User Guide

CONTENTS
iv
Preparing and Importing
Footage
Chapter 2
How After Effects works with imported files . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
Preparing a still-image file for import into
After Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
Importing files into a project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
Importing a sequence of still-image files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
Importing footage containing an alpha channel . . . . . . . . 72
Importing Adobe Photoshop files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
Importing an Adobe Illustrator, PDF, or EPS file . . . . . . . . . . 77
Importing an After Effects project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
Importing Adobe Premiere projects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
Importing 3D-image files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
Importing an audio file . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
Importing Cineon files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
Preparing motion footage for import . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
Using interlaced video in After Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
Removing 3:2 pulldown from video transferred
from film . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
Setting pixel aspect ratio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
Building a Composition Chapter 3
Working with imported footage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
Replacing and substituting footage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
Creating a composition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
Understanding basic composition settings . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
Understanding advanced composition settings . . . . . . . 108
Adding footage items to a composition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
Nesting a composition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
Using the Composition window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
Using the Timeline window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
Managing Layers Chapter 4
Adding layers to compositions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
Creating new layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
Rearranging layers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
Customizing layer work and views . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
Understanding trimming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
Using markers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
UG.book Page iv Wednesday, February 21, 2001 12:05 PM