One of After Effects’ greatest strengths is its ability to composite elements. After Effects offers several powerful options including track mattes, layer masks, and 3D space. These options provide you with precise control on how the layers are mixed together in the Composition panel.

Using Track Mattes

Track mattes allow you to use one layer to create holes that allow another layer to show through. For example, you can use the shape of one layer (the matte) to define a pattern that the underlying layer (the fill) shows through.

Let’s use a second instance of the Blue BG pre-comp to create a masked effect.

1. Select the Blue BG pre-composition in the Timeline panel.
2. Choose Edit > Duplicate to create a second instance of the pre-comp.
3. Drag the new copy so it is the second layer in the Timeline stack.
4. Choose Edit > Deselect All so no layers are active.
5. Click the Magnification ratio pop-up menu and choose 25% to see more of the canvas space.
6. Click in the toolbar and choose Ellipse Tool.
7. Drag with the Ellipse tool to create a shape.
8. Activate the Selection tool in the toolbar.
9. Click and drag the control handles to resize the shape layer as needed. You can click near a corner handle to rotate the shape layer.
10. Drag the shape layer so it is immediately above the top instance of Blue BG.
11. Click the Toggle Switches/Modes button to see blending modes.
12. For the Blue BG layer, click the TrkMat menu to access the track matte controls:
    • No Track Matte. No transparency is created; next layer above acts as a normal layer.
    • Alpha Matte. Opaque when alpha channel pixel value is 100%.
    • Alpha Inverted Matte. Opaque when alpha channel pixel value is 0%.
    • Luma Matte. Opaque when the luminance value of a pixel is 100%.
    • Luma Inverted Matte. Opaque when the luminance value of a pixel is 0%.
13. Choose Alpha Inverted Matte. The top copy of Blue BG only shows through where the ellipse shape does not exist. The mask layer automatically has its visibility turned off.
14. Click the Magnification ratio pop-up menu and choose Fit. Then choose File > Save to save your work.

Using Masks

Another way to apply selective transparency in After Effects is to use masks. A mask is essentially a vector-based path that can be applied to a layer. You can create masks using the Shape or Pen tools. Additionally, you can copy and paste paths from Illustrator to a selected layer in After Effects for even more options. Let’s experiment with shapes by adding a vignette.

1. Click the topmost layer in the Timeline and press the Home key.
2. Choose Layer > New > Solid. The Solid Settings window opens.
3. Enter Vignette into the Name field. Click the color swatch at the bottom of the window. A new window opens. Set the color to black and click OK. Click OK again to create the solid layer.
4. Double-click the Ellipse tool to add an elliptical mask to the Vignette layer. The layer is masked, but it needs modification.
5. The basic Mask properties are visible. Press M to hide them.
6. Press MM to access the advanced Mask properties.
7. Select the Inverted check box to invert the mask.
8. Set Mask Feather to 250. Set Mask Opacity to 80%.
9. Click the RAM Preview button to see the results so far. Choose File > Save to save your work.

Using 3D Space

After Effects offers powerful support and several options for 3D space. These options allow for objects to be rotated or positioned along the X, Y, or Z axes. To work in 3D space, an object must be converted to a 3D layer.

1. Select logo start in the Timeline. Click its eye icon so it is active.
2. Click the Toggle Switches/Modes button.
3. Select the 3D column (it uses a cube-shaped icon).
4. Press P for Position. Set the layer to 775.0, 325.0, 0.0.
5. You want to animate the layer in 3D space so it swings into place. So you need to adjust the anchor point of the layer so it rotates around the left edge. Select the Pan Behind tool from the toolbar to adjust the layer’s anchor point without changing the visible position of the layer.
6. Drag the anchor point of the layer so it lands just outside the logo.
Using the Pan Behind tool, drag the anchor point to the outside edge to the right of the logo. Since the layer was trimmed, be sure to move the Current Time Indicator to view the logo.

7. Press R for rotation to control the layer.
8. Press I to move to the layer’s In point.
9. Click the stopwatch to add a rotation keyframe for the Y Rotation. Enter a starting value of 60.0˚.
10. Click the time display (at the bottom of the Composition panel or in the upper-left corner of the Timeline). Enter 2:25, and press Return (Enter).
11. Set the Y Rotation to 0.0˚.
12. Click the RAM Preview button to see the results so far. Choose File > Save to save your work.

Using Animation Presets

To speed up tasks, After Effects offers several animation presets that you can apply to layers. Included with After Effects are several options for Backgrounds, Shapes, Text, and Transitions. Additionally, more can be downloaded from Adobe’s Web site at http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/exchange.

Let’s apply one of the presets as a transition.

1. Select the layer logo start in the Timeline.
2. Press I to go to the layer’s In point.
3. Click the Effects & Presets panel.
4. Click the disclosure triangle next to * Animation Presets.
5. Click the triangle next to Transitions – Dissolves. There are several options available.
6. Knowing what each effect does by simply looking at its name is difficult. Fortunately, After Effects makes browsing easy. Click the submenu in the Effects & Presets panel and choose Browse Presets.
7. Bridge opens with a folder for each category. Double-click the Transitions – Dissolves category to view the previews.
8. Click a thumbnail to preview the Animation Preset.
9. Let’s use the Dissolve – vapor.ffx on the logo layer. Double-click to apply the effect to the selected layer. Bridge is hidden and After Effects becomes the active application.
10. Click the RAM Preview button and review the effect. The two transitions applied have different durations. Let’s confirm this by examining the keyframes applied to the layer.
11. With the logo start layer selected, press U to see all the user added keyframes. If the keyframes are hidden, press U again to reveal them. This is a useful shortcut to quickly access animation controls. You now see two sets of keyframes and two expressions that are controlling the animation. Expressions are small computer programs written in a language called Javascript—a language similar to Flash’s ActionScript.

Tip: Learn More About Expressions

Expressions are a bit tough to the uninitiated. Here are a few resources to check out:

• Visit Dan Ebbert’s scripting Web site at http://www.motionscript.com.
• Read The AE Enhancers forum at http://www.aenhancers.com.
• Check out the book After Effects Expressions by Marcus Geduld.
12. Closely examine the sets of keyframes. Notice how the first two frames line up, but the second set does not.
13. Click the second keyframe, hold down the Shift key, and drag the second keyframe for the Transition Completion property. As you get near the next keyframe, it snaps into place.

    Tip: Jump Between Keyframes

    Two useful shortcuts you can use to navigate keyframes are J and K. J moves to the previous keyframe and K moves to the next.
14. Click the RAM Preview button to see the results so far. Choose File > Save to save your work.

The Timeline in After Effects gives you access to several key animation parameters. You can visually access Transform properties (such as Rotation and Position) as well as animate effects. The After Effects Timeline is powerful but offers a refined interface to make it easy to get things done.

Organizing Layers

Before you can animate items, you need to add them to the composition (by dragging either the Composition panel or the Timeline panel). The stacking order of layers in the Timeline matters when you’re working in 2D space. Layers are stacked from bottom to top (as in Flash or Photoshop).

1. Click the disclosure triangle next to each of the Sources folders so you can see all the files contained within.
2. Drag the following elements into the Timeline (be sure to drag in this order). Place each new layer on top of the previous in the Timeline.
   • Score.asnd
   • bg.mov
   • clouds.psd
   • Chart.swf
   • skyline.ai
   • logo start (composition)

The Timeline should contain six layers and match the following figure.

Trimming Layers

When working with layers in the Timeline panel, you’ll often need to adjust their start and end points. The beginning of a layer is called its In point and the end of a layer is called its Out point. The duration of a layer is defined as the span between a layer’s In and Out points.

When you trim a layer in After Effects, you modify its In or Out point (and therefore its duration). Let’s explore trimming as well as adjust the In point for a layer.

1. Select the layer Chart.swf in the Timeline.
2. Press the End key or drag the Current Time Indicator to the end of the composition.
3. To make trimming easier, you can view the In and Out point controls. Right-click on the Source Name header and choose Columns > In. Repeat and choose Columns > Out.
4. Click the Out point text for the Chart.swf layer and enter 19:29 in the pop-up menu.
5. The layer’s In and Out points have changed. This is not desired because the start of the animated SWF file now occurs before 0;00;00;00. While it may seem confusing, it is possible to set layers to occur before the first visible frame. This allows effects to pre-roll or start animating before they are visible. Choose Edit > Undo to reposition the layer.
6. To trim a layer, use the keyboard shortcuts. Press Option +] (Alt+]) to modify the layer’s Out point.
7. Although you trimmed the Chart.swf layer, you need to extend the bg.mov layer. Unfortunately, this layer is a movie file with a duration of only 10 seconds. Before the layer can be trimmed, it needs to be looped. Select the bg.mov file in the Project panel.
8. Choose File > Interpret Footage > Main. The Interpret Footage dialog opens. In the Other Options area, enter a value of Loop: 2 Times. This particular footage is a looping background, which means it has been prepared to have identical first frames and last frames. Click OK to store the change. This process is very specialized, but many movie files sold by stock footage companies are prepared this way.

Tip: Making Footage Loops

To learn how the bg.mov footage clip was prepared, you can download a handout at http://www.rhedpixel.com/handouts/theresources/conferencehandouts/DVExpo/DVDMENUS handout.pdf.

9. Select the file bg.mov in the Timeline. Press Option +] (Alt+]) to modify the layer’s Out point (if you need to trim an In point, use the [ key).
10. Drag the Current Time Indicator to 1:15 in the Timeline.
11. Select the layer logo start. Press the [ key to move the selected layer’s In point. By using just the bracket key, the layer is moved but not trimmed.
12. Choose File > Save to save your work so far.

Pre-composing Layers

As your Timeline gets more and more full, it is a good idea to consider using pre-compositions. A pre-composition (or pre-comp) is essentially one composition nested inside another. There are many reasons to use a pre-comp; they range from technical decisions (such as forcing certain effects to render first) to organizational decisions (making repeated use of an element easier).

1. Click the eye icons next to all layers in the Timeline except the bg.mov layer to disable their visibility.
2. Select the layer bg.mov in the Timeline.
3. Choose Layer > Pre-compose. A new window opens prompting you to specify settings for the pre-composition.
4. Enter the name Blue BG into the New composition name field. Select the “Move all attributes into the new composition” option. This option will nest the selected layers inside the new pre-composition. Select the Open New Composition check box. Click OK to create and open the new pre-composition.
5. In the Project panel, drag the new pre-comp Blue BG into the Pre-comps folder you created earlier. This helps keep the project organized.

Using Adjustment Layers

An adjustment layer makes it easy to quickly stylize layers in a composition. Using adjustment layers is a useful way to apply effects to one or more layers. Let’s add an adjustment layer to the current pre-composition.

1. Choose Layer > New > Adjustment Layer. An adjustment layer is added to the top of the Timeline.
2. In the Effects & Presets panel, type Colorama into the search field. The Colorama effect uses a range of colors to colorize the affected layer.
3. Drag the Colorama effect onto the adjustment layer. The footage is colorized with the default color map (which is pretty unattractive).
4. The Project panel now has the Effect Controls panel docked with it. This panel offers precise control over the applied effect. Click the disclosure triangle next to Output Cycle to view the applied color map.
5. Click the Use Preset Palette menu and experiment with the different options in the list. The circle indicates the color that is being applied to the image. The colors are mapped based on the luminance value of the footage.
6. Let’s use a saved preset for the animation. The use of presets allows you to store settings for use again in the future or to exchange them with another user. Choose Animation > Apply Animation Preset.
7. A new dialog opens so you can navigate to the preset. Open the Chapter_01 Project Files folder.
8. Select the file Sky_Blue.ffx and click Open. The new settings for the effect are applied.
9. Select the adjustment layer in the Timeline.
10. Click the Toggle Switches/Modes button to access blending modes. You can use blending modes to change how two layers interact.
11. Change the mode for the adjust- ment layer to Color. The effect is now applied more “gently” based on the original color values in the under-lying footage.
12. Close the pre-composition by choosing File > Close. The original Bumper composition is now selected. Choose File > Save to save your work so far.

Transforming Layers

After Effects offers five Transform properties for layers. These properties can be adjusted to affect the appearance of a layer or keyframed to create animation:

• Anchor Point (A)
• Position (P)
• Rotation (R)
• Scale (S)
• Opacity (T)

Let’s apply transformations to several layers to create changes to the composition’s appearance.

Chart.swf layer

1. Select the Bumper Timeline, then select the Chart.swf layer in the Timeline and click the eye icon to enable its visibility.
2. Press S to access the Scale properties for the layer. Enter a value of 125% to enlarge the layer and press Return (Enter).
3. The SWF layer is a vector file, which means it can be scaled above 100%. You must enable a switch to preserve vector scaling and quality; otherwise, the image gets pixilated. Click the Toggle Switches and Modes button at the bottom of the Timeline, then click the Continuous Rasterize switch for the chart layer (click in the empty space for the layer in the “sun” column).
4. Press T to control the Opacity of the layer, enter 40%, and press Return (Enter).
5. Press P to control its Position, and enter 500 into the Y value (the second number) to lower the chart along the Y-axis.

Skyline.ai layer

1. Select the skyline.ai layer and click the eye icon to enable its visibility.
2. Press S for Scale, hold down the Shift key, and press P for Position. Scale the layer to 65%.
3. Drag the Y value for the Position property until the skyline is aligned with the bottom of the Composition panel. If needed, be sure to choose Fit from the Magnification ratio pop-up menu.
4. Set the X value for the Position property to 1350 and the Y value to 450.

Clouds.psd layer

1. Select the layer clouds.psd in the Timeline and click the eye icon to enable its visibility.
2. Press S to access the Scale properties for the layer. Enter a value of 80% and press Return (Enter).
3. Let’s animate the layer so the clouds appear to drift. Hold down the Shift key and press A to add the Anchor Point controls.
4. Switch the cloud.psd layer to the Hard Light blending mode (if necessary, click the Toggle Switches/Modes button at the bottom of the Timeline).
5. Move the Current Time Indicator to the start of the Timeline.

Using Keyframes

If you want to animate a Transform property, you can use keyframes. The word keyframe has a long history in animation, dating back to the time of early hand-drawn animation where the lead animator would draw the major poses (or keyframes) and assistants would fill in the drawings in between. In modern computer animation, you set the keyframes and the computer fills in the rest (called interpolation or tweening).

1. Make sure the layer cloud.psd is selected.
2. Click the stopwatch next to Anchor Point to enable keyframing.
3. Enter a value of 850 into the X field for Anchor Point.
4. Press End to go to the end of the composition.
5. Enter a value of 1750 into the X field for Anchor Point. A new keyframe is added to the layer.
6. Click the RAM Preview button to see the results so far. Then choose File > Save to save your work.

Using Parenting

After Effects makes it easy to synchronize layers by establishing parent-child relationships. When you employ parenting, changes you make to one layer affect another. An easy way to think of parenting is to think of the relationship between your body and arms. When you move your body by turning at the waist, this causes your arms to turn. However, your arms can also move on their own (but they must still follow your body). The rest of the relationship persists throughout your arm: just think of the dependencies between the elbow, the wrist, and the individual fingers on your hand.

1. Move the Current Time Indicator to the start of the Timeline and select the layer skyline.ai.
2. In the Parent column, click the pickwhip and drag it to the layer clouds.psd. The new name appears in the parent column for the skyline.ai layer.
3. Click the RAM Preview button to see the results so far. The skyline layer now moves with the clouds layer and pans to the right. Then choose File > Save to save your work.

Now that you have an overview of the After Effects interface, let’s explore the production process by building a small project. This project utilizes all elements of the Production Premium suite. You won’t necessarily need every one of these programs for each project, but it is useful to know how to import all the file types that After Effects supports.

1. If it’s not running already, launch Adobe After Effects.
2. Choose File > New > New Project.
3. Choose File > Save As.
4. Navigate to the Chapter_01 Project Files folder and name the file 01_Bumper.aep.
5. Click Save to write the project file to disk.

Creating Compositions

In After Effects, the first step to creating animation is to make a composition. Creating a new composition is important because it defines the duration and technical specifications for the project. Knowing which settings to use can be difficult, but After Effects offers several presets to make composition creation easy.

1. Choose Composition > New Composition.
2. In the Composition Settings dialog, click the Preset list and choose HDV/HDTV 720 29.97. After Effects automatically enters the correct Width, Height, Pixel Aspect Ratio, and Frame Rate for the video format. Enter a Duration of 20;00. Enter the name Bumper in the Composition Name field.
3. Click OK to create a new composition.

Using Folders to Organize

The best way to organize files in the Project panel is with folders. Folders created within After Effects only exist in the Project panel. Footage on your hard drive is not moved or renamed by default. Let’s create a new folder to help organize this project.

1. Click the folder icon at the bottom of the Project panel. A new empty folder called Untitled 1 is added and ready to be named.
2. Name the folder Pre-comps and press Return (Enter). The folder is named.

Importing Assets

If you’ve organized media on your hard drive, you can import an entire folder of assets at one time. This makes it easy to translate organized files into an organized project.

1. Choose File > Import > File. In the Import File dialog, navigate to the Chapter_01 Project Files folder and open it. Double-click the Sources folder to open it. Then click the Import Folder button at the bottom of the panel. A new folder called Sources is added to the Project panel.
2. Click the disclosure triangle next to the Sources folder to reveal its contents. After Effects imports five subfolders and their respective contents of footage and graphics. Then click the disclosure triangle next to the Illustrator Files folder. The folder contains three files, two of which need adjustment.
3. Select the logo.ai file and press the Delete key because you don’t need this graphic. The file is removed from the project (but still exists on your hard drive).
4. The file logo start.ai also needs to be removed, not because it’s unneeded, but because it was imported as a flattened file. Press the Delete key to remove the file.
5. Choose File > Import > File. Navigate to the Chapter_01 Project Files folder and open it. Open the nested folder Sources. Open the nested folder Illustrator Files.
6. Select the file logo start.ai. Set the Import As menu to Composition. Click Open. A new composition and a folder with several layers is imported into the project.
7. Drag the new composition and folder into the Illustrator Files folder in the Project panel. Choose File > Save to capture the current state of the project.

Adobe After Effects is a powerful animation software program that offers many tools for creative effects, dynamic animation, and excellent compositing. Although After Effects and Flash now share the same manufacturer, they evolved as very different programs. After Effects began its life with the Company of Science and Art (CoSA), and Flash was originally developed as FutureSplash Animator and renamed Flash after Macromedia purchased it in 1996.

Over time, both programs have grown significantly in their scope and capabilities. For a Flash user, the core principles of After Effects will seem similar. Elements are stacked from top to bottom in a timeline and then animated with keyframes. From there, the similarities pretty much end. Sure, the interfaces look similar, but Flash users may find themselves scratching their heads a bit due to the subtle intricacies of the two applications.

Let’s jump into using After Effects with a crash course that shows the key tools as well as a standard workflow.

The After Effects Interface Tour

The After Effects interface provides several specialized tools and panes that assist in animation tasks. You’ll explore most of these in depth throughout the book, but a quick introduction is necessary to lay the foundation for the chapters to come. Even though After Effects takes just a few days to learn, it takes years to master. Let’s take a look at the essential areas of the program you’ll use most often.

Configuring the Application with Workspaces

After Effects CS4 offers nine default workspaces to speed up specific animation and effects tasks. Each workspace configures the visibility and arrangement of specific panels to increase efficiency for particular tasks. In addition, you can create custom workspaces based on user preferences. To ensure you are working with the default workspace in After Effects (so the standard tools and panels are easy to find), follow these steps.

1. From the book’s DVD, copy the Chapter_01 Project Files folder to your computer.
2. If it’s not already running, launch After Effects CS4. At the Welcome screen, click the Open Project button.
3. Navigate to the Chapter_01 Project Files folder and open the file 01_Completed.aep. A project with footage and a completed sequence for reference opens. You’ll build this project from scratch shortly.
4. In the upper-right corner, click the Workspace drop-down menu and choose Standard to reset the After Effects interface to the Standard view. If Standard is already selected, choose Reset “Standard” to ensure the workspace is at its default starting point, and then click Discard Changes. After Effects is now in its Standard view.
5. In the Project panel, double-click the composition named Bumper to load the project into the Timeline and Composition panels.

Standard Panels in After Effects CS4

After Effects CS4 offers 26 different panels to control or view elements of your animation project. That can be a bit unwieldy. Let’s take the most commonly used panels that you will have visible most of the time when working.

Project

The Project panel contains all the elements within an After Effects project. It is similar in functionality to the Library in Flash. Keeping the Project panel organized makes it easy to find elements and speeds up the animation process. The project is already filled with several elements. Let’s explore two ways to find footage.

• To search for an item, just type its name or keyword into the search field at the top of the Project panel. Type the word chart in the search field to locate all files with the word chart in the name. To reset the search, click the X in the search field.
• If an item is already added to the Timeline, right-click the object and choose Reveal Layer Source in Project. Try revealing the file skyline.ai in the Timeline.

Composition

In Flash, you build an application and see its elements on the Stage. The closest analogy in After Effects is the composition and related Composition panel.

After Effects allows you to create one or more compositions for a project. A composition can contain one or more footage items. Layers can be stacked in 2D space, or you can arrange them in 3D space. After Effects also offers masks, blending modes, and keying tools to composite or combine multiple layers.

Let’s load a composition to view it.

1. Examine the numerous controls along the bottom of the Composition panel.
2. Click the Magnification ratio pop-up menu and choose Fit up to 100% to show the entire composition as large as possible in the Composition panel.

Timeline

Just like Flash, the Timeline panel is where most animation occurs. The Timeline provides easy access to core properties like Anchor Point (the equivalent of Flash’s Registration Point), Position, Rotation, Scale, and Opacity. Additionally, effects and masks can contain keyframes to change them over time.

The Timeline and Composition panels are linked. The yellow Current Time Indicator (CTI) determines which frame is shown in the Composition panel. You can move this indicator by

• Clicking Play
• Invoking a Preview
• Using the Page Up or Page Down keys
• Dragging the Current Time Indicator
• Clicking the current time in the upper-left corner of the Timeline

Effects & Presets

The Effects & Presets panel is the easiest way to browse and apply effects and animation presets. While these options are all available via menus, it is much faster to browse and use effects with the panel.

1. Click the disclosure triangle next to the category * Animation Presets. Several options are now visible and are sorted by category.
2. Click the disclosure triangle next to the Image – Creative category.
3. In the Timeline, click the layer clouds.psd to select it.
4. In the Effects & Presets panel, double-click the preset Colorize – sky blue to enhance the color of the clouds.
5. Let’s apply an effect to the line chart to further enhance it. Select the Chart.swf layer in the Timeline.

Note: Fun with Presets

Feel free to choose Edit > Undo and experiment with other Image presets.

6. In the search field of the Effects & Preset panel, type Glow. Results containing the word glow are filtered.
7. Double-click the Glow effect in the Stylize group to apply it. The line chart is now enhanced with a distinct glow.

Tools

After Effects offers several tools that you’ll use during the design and animation process. These tools are located in the Tools panel across the top of the interface window. You’ll fully explore most of these tools throughout the lessons in the book.

Info

The Info panel is a useful panel to leave open. It provides detailed information based on which tasks are being performed. When selecting items, it provides feedback on colors. When a layer is activated, the Info panel shows information about the active layer. Even during the rendering process the Info panel displays information about progress. It is a good idea to keep the Info panel visible at all times so you can learn more about After Effects as you work.

Audio

Audio will frequently play a key role in a motion graphics project, because you’ll want to include music or narration into the final piece. After Effects fully supports the use of sound, but it is not designed to be a robust audio tool. Be sure to use Adobe Premiere Pro or Adobe Soundbooth if you need to perform major audio edits. In the Standard view, the Audio panel is docked with the Info panel.

1. Click the Audio tab to activate the Audio panel. When this panel is selected, you’ll see three sliders.
   • The left slider controls just the left channel of audio output.
   • The right slider controls just the right channel of audio output.
   • The middle slider controls both channels of output for a stereo file.
2. Select track #10 Score.asnd in the Timeline panel.
3. Lower the middle audio slider to approximately -4.4. You can also click the yellow number to precisely enter a value.
4. To preview audio from the Current Time Indicator, choose Composition > Preview > Audio Preview (Here Forward) or press the period key (.) on the numeric keypad.

Preview

The act of invoking a preview indicates to After Effects that you would like to see all the transformations and effects applied to a selected area of your composition. Depending on a variety of factors (including the speed of your machine and type of effects chosen) this process can take a while. The good news is that as machines and video cards get faster, so does After Effects.

To speed up the preview process, it is common practice to view previews at a low quality and a low frame rate. The Preview panel makes it easy to drop the quality of previews that only affect previews (as opposed to the final output of the animation file).

1. Click the Timeline panel and press the Home key to move the Current Time Indicator to the start of the composition.
2. Press B to mark the beginning of the work area (think Beginning). The work area defines which part of the animation you want to preview.
3. Move the Current Time Indicator to approximately 10:00. Then press N to mark the end of the work area (think eNd).
4. Click the Resolution/Down Sample Factor setting menu at the bottom of the Preview panel. Choose Half, which renders only every other pixel. Because this option renders half the height and half the width for the preview, it is 75 percent faster than Full Quality.
5. Click the Skip drop-down menu and choose 1. This renders every other frame for the preview.
6. Click the RAM Preview button to invoke a RAM preview. The green bars indicate cached frames that are ready to preview. If you skip frames, the green line will be dashed. When all the frames are cached (or your system runs out of RAM), the file will begin to play back in realtime.

Panel Shortcuts

You can use the following keyboard shortcuts to quickly toggle the visibility for standard user interface items.

Deform pins are the main component of the Puppet effect. Where you place those pins and how you position them determine how the objects move on the screen. You’ll place Deform pins and display the mesh that After Effects creates to determine the area of influence for each pin.

When you select the Puppet Pin tool, the Tools panel displays the Puppet tool options. Each pin has its own properties in the Timeline panel, and After Effects automatically creates an initial keyframe for each pin.

1. Select the Puppet Pin tool () in the Tools panel.
2. In the Composition panel, place a Deform pin in the character’s right arm, near the wrist. You may find it helpful to zoom in to see the character more clearly. A yellow dot representing the Deform pin appears in the Composition panel.

NOTE

Be careful! The character’s right arm is on the left side of the image, and vice versa. Pin the character according to his left and right, not yours!

If you used the Selection tool () to move the Deform pin, the entire character would move with it. You need more pins to keep the other parts of the mesh in place.

3. Using the Puppet Pin tool, place another Deform pin in the left arm near the wrist.

Now you can move the right hand with the Selection tool. The more pins you place, the smaller the area of influence for each pin, and the less each area will stretch. Undo any stretching by pressing Ctrl+Z (Windows) or Command+Z (Mac OS).

4. Place additional Deform pins in the man’s right and left legs (near the ankles), the torso (near the bottom of the tie), and forehead.
5. In the Timeline panel, expand the Mesh 1 > Deform properties. Each Deform pin is listed. To keep track of each pin, you’ll rename them.
6. Select Puppet Pin 1, press Enter (Windows) or Return (Mac OS), and rename the pin Right Arm. Press Enter or Return again to accept the new name.
7. Rename the remaining pins (Puppet Pin 2 through Puppet Pin 6) Left Arm, Right Leg, Left Leg, Torso, and Head, respectively.
8. Select Show in the options section of the Tools panel to display the distortion mesh.
9. Change the Triangles value in the options section of the Tools panel to 300. This setting determines how many triangles are included in the mesh. Increasing the number of triangles results in a smoother animation, but also increases rendering time.