Creating Motion Graphics with After Effects

1. Getting Started, Animation

- How After Effects Thinks : Understanding the logic behind how After Effects processes source material inside compositions to create a final composition image
- Customs and Immigration : How to import the various types of source material. Includes tips on managing projects, viewing sources, and handling each source type
- Creating a Composition: Setting up and managing compositions. Includes basics on time, space, and the transformation properties
- A Matter of Time and Space : Keyframing and animating properties over time, starting with Position. Mastering motion paths and speed changes; all previewing options
- A Trio of Transformations : Animating Scale, Rotation, and Opacity
- The Anchor Point : Moving and animating the center around which transformations occur
- Our Trusty Assistants : A set of useful Standard and Production Bundle utilities

2. Layers -- The Next Level

- The Layer Essentials : Managing layers in the Time Layout window, including property switches, markers, snapshots, and shortcuts. Includes hot keying to external programs
- Trimming the Fat : Manipulating layers in time, including editing techniques such as trimming plus the Sequence Layers keyframe assistant
- Stretch, Reverse, and Blend : Altering the speed or reversing the playback of a layer, plus Frame Blending
- Motion Blur : Automatically calculating motion blur for animated objects

3. Modes, Masks, and Mattes

- Transfer Modes : One of After Effects best tools for graphics artists; this chapter explains what each mode does and how best to use it
- All About Masking : Details on drawing, editing, and combining masks, including using masks created in Illustrator, and rotoscoping tips
- All About Track Mattes : The important technique of borrowing the luminance or alpha channel of one layer to define the opacity of another
- Stencils and the "T" : Stencils and silhouettes can affect the transparency of multiple layers in a comp. Includes Preserve Transparency and the Alpha Add transfer mode

4. Building Hierarchies

- Nesting Compositions : The secret to building manageable, complex projects is to use multiple compositions; how to build these hierarchies
- Precomposing : Nesting, but backwards: adding intermediate compositions into an existing hierarchy
- Collapsing Transformations : A nice trick for maximizing image quality in a chain of comps, with warnings about the numerous things that can go wrong

5. All about Effects

- Applying Effects 101 : The essentials about applying effects to a layer, and the different effect parameters
- Adjustment Layers : The ability to have effects applied to one layer affect all layers underneath it can greatly streamline work, as well as open up many creative options
- That Ol Black Solid : Sometimes, the best way to add an effect is to not add it directly to an image. Applying them to a solid allows you to add more effects, plus transfer modes
- Compound Interest : Compound effects can affect one layer based on the properties of another, with some limitations. An exploration of the Texturize and Displacement Map effects
- Standard Effects Round-Up : A compendium of our favorite tips and tricks using the effects that come with the standard version of After Effects
- Production Bundle Effects Round-Up : Additional tips and tricks on the effects that come with the Production Bundle, with emphasis on the new 3D Channel effects and distortion tools
- The Blue Riders : Color keying and matte edge tools, with a focus on using the Production Bundles powerful but daunting Color Difference Keyer

6. Type, Illustrator, and Photoshop

- Plugging in Type : Effect plug-ins that create numbers and text, including the powerful Path Text
- Inside Illustrator: The basics on this Adobe vector-based art program, used for logo and type creation
- Working with Illustrator : Getting the best from Illustrator files; Continuous Rasterization
- Working with Photoshop : Importing Photoshop files; getting the most out of layered Photoshop files

7. Working with Audio

- Audio Basics and Effects : The basics of sound, spotting hit points in music and dialog, mixing, and tips for Standard and Production bundle audio effects

8. Time and Tracking

- Time Remapping : Vary the playback speed of a layer over time, with keyframes and velocity graphs
- Time Games : A trio of time-manipulating effects: Posterize Time, Echo, and Time Displacement
- On Stable Ground : Demystifying the Production Bundles Motion Stabilizer, for correcting wobbly footage
- Motion Tracking : Practicing how one object can track or be corner-pinned to features of another layer
- Motion Fun : Removing the fear behind the Production Bundles scripting language, Motion Math

9. Format Issues and Rendering

- Interpret Footage : Determines how footage items will be read and treated throughout a project
- Playing the Field : Issues surrounding interlaced footage, field rendering, and minimizing flicker
- 3:2 Pulldown : Extracting the original source frames after film is transferred to NTSC video
- Working with D1/DV NTSC : Issues specific to working with D1 or DV size frames inside the 525-line NTSC video standard, focusing on nonsquare pixels
- Working with D1/DV PAL : Issues specific to working with D1 and DV size frames inside the 625-line PAL video standard, focusing on nonsquare pixels
- Working with Widescreen : The myriad of approaches that can be taken to create widescreen aspect video, including letterboxing, anamorphic, and high definition
- Working at Film Resolution : Frame sizes, safe areas and workflow considerations for working in film, including working practices for Cineon format files
- Join the Queue : The Render Queue, Render Settings, and Output Modules, plus creating templates
- Prerendering and Proxies : Work more efficiently by prerendering elements and creating low resolution proxies