Visual Effects

Adobe After Effects is a powerful compositing software/tool for creating visual effects and doing post production work. You can use After Effects’ tools to create dynamic designs for broadcast and film. This course will help you master the concepts and features of visual effects using the program. It includes many advanced features, including tips and tricks.

This class is appropriate for experienced users of After Effects and for those working or wishing to work in the video field. It is also suitable for After Effects users wishing to expand their skills in compositing and visual effects. This class covers the core concepts and skills necessary to excel in and visual effects, as well as advanced approaches and techniques. This syllabus is subject to change as necessary during the quarter. If a change occurs, it will be thoroughly addressed during class and sent via email. Upon successful completion of this course, students will be expected to analyze complex visual effects in movies and create workflows for the creation of basic visual effects.

In this course students will create compositions applying motion and animated effects to media elements, create transparency in layers using mattes, masks, and stencils, animate objects in 3-D space, and much more. After taking this class students will be able to create visual effects for use in web video and podcasts, broadcast television, and even film. If you are a graphic professional who wants to enhance your compositing or you an experienced user, you will also benefit from the many tips and tricks and special exercises.

Students will qualify for a certificate of training only if the pass the assessment exam at the end of the training course. Final score is based on attendance (10%), tests (30%) and a final examination (60%) based on the standard grading system

• A
• B
• C
• D
• F

• 70-100
• 60-69
• 50-59
• 40-49
• 0-39

This course is for students who must already have basic working knowledge of After effects. Some familiarity with Photoshop and Adobe Premiere Pro would be very useful. We adopt a simple production-based training methodology and our students gain valuable inside knowledge from our years of hands-on experience in video production.

WEEK 1 – INTRODUCTION TO VFX
• What is Visual Effects?
• Photographic principles
• Forced perspective: theory
• Rear Projection
• Stop Motion Animation
• Matte Paintings
• Special vs Visual Effects

WEEK 2 – ADVANCED TOOLS IN AFTER EFFECTS
• Basic Animation and Rendering, Project Settings & Parameters
• Advanced Tools – Anchor point, Key frames, Motion Sketch, Smoother
• Working with Transparency
• Masks and the Pen tool
• Time & Speed
• Editing in After Effects
• Layer control & Blending: Layer Editing, Work Area, Effects & Presets
• Track Matte, Luma Matte, Stencils
• Painting & Puppet
• Parenting & Nesting sequences
• Track & Key Demo

WEEK 3 – THE VFX PIPELINE
• Planning & Management
• Job specialization
• Planning a VFX shot: Storyboards, pre-visualization (pre-viz), planning workflows
• Stunts explosions, water, fire – safety
• Modern tools: Models, Miniatures, Green Screen, Motion Control, Rotoscoping techniques
• Computer-generated Images CGI. Motion and Performance capture.

WEEK 4 – COMPOSITING
• Introduction to Compositing
• Fundamental concepts of Compositing
• Creating explosions, water, and fire
• Tracking: Stabilization of footages, 1-point tracking, 4-point tracking
• Keying: Import Issues, Footage Interpretation, Keylight basics
• Color Correction, Alpha painting, Mocha Demo
Final Project, Recapitulation, questions, the future of VFX in Nigeria

Final project assessment and examination