Join Chris Meyer for an in-depth discussion in this video Understanding the background color, part of After Effects Apprentice: 02 Basic Animation.
I thought it would be helpful to explain the significance of the background…color to After Effects.…This composition has a black background color.…The background color indicates which areas are transparent.…You can also see which areas of the comp are transparent by selecting the alpha…channel from the RGB channels pop-up.…Any areas that are solid white are fully opaque.…Any areas that are black indicate full transparency.…Wherever you see shades of gray, you are looking at shades of transparency.…
I will toggle off the alpha channel and turn off the transparency grid.…Now sometimes the black background color is not that useful.…You can change it in CS5 under Composition settings;…in CS4, Background Color is a menu item under Composition.…So if I change the background color to white, I can clearly see the drop shadow…effects on the video layers and the title.…Just to make it clear that the background color is transparency, let me create a new solid layer.…
I will make this white, and any size will do.…
Updated
11/7/2016Released
1/25/2011After Effects Apprentice is created by Trish and Chris Meyer and designed to be used on their own and as a companion to their book After Effects Apprentice.
- Starting a project from scratch
- Building a composition
- Arranging and transforming layers interactively and numerically
- Animating parameters including motion paths
- Applying and re-using effects
- Creating variations and rendering the final movie
- Importing layered Photoshop files
- Understanding alpha channels
- Avoiding common mistakes
Skill Level Beginner
Duration
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Q: This course was updated on 11/09/2012. What changed?
A: We added new movies on using the exercise files that come with this course, and working with the Global Performance Cache in After Effects CS6. We have also added exercise files designed for After Effects CS6.
Q: This course was updated on 11/07/2016. What changed?
A: We updated eight movies to stay up to date with the latest changes in After Effects CC.
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Video: Understanding the background color