First Class

After getting through all the new interface of Adobe and faced problems to log in into the life class i started to enjoy this course. I am not a big fan of video but i like After effects somebody said Aftereffects is Photoshop for film and I agree. I decided to use a different footage and got images and videos with green screen from Pixabay. I always come back to Pixabay as i find there the best results for my searches.

Then i moved the green screen from the skull Video and cut the length of it took me some time to understand how to cut. Then i added two images one in the back and one in the front. I checked a little the possibilities that i learned last year in a short after effects course. I changed the opacity and did a scale and i added a second image as background to get something instead of transparent when the opacity of the cover image goes down. Most i like the key light and the way to move the background from a hole video if the background has a greenscreen . That's like magic. The music in the video is from Spark i didn't add it in aftereffects we will do this later i guess.

Second Class

I think this was one of the hardest lessons i ever did. Took me hours after watching several times the videos from the classes and trying to follow them step by step. After many many hours In the end i almost gave up and then i found this video that i watched like stupid and just did stop and do any little step. I tried this with the very good Adobe class videos too but the screen share is very unclear and its hard to find the little important things when its small and blurry. But all together in the end let me understand how and i hope i will succeed also with more complicate ones.

This tracking is just with one tracking point . I mixed i the beginning to which of the layers i need to apply and i missed to put my text on top so no wonder it was not working. When it worked finally i could not believe. Its extremely important to get a tracking point with high and clear contrast. and the last step in the above video to select all the tracking path and fix it on the position you want made the difference.

And as somebody that struggle with video i found the advantages of spark for non professionals. Its just so handy and so easy and just looks good. Top add music is very simple just a little time consuming you can t click through the audios and hear them straight the way. Instead you need to preview and rendering in Spark is just taking a long time...

I hope i will get to the end of this course ...

Third Class

As usual took me a long time to figure out how this works. Then in Josefs class actually i got it and i took hies idea of a vector . My original footage is all from Pexel and Pixabay. I did combine three videos cut of the sky from the vector and the flag and put the moving clouds behind. I inverted the direction in order to go with the plane but it work opposite to the flag that is not fully visible. I played with color effects and opacity and time stretch in order to put all together. After effects has so many options and i guess its like in Photoshop you never get to know them all. I think the live classes are a really good way to learn better and to ask and get relevant answers. I work with two PCs now and do live whats shown so i actually see what i get and what not and can still ask instead of googling after for hours.

Here is my video its a little to red but i could not figure out how to make this a little less red because i used a preset. And when i change something all gets missed up.

Fourth Class

This was the hardest class so far and i learned i have to keep things really simple and put my ideas aside until i know better. The 3D space is hard to control and i was very happy i did last year the Adobe Dimension Course that really helped me to understand 3 D much better. I like the idea to make a kind of Video only from images and i guess this technique can be great to make Banners for websites or parallax effects that are more complicated. I have to re-watch all the Videos from the life classes and redoing them. In each class there was another variation. I am doing many courses the same time and have other work so i won t be able for this class to do something more difficult. But it really gave me a lot of ideas and a lot to learn to use it in future. And i am sure i will take the next After Effects Course as well.

Here is my very simple Video i took 6 Images, 5 from snowflakes on transparent background and the background is an image from a little house in the snow. All images are from a bought collection i have. I played around with the camera and only from Josef´s lecture i understood that in order to get the camera work i need to switch on 3D one the timeline menu...So simple answer and i would have saved hours in figuring out why my 3D does not work! I think when teaching beginners the most important thing is to start really from the scratch and explain each step with showing exactly all the ways to go there best with images. In the classes the panels and tools are soooo small that it is hard to see where what is. I found a video in which someone that explains for each step scale up the place of the used tool and how its used helps a lot.

Here is my first 3D video from Images very basic but took me many hours!

Fifth Class

This final Project was fun but hard as well- i found i need to keep all simple and develop my ideas after the technical knowledge and not trying to bring my ideas and then searching the technical way. I just went lesson by lesson added the green screen image from the sculls i used in the first class cut one scull out with a mask and added another video from the beetle , it was on a white background and i just could use multiply in order to get it transparent i like the effects and layer adjustments in after effects they are like in Photoshop. So at least that was easy. Then i did another overlay with the TV screen and i added motion still images from clouds under all layers. I played around with Transitions positioning scaling starting and endpoints all this was easy and fun. And i did all the background changing with different technical tools we learned. And there is so many options. The most difficult part was the track motion. I again struggled a lot and then i found a video to trick the tracking and make it really amazing easy. I just followed the instruction and did an overplayed mask with glow and tracked the mask to the beetle. When changing from scull and beetle to the angel i used some effects in the glow overlay to make it fit to the image of the angel. I like the spark video found the right size and added music from the inbuilt spark music.

Final Reflection

This course was a lot of learning for me and thanks to the real good classes online and on the platform i learned a lot of new things. The Edex courses show really good ways to teach even hard things with a lot of fun and the way to learn is very helpful . Also to learn and get feedback from other students is important. If i would teach i would use a lot in my classes. But even while not teaching i take a lot from all i learn into my work as a designer and i come back to courses and to the learning journals for reference. I kept also some journals from lessons that were like tutorials. Only thing i have problems is the new way not to let you see all classes to see whats the direction that helps a lot to get the assignments done without always redoing. And its really bad you need to post assignments before you can go on. This will keep me either really busy in order to finish all or i miss a lot of learning. Edex is one of the best learning platforms i participate and it gives huge help to work better with all the Apps and to stay up to date with Adobe Products. So thanks a lot and see you all in coming classes. Thanks for the real good feedback i got and for the fellow students that are a huge help and some quit familiar already.