User Guide

37
ADOBE AFTER EFFECTS 5.0
User Guide
How you start a project
Starting a project involves two tasks: (1) planning your project based on the formats of the
final output and (2) creating a project file. Once you have planned your project and
learned how to perform some basic tasks related to working in After Effects, you’ll be ready
to start importing footage (see “Importing files into a project” on page 68). You then
create a composition and begin working with your source footage (see “Working with
imported footage” on page 93).
Planning your project
Planning your project before you start importing footage makes your work easier. A
large part of planning is simply determining the best settings for your source footage
based on the media for which you will render your finished project. This step is
essential to achieving optimal image quality. Rendering order and nesting may also be
part of project planning (see “Organizing a project using nesting” on page 342).
Choosing the right media
Before you start importing footage items into your project, decide which media you’ll
use for your finished movies. Then determine the best settings for your compositions
and source material. For example, if you will be rendering your project to videotape,
create footage at an image size, color bit-depth, and frame rate that will produce the best
image quality on videotape. Likewise, if your project is intended for streaming video on
the Web, the image size, color bit-depth, and frame rate may need to be reduced to work
with the data-rate limits of streaming video on the Web. However, any footage item that
can be imported can be used in any composition.
If you will be rendering a project to more than one media format, always match the
resolution setting for your composition to the highest resolution setting used for your
output. Then set up the Render Queue window to render a separate version of the project
for each format.
UG.book Page 37 Wednesday, February 21, 2001 12:05 PM