Simple shapes—circles, squares, ellipses, and more—can be valuable building blocks in an animation. A rectangle shape can be a basic background for a lower-third title, or it can be the base of a complex, three-dimensional clone animation. In this movie, Ian Robinson introduces the fundamentals of building, transforming, and animating basic shapes.

It’s easy to build an After Effects project that includes many layers of objects being animated in different ways, and it’s easy for all of those layers to become disorganized. In this movie, Ian Robinson fully explains how to use precompositions to nest multiple layers together. With precompositions, you can animate, transform, manipulate, and apply filters to multiple layers all together as if they were one single layer.

Often, in After Effects, it’s valuable to trim and move layers in a project the same way you would edit individual clips in a video-editing application like Premiere Pro. In this movie, Ian Robinson shows how to trim and re-time multiple individual layers, each with their own animations, to create a complete composited animation.

In this movie, Ian Robinson shares a set of special tips that will make positioning and duplicating 3D layers much easier and faster. By temporarily switching to a 2D orthogonal view and adjusting anchor point controls, Ian is able to set up a 3D layer for easy positioning, resizing, and fast duplication.

In this movie, Ian Robinson introduces the After Effects interface, identifying the most essential panels—the Project panel, the Timeline, and the Composition panel. He also introduces workspace presets, which instantly reconfigure the After Effects workspace for specific tasks.

You can use the built-in Adobe Media Encoder to render and export many kinds of files within After Effects, or use the standalone Adobe Media Encoder application to render and encode movies outside of After Effects. Batch encoding and using a watch folder in Adobe Media Encoder can save time and free After Effects for other tasks, as you'll see in this video.

A compound effect is an effect that refers to, or takes values from, another layer in your comp. In this video we'll look at how this works by examining the Lens Blur effect, which can be used to create a pull focus effect on your layers. You'll see how to apply it selectively to specific areas of your footage using a Luminance Map we create using the Ramp effect.

In this lesson we'll use time remapping to achieve three specific results: slow motion, a freeze frame, and reversed playback of a layer.

When someone has had the foresight to film a subject in front of a solid-color background, compositing work gets a lot easier. This video shows you how to use the Keylight effect to key out (make transparent) a solid-color background and use a garbage matte to isolate the area to be keyed.

You can use the Brainstorm tool to randomize effect properties in order to figure out what they do. In this video you'll see how it can help you experiment and come up with new ideas.

In this video you'll see how the RAM and disk caches are used to save time, and how you can render compositions in the background so that you don't need to wait for a preview to be rendered before you can resume work.

This video introduces various small new and changed features in After Effects CS6 that have not been covered elsewhere in this course. Several of these features are briefly demonstrated.

In this video, you will lean how to use the Fast Previews menu. We will look at a rather complex scene and see how different settings affect your ability to manipulate elements.

In this lesson you will learn how to import projects using Pro Import After Effects. We will demonstrate using a Final Cut Pro project, but the same procedure works for other formats, such as XML, AAF, OMF, and Apple Motions.

Discover the power of this industry-standard video-compositing, motion-graphics-design and animation tool. Learn how it integrates with the Creative Suite, see how it is used in television and film to create special effects, how to composite scenes with blue/green screen keying, and complete creative tasks like drawing, 3D, and titles.

Get familiar with the After Effects workflow in this brief overview of the tools, project windows, elements, compositions, nested comps, effects, keyframes, the timeline, expressions, exporting and the Render Queue.

Take a close look at timeline elements including switches, navigation, zooming, trimming, setting keyframes, and basic layer properties. Next, review how to set and change keyframe parameters in the timeline, and multiple ways you can accomplish this in After Effects.

Learn to use the Preview Panel to generate a RAM Preview of your animation that plays in real time. Review the features available in the panel, how to adjust the work area in the timeline, and how to generate a preview to see your results at full speed. Also explore Frame Rate, Skip and Shift+Ram Preview, as well as the From Current Time feature. Finally, learn some handy keyboard shortcuts that can save you time.

Explore the various ways you can set up projects in After Effects including importing individual or multi-layered files from Illustrator and Photoshop. Review some of the options for sorting folders and elements in the project window to keep you organized. Plus take a look at the Flowchart panel and get an understanding of the value of flowcharts as a visual reference to easily see how your project elements relate to each other.

Explore the various ways you can set up projects in After Effects including importing individual or multi-layered files from Illustrator and Photoshop. Review some of the options for sorting folders and elements in the project window to keep you organized. Plus take a look at the Flowchart panel and get an understanding of the value of flowcharts as a visual reference to easily see how your project elements relate to each other.

Explore the Global Performance Cache (AKA the “Hash Cache”), along with the “Persistent Disk Cache” and learn to take advantage of their strengths to dramatically speed up the way you work in After Effects. Work through a comp specifically designed with examples that help you understand the new caching functions and what you can do to get the most from them.

Learn how to use the new 3D Camera Tracker by creating a 3D project that adds animated text to a movie. See how the tracker works in the background to analyze a scene and then automates the addition of an animated 3D camera with text. See how to adjust, manipulate and add animators and other effects to the text for amazing results.

Take an in-depth look at extruded vector layers in this continued lesson on Ray-traced 3D. Review the new properties including the extrusion parameter, the bevel settings, the material options including reflections, also explore the animate pop-up and environment maps.

In this video, you will see how to quickly convert vector graphics from Illustrator to shape layers and animate the paths in After Effects CS6. In previous versions, this would have involved a great deal of tedious cutting and pasting - but no more.

See how you can use the new "Create Shapes from Vector Layer" command to convert your Illustrator documents to editable vectors in After Effects. See how a shape in Illustrator ends up as a Ray-traced, extruded 3D layer in After Effects.

Discover the new Mask Feather tool and why it's so important and useful. See how the tool can easily take a difficult rotoscoping task and simplify it by allowing AE to generate a variable feather around a mask that includes both sharp and blurry edges.

Learn more about the power of the Mask Feather tool and how it can be used in design work for creating both outside and inside feathers on a single mask. Discover how to set and adjust multiple points in the mask, context menu features such as Hold, and how to use the tool to add a nice blur effect to a text mask.

Review some of the fun new effects available in AE CS6 including the Cycore HD effects and other built in plug-ins. Along the way, you'll discover why updating many of these effects to 32-bit in this version of After Effects is so important.

Explore one of the the most-changed performance enhancements in After Effects CS6, the fast previews menu. Learn the difference between the latest options including adaptive resolution, draft, fast draft, wifeframe, and the draft 3D button in the timeline. Using a Ray-traced 3D comp as an example Brian shows how the different options behave and offers suggestions for an efficient workflow even if you don't have the best video hardware.

Explore the Global Performance Cache (AKA the “Hash Cache”), along with the “Persistent Disk Cache” and learn to take advantage of their strengths to dramatically speed up the way you work in After Effects. Work through a comp specifically designed with examples that help you understand the new caching functions and what you can do to get the most from them.

Discover how to make your not-so-great footage look better using the new Rolling Shutter Repair effect. Get an overview of the effect controls and how to adjust them to get some nice results from your footage.

Discover how the new Bounding Boxes work to help you select and manipulate elements in a scene. Learn about the new Inverted "V" pattern on layers, how to use the selection indicators to identify layers and elements, and how you can edit a 3D element by manipulating its Bounding Box.

Discover how to enable 3D in a composition and work in the Classic 3D mode. Review the difference in the UI and tools once 3D is activated and take a look at the new properties available in the "Materials" category, as well as in layers and effects, as well as 3D-only elements like cameras and lights. And of course, Brian provides some handy tips for setting up your comp window for 3D.

Get an introduction to Ray-traced 3D, how to activate it, the 3D layers it adds, and the many options that are available in those layers. Vector layers for text and shapes have greatly expanded options in this version of AE, and most useful for non vector layers are the new "Material" options which include the ability to create after-effects-native reflections for the first time.

Examine 3D bendable layers and their properties, learn how segments and curves can be adjusted, and effects can be added to get creative, fun results.

Transform a 2D layer into an Environment Layer and discover what an Environment Map is and how it works. Apply effects directly to the Environment Map to precisely control object reflections.

Take a look at the new 3D Material properties and get an understanding of how they work to make your scenes look their best by creating realistic sharp or diffuse reflections. Learn to adjust the refraction properties of transparent layers to get a nice looking final composition.

Master the 3D Camera Tracker in After Effects CS6 and use 3D Extrusion and Rendering for True 3D Graphics. You'll also learn how to integrate 3D content from leading applications like 3D Studio Max.

Set up CS6 Production Premium for speed and efficiency. Join partners HP, AJA, and G-Tech to learn how to extend the capabilities of Adobe Premiere Pro CS6 & After Effects CS6 with powerful hardware add-ons.

Learn how to use RED files natively in your Adobe Premiere Pro CS6 workflow. Get the most from RED Epic and Scarlet cameras and achieve seamless workflows with REDCINE-X.