[MUSIC]
>>ALAN: So now that we've been making some animated projects, we have to learn how
to export these as playable files. And to do this,
we have to talk about the Render Queue inside of After Effects.
So this is a really quick tutorial, but we're going to talk about the different
formats and presets that we have to export our animations.
Alright, so I'm going to be using the Blu-ray example that we've been
working on so far in the class. So we're going to
export this in two ways: one through the Render Queue,
and one through Adobe Media Encoder as a GIF. Now before we start to export
projects inside of After Effects, we have to make
sure that we set our Work Area properly. Now work areas in
After Effects are this gray bar right here underneath
our timecode. And the work area has these little blue
handles on both sides that we can move around and drag about.
There's also keyboard shortcuts "B" and "N" and I think I've mentioned this already
in the RAM Preview and Playback tutorial. So "B" and "N" allow us to
set our work area. "B" as the in-point. "N" as the out-point. Or you can just hover
and click and drag. This is important for exporting because
if we don't have our work area properly set,
it's going to export the entirety of our composition.
And sometimes that's not bad, if your composition settings were tight to begin with,
but if you had maybe a 30 minute
composition on accident and you only wanted to export 2 seconds of it,
you'd have to make sure that your work area reflects that.
So to export this to start, I'm just going to set this to about 5 seconds,
since that's a reasonable time after the animation concludes.
So after your work area is set, we can now go up to "File" in the Menu Bar,
come down to "Export" -- it's a side menu -- and then choose "Add to Render Queue."
Now Render Queue inside of After Effects is a whole different
tab, or panel, up in "Window," you can see that Render Queue
is an option right here. The Render Queue is
kind of like After Effects' internal exporting engine.
And for a while, it was all we had. I export my simple projects, with simple
formats and codecs, through Render Queue only. Only do I use
Adobe Media Encoder when the settings need to be a bit more specific.
So when you add something to the Render Queue --
-- and you can add as many compositions to the Render Queue at a time, hence the
word "queue." It's kind of nice because then you can
just hit "render" and then it will just start to export all of your compositions
that you've pre-loaded into it -- but we have to make sure that our
settings are what we want it to be. By default -- and I want you guys to hear
me on this -- by default, it sets to .AVI, at least for me on a PC.
I'm not sure what it defaults for you guys on a MAC,
but an .AVI is a ridiculously large file that is clunky on playback and
generally doesn't look that good. So if we don't understand how to change
our settings and we just go over here and we hit
"Render," we're going to run into some problems,
especially as we try to upload those files to Canvas and Canvas is like,
"Yo, that's a huge file! What are you doing?" So to change our settings, we want to
come over here to where it says "Output Module" and click on the button
that says "Lossless." When you click on that,
the "Output Modules Settings" dialog box comes up.
Notice again, it says the format is .AVI by default we want to change that. So if
I toggle down the format, I have my different formats that I can
export in. Now some of these may look strange and unfamiliar.
And that means you probably don't ever need to use them.
I almost always, at least from the Render Queue, export as a Quicktime file.
As a Quicktime file, we have some options down here under the "Video Output."
First of all, we can change the channels.
If you toggle down where it says "RGB," we can see that we can
export "RGB + Alpha." Which means, if there's a video that has
a transparency to it -- just like
.PNG images, you can save those with transparent backgrounds --
-- you can export, now, your After Effects animations
with alpha channels. And so that intro animation
that I just played for my stream, notice how the wipe
wiped off from the animation and then it showed me
underneath it. That was an exported file with aplha.
So that's really handy. In this case,
we don't have any alpha channels because there's no transparency to our project.
So I'm just going to keep "RGB."
Over here we have the "Format" options. If you click on that,
this is where we can change the actual video codec...
... from "Animation" to a whole bunch of other uncompressed options,
and Apple ProRes, if you guys like to export in ProRes.
It defaults to "Animation" which is 100 percent fine.
I seldom -- unless the client specifically asks for ProRes --
-- I seldom change this away from "Animation." So I keep it there.
Notice the "Best Video Settings Quality" is already
grayed out to 100 percent. I'm just going to hit "Ok."
So it's a Quicktime file, just the RGB -- so no alpha included --
with the "Animation" format. I'm gonna go ahead and hit "Ok."
So that's now changed the "Output Modules" to the proper settings.
So now we've gotta change where it's going to output to. In this case,
if I click on this, I can change where this is going to go.
So I can navigate to...
... my "Sample Projects" folder that I've made. And i'm going to call this,
"Blu-ray Export" and hit "Save." So now I've changed the
settings to what I want it to be, I've saved it in a certain file as a
certain name, and now I'm going to go to "Render" over here.
I'm going to go ahead and click on "Render."
It's going to work its way through the animation...
[FINISHING TONE]
Ah! You hear that sound? That sound makes me happy.
I'll be like in the kitchen making a sandwich, and I hear [IMITATES TONE],
that means After Effects rendered successfully! And I run, and skip
back to my computer to make sure that it exported properly.
So once it exports properly, you are good to go.
And that is now a file you can use, whether in Premiere or upload to,
maybe, Youtube, etc., etc.
[READING CHAT] What are the differences between seldom
and animation -- high animation quality for the output, says Marcos.
What do you mean "seldom" Marcos? Go ahead and type in the chat there for me. If you
guys have questions, please type in the chat.
I'll address those at various points.
Now something to note: "Animation" codecs
aren't super friendly. Animation codecs, unless you're using VLC
Media Player for playback, Animation codecs will, if you double
click them, it will act like you can't play that video. So a lot
of times when I'm teaching After Effects, and i have everyone export
as Animation files, I get a lot of messages before they submit their
assignment because they panic. They go to play it back and their
computer is like, "Nope! Don't know what that is. Can't play it." And you're like, "Oh no!
I broke it!" It's not broken. Animation files are
a bit heavy, but they're high quality. And so, if you're not using VLC Media Player,
it's a free player, that's one of the best ways to
play back your After Effects exports. Otherwise, this next option is going to
be better for you if playback and upload is what you're wanting.
So let's talk about exporting this exact same project through Adobe Media Encoder.
I'm gonna go back to my "Sample Project" tab.
My work area is still set, that's great. I'm going to go up to "File."
"Export," and I could add it straight to Media Encoder from here.
I'm going to skip that, and come back to "Add to Render Queue."
So now I've added this project again here.
But notice, over here on the far right, we have an option that says, "Queue in AME."
Queue in Adobe Media Encoder. So if I click on this button...
... Media Encoder is gonna start to open.
And once it does, we're gonna see -- if I get rid of my
previous one -- we're gonna see this project now inside Media Encoder.
Now if you guys have never used Media Encoder, and if you haven't taken
a video class you may not be familiar with it -- Media Encoder is
merely a entire program dedicated to exporting files. It used to be only
linked to Premiere, but in the last few years they've added
After Effects as well, which is really nice
because now you can queue projects from multiple programs
and export them all. Now, what I want to talk about
is the scary things over here to the left.
We can click on these and save them, just like we did
in Render Queue over here. Okay? So the "Output Modules"
and the "Output File," where to save this as, I can click on it...
... and save this again as "AME Export."
And then notice the preset is "Animated GIF."
Now it defaulted to that for me, because that's the last
thing -- that's the last preset I used in Media Encoder.
So it's already applied it there. But what I want to do, is show you
how we can drag a preset from over here to our project. So let's say, for example,
you wanted to export your After Effects project as an H.264
format and codec. Again, H.264 is great for uploading video files to
the web. They're very playable. YouTube converts all videos to H.264
anyway. But, we didn't see that option when we
were exporting using the Render Queue. What's great about Media Encoder
is that we can use this search feature here and just start typing.
And now, we see all the H.264 options...
... available to us, including the "YouTube 1080p Full HD" codec and format that we used --
-- that we use a lot in my Video I class. So, if you see a format that you like,
all you have to do is click and drag it to
your "Sample Project."
And now it's written over the format as H.264,
the preset is the "YouTube 1080p" that we dragged from here,
and I've already saved this in the file as the proper name.
And so now, I can hit the "Play" button. It's gonna work its way through the
video, and once it's exported, that's a file that I could more easily
upload to YouTube, upload to Instagram, share with friends, etc. An Animation
format video would not be easily uploaded to Instagram or texted to a
friend, because they're so hefty and because
they're so specific. Now, what's great is, we can export
animated GIFs of our animated projects really easily
through Adobe Media Encoder. So I'm going to come
back to my search feature here, start to type in "GIF" and now I have
some options here. We want to use the "Animated GIF."
So I can click and drag this up to here. Click on that...
... it resets. Notice, I didn't have to go back to After Effects and
resend this to Encoder. I've changed the format,
and now the green play button shows up again. Now I can hit "Play."
Now it's going to export this as an animated GIF.
And this is awesome, because you can make a really cool
animated GIF -- you know, 5 second GIF custom animation -- you can upload to
various formats and, you know, I'm using GIFs that I've
created in After Effects for my Canvas projects.
So it's a really fun way to create custom GIFs in After Effects.
I'm gonna want you guys to be exporting as GIFs for a lot of your "You Try!"
submissions. Because GIFs are so small and it allows
me to view your work in in a loop, it's going to make it for a
nice submission file. But now we know how to export through
Render Queue as a Quicktime file, which is the best if
you're going to try to bring that back into Premiere to work with,
and as an H.264 or a animated GIF file through Adobe Media Encoder.
So that's exporting in After Effects.