Vegas and After Effects
 

I have After Effects but don't know how to use it...where is a good place to start? I have the turorial by Adobe, but even that seems a bit overwhelming...

The web is not edited for conciseness. You will learn faster with a book or video. Total Training is very good.

Thank you also Emre...I guess help is where we find it...eh?

http://www.videocopilot.net (a little more advanced)

Excellent Jim...thank you

It really depends on learning style, but whatever yours may be, you need to start doing tests and practice as much and as early as possible.
If you are like me, just dive in with some tutorials or whatever you feel like and figure it out as you learn.
Others need to read a book then apply that, which is fine, but the learning will still need to take place after, and others learn best by example (video tutorials).
Find something that makes the principles clear to you, but then just start doing it.
There's no wrong way to practice FX.

I really like the Billfishes adventure site as well as AE Basic training...I'm going to try it out...

Hey guys, I have a very specific use for AE in mind. I need to find info, but do not know what what I want to do is called!

For slideshows I want pics and cutouts of figures to come from background and appear to move towards screen, and for them to appear to in front or behind each other in a 3d sort of way...

Generally I suppose this is compositing...but is there a specific term for this use of images?

I gotta tell ya, I've just begun to play with AE, it is amazing...I've got two pics and I clicked on 3d thingy and a rotational tool...wow...If keyframing works in AE at all like Vegas I can do it I think....just can't get the keyframing thing figured out just yet.

Good news, AE can do that. :)

This is a VERY rudimentary way to describe it, as I know there are tutorials out there, but this is the basic process.

It takes a bit of getting used to, but down next to the timeline, next to the name of each clip there is a row of switches for different properties of the effect. One is 3D. Look for what appears to be a cube above the column, and once you do that, you can control that clip in X, Y, & Z space, instead of just X and Y.

You will be using the Z axis to move the clip towards the camera, and then opacity and effects to make it all pretty.

And a big word of advice : before you get annoyed at AE, the first few attempts at projects with AE is going to be troublesome. It's a very complicated piece of software, but able to do some really nifty things for that very reason. Don't get disheartened. Track down a few good tutorials on using after effects on 2D graphic projects, and get a feel for the basics first, 3D is one of the more complicated aspects of after effects, second only to using high level math to control your effects, something I've never had to do but I know it can. =D

Carl

Thanks Carl, I'm on it!

Jeff

Just keep plugging away and here is what you can get, all AE

http://www.sfgmedia.com/uwol/five/JM_UW5_civilized.html

Amazing stuff, Jim....as I mentioned earlier, I started messing with it earlier, and I can't do anything in it yet, but I'm hooked....

I personally was lucky, my first large number of projects in AE were doing the titling for commercials edited in FCP. And then titling and color correction in the same manner. Small projects that gave me reasons to tinker.... easiest way to learn it :)

Find tutorials of cool things you want to do to small clip(s). Do it, and enjoy :D

C

I recommend to invest to books, especially written by Chris & Trish Meyer.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/...0Trish%20Meyer

Margus