TABLE OF CONTENTS Before you delve right in to creating a project, you should understand the basic structure of the After Effects interface. If you re familiar with most Adobe products, After Effects should look familiar that s intentional and welcome. But to people who use many other programs, the interface can appear daunting. Trust me, After Effects is as simple a program to use as it is complex in its capabilities. Let s examine the interface and dispel any concerns about its intimidating layout.
A glance at the image below shows what a typical (though colorized) workspace might look like. It contains the three primary production windows that you ll be continually using: the Project Window (in yellow), the Timeline Window (orange), and the Composition Window (green) or Preview Window as others might call it.
The Project Window is where you organize all your assets (movie clips, photo and graphic stills, vector files, etc.). The Project Window looks similar to a Finder or Explorer directory window you might use to navigate through your computer s hard disk. It shows file names, the type of file it is, their size, duration, and location.
The next two windows are directly associated with one another. The Timeline Window and the Composition (preview) Window are where project design and construction take place. The Timeline Window should look familiar to any editor with its rows of project element layers and Timecode indices. Here s where...
