Introduction to After Effects, Part 2

Once you become familiar with After Effects, and you begin to work with a lot of layers and footage, you should take advantage of the Preview Ram feature. This will help you edit faster, and will make the most of your computer Ram.

Using Preview Ram

As you may have noticed as you edited in After Effects, whether you use Preview Ram or regular playback, the first time you playback a section you edited is very slow. The reasons for this is that After Effects has to record the changes.

If you use Preview Ram, your replays will be a bit more efficient and friendly to your computer's processing power because After Effects will remember to discard only the information that you edited, and keep the material that you previously played back but which was not changed. This means that other areas of your file will stay intact.

Playback on a Selected Area of the Composition

But even this may not be enough, and your computer may playback too slow for your needs once you add on various effects. To optimize your computer playback, you can choose a playback area. This means that you select a section of your composition, and only this section will be played in Ram Preview.

To perform a Playback on a selected region, go to the composition layer, or footage panel and on the bottom of the window, select the "Region of Interest Button." This one appears as a screen within the screen, and is more or less around the center of the bottom of the window.

Once you select this feature, draw a marquee around the area you want to view and hit play (return). After Effects will only preview the area you selected.

If you "save playback preview" for the first time, After Effects will play through once to gather the information. This process may appear speeded up at times, but don't worry, once it is done, future playbacks should be in real time.

As previously instructed in the first lecture on After Effects, to playback Ram Preview go to the top menu and select: Composition > Preview > Ram Preview.

Using Fast Preview with Ram Preview Playback

If you find that your playback is still a bit slow, you can choose to use the Adaptive Resolution option, which enables you choose the resolution for preview playback. To do this, at the bottom of the composition panel choose the small square with the lighting bolt. (The button is located to the right hand side of the controls.)

When you select the button, a drop down menu will appear. Select Fast Preview Preferences. A preference window will appear. For Adaptive Resolution choose a setting that fits your needs: 1/2, 1/4, or 1/8. The smaller the fraction the lower the resolution. Experiment with these features as you playback your edits.

Wireframe playback

If you find that you just want to preview the movement of an object or just the overall timing of an effect, playback of a wireframe may work best. To do this go to the Fast Preview Preferences as described above, and from the drop down menu, select "Wireframe." Then playback and you will see your animation in wireframe format.

Previewing Audio

Audio will not play automatically on After Effects. If you want to preview audio, go to the top menu, then select Composition > Preview > Preview Audio (Work Area). You will then hear the audio playback.

Creating Masks

Masks can be use for special effects or to isolate an area from one file to combine on top of another. An obvious mask effect you may have seen a number of times is of an expanding oval, which introduces a scene. Also, stills may be animated once they are masked. Whatever the choice of use, masks are a common feature of After Effects.

A mask can be created with the pen tool as well as any shape tool (rectangle, oval, etc).

To create a simple mask, choose a layer in the composition panel or on the timeline. Select the oval or rectangle tool and draw over a layer composition of your choice. A layer mask will appear automatically. You can adjust the mask.

IMPORTANT: Note that if you don't choose a layer before choosing a shape or pen tool, then a shape layer will be created. Be specific, if you want a mask layer, select the layer you want affected first.

You can also create a mask with the pen tool. Do the same number of steps: choose the layer you want affected, then choose the pen tool, and begin drawing. The mask will not appear until you close the mask layer.

You can use a mask to isolate a custom shape within an image, although, you may find that creating a transparent selection in photoshop may be better for you. In either case experiment and decide which way works best for you.

You can animate masks like any other element in After Effects. Create keyframes accordingly.

You can also invert a mask by clicking on the "inverted" option, available on the same layer line as the name of the mask.

You can also adjust a layer mask's opacity and transparency as any other layer. Experiment on the corresponding layer options, found within the timeline.