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Adobe After Effects in a nutshell – Part 1

Posted 10th September 2010 by Andrew     Email article      Share article

In my last mini-series of posts entitled ‘Video | What is Media Lightbox?’ (Part 1 is here, Part 2 is here and Part 3 is here) I embedded our overview video about what Media Lightbox is and also talked about it. I also talked about what packages I used to make this animation, so in this post (part 1 of 2) I wanted to talk a little more about the main package that I used, Adobe After Effects.

Adobe After Effects is a powerful motion graphics, visual effects and compositing software made by Adobe. Its main purpose is for film and video post-production, although as you can see from our video it’s also extremely good for animation purposes. After Effects allows users to animate, alter and composite media in 2D and 3D space with various built-in tools and third party plug-ins. It also integrates very well with other Adobe software titles such as Illustrator, Photoshop, Premiere Pro, Encore, Flash and third-party 3D programs like Cinema 4D.

There are many things I love about After Effects but the one that stands out for me and originally got me hooked and started learning this package is that you can recreate high end Hollywood special effects on a desktop computer. A great example of this is the video below which demonstrates motion graphics, visual effects and compositing:

As said at the top this part just covers ‘Adobe After Effects in a nutshell’ but in part 2 I will be looking at some of the new features of After Effects CS5 (it’s latest release).

Sign-up for a FREE TRIAL account of Media Lightbox today and securely store your After Effects files.