you what your composition looks like at the current time position. The vertical red line in your timeline window is the current time indicator and you can grab and drag the little triangle head to scrub through your composition. This bar indicates when the layer starts and ends and you can move them around or adjust their start or end time at will :) On the right side you will see the life bar for each layer. On the left side you can see all the layers in your composition and this is where you can manage their order and properties. The timeline displays the contents of the current composition you are working on. You can create folders here and I do recommend that you keep your files properly organized as it can get pretty messy pretty fast, especially when you work on more complicated VFX. The project window will show you a list of all the files you imported into your project as well as any compositions you created.