Workshop
- File -> new project -> is everything you see on screen
- Composition -> new composition (to change something you have already set up go Composition -> composition settings)
- Preset: PAL used for UK, NTSC for America, difference to do with frames per second
- PAL runs at 25 frames per second, 24 is the rate of traditional film
- Preset used: PAL D1/DV Widescreen Square Pixel
- Black background uses no R,G or B.
- File -> Import files = files will appear in project area
- Layer -> New -> Solid = create a shape (there are other ways - shape tool). Adds first layer to workshop.
- Move yellow bits of grey bar to zoom in on seconds, then eventually frames, can then drag this bar to move along.
- The thicker bar allows you to focus in on one area of interest, e.g. just watch 10 seconds of a 30 second clip to save your computer on buffering the whole video. This will be useful large files.
- To change how long something appears on screen, can drag the red bar to make it take less time as automatically it lasts the full duration. Can slide left or right to control when on the timeline it is shown.
- Click and drag square to move/change shape.
- We then added another square (be careful not to click on layer, needs to be on the composition workshop)
- Spacebar - playback (can't hear sound by doing this)
- Play button in preview window, useful for more complex videos
- Home keys are above the up-down-left-right keys, the arrow pointing up will go back to the beginning, the arrow pointing down will go to the end
- Next to RGB circles the options control quality of preview, choice depends on how powerful your computer is and how complex the file is
- Playing about I made a short clip of different coloured squares appearing and disappearing at different times.
- Click on arrows in the workshop window under the shape layer to allow for transformations. When you apply an effect it will appear as a transformation.
Key frames
- Click on the stop watch next to position. Then drag the current time indicator (Red line) to a new point. Then drag the selected square to somewhere else to change the position. The grey diamond shows where the square starts and the yellow one shows where it ends up. This allows for the square to move from one place to another. Distance between key frames changes the amount of time the movement takes - the closer the key frames the faster the movement.
- Three key frames turns the movement into a bezier curve like in illustrator. Can copy and paste key frames into a new layer. Editing the motion path of the shape. You can control the route and the different speeds along the route.
- Hold mouse and drag over key frames to turn them yellow. If you drag them while holding alt, you can move them while retaining their relationship.
- Button next to z on keyboard: makes the section of the workspace you are on full screen, useful for when you are editing lots of layers, or when you want a fullscreen view of your composition.
- Click on a layer and type p and position comes up, useful for when you want to quickly edit position. R does rotation, A anchor point, S scale, T does opacity. Can select all layers before using shortcuts to make it easier to edit many layers at once.
- I and O on keyboard - in and out points of the shapes time on screen.
- If you press the U key it exposes all the animated layers, then if you press it again it shows you the edited layers, for example the ones with changed opacity.
- cmd + d to duplicate layer
- The convert vertex tool is under the pen tool. You can click on this and then click on the anchor point of the shape that is moving position, and the movement will change from a curve to an angled movement. Allows you to be accurate about where the shapes move.
- Can drag and drop an effect onto the object. The effect appears with the transform options. Edit the effect.
- Click on starting layer, type i. Click on ending layer, type o. This just selects the time where something is happening rather than the whole duration.
- To export: composition -> add to render queue. Click losless next to output module. Then click format options. In video Codec we are going to change from animation to H.264 as animation is the best quality file and we don't need this.
- Click on yellow next to output to: and choose a name and where you will save your file to.
- It only starts exporting when you click the render button. You can see the progress in the yellow bar, and then you can find your video in finder.
