7/28/16 - After Effects Learning (Part 16) (Automating Expressions with Amplitude)

A relatively short chapter today, but an actually pretty advanced one nonetheless.  Basically today's new topics included:

• Creating keyframes from audio volume (waveform, amplitude, etc.)
• Setting up expressions
• Modify expressions

The course has already covered expressions, but only slightly.  It's still a really confusing aspect of After Effects to me, but I know it's an incredibly powerful and important part of the software.  Oddly enough, all these topics today I've actually been using for quite some time now (as part of using music tracks to create a visual "beat" to move along with them).  However, I've just been using templates to do so, without really knowing what I was doing.  I still need some practice with it all, but I think I'm starting to get the gist of how it all works now.  I've seen tons of people use this effect in various videos online (a very popular style on many music channels), so it's fun to finally start to actually get a handle on the actual specifics of how it all works.

Bottom line stuff I gotta remember…

• Alt (option) + Click on the stop watch to enable Expressions
• Right click a music track in the timeline to create automated keyframes based on volume
• And math/coding knowledge is actually available to use as part of expressions (advanced)

7/25/16 - After Effects Learning (Part 15) (Working With Audio)

Back again!  Pretty quick chapter, all about using audio within After Effects.  Audio has always eluded me in AE, so it's nice to get a better grasp on it.  Obviously, AE is mostly a visual effects program, but it's good to know there's a certain degree of control with audio as well, and how to work with it for timing your visuals and everything.  I basically just have to remember the RAM Preview function.  Other than that, it's all pretty straightforward.