Do not worry about following along. This is just to see how I would start to put elements together for an animated show, called the “Six”. We will start by launching after effects.

The first time you launch after effects, you will see this dialogue box for the tip of the day. I do not like to see this dialogue box, so I will turn off show tips at start up, and click okay. Now, if you like to see the tips everyday, you can go up to the help pull down and select tip of the day. The dialogue box will come up and you can turn show tips start up by clicking on the small box. Clicking okay will make sure that it comes up, everytime you restart after effects. I will turn it off, click okay and it will begin.

The next thing I want to do is, open up the project file. Navigate to where you got the project files and open up the first project. I am going to navigate using Adobes Bridge, so from the file pull down menu, I will choose browse. And you can see several folders that I have set up for chapter one. These include project folders for different sources that might be use for animation. I will double click the after effects project, called chapter one start.

Chapter one final is here for you to experiment further with. By double clicking on chapter one start, you will see that the project bin is filled up with folders. These folders are going to be use for all the source materials that I used inside my after effects animation. So under the word after effects, I will click and go down to where its preferences, and choose general. You will find the preferences on a PC under the edit pull down window. Clicking on these will give me a new dialogue box, and here, I can do a couple of things.

The first thing that I want to do is, unable the use of the system color picker. By turning this check box on, I will not only be able to use this system color picker, but also, I will be able to use the storage panels, which the system color picker comes with. I will click the okay, and next, I will choose the project set up files. This time I will go to the file pull down, and at the bottom of the file pull down, navigate to project settings. In this dialogue box, I will simply change drop frame to non-drop frame, and click enter on the keyboard.