After Effects Workshop

I have no previous experience with Adobe After Effects so I was looking forward to having a go for the first time. 

It is important to select the right format for the composition when working in After effects as different areas of the world have different standards such as PAL is used in the UK and NTSC is the American Standard. It is also important to select the right format when using video as cameras film in certain formats.

Once the format is selected you have to set up the composition of your project, this is where you set the aspect ratio and background colour, you are also able to set the timeline.

You are able to add objects created in Photoshop and Illustrator by importing the various files that you have created. As well as external objects there is options to create objects and text in After effects, which are added to the document to become a layer.

I added a solid square which starts off as a still image which lasts the entire length of the composition unless you change the duration of existence in the timeline. 

There are many different ways that you transform the objects that you import into After effects, such as scale, position, rotation, Opacity and transparency and many many others. Each individual action has a specific short cut key and it can be used with single and multiple layers.

Once the composition is complete it is time to render. Things to consider are the format that is going to be played back in and what format it is compressed into, then render the video and depending on how much information has to be rendered the time that it takes is variable.