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Getting to Know the After Effects CS3 Workflow

  • Oct 17, 2008
Whether you use After Effects to animate a simple DVD title sequence or to create complex special effects, you generally follow the same basic workflow. The Adobe Creative Team demonstrates how to use this workflow to create a simple animated video.
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Adobe After Effects CS3 Professional Classroom in a BookAdobe After Effects CS3 Professional Classroom in a Book

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The basic After Effects workflow adheres to the following six steps:

  1. Import and organize footage.
  2. Create compositions and arrange layers.
  3. Add effects.
  4. Animate elements
  5. Preview your work.
  6. Render and output the final composition so that it can be viewed by others.

In this article, you'll create a simple animated video by using this workflow. Along the way, you'll learn your way around the After Effects interface, which facilitates your work and adapts to each stage of production.

NOTE

This article is adapted from Adobe After Effects CS3 Professional Classroom in a Book. Copyright 2008. Used with permission of Pearson Education, Inc. and Adobe Press.

Getting Started

Download the following files to the AECS3_CIB/Lessons/Lesson01 folder on your hard disk (or copy them from the Adobe After Effects CS3 Classroom in a Book DVD):

  • In the Assets folder: bgwtext.psd, DJ.mov, gc_adobe_dj.mp3, kaleidoscope_waveforms.mov, pulsating_radial_waves.mov
  • In the Sample_Movie folder: Lesson01.mov

Open and play the Lesson01.mov sample movie to see what you'll create in this exercise. When you're done, quit the QuickTime player. You may delete this sample movie from your hard disk if you have limited storage space.

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Last Update: November 17, 2020