Applying Effects and Presets to Create Animated Graphics

Adobe After Effects offers a wide range of static and animated presets. It includes effects for videos, various transitions, and text animations. In this chapter, we will get a brief overview of how to apply these presets to our desired footage, text, and graphics, and how to edit and modify the presets according to our requirements.

The main topics that will be covered in the chapter are as follows:

• Applying effects and presets to create an animated graphic
• How to preview and use built-in After Effects animation presets
• How to modify and tune these default presets

Technical requirements

The lesson files for this chapter can be found at https://packt.link/gbz/9781804617281.

Before getting started, it would be beneficial to preview the final output and end project file provided with the Chapter 2 | Lesson 2 exercise files. By doing so, you can gain a clear understanding of the desired outcome and have a visual representation of what you will be working toward throughout the chapter.

Previewing the final output allows you to see the completed project, demonstrating how the various elements, effects, and animations come together. You can observe the overall look and feel as well as the arrangement of different components and how they interact with each other. This preview serves as a reference point, giving you a target to aim for as you progress through the chapter.

Importing footage

For this exercise, let us import a sample video that we will perform our operations on, for ease of learning in this chapter:

1. Open After Effects, and from the welcome screen, select the New Project option. Save the project to your preferred location by going to the menu bar and navigating through File | Save As | Save as…, as explained in Chapter 1 in the Saving the After Effects project section.
2. Go to File | Import | Lesson 2 | Sunset.mp4.
3. Now drag the Sunset.mp4 file from the project panel to the composition icon in the project window to create a composition based on the properties of the media and duration.

Figure 2.1: Creating a composition from sunset footage

Here is the final composition created:

Figure 2.2: Composition created from sunset footage

Now let us begin with exploring the Effects & Presets panel on the right side of the After Effects interface.

Previewing presets

If the Effects & Presets tab is not visible by default, go to the Windows tab | Effects & Presets.

The Effects & Presets group has * Animation Presets as the first option.

Figure 2.3: Effects & Presets panel

Under * Animation Presets, various folders including presets are available. These include the following:

• Backgrounds
• Behavior
• Image - Creative
• Image - Special Effects
• Image - Utilities
• Shapes
• Sound Effects
• Synthetics
• Text
• Transform
• Transitions - Dissolves
• Transitions - Movement
• Transitions - Wipes

Some of these preset groups have subfolders as well. For example, in the drop-down menu of Image - Creative, the text presets have subgroups for each kind of preset option. Adobe After Effects provides a wide range and variety of presets that a user may require.

Although we may have a bit of an idea about what a preset might do to a layer in our composition...

Applying presets

Say we decide that the sunset video requires the sky to be a darker orange. We can achieve this desired effect using the available presets. Navigate to the Image - Creative preset folder and select the Colorize - sky orange preset. We have to apply this effect to our selected layer in the composition.

Let us start with applying the effect or the preset to our sunset video. There are three ways to do this:

• Select the sunset layer in the composition. Double-click on the Colorize - sky orange preset under the Image - Creative folder in the Effects & Presets panel.
• Simply select the Colorize - sky orange preset and then click and drag it to the sunset layer, in the composition window or the Timeline panel, and the effect is applied to the composition.
• The third way of applying the effect is using Adobe Bridge. Select the Colorize - sky orange preset effect in Adobe Bridge. Double-click on it and the preset will be applied to the selected layer (sunset...

Summary

In this chapter, we learned how to apply built-in presets, as well as different ways to apply effects and presets. We also discussed how to preview those presets in Adobe Bridge. We then covered the benefits of using precompositions in After Effects.

We learned how to customize presets as per our needs. This chapter will help you get quick results out of After Effects when creating social media posts or any other kinds of motion graphics. Do try out other effects and presets in After Effects to get a better understanding of what’s available.

In the next chapter, we will deep-dive into text animations, which means creating our own text animation effects as per the project requirement, because the presets will not always give the effect you will need. So, it’s good to learn how to create your own text animation effects.