Whats New
ADOBE After Effects CS3 Professional Create motion graphics and visual effects with the industry standard
Adobe After Effects CS3 Professional software helps you bring your vision to life with blockbuster visual effects and compelling motion graphics for film, video, DVD, the web, and mobile devices.
Take your inspiration to new heights: Create beautiful, sophisticated animations and effects more effectively than ever with Adobe After Effects CS3 Professional. Whether you design from scratch or jump-start projects from any of the hundreds of customizable templates and presets, the latest version of After Effects lets you exceed expectations with less effort. Use innovative new features like Shape Layers, the Puppet tool, Brainstorm, and Clip Notes to design, animate, and review with greater creative freedom.
Adobe After Effects CS3 Professional is also available as a component of:
Adobe Creative Suite 3 Production Premium Adobe Creative Suite 3 Master Collection
After Effects is available as a standalone product, or as a component of Adobe Creative Suite 3 Production Premium and Master Collection software. Eliminate rerendering and move easily between After Effects, Adobe Premiere Pro CS3 and Encore CS3 software using Adobe Dynamic Link, part of Production Premium. Adobe Creative Suite 3 Production Premium is a complete digital video production solution in which Adobe After Effects CS3 provides the ability to generate animations and composites of all kinds, from stylized motion graphics to realistic visual effects. Adobe Creative Suite 3 Master Collection combines the powerful components of Production Premium with those of Creative Suite 3 Design Premium and Web Premium. Whether you are a motion graphics designer, visual effects artist, video editor, or a designer of rich media for the web, Adobe After Effects CS3 Professional lets you: Innovate visuallyUnleash your creative vision with responsive controls and amazing effects. Animate freely and with even more flexibility using new Shape Layers and the new Puppet tool. Use the new Brainstorm interface to naturally evolve animation variations based on parameters you choose. Maximize your timeDeliver your best work on schedule. The intuitive interface in Adobe After Effects CS3 Professional lets you accomplish even the most complex tasks faster while keeping you focused on your vision. Enhanced multi-core and multi-processor support enables faster renders; powerful integration allows you to move quickly and efficiently between After Effects and Adobe Photoshop CS3 Extended, Adobe Premiere Pro CS3, Adobe Flash CS3 Professional, Adobe Illustrator CS3, and Adobe Encore CS3.
Adobe After Effects CS3 Professional Whats New

Top ten features

Shape Layers (Page 2) Puppet tool (Page 3) Photoshop integration (Page 4) Integration with Adobe Flash CS3 Professional (Page 5) Per-character 3D text animation(Page 5) Brainstorm (Page 6) Complete color management workflow(Page 6) Adobe Clip Notes (Page 7) Enhanced performance (Page 8) Video for mobile devices (Page 8)
Design for tomorrow, todayAdobe After Effects CS3 Professional delivers on tomorrows challenges today, with flexible tools that anticipate the future of design and animation. Work with tools that enable you to deliver professional results on virtually any type of media. Create QuickTime and Flash video for the web and work with a wide range of formats from HDV to OpenEXR, H.264, and Camera Raw. Ensure output quality for an array of supported mobile devices. After Effects is available for Intel and Power PC Mac, or for Microsoft Windows XP and Windows Vista.
Top new features of Adobe After Effects CS3 Professional

Shape Layers

Following are highlights of the most important new features of this powerful new release.
Vector graphics have long been a common element in motion graphics animations created in After Effects. In the past, however, the shapes themselves were often created outside of After Effects, typically using software such as Adobe Illustrator. Now theres a powerful vector graphic creation tool available within After Effects itself: Shape Layers. Based on the vector drawing standards of Adobe Illustrator, the Shape Layers feature makes it simple to create and animate shapes. Built-in shapes include polygons and stars (with any number of sides and points) as well as rounded rectangles; you also have the option of drawing your own shapes with the Pen tool. But After Effects takes vector graphics to the next level, adding the ability to replicate and add animation, similar to features available for After Effects text. This offers you unprecedented speed and control to help you quickly and easily create sophisticated, beautiful shape-based animations.

An elaborate animation made up of multiple variations on a six-pointed star is easy to create; the Repeater feature makes it possible to offset variations on a theme. All properties of the shape can also be keyframed.
Shape Layers comprise many powerful capabilities: Preset tools create rectangles, rounded rectangles, ellipses, polygons, and stars. Just as in Illustrator, these shapes can be adjusted as they are drawn (using the same keyboard shortcuts) to modify the rounding of the corners or the number of sides or points, respectively. You can also draw your own shapes with the Pen tool. Type can be converted to a Shape Layer, allowing you to animate and warp its shape. Not only the shapes themselves, but all of their component parts, including strokes, fills, dashes and gradients, as well as various types of warps and repeating patterns, can be adjusted and animated. A Shape Layer can contain a compound shape, a group with any number of component shapes. All settings and animations for the Shape Layer are applied to the compound shape. The paths of a compound shape can be merged to create new shapes.
A single Shape Layer containing a compound shape makes it possible to control what appear to be multiple shapes with a single set of controls.
A wide selection of shape animation presets are included to get you started making full use of shapes and help you explore the full possibilities of using this tool. Refinements such as dashes, Miter Limit, Line Cap and Line Join as well as the inner and outer radius and roundedness of the shape, can be edited or animated. You can even add effects such as Twist, Zig Zag, Pucker and Bloat, trim paths (for write-on effects), and wiggle paths.

Puppet tool

Add life to any shape or layer with the easy, fun and addictive Puppet tool. Words dont do it justicetry it, and imbue a 2D image with lifelike squash-and-stretch characteristics. Click to add pins to the layer or figure, typically at the joints of the layer where movement should be constrained. Animate the layer simply by dragging a pin; keyframes are set automatically.
The pins on the arms and legs control the figure; currently selected pins appear as solid circles, deselected pins hollow. Simply by dragging the pins at the knees, hand and head, a highly stylized effect can be achieved (although subtler animations are possible too). Pins that arent repositioned hold surrounding areas in place.
Virtually any layer is a candidate for Puppet tool animation. Puppet adds exciting possibilities to text animation: individual letters and words take on the life of an animated character. Shape Layers can be manipulated to create organic motion with just a few drags of the mouse.

Photoshop integration

After Effects CS3 Professional takes powerful features from PhotoshopLayer Styles, Video Layers, and Vanishing Pointto new heights of creativity, increasing operability and functionality when using After Effects and Photoshop together.

Layer Styles In Photoshop, Layer Styles have long given you the ability to add texture and shading to even the most basic layer instantly. Now you can find that same ability in After Effects, with the following styles available for application to any layer: Drop Shadows and Inner Shadows Inner and Outer Glow Bevel and Emboss, Satin, and Stroke Color and Gradient Overlay
Layer Styles can transform the look of text with just a few clicks. Here, Outer Glow and a Drop Shadow add visual interest and dimension. Styles can be toggled on and off, even animated.
After Effects allows you to animate Layer Styles and their individual properties at will. Need to create glow inside of a layer? No problem. Want the intensity and color of the glow to change over time? Easy. Not only that, but the Layer Styles that you create in Photoshop are fully preserved in After Effects. They are also fully interoperable with Adobe Encore, so that DVD motion menus can include them while remaining fully editable. Video Layers PSD files created with Photoshop CS3 Extended can include Video Layersentire layers of full motion video. Photoshop files containing these layers can be imported into After Effects seamlessly, bringing the entire Photoshop toolset to your rotoscoping and animation tasks. 3D compositions from Vanishing Point 3D scene data that you create with the Vanishing Point feature in Adobe Photoshop CS3 Extended can then be exported as a file which can be imported into After Effects for 3D compositing. Vanishing Point lets you specify arbitrary planes of perspective in a 2D image, including angled planes. Once youve established the 3D planes in your Photoshop image, you can use that data as 3D layers in After Effects.

Timeline navigation

A button has been added to open the parent composition, making it more possible to navigate nested compositions directly from the timeline.

Flash integration

After Effects CS3 offers new support for Flash designers. In After Effects, you can create and export cue points in Flash video files, enhancing the interactive potential of the animations you create. Not only that, but any stream of keyframes in the After Effects timeline can be used to generate cue points; for example, you can export motion tracking keyframe data into Flash. Flash video files can be batch rendered and even created simultaneously with other types of output thanks to the ability to export multiple formats in one render pass. These files can

also contain alpha channels, so that keying or other transparency data that you generate in After Effects can be put to full use in Flash. After Effects also allows you to enable continuous rasterization of vector shapes and to preserve alpha channels from Flash, just as you would with Photoshop and Illustrator files a huge boon to animators who also work in Flash.

Per-character 3D text

Choreography of text is the art of creating visual interest by how you make the words and letters move. In After Effects CS3 Professional, individual characters of text can be individually positioned and animated in 3D space while still maintaining editability.
Its easy to preview the available 3D text animation presets in Adobe Bridge CS3. Shown here are just a few examples of what is possible with per-character 3D text.
Animating individual characters in 3D greatly enhances the types of text animations you can create in After Effects. Characters can zoom one by one toward the camera. They can flutter and flip in 3D space like individual leaves on a tree. And no matter what antics they perform they interact fully with each other, casting shadows and receiving light.

Brainstorm

The process of creating motion graphics and effects typically includes a period of experimentationtrial and error are, after all, vital to the creative process. After Effects has always offered a tremendous set of visual possibilities, with more available in each new release. However, with the number of possible combinations and results being so large, even experienced professionals often try only a small subset of the full range of possibilities when animating layers, text, and shapes.
Brainstorm offers an array of possibilities; you can select one you like and apply it, or you can choose to evolve it further by clicking Brainstorm below the preview area. The possibilities are endless.

Extended expressions

For artists who use expressions, there are two major additions: Masks, Shape Layers and paint strokes can now all be linked to one another using expressions and the Pickwhip. A paint stroke can follow a mask path, a shape can double as a mask, or a mask to be instanced and used multiple times, with each instance updating with the master mask or shape. Sample the color and alpha channel values of a layer within a region that you specify, down to single pixel level, with the new sampleImage() expression.

Brainstorm changes how the game is played. With Brainstorm, After Effects allows you to interactively create a wide range of animation possibilities very quickly, and preview them instantly. Brainstorms interface consists of a grid of preview animations, each with its own unique variations based on whichever parameters you decide to explore. Creating these previews is as simple as selecting the properties you want to vary and clicking the Brainstorm button located at the top of the Timeline panel. The Brainstorm panel appears, with theme and variations previewing in full motion. See a variation you like, but not quite satisfied? Select any previews that you think are working, and ask Brainstorm to try again. In response you get a new array of possibilities, related to the specified style. Once you see the right variation, you are only a click away from applying it in the timeline. Brainstorm is an innovative feature for beginners and veteran users alike. Beginners can quickly explore possibilities to combine effects, or animate text and layers, in ways that they might not even realize are possible. Experts will be able to break old habits and creative logjams, explore new workflows, and discover unexpected results.

Color management

Adobe is known as the standard bearer for color management, thanks to a long history of innovation in this area. And just as the print industry has benefited from standardization that didnt exist before it began in Photoshop, video is overdue for color management standards as digital technology proliferates film and television. Color management can be enabled in any After Effects project simply by selecting a Project Working Space, and, with a properly adjusted monitor, the color accuracy of imported files is ensured as they are displayed and rendered. You can even preview how color will look on a variety of broadcast monitors and common film stocks.
Color management in After Effects CS3 goes beyond making color footage look correct on your own monitor. It also lets you simulate how your final output will look on a wide range of displays, from mobile devices to television to film. You can even create your own custom simulations.
Like Photoshop, After Effects uses ICC profiles. Files whose formats allow embedded color profiles, or whose color profile is otherwise standardized, are color managed upon import into After Effectswhether or not those files were created with Adobe software. Color Management uses the graphics processor for a performance boost. Files created with 32-bit linear light color spaces, such as 32 bit PSD, TIFF or EXR files, composite accurately in a 32-bit linear high-dynamic-range project workspace. Any working space can be linearized for 32-bit high dynamic range linear light compositing.

Color management can benefit any artist who needs consistent color, whether the target medium is feature film, broadcast television, a handheld device, or all of these and more. You can match colors precisely even when the same scene was shot with different devices, since it is no longer uncommon for a single shoot to employ still images, video, and film.

Clip Notes

Creating dynamic animations and videos is almost always a collaborative process, sometimes involving a director and artist, sometimes a remote client, and so on. In all cases theres going to be a review process, and the people reviewing the footage have specific things to say about what they see and hear at specific points in time. Collecting and managing that feedback can be a daunting task for any creative professional. Enter Adobe Clip Notes and its ability to attach comments directly to a composition. The Clip Notes feature creates an Adobe PDF file containing an embedded or streamed movie of your After Effects composition and text fields for the reviewers names and comments. As the movie plays in the PDF file, the reviewer can pause the action, insert a comment, and resume. The document can be secured with password protection so that only those who are supposed to see it, do.
This is how a Clip Notes PDF appears to the reviewer. It contains the video and audio from the composition, as well as fields below to specify who is making a comment and at what point in the timecode. The saved PDF file can then be imported back into After Effects and the comments seen at the correct points in the timeline.
When the Clip Notes file is saved and imported back into After Effects, each individual comment (along with the reviewers name) is attached to a marker and displayed at the specified point on the timeline. When it comes to corrections and comments, Clip Notes ensures that everyone really is on the same page.

Performance improvements

Motion blur sample settings
Motion blur can now be adjusted on a per-composition basis for Samples Per Frame and Adaptive Sample Limit. By raising these, you can refine the appearance of motion blur even for elements that move very fast. Other improvements make motion blur behave better when keyframed for high-speed motion.
Adobe After Effects CS3 Professional has added performance improvements throughout. Most notably, previews can now take advantage of multi-processor and multi-core machines, rendering more than one frame at a time, thus offering a speed boost which scales per core or processor. Display previews have also been optimized, with features such as color management running much faster than in previous versions. There is no delay when rendering audio for previews, and use of HDV and MPEG clips is significantly improved.

Video for mobile devices

After Effects has long proven itself on the big screen, but what about the tiniest screens? More and more, animations and video are created or repurposed to play on mobile devices not just mobile phones and PDAs, but the Sony PSP and the Apple iPod. Adobe Device Central CS3 technology enables you to preview and test the appearance, performance, and behavior of web and Flash Lite content, video, and images, including screen savers and wallpapers, in the context of a wide range of mobile and consumer device skins, right on your desktop. After Effects includes Device Central, with support added for rendering with 3GPP codecs, in addition to existing support for MPEG and h.264 codecs.
System requirements Macintosh
Multi-core Intel processors; Power PC G4 or G5 Mac OS X, v. 10.4.GB of RAM or more recommended for DV; 2 GB of RAM or more recommended for HDV and HD 500 MB of available hard disk space, plus 2 GB of space for optional content (additional free space required during installation) DVD-ROM drive 1280x1024 monitor resolution with 24-bit color adapter; Adobe recommended graphics card for GPU-accelerated playback* For OpenGL support: Adobe After Effects supported OpenGL 2.0 card (Nvidia recommended)*
Device Central displays realistic skins that show you what devices look like, and how your content is displayed on those devices. You can interact with the emulated devices in a way that simulates real-world interactions, and you can control emulation options that let you create a range of testing scenarios. Device Central provides a library of devices to choose from, each with a profile that contains information about the device and the content types it supports. You can search through available devices, compare multiple devices, and create custom sets of the devices you use most.

Windows

Intel Pentium 4, Intel Centrino, Intel Xeon, Intel Core Duo or compatible Microsoft Windows XP with Service Pack 2; Windows Vista Home Premium, Business, Enterprise, or Ultimate (certified support for 32-bit editions only) 1 GB or RAM of more recommended for DV; 2 GB of RAM or more recommended for HDV and HD 500 MB of available hard disk space, plus 2 GB of space for optional content (additional free space required during installation) DVD-ROM drive 1280x1024 monitor resolution with 24-bit color adapter; Adobe recommended graphics card for GPU-accelerated playback* For OpenGL support: Adobe After Effects supported OpenGL 2.0 card (Nvidia recommended)* QuickTime 7.1.5 required to use QuickTime features Internet or phone connection required for product activation * For Adobe recommendations, compatibility lists and updates to system requirements, visit www.adobe.com.
In Device Central, not only the screen, but the entire device is previewed. The preview is interactive, allowing you to capture the look and feel of your design on a given device without requiring that you have the device itself.

In the United States and Canada, Adobe After Effects CS3 Professional for Mac OS X on Intel-based or PowerPC-based systems and for Windows XP and Windows Vista is expected to ship in the third quarter of 2007. Adobe After Effects CS3 Professional will be available in North America starting in Qfor an estimated street price of US$999, directly from Adobe or through Adobe Authorized Resellers. To order directly from Adobe, visit the Adobe Store at www.adobe.com, or call 1-800-833-6687. Licensed owners of After Effects 7.x Professional or Standard; After Effects 6.x Professional or Standard; or After Effects 5.x Professional or Standard can upgrade to Adobe After Effects CS3 Professional for US$299. Licensed owners of the above-listed previous releases of After Effects are also eligible for special upgrade pricing to Adobe Creative Suite 3 Production Premium. A complete description of upgrade eligibility and pricing is available in the Pricing Overview document. Estimated street prices do not include taxes, shipping, handling, or other related expenses. Information on pricing and support policies outside of North America and for Education customers will be available separately. Adobe revolutionizes how the world engages with ideas and informationanytime, anywhere and through any medium. For more information, visit www.adobe.com.

Availability and pricing

Expected Ship Date

Third Quarter 2007

About Adobe Systems Incorporated
Adobe Systems Incorporated 345 Park Avenue San Jose, CA 95110-2704 USA www.adobe.com
Adobe, the Adobe logo, Adobe Premiere, After Effects, Creative Suite, Encore, Flash, Illustrator, and Photoshop are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Adobe Systems Incorporated in the United States and/or other countries. Mac, the Mac logo, Mac OS, Macintosh, and Power Macintosh are trademarks of Apple Inc., registered in the United States and other countries. QuickTime and the QuickTime logo are trademarks used under license. The QuickTime logo is registered in the U.S. and other countries. Intel and Pentium are trademarks or registered trademarks of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the United States and other countries. PowerPC is a trademark of International Business Machines Corporation in the United States, other countries, or both. Microsoft and Windows are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. 2007 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All rights reserved. Printed in the USA. 02/09/07

Adobe After Effects CS3 Professional
Some notes before you start

Contents

Some notes before you start. . . . 1 Whats new in After Effects CS3 Professional. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 1. Managing projects. . . . . . . . . 3 2. Importing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 3. Compositions. . . . . . . . . . . . 4 4. Views and previews. . . . . . . . 5 5. Layers and properties. . . . . . . 5 6. Animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 7. Color. 8 8. Text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 9. Drawing and painting. . . . . . . 9 10. Effects and animation presets11 11. Expressions. 11 12. Rendering and exporting. . . 12
Hello and welcome to the After Effects CS3 Professional preview. Please note that this preview is an unfinished product and does not include all the functionality that will appear in the final release. While some may find the quality appropriate for use in a production environment, the preview is not final-release quality and should not be used for critical work. Adobe does not offer technical support for the After Effects CS3 Professional Preview. For a list of system requirements, please see http://www.adobe.com/products/aftereffects/systemreqs/.
After Effects CS3 Professional Preview Limitations
This preview version does not include the ability to encode the following video and audio formats: MPEG-2, HDV, H.264, Dolby, MP3, MP3 Pro, and AAC/AAC+. In addition, you will not be able to import most non-QuickTime MPEG compressed files. Bundled third-party effects (Synthetic Aperture Keylight, Cycore Effects, and The Foundry Color Finesse) are not included in the preview. The project file format of the preview is not compatible with previous versions of After Effects. Projects created in or saved from the After Effects CS3 preview will open in the final release version of After Effects CS3 Professional. Note: The After Effects CS3 Professional preview is available for use for a limited time and will expire on August 31st 2007.
After Effects CS3 Professional Preview Known Issues
We recommend uninstalling Adobe Photoshop CS3 Beta and Soundbooth Beta 1 and Beta 2 prior to installing After Effects CS3 Professional Preview. Uninstalling After Effects CS3 Professional Preview will disable the Adobe Photoshop CS3 Beta, uninstall Adobe Bridge, and disable Adobe Device Central. Running the Adobe Photoshop CS3 beta installer in repair mode will fix these problems.
Whats new in After Effects CS3 Professional

Shape layers

Use new shape drawing tools to create and animate vector graphics. Strokes and fillsincluding editable gradientscan be added to shapes, and these properties can be animated. After Effects also includes shape layer operations based on Adobe Illustrator vector effects.

Puppet tools

Puppet tools let you quickly add natural motion to raster images and vector graphics, including still images, shapes, and text characters. Use Puppet tools to easily distort any image with natural, life-like motion.
After Effects CS3 Professional
Photoshop layer styles, video layers, and Vanishing Point exchange
Layer styles and video layers are preserved when you import a Photoshop file. You can also add and animate layer styles within After Effects and use advanced blending options. Export Vanishing Point data from Adobe Photoshop CS3 Extended, and then import the data into After Effects to automatically build a 3D composition from the 2D Photoshop image
Flash CS3 Professional integration
After Effects timeline markers can be embedded as FLV cue points in order to create interactive video presentations in Flash Professional. In addition, After Effects CS3 can batch render.FLV for use in Flash. Import SWF files with the alpha channel preserved and continuously rasterize SWF layers to scale them without loss in quality.

Per-character 3D properties for text animation
Explore new text animation possibilities by making individual characters or words in your text move and rotate in 3D space.

Brainstorm

Jump-start animations with Brainstorm, a new user interface that offers variations based on selected design and animation parameters. Choose which properties and effects you want to explore, and Brainstorm will propose animated variations
Enhanced color management
Use color management to maintain precise and predictable color from input to output. Simulate the output of various film stocks and devices to control color quality

Clip Notes

Streamline the review and approval process. Render your work into an Adobe PDF file that enables anyone with Adobe Reader software to make timecode-accurate comments. When you import the comments into After Effects, they appear as markers on the Timeline.

Performance improvements

Take full advantage of multiprocessor and multicore systems to render multiple frames simultaneously during RAM previews and final renders.
Export and preview video for mobile devices
New export presets in the Export Settings dialog box make it easier to export movies suitable for playback on mobile devices, such as mobile phones and the Apple iPod. Use Adobe Device Central CS3 to help ensure your video will look great on an array of supported mobile devices For more details on these new features and more, review the following sections.

1. Managing projects

Multiprocessing
After Effects now supports multiprocessing, so if you have additional CPUs and enough memory, when you do a RAM preview or export through the Render Queue, After Effects will attempt to render multiple frames at the same time. To enable multiprocessing, choose Edit > Preferences > Multiprocessing (Windows) or After Effects > Preferences > Multiprocessing (Mac OS), and then select Render Multiple Frames Simultaneously. The bottom of the Preferences dialog box shows how many additional processors (in addition to the worst-case scenario of one processor) will be used at the current settings. To increase the number of background processes that can run, decrease Maximum RAM Cache Size or install more RAM.

New Memory & Cache preferences
There are some new preferences in the Memory & Cache preferences dialog box for the Conformed Media Cache. You can now do any of the following: Specify a location for the media database. The media database retains links to all cached media files. This media cache database is shared with Adobe Premiere Pro, Adobe Encore, and Adobe Soundbooth, so each of these applications can each read to and write from the same set of cached media files. If you change the location of the database from within any of these applications, the location is updated for the other applications, too. Each application can use its own cache folder, but the same database keeps track of them all. Remove conformed files for footage no longer on your hard disk by clicking the Clean button. Specify a location for the Media Cache where After Effects conformed files are stored.

2. Importing

Photoshop files
When you use the Vanishing Point feature in Photoshop CS3 Extended, you can then use the File > Export For After Effects CS3 (.vpe) command to save the results as a collection of PNG filesone for each planeand a.vpe file that describes the geometry of the scene. You can then import the.vpe file into After Effects using File > Import. After Effects uses the information in the.vpe file to recreate the scene as a composition containing a camera layer and one perspective corrected 3D layer for each PNG file.
Photoshop CS3 Extended can create PSD files that contain video and animation layers. After Effects can import these files just as any other Photoshop files, either as a footage item with all layers merged together or as a composition with each Photoshop layer separate and editable in After Effects. (Working with Photoshop video layers requires QuickTime 7.1 or later.) When you import a Photoshop file as a composition, you can retain editable layer styles or merge layer styles into footage. When you import only one layer that includes layer styles, you can choose to ignore the layer styles or merge layer styles into footage. At any time, you can convert merged layer styles into editable layer styles for each After Effects layer based on a Photoshop footage item. For more information on working with layer styles, see Layer Styles later in this document.
Importing SWF files from Flash CS3 into After Effects
You can import SWF files into After Effects to composite them with other video or render them as video with additional creative effects. When After Effects imports a SWF file, its internal keyframes are preserved so that you can continue to use them for timing other effects. Each SWF file imported into After Effects is flattened into a single continuously rasterized layer, with its alpha channel preserved. Continuous rasterization means that graphics stay sharp as they are scaled up.

3. Compositions

Markers
Markers have been revamped in After Effects to offer more functionality, including the ability to assign FLV cue points and parameters to use in Flash CS3. There are two types of markers you can use in a project: composition-time markers and layer-time markers. Composition-time markers appear in the time ruler of the Timeline panel, whereas layer-time markers appear in the layer-duration bar. Here are some of the changes associated with markers: You can now have an unlimited number of composition-time markers (previously you were limited to 10). Composition-time markers now have the same metadata options as layer-time markers, including fields for comments and chapter and web links. To edit marker metadata, double-click a composition-time or layer-time marker in the Timeline panel. You can specify cue points with up to three name/value pairs to be included in an FLV file. To add cue point information, open the Marker dialog box by double-clicking a composition-time or layer-time marker in the Timeline panel. In the Flash Video Cue Point and Parameters section you can specify a name ActionScript will use to target the cue point embedded in the.FLV, as well as the type of cue point (Event or Navigation) and up to three name/ value pairs.
A. Composition-time marker B. Composition-time marker with cue-point data C. Layer-time marker D. Layer-time marker with cue-point data
Other composition changes
There is a new button nested within. in the Timeline panel that opens the parent composition that the current composition is
The Exposure control in the Composition panel now works for 8-bpc and 16-bpc in addition to 32-bpc.

4. Views and previews

Real-time audio playback during RAM preview
After Effects now has real time audio playback during RAM preview or audio preview. Note that it doesnt work for scrubbing or spacebar playback. You will get real time audio if no effects are applied. In addition, some audio settings have changed. Audio preview settings (except duration) have been removed from the Preferences. Sample rate options are now in the Project Settings dialog box.

5. Layers and properties

Layer styles
Photoshop provides a variety of layer stylessuch as shadows, glows, and bevelsthat change the appearance of a layer. After Effects can preserve these layer styles when importing Photoshop layers. You can also apply the following layer styles in After Effects: Drop Shadow, Inner Shadow, Outer Glow, Inner Glow, Bevel And Emboss, Satin, Color Overlay, Gradient Overlay, and Stroke. Each layer style has its own collection of properties in the Timeline panel. In addition to the layer styles that add visual elementslike a drop shadow or a color overlayeach layers Layer Styles property group contains a Blending Options property group. You can use the Blending Options settings for powerful and flexible control over blending operations. For more information on working with layer styles, see the After Effects Help system.

Using Brainstorm

Brainstorm creates multiple temporary variants of your composition and displays them in a grid. You can save any number of these variants, apply one to the current composition, or redo the Brainstorm operation using only the variants that you choose as input. Brainstorm uses genetic algorithms to mutate and select property values used as input into each Brainstorm operation. You decide which variants to include as input to each generation and how much mutation (randomness) to use. Brainstorm can help you explore creative possibilities, or it can help you quickly narrow in on a particular desired look from a range of variations. With Brainstorm, you can rapidly accomplish the following: Compare the results of multiple values for a single property so that you can find the value that works best. Explore the results of randomly modifying any number of properties to achieve a creative result. To get started with Brainstorm, select one or more properties or property groups in the Timeline panel, and click the Brainstorm button system. at the top of the Timeline panel. To learn more about Brainstorm, see the After Effects Help
Brainstorm dialog box. A. Original composition (original in center tile when using Brainstorm on single numerical value) B. Maximize Tile C. Save As New Composition D. Apply To Composition E. Use In Next Brainstorm F. Randomness control (Spread control when using Brainstorm on single numerical value) G. Back and Forward to previous and next generations H. Playback controls

More layer-related features
No limits on In/Out points for stills, lights, cameras, and time-remapped layers: In previous versions of After Effects, the In and Out points of certain layer types were limited in time by the duration of the layer. That limit no longer applies. Just drag the In or Out point of a still, light, camera, or time-remapped layer wherever you want it to be with no limits. Trimmed layers are more visible when the user interface is set to a darker scheme. In the Timeline panel, you can now select top-level groups like Transform, Masks, and Effects and copy and paste them onto other layers. That means, if you want to copy all the transform properties from one layer to another layer, for example, you no longer have to select each individual property. Instead, you can simply select the Transform group and copy it. There are now 15 label colors available to assign to layers in your project. You can also choose to assign no label color. To apply label colors, select one or more layers, and then choose Edit > Label. When you double-click a shape tool to reset a shape or create a new default shape, the shape properties are also reset and applied to the next shape drawn. When working with a time-remapped layer in the Time Remap graph, the speed at the time needle as displayed in the Info panel is now in sec/sec floating point instead of timecode/sec for more precision.

6. Animation

Animating with Puppet tools
Use the Puppet tools to quickly add natural motion to raster images and vector graphics, including still images, shapes, and text characters. The Puppet effect works by deforming part of an image according to the positions of pins that you place and move. These pins define what parts of the image should move, what parts should remain rigid, and what parts should be in front when parts overlap. Each Puppet tool is used to place and modify a specific kind of pin: Puppet Pin tool : Use this tool to place and move Deform pins.
Puppet Overlap tool : Use this tool to place Overlap pins, which indicate which parts of an image should appear in front of others when distortion causes parts of the image to overlap one another. Puppet Starch tool less. : Use this tool to place Starch pins, which stiffen parts of the image so that they are distorted

You can manually animate an image with the Puppet tools, or record animation by sketching motion. Youll find the Puppet tools in the Tools panel. Learn more about how to animate with Puppet tools in the After Effects Help system.
Puppet mesh created by placing Deform pins (left), and result of dragging a Deform pin
Graph Editor improvements
When snapping a keyframe to a value at which there are multiple other keyframes, a yellow snap line is now drawn between all keyframes at that value (in After Effects 7.0 the snap line was drawn inconsistently and often included only some of the keyframes at the value). Dotted lines also help you line up your keyframes, particularly when you have keyframes that are of close but different values. In the Timeline panel you can now enable the Graph Editor toggle on Boolean and popup properties. Properties with the Graph Editor toggle enabled are displayed in the Graph Editor when you click the Properties button at the bottom of the Graph Editor and choose Show Graph Editor Set. A bug in After Effects 7.0 made for some unexpected snapping behavior in the Graph Editor when using shortcut keys like J and K to go to the next visible keyframe or layer marker. The behavior has been fixed so that shortcut keys and Shift-dragging only snap to interesting points displayed in the Graph Editor.

Motion blur changes

2D motion blur previously used 16 steps at best quality. Now it uses an adaptive number of steps based on the speed of each layer. This will speed up motion blurred rendering for layers that dont move too fast (i.e. ones that looked good before), and should make fast layers look much better (though render a bit more slowly). The initial default value for Motion Blur shutter phase is now -90 degrees. You can alter that value by choosing Composition > Composition Settings, and clicking the Advanced tab. After Effects remembers the last value you used and uses that as the new default.
There are two new motion blur settings: Samples Per Frame and Adaptive Sample Limit. Samples Per Frame controls the number of motion blur samples for 3D layers, shape layers, and certain effects. 2D layer motion automatically uses more samples per frame when needed, up to the Adaptive Sample Limit. You can adjust these settings in the Advanced tab of the Composition Settings dialog box. Motion blur no longer cuts corners for non-linear motion when rotation is not animated.

7. Color

After Effects now gives you more advanced tools for color managing your footage and projects. Color management provides many benefits. With color management the colors in imported images appear as the creators of the images intended; you have more control over how colors are blended within your project, for everything from motion blur to antialiasing; and the movies that you create will look as you intend when viewed on devices other than your computer monitor. Youll find color settings in the Project Settings dialog box, and in a new Color Management tab in the Interpret Footage dialog box and the Output Module Settings dialog box. Color management in After Effects now includes support for the following: Color management of individual footage items: The Interpret Footage dialog box (File > Interpret Footage > Main) has an updated tabbed design that includes new color management options. On the Color Management tab you can view color profile information, as well as choose a color profile and specify other color management options for your footage. For Cineon footage, click the Cineon Settings button on the Color Management tab for manual Cineon options, or assign one of the many film negative profiles that ship with After Effects. Disable color management for footage items: You can prevent the conversion of colors into the working color space for a single footage item by selecting Preserve RGB in the Color Management tab of the Interpret Footage dialog box or the Output Module Settings dialog box. This option preserves RGB numbers; color appearance is not preserved. Turning off color management for a specific footage item is useful when the footage item is not intended for visual display, but is instead intended for use as a control layerfor example, a displacement map. Support for footage with ICC profiles: When you import footage that has an embedded ICC profile, the profile is automatically used in rendering when color management is enabled unless you assign a different profile to the footage in the Interpret Footage dialog box. Specify an output color profile: You can control color management for each output item using the Output Module Settings dialog box. The output color profile for a render item determines what calculations are performed when converting a rendered compositions colors from the projects working color space to the color space for the output medium. If a working space has not been setthat is, if color management is not on for the projectthen you cannot specify an output color profile. Color profile display in the Project panel: When you select a footage item in the Project panel, its color profile is displayed in the Info portion of the panel. Installing custom color management profiles: After Effects interpretation rules can access custom color management profiles installed on your hard drive. Once installed, the profile can be assigned automatically by creating an interpretation rule that refers to the profile by name. Display color management: When color management is enabled, you can disable the automatic project working space to monitor transform by deselecting View > Use Display Color Management. You can also simulate the look of your output on a particular playback device by choosing View > Simulate Output and selecting one of the presets. To create your own preset, choose Custom. Tip: When Display Color Management is enabled, the Show Channel icon at the bottom of the Composition, Footage, and Layer viewers has a yellow crosshair.

8. Text

Per-character 3D
You can now move, scale, and rotate individual characters in three dimensions using 3D animator properties. These properties become available when you enable per-character 3D properties for the layer. Position, Anchor Point, and Scale gain a third dimension; and two additional Rotation properties (X Rotation and Y Rotation) become available. The single Rotation property for 2D layers is renamed to Z Rotation. Enabling per-character 3D properties causes each character in the text layer to behave like an individual 3D layer within the text layer, which behaves like a precomposition with collapsed transformations. Per-character 3D layers intersect with other 3D layers following the standard rules for 3D precompositions with collapsed transformations. A per-character 3D layer is designated by a special icon in the layers Switches column.
To learn more about using per-character 3D animation, see the After Effects Help system.

More text features

You can now opt to have the Character and Paragraph panels and the Paint and Brush Tips panels automatically open when you select the Text or Paint tool, respectively. To automatically open panels, select the Text or Paint tool and enable the Auto-Open Panels option in the Options area of the Tools panel. The next time you select the tool, the relevant panels will open. The Font popup menu in the Character panel is now a listbox with a scrollbar, making it easier to navigate through a long list of fonts. When the popup menu is active, you can use the arrow keys or mouse wheel to scroll through the list. Pressing the Enter key selects a font, and the Esc key cancels out of the menu. When working with the Color Picker from the Character panel, you can now preview your color selections by enabling the Preview checkbox. Also, there is a new Eyedropper tool in the Color Picker that lets you sample colors from anywhere on your screen. Tip: Youll also see the new Preview checkbox when the Color Picker is opened from the Timeline or Effect Controls panels. In previous versions of After Effects, Create Outlines would create a new solid layer containing a mask for each character. Now it creates a shape layer instead. A separate shape is created for each character, so you can manipulate them individually. When youre done editing a text layer, you can now press Ctrl + Enter (Windows) or Command + Return (Mac OS) to commit your changes. When entering a block of text, the shortcut Shift + Enter (Windows) or Shift + Return (Mac OS) now enters a soft carriage return. A soft carriage return creates a line break without creating a paragraph break.

9. Drawing and painting

Shapes and shape layers
Shape layers are a new layer type that let you create geometric primitives like lines, circles, curves, and polygons. You can apply strokes, fills, and other shape effects, and you can animate almost any property of a shape layer. Shape layers contain vector graphics objects called shapes. By default, a shape consists of a path, a stroke, and a fill. You create a shape layer by drawing in the Composition panel with a shape tool or the Pen tool. You can then add shape attributes to existing shapes using the Add menu in the Tools panel or in the Timeline panel. You can also create new shapes within that shape layer.

A shape group is a collection of shape attributes: paths, fills, strokes, path operations, and other groups. Each group has its own blending mode and its own set of transform properties. By assembling shapes into groups, you can work with multiple shapes simultaneouslysuch as scaling all shapes in the group by the same amount or applying the same stroke to each shape. You can even place individual shapes or individual shape attributes within their own groups to isolate transformations. The shape tools are the Rectangle , Rounded Rectangle , Ellipse , Polygon , and Star tools.
Youll find much more about creating shapes and shape layers in the After Effects Help system.
A. Two shapes in a group B. Two paths in a compound shape C. Circle path with Wiggle Paths applied D. One stroke applied to all paths above it E. Star path in a group by itself F. One fill applied to all paths above it G. One path with two strokes
10. Effects and animation presets
There are a number of improvements and new features related to effects and animation presets, including the following: When you copy and paste an effect from the Effects Control panel, it now behaves as it does when you copy and paste the effect from the Timeline panel. That is, changes in effect parameters over time are copied and pasted. In previous versions of After Effects, copying from the Effects Control panel would copy values as a snapshot in time. This resolves issues with copying and pasting the Color Profile Converter, among other effects. The following effects have been converted to 32-bpc: Remove Color Matting (with a new Clipping control to overor under-range values), Solid Composite, Fractal Noise, Linear Color Key, Beam, Ellipse, Compound Blur, Audio Spectrum, and Audio Waveform. Youll find new animation presets in the 3D Text and Shape Layer categories. The Color Picker dialog box for all effect controls now has a Preview checkbox. When preview is enabled, the Composition or Layer panel will re-render as you change values. A new option in the Clip parameter of the Levels effect toggles output behavior based on project bit depth. In the Clip To Output Black or Clip To Output White parameter, choose Off For 32 bpc Color. The Gamma slider in the Exposure effect has been renamed Gamma Correction and its behavior has changed. Higher numbers make the image lighter; lower numbers make it darker. The default value is 1.00. The new slider behavior is opposite the behavior in previous versions of After Effects. Projects using the Exposure effect that were created in previous versions of After Effects will still use the old behavior. Obsolete entries have been removed from the Conversion Type pop-up menu in the Cineon Conversion effect. Projects created in previous versions of After Effects that use the now-obsolete conversion types will still be supported. The new Tritone effect alters an images color information by mapping bright, dark, and midtone pixels to colors you select. Its like the Tint effect, except with midtone control. The Blend With Original slider in the effect specifies the intensity of the effect. Tritone works with 8-bpc, 16-bpc, and 32-bpc color. When applying the Lens Blur effect, you can now opt to repeat edge pixels. Repeating edge pixels lets you blur the contents of the layer while keeping the edges of the layer sharp. The Overflow parameter in the Fractal Noise effect now defaults to Allow HDR Results (previously it defaulted to Clip). Overflow remaps the values that fall outside of the grayscale range of 01.

11. Expressions

Link shapes to other shapes using expressions
You can now link the shapes of masks, shape layers, and paint strokes to each other using expressions. For example, you can link a paint stroke shape to a mask shape. Create a paint stroke and then create a mask. Select the paint strokes Path property, and then choose Animation > Add Expression. Drag the expression pick whip from the paint strokes Path property to the Mask Path property. The paint stroke will follow the mask path.
Show Expression Editor when add an expression in Graph Editor
When you add an expression to a property while working in the Graph Editor, the Expression Editor is now automatically opened so you can view and edit the expression. This saves the step of having to choose Show Expression Editor from the Choose Graph Editor Type and Options menu.
New expression gives access to rendered pixels
The new.sampleImage() expression gives you access to rendered pixels. The.sampleImage() expression can be used for automated color correction and matching tasks. Use the expression as follows:
sampleImage(point, radius = [.5,.5], postEffect=true, t=time)
Return type: Array [4]. Argument type: point is an Array [2], radius is an Array [2], postEffect is a Boolean, and t is a Number. Samples the color and alpha channel values of a layer and returns the average alpha-weighted value of the pixels within the specified distance of the point as an array: [red, green, blue, alpha]. If postEffect is true, the sampled values are for the layer after masks and effects have been rendered; if postEffect is false, the sampled values are for the layer before masks and effects have been rendered. The input value point is in layer space; the point [0,0] is the center of the top-left pixel in the layer. The input value radius specifies the horizontal and vertical distance from the sample center to the edges of the sampled rectangle. The default value samples one pixel. This example samples a rectangle 4 pixels wide and 3 pixels high, centered around a point 100 pixels down and the to the right of the upper-left corner of the layer:
thisComp.layer(1).sampleImage([100, 100], [2, 1.5], false, time)
12. Rendering and exporting
Reviewing movies with Clip Notes comments
Use Clip Notes to submit a movie to reviewers for comments. When you render a movie for Clip Notes comments, a copy of the movie or a link to the movie is included in an Adobe PDF file. The movie can be in Windows Media (Windows only) or QuickTime format. Composition-time markers are included with the movie as comments, so you can submit questions to reviewers or solicit comments about specific parts of the movie. A reviewer then exports the comments to a file and sends the file back to you. When you import the comments, the reviewers comments appear in the comments field of markers placed in the Timeline panel. You render and export a movie for Clip Notes comments using the render queue in the same way that you render other kinds of movies, though the export options are more limited than for most formats intended for final output. To learn more about working with Clip Notes, see the After Effects Help system.

FOR MORE INFORMATION For more information on After Effects CS3, please visit http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/aftereffectscs3/.
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