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After Effects

After Effects

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  1. After Effects User Guide
  2. Beta releases
    1. Beta Program Overview
    2. After Effects Beta Home
  3. Getting started
    1. Get started with After Effects
    2. What's new in After Effects 
    3. Release Notes | After Effects
    4. After Effects system requirements
    5. Keyboard shortcuts in After Effects
    6. Supported File formats | After Effects
    7. Hardware recommendations
    8. After Effects for Apple silicon
    9. Planning and setup
  4. Workspaces
    1. General user interface items
    2. Get to know After Effects interface
    3. Workflows
    4. Workspaces, panels, and viewers
  5. Projects and compositions
    1. Projects
    2. Composition basics
    3. Precomposing, nesting, and pre-rendering
    4. View detailed performance information with the Composition Profiler
    5. CINEMA 4D Composition Renderer
  6. Importing footage
    1. Preparing and importing still images
    2. Importing from After Effects and Adobe Premiere Pro
    3. Importing and interpreting video and audio
    4. Preparing and importing 3D image files
    5. Importing and interpreting footage items
    6. Working with footage items
    7. Detect edit points using Scene Edit Detection
    8. XMP metadata
  7. Text and Graphics
    1. Text
      1. Formatting characters and the Character panel
      2. Text effects
      3. Creating and editing text layers
      4. Formatting paragraphs and the Paragraph panel
      5. Extruding text and shape layers
      6. Animating text
      7. Examples and resources for text animation
      8. Live Text Templates
    2. Motion Graphics
      1. Work with Motion Graphics templates in After Effects
      2. Use expressions to create drop-down lists in Motion Graphics templates
      3. Work with Essential Properties to create Motion Graphics templates
      4. Replace images and videos in Motion Graphics templates and Essential Properties
      5. Animate faster and easier using the Properties panel
  8. Drawing, Painting, and Paths
    1. Overview of shape layers, paths, and vector graphics
    2. Paint tools: Brush, Clone Stamp, and Eraser
    3. Taper shape strokes
    4. Shape attributes, paint operations, and path operations for shape layers
    5. Use Offset Paths shape effect to alter shapes
    6. Creating shapes
    7. Create masks
    8. Remove objects from your videos with the Content-Aware Fill panel
    9. Roto Brush and Refine Matte
  9. Layers, Markers, and Camera
    1. Selecting and arranging layers
    2. Blending modes and layer styles
    3. 3D layers
    4. Layer properties
    5. Creating layers
    6. Managing layers
    7. Layer markers and composition markers
    8. Cameras, lights, and points of interest
  10. Animation, Keyframes, Motion Tracking, and Keying
    1. Animation
      1. Animation basics
      2. Animating with Puppet tools
      3. Managing and animating shape paths and masks
      4. Animating Sketch and Capture shapes using After Effects
      5. Assorted animation tools
      6. Work with Data-driven animation
    2. Keyframe
      1. Keyframe interpolation
      2. Setting, selecting, and deleting keyframes
      3. Editing, moving, and copying keyframes
    3. Motion tracking
      1. Tracking and stabilizing motion
      2. Face Tracking
      3. Mask Tracking
      4. Mask Reference
      5. Speed
      6. Time-stretching and time-remapping
      7. Timecode and time display units
    4. Keying
      1. Keying
      2. Keying effects
  11. Transparency and Compositing
    1. Compositing and transparency overview and resources
    2. Alpha channels and masks
    3. Track Mattes and Traveling Mattes
  12. Adjusting color
    1. Color basics
    2. Color management
    3. Color Correction effects
    4. OpenColorIO and ACES color management
  13. Effects and Animation Presets
    1. Effects and animation presets overview
    2. Effect list
    3. Effect Manager
    4. Simulation effects
    5. Stylize effects
    6. Audio effects
    7. Distort effects
    8. Perspective effects
    9. Channel effects
    10. Generate effects
    11. Time effects
    12. Transition effects
    13. The Rolling Shutter Repair effect
    14. Blur and Sharpen effects
    15. 3D Channel effects
    16. Utility effects
    17. Matte effects
    18. Noise and Grain effects
    19. Detail-preserving Upscale effect
    20. Obsolete effects
  14. Expressions and Automation
    1. Expressions
      1. Expression basics
      2. Understanding the expression language
      3. Using expression controls
      4. Syntax differences between the JavaScript and Legacy ExtendScript expression engines
      5. Editing expressions
      6. Expression errors
      7. Using the Expressions editor
      8. Use expressions to edit and access text properties
      9. Expression language reference
      10. Expression examples
    2. Automation
      1. Automation
      2. Scripts
  15. Immersive video, VR, and 3D
    1. Construct VR environments in After Effects
    2. Apply immersive video effects
    3. Compositing tools for VR/360 videos
    4. Advanced 3D Renderer
    5. Import and add 3D models to your composition
    6. Import 3D models from Creative Cloud Libraries
    7. Image-Based Lighting
    8. Extract and animate lights and cameras from 3D models
    9. Tracking 3D camera movement
    10. Cast and accept shadows
    11. Embedded 3D model animations
    12. Shadow Catcher
    13. 3D depth data extraction
    14. Modify materials properties of a 3D layer
    15. Work in 3D Design Space
    16. 3D Transform Gizmos
    17. Do more with 3D animation
    18. Preview changes to 3D designs real time with the Mercury 3D engine
    19. Add responsive design to your graphics 
  16. Views and Previews
    1. Previewing
    2. Video preview with Mercury Transmit
    3. Modifying and using views
  17. Rendering and Exporting
    1. Basics of rendering and exporting
    2. H.264 Encoding in After Effects
    3. Export an After Effects project as an Adobe Premiere Pro project
    4. Converting movies
    5. Multi-frame rendering
    6. Automated rendering and network rendering
    7. Rendering and exporting still images and still-image sequences
    8. Using the GoPro CineForm codec in After Effects
  18. Working with other applications
    1. Dynamic Link and After Effects
    2. Working with After Effects and other applications
      1. Export After Effects project as Premiere Pro project
    3. Sync Settings in After Effects
    4. Creative Cloud Libraries in After Effects
    5. Plug-ins
    6. Cinema 4D and Cineware
  19. Collaboration: Frame.io, and Team Projects
    1. Collaboration in Premiere Pro and After Effects
    2. Frame.io
      1. Install and activate Frame.io
      2. Use Frame.io with Premiere Pro and After Effects
      3. Frequently asked questions
    3. Team Projects
      1. Get Started with Team Projects
      2. Create a Team Project
      3. Collaborate with Team Projects
  20. Memory, storage, performance
    1. Memory and storage
    2. How After Effects handles low memory issues while previewing    
    3. Improve performance
    4. Preferences
    5. GPU and GPU driver requirements for After Effects
  21. Knowledge Base
    1. Known issues
    2. Fixed issues
    3. Frequently asked questions
    4. After Effects and macOS Ventura
    5. How After Effects handles low memory issues while previewing

Learn how to create and work with responsive design - time in After Effects.

The Responsive Design - Time feature allows you to author adaptive motion graphics. The feature enables adaptive time-stretching when a composition is nested or when it is exported as a Motion Graphics template. Adaptive time-stretching means that the the protected regions animate in the same amount of time even if you time-stretch the unprotected regions.

You can protect the intros, outros, and any arbitary region of a composition, and save the responsive design templates and reuse them in different projects to avoid duplicating and retiming.

With this feature, the animation pins to the graphic or sequence and adapts to the edits you make to them. This enables you to create complex animations and Motion Graphics templates that can responsively retime to align with a sequence in a project.

For example, you create a lower third and animate fade in/out and add responsive design-time. Responsive design preserves the animation time regardless of when the duration of the clip is extended or trimmed.

Understand Responsive Design - Time

Take the following example to illustrate the problem:

You create a text animation with a fade-in/out and you need the animation to be as long as the sequence. The animation comprises of two sets of text that fade in against a black background.

Add the same animation to a different sequence. Every element of the animation such as the font size, and the start and end time of the fade in/out, should match with the sequence. One way is to duplicate the animation to align it with the length of the sequence. However, this approach can be time-consuming as you need to move the animation keyframes to align the fade in/out with the sequence.

This is where you can use responsive design – Time. You can protect the fade in/out regions (comprising of keyframes) and extend the animation. This attaches the regions to the sequence and the amount of time they take to animate remains unaffected even when you time-stretch the animation to match the length of the sequence. Once attached, the animation dynamically adapts to the length of the sequence.

Apply Responsive Design - Time

You can apply Responsive Design – Time in the following three ways:

  1. Option 1:

    In the Composition menu, select one of the options from the Responsive Design – Time sub-menu:

    • Create Intro: Creates a protected region for 15% of the composition duration, starts on the first frame of the composition.
    • Create Outro: Creates a protected region for 15% of the composition duration, ends on the last frame of the composition.
    • Create Protected Region from Work Area: Creates a protected region with start and end points that align with the work area bar. The protected regions are shaded in blue.

  2. Option 2:

    Drag the work area bar to select the region you want to set as protected region. Right-click the work area bar, then select Create Protected Region from Work Area.

  3. Option 3:

    Click the marker icon at the right-side of the timeline and create a composition marker.

  4. In the Timeline panel, double-click the marker to open the Composition Marker settings dialog, and set a duration and enable the Protected Region option.

Add the animation to another composition

Once you set the protected regions, outros, and intros of your animation, you can add them to different compositions or sequences.

Refer to the following example to illustrate the process:

    • Name the animation with protected regions, for example, Comp A.
    • Name the composition you have to add the animation to, for example, Comp B.

    Open Comp B in the Timeline panel.

  2. In the timeline, drag and place the Comp A over Comp B.

  3. The timeline displays the protected regions as shaded in blue. Hold the end point of Comp A and drag it to match the end point of Comp B.

    When you preview the comp, the protected regions in the animation take the same amount of time to animate and only the unprotected regions are stretched.

Work with nested composition with multiple protected regions

  • When you drag the in and out points of a composition that has one or more protected regions and it is nested into another composition, it time-stretches the composition instead of trimming. The feature preserves the duration of the protected regions. For example, when you time-stretch a clip of 5 seconds that has protected regions of 2 seconds, to make it 10 seconds, the duration of the protected regions remains 2 seconds long.
  • To trim the in or out point of the layer instead of time-stretching, hold the Option (macOS) or Alt (Windows) key and drag the in and out points.
  • Protected regions are composition markers with the Protected Region option enabled, with different handle icons to make it easy to identify. Protected region markers behave the same as other composition markers, except that when you nest a composition with protected regions, those markers can not be modified. Instead, the layer bar for the nested composition is shaded to indicate the protected regions.
  • If you modify a protected region after you nest a composition, the protected region marker on the nested composition layer does not get automatically updated. To update markers on a nested composition layer, select the layer and choose Layer > Markers > Update Markers from Source.
  • You can also access the Protected Region option through scripting or expressions using the protectedRegion attribute of composition markers.

Export a composition with protected regions as a Motion Graphics template

When you export a composition with protected regions as a Motion Graphics template and add to a sequence in Premiere Pro, you can adust the length directly without doing time remap.

You can drag the in and out points of the clip to time-stretch the composition instead of trimming the in or out point. The duration of protected regions is preserved.

  • When you export a composition containining audio as a Motion Graphics template, it does not not time stretch adaptively in Premiere Pro.
  • Compositions that use the CINEMA 4D renderer and contain 3D layers, or that contain a CINEMA 4D layer that uses the CINEWARE effect, could face issues in smooth animation of non-protected regions when the composition is time-stretched.

Do more with After Effects

Create incredible motion graphics, text animation, and visual effects with Adobe After Effects. Design for film, TV, video, and web.

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