Description

Adobe After Effects CC Classroom in a Book. Adobe After Effects CC provides a comprehensive set of 2D and 3D tools for
compositing, animation, and effects that motion-graphics professionals, visual effects
artists, web designers, and film and video professionals need. After Effects is widely used
for digital post-production of film, video, DVD, and the web. You can composite layers in
various ways, apply and combine sophisticated visual and audio effects, and animate both
objects and effects.
About Classroom in a Book
Adobe After Effects CC Classroom in a Book (2015 release) is part of the official training
series for Adobe graphics and publishing software, developed with the support of Adobe
product experts. The lessons are designed to let you learn at your own pace. If you’re new
to Adobe After Effects, you’ll learn the fundamental concepts and features you’ll need to
master the program. And if you’ve been using Adobe After Effects for a while, you’ll find
that Classroom in a Book teaches many advanced features, including tips and techniques
for using the latest version.
Although each lesson provides step-by-step instructions for creating a specific project,
there’s room for exploration and experimentation. You can follow the book from start to
finish, or do only the lessons that match your interests and needs. Each lesson concludes
with a review section summarizing what you’ve covered.
Prerequisites
Before beginning to use Adobe After Effects CC Classroom in a Book (2015 release),
make sure that your system is set up correctly and that you’ve installed the required
software and hardware. You should have a working knowledge of your computer and
operating system. You should know how to use the mouse and standard menus and
commands, and also how to open, save, and close files. If you need to review these
techniques, see the printed or online documentation included with your Microsoft®
Windows® or Apple® Mac® OS software.
To complete the lessons in this book, you’ll need to have both Adobe After Effects CC
(2015 release) and Adobe Bridge CC installed. The exercises in this book are based on
After Effects CC (2015.1 release).
Installing After Effects and Bridge
You must purchase the Adobe After Effects CC software separately. For system
requirements and complete instructions on installing the software, visit
www.adobe.com/support. Note that After Effects CC requires a 64-bit operating system
and OpenGL 3.3 support. You must also have Apple QuickTime 7.6.6 or later installed on
your system.
Some of the lessons in this book use Adobe Bridge. After Effects and Bridge use separate
installers. You must install these applications from Adobe Creative Cloud
(creative.adobe.com) onto your hard disk. Follow the onscreen instructions.
Optimizing performance
Creating movies is memory-intensive work for a desktop computer. After Effects CC
(2015 release) requires a minimum of 4GB of RAM. The more RAM that is available to
After Effects, the faster the application will work for you. For information about
optimizing memory, cache, and other settings for After Effects, see “Improve
performance” in After Effects Help.
Restoring default preferences
The preferences files control the way the After Effects user interface appears on your
screen. The instructions in this book assume that you see the default interface when they
describe the appearance of tools, options, windows, panels, and so forth. Therefore, it’s a
good idea to restore the default preferences, especially if you are new to After Effects.
Each time you quit After Effects, the panel positions and certain command settings are
recorded in the preferences files. To restore the original default settings, press
Ctrl+Alt+Shift (Windows) or Command+Option+Shift (Mac OS) while starting After
Effects. (After Effects creates new preferences files if they don’t already exist the next
time you start the program.)
Restoring the default preferences can be especially helpful if someone has already
customized After Effects on your computer. If your copy of After Effects hasn’t been used
yet, these files won’t exist, so this procedure is unnecessary.
Important: If you want to save the current settings, you can rename a preferences file
instead of deleting it. When you are ready to restore those settings, change the name back,
and make sure that the file is located in the correct preferences folder.