Highlights

Students will learn more on creating special effects for video and motion graphics.

Target Audience: Graphic and Video professionals who need an essential understanding of video editing, motion editing and compositing. Experienced users will also benefit from many hands-on projects and tricks learnt on the class. No prior experience of After Effects is required. Training available on both Mac and PC.

Detailed Course Outline:

Introduction: Real-World Usage of After Effects

• What is After Effects?
• Cloud complete versus standalone plans
• What type of media can it create?
• What kind of media can be imported into After Effects?
• Components of an After Effects file
• After Effects workflow: Best practices
• Media deployment file fomat roundup
• What determines a project’s resolution?
• What determines a project’s frame rate?
• What are best practices regarding graphical and audio assets?
• What technical specifications must be met?

Hands-On Unit 1: Setting Up an After Effects Project

• About RAM and real-time rendering
• Understanding linked media, and reloading clips
• Setting Preferences and Project Settings
• Creating a project and importing footage
• Creating a Composition and arranging layers
• Adding effects and modifying layer properties
• Animating a Composition
• Working with the Time Controls Panel
• Working with Switches and Modes in the Timeline
• Creating rendering presets, and rendering a Composition
• Customizing the After Effects Workspace

Hands-On Unit 2: Basic Animation With Effects and Presets

• Working with imported Illustrator layers
• Creating text
• Applying text animation presets
• Applying effects to layers
• Previewing effects
• Nesting and pre-composing
• Adding transparency

Hands-On Unit 3: Animating Text

• Title design: Adding text layers
• Creating and formatting text
• Using text animation presets
• Animating with keyframes
• Keyframe interpolation basics
• Animating using parenting
• Converting imported Photoshop text
• Animating text using a path animation preset
• Animating type tracking
• Animating text opacity
• Using a text animator group
• Converting path points to positional keyframes
• Auto-orienting a layer along a motion path
• Adding motion blur
• Rendering a Composition

Hands-On Unit 4: Animating Shapes

• Differences between shape and mask layers
• Adding a shape layer
• Creating and animating shapes
• Using Repeaters
• Incorporating video and audio layers
• Applying a Cartoon effect
• Adding a title bar
• Rendering a Composition using the AME

Hands-On Unit 5: Skills Summation Project

• Adjusting layer anchor points
• Masking video using vector shapes
• Applying self-generating effects
• Creating an animated slide show
• Mixing audio track levels

Hands-On Unit 6: Working with Masks

• Understanding alpha channels, masks, mattes, and keying
• Importing masks from Photoshop
• Animating masks
• Exploring keyframe interpolation with the Graph Editor
• Creating Animation Presets
• Creating and editing masks in After Effects
• Feathering the edges of a mask
• Using the Mask Feather Tool
• Applying blend modes
• Creating a vignette
• Color correction basics

Hands-On Unit 7: Working in 3D

• Manipulating 2D text and objects in 3D space
• Creating and shading extruded 3D text
• Animating 3D text
• Multiple scene Views
• Applying lights to 3D layers
• Shading and shadowing layers
• Animating light and Materials properties
• Third-party 3D plug-ins

Hands-On Unit 8: Color Correction and Cleanup Adjusting color balance

• Replacing a background
• Using the Clone Tool to remove unwanted elements
• Correcting a color range
• Warming colors with the Photo Filter effect

Hands-On Unit 9: Rendering and Exporting

• Testing for final Renders and Exports
• Understanding video and audio compression
• Rendering in After Effects’ Render Queue
• Rendering in the Adobe Media Encoder
• Creating Render templates
• Rendering and Exporting to a variety of media types:

• High-resolution recompositing
• DVD-VWeb video
• YouTubeMobile devices
• Web video

Hands-On Unit 10: 3D—Advanced Concepts

• Switching camera perspectives
• Working with multiple views
• Adding and animating lights
• Adding and animating cameras
• Interpolating camera motion
• Cutting between multiple cameras
• Working with Cinema 4D Lite in After Effects

Hands-On Unit 11: Advanced Masking

• Adapting complex masks
• Positioning and scaling complex mask elements
• Feathering complex masks
• Animating complex masks
• Rotoscoping with the Roto Brush Tool
• Creating and refining Roto Brush segmentation boundaries
• Freezing and unfreezing Roto Brush segments

Hands-On Unit 12: Color Keying

• Understanding blue and green screen keys
• Creating garbage mattes
• Refining mattes and masks
• Using the Keylight effect
• Using the standard Color Key effect

Hands-On Unit 13: Particle Simulations

• Applying Particle Simulation effects
• Adjusting birth rate, longevity, and other effect properties
• Adding additional effects
• Compositing Particle Simulations

Hands-On Unit 14: Time-warp Simulations

• Using the Timewarp effect to retime video
• Establishing keyframes to control speed
• Using the Graph Editor to adjust fast, slow, and reverse motion

Hands-On Unit 15: Painting and Cloning

• Understanding the Paint tools
• Modifying and saving custom Brushes
• Creating Brush strokes
• Animating strokes
• Rotoscoping with brush strokes
• Animating with the Eraser tool
• Duplicating video with the Clone tool

Hands-On Unit 16: Puppet Tool Distortion

• About the Puppet Tools
• Adding Deform pins
• Stiffening with the Starch Tool
• Animating pin positions

Hands-On Unit 17: Warp Stabilization and Motion Tracking

• Using the Warp Stabilizer VFX feature
• Customizing Warp Stabilizer VFX settings
• Using the Track Motion panel
• Applying single-point motion tracking
• Working with track points
• Appying multipoint tracking
• Creating motion tracking by applying Mocha planar data

Hands-On Unit 18: Expressions

• Writing Expressions
• Pick Whip Expressions

Hands-On Unit 19: 3D Camera Tracking

• Tracking footage
• Creating text and shadows
• Adding ambient lightLocking layers to planes with null objects
• Adjusting Camera depth of field

Hands-On Unit 20: Time-lapse Simulations

• Simulating Time-lapse photography
• Manipulating light over time
• Duplicating an animation using the pick whip
• Creating a track matte
• Animating shadows
• Adding a lens flare effect
• Applying Time Remapping keyframes
• Customizing Time Remapping keyframe values

Note: Our outlines are a guide to the content covered on a typical class. We may change or alter the course topics to meet the objectives of a particular class.

What's Included:

• Adobe After Effect Training Manual
• Adobe Certificate of Course Completion
• 6 Months Free Repeat Policy

Class Starting Monday, March 16

5 sessions

• Monday, March 16, 9:00AM- 4:30PM
• Tuesday, March 17, 9:00AM- 4:30PM
• Wednesday, March 18, 9:00AM- 4:30PM
• Thursday, March 19, 9:00AM- 4:30PM
• Friday, March 20, 9:00AM- 4:30PM

Class Starting Monday, April 27

5 sessions

• Monday, April 27, 9:00AM- 4:30PM
• Tuesday, April 28, 9:00AM- 4:30PM
• Wednesday, April 29, 9:00AM- 4:30PM
• Thursday, April 30, 9:00AM- 4:30PM
• Friday, May 01, 9:00AM- 4:30PM

Class Starting Monday, June 08

5 sessions

• Monday, June 08, 9:00AM- 4:30PM
• Tuesday, June 09, 9:00AM- 4:30PM
• Wednesday, June 10, 9:00AM- 4:30PM
• Thursday, June 11, 9:00AM- 4:30PM
• Friday, June 12, 9:00AM- 4:30PM

The class identified is made available through CourseHorse, a 3rd party marketplace for After Effects classes and more. Groupon is not affiliated with or sponsored by the merchant, Training Connection, in connection with this offer. Please contact Groupon customer service for all inquiries related to this offer. Inquiries placed to CourseHorse will be directed back to Groupon.