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AECS6CIB Instructor Notes PDF
AECS6CIB Instructor Notes PDF
CLASSROOM IN A BOOK®
The official training workbook from Adobe Systems
Instructor Notes
Adobe® After Effects® CS6 Classroom in a Book®
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Book:
ISBN-13: 978-0-321-57383-4
ISBN-10: 0-321-57383-8
Instructor Notes:
ISBN-13: 978-0-133-00541-7
ISBN-10: 0-133-00541-0
INSTRUCTOR NOTES
Getting Started
The Adobe® After Effects® CS6 Classroom in a Book® course presents students with
tips, techniques, and solutions for using the Adobe After Effects CS6 software.The
Instructor Notes are intended to complement the information in Adobe After Effects
CS6 Classroom in a Book.
The information is organized to follow the sequence of instruction in each lesson.
Course strategy
If you’re teaching a 15-session class, you can teach approximately one chapter of
this book per class. The book contains 14 lessons, some of which may take a while to
complete. If you are teaching a 10-session class, you may want to combine some of
the lessons in a single class. For example, Lessons 1 and 2 cover the basic workflow
and most fundamental tasks in After Effects. Students begin a 3D project in Lesson
10 that they complete in Lesson 11, so you may be able to cover both lessons in
one class.
4 INSTRUCTOR NOTES
Remember that you can create a RAM preview for a small portion of the project by
adjusting the work area in the Timeline panel.
Questions
The following questions are not in the student’s Classroom in a Book.
1 How do you add footage items to a composition?
2 How can you modify effect settings?
3 Where can you learn more about an After Effects feature or effect?
Answers
1 To add a footage item to a composition, drag it from the Project panel to the
Timeline panel, positioning it where you want it to appear in the layer stack.
2 To modify effect settings, change the values in the Effect Controls panel or in the
affected layer’s properties in the Timeline panel.
3 To learn more about an After Effects feature or effect, enter a search term in the
Search Help box in the upper-right corner of the application window, or choose
Help > After Effects Help. Adobe Community Help gives you access to After
Effects Help, Adobe’s support knowledgebase, and third-party websites and
blogs regarding After Effects.
Questions
The following questions are not in the student’s Classroom in a Book.
1 How can you preview files more clearly in Adobe Bridge?
2 Name two ways to create a new composition.
Answers
1 Drag the thumbnail slider at the bottom of the Adobe Bridge window to enlarge
thumbnail previews in the Content panel.
2 To create a new composition, click the Create A New Composition button at the
bottom of the Project panel, choose Composition > New Composition, or press
Ctrl+N (Windows) or Command+N (Mac OS).
6 INSTRUCTOR NOTES
Lesson 3: Animating Text
Lesson 3 explores the many text options and text animation features in Adobe
After Effects. The following material provides additional background on formatting
and animating text in After Effects.
About fonts
A font is a complete set of characters—letters, numbers, and symbols—that share a
common weight, width, and style. Most of the projects in Classroom in a Book use
fonts included with the After Effects CS6 installation, but you can substitute other
fonts if you prefer, or if the suggested font is not available on the system. Remind
students, however, that if they use a different font, their project’s appearance will
differ from the images in the book.
8 INSTRUCTOR NOTES
Animating text with text animator groups
Once you create and format your text layers, use text animator groups to quickly
and easily create elaborate animations. A text animator group includes one or more
selectors and one or more animator properties. A selector is like a mask—it specifies
which characters or section of a text layer you want an animator property to affect.
Using a selector, you can define a percentage of the text, specific characters in the
text, or a specified range of text.
Using a combination of animator properties and selectors, you can create complex
text animations that would otherwise require painstaking keyframing. Most text
animations require you to animate only the selector values—not the property values.
Consequently, text animators use a small number of keyframes even for complex
animations. For example, to animate the opacity gradually from the first charac-
ter to the last, set the Opacity value (in the Animator group) to 0, and then set the
End value (Range Selector property) to 0% at 0 seconds and 100% at the end of the
animation.
Text animator groups animate a character’s position, shape, and size-related prop-
erties relative to each character’s own anchor point. The text property Anchor Point
Grouping lets you reposition each character’s anchor point relative to its word,
line, or entire text block. In addition, you can control the alignment of the anchor
point relative to the anchor point group and the font with the Grouping Alignment
property.
About selectors
Each animator group includes a default Range selector. You can add additional
Range selectors to an animator group or add multiple animator properties that use
the same Range selector.
In addition to this Range selector, you can add a Wiggly selector. Use the Wiggly
selector to create selections that wiggle—vary within a specified amount—over time.
You can add one or more Wiggly selectors to an animator group, and that animator
group can contain one or more properties.
When you add multiple selectors to an animator group, you can control the way
they interact with each other by using each selector’s Mode property. You can set
values for the Start and End properties by changing the values in the Timeline panel
or by using the selector bars in the Composition panel.
Answers
1 In point text, each line of text is independent; in paragraph text, the text wraps
within the bounding box as you form one or more paragraphs.
2 Use the Character panel to format character-level attributes, such as font and
font style. Use the Paragraph panel to format paragraph-level attributes, such as
indentation.
3 To display a grid, choose View > Show Grid.
4 Easy Ease softens animations so that objects ease into and out of starting and
stopping places, instead of beginning and ending abruptly.
About shapes
You create a shape layer by drawing in the Composition panel with one of the shape
tools (the Rectangle, Rounded Rectangle, Ellipse, Polygon, or Star tool) or the Pen
tool. Shape layers are not based on footage items. Layers that are not based on foot-
age items are sometimes called synthetic layers. Text layers are also synthetic layers
and are also composed of vector-graphics objects, so many of the rules and guide-
lines that apply to text layers also apply to shape layers. For example, you can’t open
a shape layer in a Layer panel, just as you can’t open a text layer in a Layer panel.
There are two varieties of shape paths: parametric shape paths and Bezier shape
paths. Parametric shape paths are defined numerically, by properties that you can
modify and animate after drawing, in the Timeline panel. Bezier shape paths are
Questions
The following questions are not in the student’s Classroom in a Book.
1 How can you add a gradient fill to a shape?
2 How can you alter the shape of a polygon?
3 How can you access blending modes in the Timeline panel?
Answers
1 To add a gradient fill to a shape, click the word Fill in the Tools panel to open
the Fill Options dialog box, select either the Linear Gradient or Radial Gradient
option, and click OK. Then click the Fill Color box to open the Gradient Editor,
and assign colors to the color stops.
2 Change its attributes in the Polystar Path section of the Timeline panel. You can
change the number of points, Outer Roundness value, and other properties.
3 Click the Toggles Switches/Modes button at the bottom of the Timeline panel to
display the Mode menu for each layer.
Layered files
You can import Photoshop, Illustrator, EPS, and many PDF files directly into an
After Effects project.
After Effects imports attributes that were applied in Photoshop, including position,
blending modes, opacity, visibility, transparency (alpha channel), layer masks, layer
groups (imported as nested compositions), adjustment layers, common layer styles
(Drop Shadow, Inner Shadow, Outer Glow, Inner Glow, Bevel and Emboss, and
Color Fill), layer clipping paths, vector masks, image guides, and clipping groups.
You can also create a new Photoshop file and add it as the top layer in a composition
from within After Effects, or use After Effects to create a new Photoshop file without
Questions
The following questions are not in the student’s Classroom in a Book.
1 Define a parenting relationship.
2 How can you display the anchor point in the Layer panel?
3 What does an alpha matte do?
Answers
1 A parenting relationship between layers synchronizes the changes in the parent
layer with the corresponding transformation values of the child layers. That is,
when you make changes to the parent layer, the child layers also change.
2 To display the anchor point, choose Anchor Point Path from the View menu at
the bottom of the Layer panel.
3 An alpha matte uses the alpha channel of one layer to mask another layer.
Questions
The following questions are not in the student’s Classroom in a Book.
1 What does the Solo switch do?
2 What is a traveling matte?
3 How does the Corner Pin effect work?
Answers
1 The Solo switch isolates the layer or layers, making other layers inactive. Soloing
layers can speed animating, previewing, and rendering, as well as make it easier
to focus on particular layers.
2 A traveling matte is an animated track matte.
3 The Corner Pin effect marks four corners of an object, and then animates those
points over time. You can use it to stretch, shrink, skew, or twist an image, or to
simulate perspective or movement that pivots from the edge of a layer, such as a
door opening.
Enhancing animation
In a video production workflow, Illustrator CS6 has much more to offer than a role
as a specialized application for still graphics. The pen tool and Bezier paths that
are fundamental to drawing in Illustrator CS6 are also used in video production
applications to control motion paths and timelines. You can use Illustrator paths
not just as source graphics, but also as motion paths in After Effects. You can also
use the warping, blending, and layer features in Illustrator CS6 to prepare shapes for
morphing and tweening.
Questions
The following questions are not in the student’s Classroom in a Book.
1 What is the default mask mode and how does it affect masks?
2 How can you change the mask mode for a layer?
3 How can you draw a perfect square or circle?
Answers
1 Add is the default mask mode. It combines the transparency values of any masks
that overlap on the same layer.
2 To change the mask mode for a layer, select a different mode from the Mask
Mode pop-up menu for the layer in the Timeline panel.
3 To draw a perfect square or circle, press the Shift key as you drag the Rectangle
tool or Ellipse tool, respectively.
Questions
The following questions are not in the student’s Classroom in a Book.
1 How can you display or hide the Puppet mesh?
2 What does the Triangles value determine?
3 What is the squash and stretch animation technique?
Answers
1 To display or hide the mesh, click Show in the Tools panel.
2 The Triangles value determines how many triangles are included in the mesh.
More triangles results in smoother animation, but can also increase rendering
time.
3 Squash and stretch is a traditional animation technique that adds realism
and weight to objects. It’s an exaggeration of the effect that occurs in real life
when a moving object comes into contact with a stationary object, such as the
ground. When squashing and stretching are applied correctly, the volume of the
character doesn’t change.
Color management
Color images can look different when viewed with different display devices and in
different contexts. For example, an image displayed on a computer monitor may
look different from the same image displayed on a video monitor or projected onto a
movie screen. Colors shift because different devices use different methods to create
color and produce different ranges of colors.
In After Effects, you can compensate for color output between different display
devices by first calibrating and profiling your monitor and then specifying color
Answers
1 The gamma values between a computer monitor and a broadcast monitor vary
greatly. What may look good on a computer screen may appear too bright and
washed out on a broadcast monitor.
2 The Color Range effect keys out a specific range of colors. It’s especially useful
when you need to key an area that was unevenly lit, where the color you need to
key varies.
About z scale
Usually, scaling a layer’s z axis has no effect on the layer because the layer itself has
no depth. To add depth, you can change the position of the layer’s anchor point or
establish a parenting relationship with other layers. Once you add depth, scaling the
layer’s z scale value appears to change the layer’s position.
Questions
The following questions are not in the student’s Classroom in a Book.
1 What is a guide layer, and how do you create one?
2 What does the Track Z Camera tool do?
3 What does the Orbit Camera tool do?
Answers
1 A guide layer appears on your screen as you edit the project, but is not rendered
with the movie. To convert a layer to a guide layer, select it in the Timeline
panel, and choose Layer > Guide Layer.
Camera settings
You can set up cameras in After Effects to simulate the capabilities of real-world
cameras. Use camera settings to configure the camera view to match the settings
you use to record video footage or to look at the footage from a new perspective.
You can change camera settings at any time by selecting the camera layer and
choosing Layer > Camera Settings.
Name—Specifies the name of the camera. By default, After Effects assigns the name
Camera 1 to the first camera you create in a composition, and all subsequent cam-
eras are numbered in ascending order. If you delete a camera, and are still using the
After Effects default naming convention, After Effects names the next camera you
create with the lowest available number. You should choose distinctive names for
multiple cameras to make it easier to distinguish them.
Preset—Specifies the type of camera settings you want to use. Cameras come with
several presets. The presets are named according to focal lengths. Each preset is
meant to represent the behavior of a 35mm camera with a lens of a certain focal
length. Therefore, the preset also sets the Angle Of View, Zoom, Focus Distance,
Focal Length, and Aperture values. The default preset is 50mm. You can also create
a custom camera by specifying new values for any of the settings.
Zoom—Specifies the distance from the position of the camera to the image plane.
Angle Of View—Specifies the width of the scene captured in the image. The Focal
Length, Film Size, and Zoom values determine the angle of view. A wider angle of
view creates the same effect as a wide-angle lens.
Enable Depth Of Field—Applies custom variables to the Focus Distance, Aperture,
F-Stop, and Blur Level settings. Using these variables, you can manipulate the depth
of field to create more realistic camera-focusing effects. (The depth of field is the
distance range within which the image is in focus. Images outside the distance range
are blurred.)
Focus Distance—Specifies the distance from the camera’s position to the plane that
is in perfect focus.
Questions
The following questions are not in the student’s Classroom in a Book.
1 Which layers are affected by an adjustment layer?
2 How can you change the In point for a layer?
Answers
1 An adjustment layer affects all the layers beneath it in the layer stack.
2 To change the In point for a layer, move to the time for the new In point in the
time ruler, then select the layer, and press the [ (left bracket) key to set the In
point for the layer.
3 The Material Options properties determine how 3D layers interact with lights
and shadows.
Questions
The following questions are not in the student’s Classroom in a Book.
1 Why would you use a null object to move a Photoshop layer in this project?
2 How can you change the depth of field for a 3D camera?
3 How can you copy animation from one layer to another?
Answers
1 You cannot easily attach a Photoshop layer directly to the plane. However, you
can attach a null object to the plane, and then use parenting to ensure the text
layer travels with the plane.
2 To change the depth of field (or other attributes) for a 3D camera, select the
camera layer, and choose Layer > Camera Settings.
Questions
The following question is not in the student’s Classroom in a Book.
• In the motion tracker, what are the feature and search regions?
Answers
• The feature region identifies the distinctive feature you’re tracking. The search
region defines the area within the tracker looks for the feature.
Good housekeeping
In professional production environments, after a video project has been completed,
it is typically cleared from the editing system to make room for new work.
Because the multigigabyte storage media that would be needed is costly, and the
process of uploading can be very time-consuming, projects and source files are not
usually saved in their entirety. If you do want to save your entire project, you can
trim unused frames from some or all of your source clips and remove unused clips
in their entirety from Project Bins.
Typically, however, a digital master file is exported and archived, the original raw
footage is stored on tapes, and an Edit Decision List (EDL) is saved. If the project
needs to be revised later, the master file can often be edited. For more extensive
repurposing, the EDL can be used to recapture the necessary clips from the original
tapes. Files used to develop titles, graphics, and animations, as well as portions of
the project that have undergone extreme manipulation to achieve special effects can
also be archived.
Today, more and more production professionals are exporting Advanced Authoring
Format (AAF) files rather than EDLs to archive or exchange projects. AAF is a
widely supported industry standard for high-end exchange of data, such as the infor-
mation necessary to transfer a video project from one platform to another. An AAF
file helps you preserve as much of the project’s integrity as possible when you trans-
fer it to another system. However, not all elements of a project can be successfully
transferred using AAF. Also, the application you use to open the AAF file may not
support all features. In general, an AAF file dependably translates editing data and
commonly used transitions, such as cross-dissolves and wipes, but does not support
effects (filters) or audio fade and pan information, including audio transitions.
Questions
The following question is not in the student’s Classroom in a Book.
• Why would you need pixel aspect ratio correction?
Answers
• If you’re viewing a composition with a nonsquare pixel aspect ratio on a
computer monitor, which displays images using square pixels, the image may
appear stretched. Pixel aspect ratio correction squeezes the view slightly to
display the image as it will appear on a video monitor.