Adobe After Effects CS3 - Manual (Page 32)

AFTER EFFECTS CS3
User Guide
27
Example workflow: Create a simple movie
This example assumes that you have already started After Effects and have not made any changes to the empty default
project. This examples skips the step of importing footage and shows you instead how to create your own visual
elements. After you have rendered a final movie, you can import it into After Effects to view it and use it just as you
would any other footage item.
Some people prefer to use the mouse and menus to interact with After Effects, whereas others prefer to use keyboard
shortcuts for their common tasks. For several steps in this example, two alternative commands are shown that
produce the same result—one demonstrating the disoverability of menu commands and one demonstrating the
speed and convenience of keyboard shortcuts. You will likely find that you use some combination of keyboard
shortcuts and menu commands in your work.
1 Create a new composition:
• Choose Composition > New Composition.
• Press Ctrl+N (Windows) or Command+N (Mac OS).
2 Change the Duration value in the Composition Settings dialog box to 5;00 (five seconds), choose Web Video from
the Preset menu, and click OK.
3 Create a new text layer:
• Choose Layer > New > Text.
• Press Ctrl+Alt+Shift+T (Windows) or Command+Option+Shift+T (Mac OS).
4 Type your name. Press Enter on the numeric keypad or press Ctrl+Enter (Windows) or Command+Return (Mac
OS) on the main keyboard to exit text-editing mode.
5 Set an initial keyframe for the Position property:
• Click the triangle to the left of the layer name in the Timeline panel, click the triangle to the left of the Transform
group name, and then click the stopwatch button to the left of the Position property name.
• Press Alt+Shift+P (Windows) or Option+Shift+P (Mac OS).
6 Activate the Selection tool:
• Click the Selection Tool button in the Tools panel.
• Press V.
7 Using the Selection tool, drag your text to the bottom-left corner of the frame in the Composition panel.
8 Move the current-time indicator to the last frame of the composition:
• Drag the current-time indicator in the Timeline panel to the far right of the timeline.
• Press End.
9 Using the Selection tool, drag your text to the top-right corner of the frame in the Composition panel.
A new keyframe is created at this time for the Position property. Motion is interpolated between keyframe values.
10 Preview your animation using standard preview:
• Click the the Play button in the Time Controls panel. Click Play again to stop the preview.
• Press the spacebar. Press the spacebar again to stop the preview.
11 Apply the Glow effect:
• Choose Effect > Stylize > Glow.