Adobe After Effects Cs4 Animation Presets

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Note: This excerpt does not include the lesson files. The lesson files are available with purchase of the book.

Oct 22, 2017 Exploring Animation Presets in Adobe After Effects If you're new to After Effects, then you might want to try using the built-in Animation Presets to help yo. Hi, I'm new to After Effects and just recently installed the application. I notice that the Animation Presets and not available with the Effects and Presets section. Also, if I choose to Browse Presets with Bridge, the visuals previews do not appear. Can someone please provide some assistance for. Animating with animation presets. Animate layers quickly and easily by using animation presets. Drag and drop animation presets onto layers in the Timeline panel and combine them for a unique result.

Adobe after effects cs4 animation presets after effects

Getting started

Adobe After Effects offers many ways to animate text. You can animate text layers by manually creating keyframes in the Timeline panel, using animation presets, or using expressions. You can even animate individual characters or words in a text layer. In this lesson, you’ll employ several different animation techniques, including some that are unique to text, while you design the opening title credits for an animated documentary called Road Trip. You’ll also take advantage of Adobe Typekit to install a font for use in your project.

As in other projects, you’ll begin by previewing the movie you’re creating, and then you’ll open After Effects.

Adobe After Effects Cs4 Animation Presets Lightroom

  1. Make sure the following files are in the Lessons/Lesson03 folder on your hard disk, or download them from your Account page at www.peachpit.com now:

    • In the Assets folder: background_movie.mov, car.ai, compass.swf, credits.psd
    • In the Sample_Movie folder: Lesson03.mov

  2. Open and play the Lesson03.mov sample movie to see the title credits you will create in this lesson. When you’re done, quit QuickTime Player. You may delete this sample movie from your hard disk if you have limited storage space.

    As you start the application, restore the default settings for After Effects. See “Restoring default preferences” on page 2.

  3. Start After Effects, and then immediately hold down Ctrl+Alt+Shift (Windows) or Command+Option+Shift (Mac OS) to restore default preferences settings. When prompted, click OK to delete your preferences.

  4. Click Close to close the Welcome screen.

    After Effects opens to display a blank, untitled project.

  5. Choose File > Save As > Save As, and navigate to the Lessons/Lesson03/Finished_Project folder.
  6. Name the project Lesson03_Finished.aep, and then click Save.

Importing the footage

You need to import two footage items to begin this lesson.

  1. Double-click an empty area of the Project panel to open the Import File dialog box.
  2. Navigate to the Lessons/Lesson03/Assets folder on your hard disk, Ctrl-click (Windows) or Command-click (Mac OS) to select both the background_movie.mov and compass.swf files, and then click Import or Open.

After Effects can import several file formats including Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator files, as well as QuickTime and AVI movies. This makes After Effects an incredibly powerful application for compositing and motion graphics work.

Creating the composition

Now, you’ll create the composition.

  1. Press Ctrl+N (Windows) or Command+N (Mac OS) to create a new composition.

  2. In the Composition Settings dialog box, name the composition Road_Trip_Title_Sequence, select NTSC DV from the Preset menu, and set the Duration to 10:00, which is the length of the background movie. Then click OK.

  3. Drag the background_movie.mov and compass.swf footage items from the Project panel to the Timeline panel. Arrange the layers so that compass.swf is above background_movie.mov in the layer stack.

  4. Choose File > Save.

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You’re ready to add the title text to the composition.

After Effects Text Animation Presets

Cover image via

Browse and apply animation presets in Adobe After Effects with these simple steps.

Adobe After Effects Cs4 Full

Cover image via Shutterstock.

Animation presets can come in handy in a variety of different scenarios. Newbies can use them to learn their way around Adobe After Effects and introduce themselves to the wonderful world of animation. Seasoned motion graphics artists can use presets to brainstormideas and kickstart an animation project. Whatever the situation, let’s check out what Adobe After Effects has to offer.

Step 1 — Select the Layer

Adobe After Effects Preset Animations

To apply a preset, I first need to select a layer on which to addmy animation. I can use animation presets on a variety of assets, including text, video, images, and solid layers. For this example, I am creatinga quick photo slideshow. I want to find a quick way to transition between a few image layers. In order to do this, let’s have a look at the presets we can use.

Step 2 — Browse Animation Preset

To browse through a few animation presets, choose Animation > Browse Presets. This command will launch the Adobe Bridge program. Once inside Bridge, I’ll see a library of animation presets from which to select. Click on a preset to watch a previewof the animation. There are many animation options, including transitions, texteffects, transformoptions and behaviors. I can even create synthetic shapes and backgrounds. To find a suitable animation for my slideshow, I’ll navigate to one of the Transitionssubfolders. Next, I’ll apply one of the presets to our selected layer.

Step 3 — Apply Animation Preset

To apply the animation, I simply need to double-click the preset in Adobe Bridge. Once I double-click the preset, After Effects will become active again, and the animation will applyto the layer I had selected. I’ll press the U key to quickly bring up all of the keyframesin my sequence. Furthermore, I can get a closer look at the preset options in the Effect Controls panel. For the last step let’s do some fine tuning.

Step 4 — Fine Tuning

To apply the animation preset to all of my image layers, I will select all of the layers and click Animation > Recent Animation Presets > Slide-drop. With all of the layers still selected in the sequence, I’ll press the U key again to bring up all of my keyframes. Finally, I can complete my slideshow by timing my keyframes.

Do you have experience with animation presets in After Effects? Let us know in the comments.