63 Producing Title Backgrounds in After Effects


#63 Producing Title Backgrounds in After Effects

The next two techniques describe how to use two key features of After Effects to spice up your titles in nothing flat. You'll also learn how to use Adobe Bridge to browse for and mine After Effects' capacious stores of content.

The Rest of the Story

Once you save the composition, Premiere Pro updates it in the Project panel. From there, you can use it like any other clip; just drag it to the timeline and trim or otherwise edit as desired.


Let's assume that you're creating a video in Premiere Pro and will use Dynamic Link to import the titles you create in After Effects. Here's how to find, import, and modify a moving background to give your title a compelling, dynamic look.

1.

In Premiere Pro, choose File > Adobe Dynamic Link > New After Effects Composition. This creates the After Effects composition and runs After Effects.

Changing the Duration

After Effects defaults to a 30-second duration for new compositions, including those created from Premiere Pro. If you need a background with a longer duration, change the Composition duration in the Composition Settings dialog (Composition > Composition Settings) before inserting the background.


2.

Press Alt+Tab to access After Effects.

3.

On the extreme-right side of the After Effects interface, click the fly-out menu in the Effects & Presets panel and choose Browse Presets (Figure 63a) to open Adobe Bridge. If the panel isn't open, choose Window > Effects & Presets to open it.

Figure 63a. One of Adobe Bridge's most useful roles is helping you find After Effects content. Of course, first you have to find Adobe Bridge.


4.

Click the Backgrounds folder to view the background presets. Click a background to play it in the Preview window (Figure 63b).

Figure 63b. Here are Adobe Bridge's and After Effects' motion background presets. I like the feel of silk!


Motion Menu Backgrounds

You can use the same workflow from within Adobe Encore DVD to create motion backgrounds for your DVD menus.


5.

After selecting a background, double-click it to insert it into the composition timeline (Figure 63c). You don't need to create a layer to accept the background; After Effects will do that for you, creating a layer that extends for the entire duration of the composition.



Figure 63c. After you've selected and inserted a motion background into After Effects' composition timeline, you can adjust the effect parameters to customize your background to your heart's desire.


6.

Click the Effect Controls tab to expose the effect parameters. As you can see, After Effects creates the background using three effects: Fractal Noise, Find Edges, and CC toner. To customize the background, you can change any parameter in any effect, including Fractal Type, which will change the look and motion. You can also change the colors of the Highlights, Midtones, and Shadows.




Adobe Digital Video How-Tos. 100 Essential Techniques with Adobe Production Studio
Adobe Digital Video How-Tos: 100 Essential Techniques with Adobe Production Studio
ISBN: 0321473817
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2006
Pages: 148
Authors: Jan Ozer

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