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Welcome to you.
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In this explainer, I’ll export my animated title sequence for the movie models to an MP4 video and look at some of the great online resources you can use to continue your journey with After Effects.
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Exporting a composition as a video is very similar to rendering a video in a video editor.
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I’ll go to ‘composition, add to render queue’, then switch to the render queue tab in the timeline panel.
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This is a queue as you may have lots of short compositions in your project and you may want to render them all.
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After Effects has defaulted to what it calls best settings, h264 compression at 15 megabits a second, but the output file has not been specified.
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Let’s work through these settings.
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Start by clicking best settings.
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The resolution option here includes options to render at half or quarter resolution, etcetera.
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This may seem odd, but if you go on to incorporate lots of effects, 3d layers, etcetera, you’re going to appreciate the option to render out low resolution previews.
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Adding motion blur would mimic the motion blur that exists when fast moving objects are filmed using standard shutter speeds.
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As my animation is quite slow and smooth, motion blur won’t really add anything to the final result, so I’m going to leave it off.
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The time span settings can also be useful.
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I know my animation will only last 10 seconds, so I’m going to render the full length.
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If I just want to render a short part of a composition.
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I can enter the start and end times here and click okay.
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Next, I’ll look at the video compression options.
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I’m going to leave it as h 264 compression for maximum compatibility with other software.
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But there are numerous options here including exporting to a JPEG or PNG sequence.
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These options save every single frame of a composition in a numbered sequence.
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This can be really useful when you want to import animation sequences into other professional software.
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I didn’t include sound in my composition, so I’m going to request that no audio is saved alongside the video.
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I’m going to add my audio when I assemble my full trailer in a video editor later on and click OK.
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Finally, I’ll click on not yet specified so I can enter a file name for the output video.
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I’ll save it as models text titled to 10 80 p.
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Now all the settings are complete.
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The render button has become active.
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Just click render to generate the 10 second video.
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And here’s my rendered video file.
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Of course, I could now go on to add any number of additional effects to my composition and render it out again.
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If you do want to add audio directly inside After Effects, it’s as simple as dragging an audio file into the current project.
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Dragging it into a composition will create a dedicated audio layer.
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As you might expect, After Effects includes a range of quick effects and presets to apply to audio, including an equalizer and to play your sound backwards.
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Lots of companies offer plugins and pre-generated compositions for after effects.
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A good starting point is aescripts.com.
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Here you’ll find lots of free and paid plugins for everything from animating human and animal movement to AI enhanced green screening.
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If you’re looking for pre built compositions that you can customize and render, try videohive.net.
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You’ll find thousands of paid resources here, and we also offer a limited number for free every month when you set up a free account.
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‘The future envisioned in science fiction is no longer a distant dream but a tantalizing reality.
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As we stand at the threshold of the AI driven era, the possibilities are limitless, and the prospects are exhilarating, or so we thought.’ That’s the end of this introductory series of explainers. We look forward to seeing what you go on to create in After Effects!