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In today's article, two parts – the Backgrounder is for new AE artists, and the Tips section should be useful to everyone.
Backgrounder
You've no doubt noticed the little green "tape" above your timeline (pardon, "Time Bar") in After Effects. In fact, if you're coming from other motion graphics or editing software, it's probably familiar: in most circumstances, it refers to portions of your project that are rendered.The same is true in After Effects. But in After Effects, you'll be seeing a whole lot more of the little green bar. While editing software generally streams video straight from the disk to the screen, motion graphics software always represents your project as more of a "recipe card": the computer must manipulate the original video into an intermediate format. This requires a substantial amount of extra processing power – quite often, it requires so much extra time that the computer can't maintain a real-time framerate during preview playback. That's where RAM Previews come in.
One of our newest 2 day training classes, Google Sketchup, will be offered at our Orlando training facility November 5th & 6th, 2009. We are offering a special price for the November class!Google's Sketchup is an amazing 3D modeling program that has users from all walks of life from professionals to first timers. Whether you're an architect, civil engineer, or filmmaker, you will be astounded at what Sketchup can do for you. And the best part? It's one of the easiest programs out there to learn and use. With Sketchup, you can build everything from basic 3D models to entire scenes with a virtual walk-through, and it allows you to add your 3D elements into your video projects.
Other features of Sketchup is the ability to facilitate the placement of models in Google Earth, which is a great tool for video producers when trying to figure out where your shadows lie at a specific time of day during a video shoot. Another great feature is the ability to use the 3D Warehouse, which lets users search for models that are created by other users and lets users contribute their own models to the warehouse.There's no limit to what you can create with Google's Sketchup. There is a limit however to our class size, so call today to reserve your spot!
After upgrading to OSX 10.6 a.k.a Snow Leopard, it would seem like you don't have Quicktime Pro any longer. The reality of Quicktime in Snow Leopard is that Quick Time Player version 10.0 is installed into the Applications Folder, where we have always expected to find Quick Time. Quick Time Pro version 7.62 is moved into the Utilities Folder within the Applications Folder.
Assuming that you will have the functionality of Quick Time Pro with the version of Quick Time in the Applications Folder, will make you a bit crazy. I spent 20 minutes today trying to figure out what happened to the Preferences, and Export settings.
If you are a user of Apple Motion, you've come to learn how important it is to have the latest and greatest graphics card. Nvidia has finally come through with the Quadro FX 4800 for Mac. It doesn't take long to Max--out the standard graphics card(s) that ship with a Mac Pro when running Apple motion.
I can also imagine a greatly improved performance if you are an After Effects user. For all you motion graphics artists out there, NVidia has finally answered your prayers!
This is the first graphics card for the Mac Pro that ships with 1.5 GB of video graphics memory. It requires one PCI Express 2.0 slot, but the card is double wide, which means it will cover over an adjacent slot unless it is installed in the PCI Express slot.
Although this card is supported with Final Cut Studio and Apple Motion, I noticed it is not listed as a pre-configured option when purchasing a Mac Pro. This means you'll have to purchase the card seperately. It also means you'll have to install the card on your own.
Make sure you're system can support this card. It requires A minimum version of Mac OS X v10.5.7 or higher. It also requires a Mac Pro with 1066MHz DDR memory or 800MHz DD2 FB-DIMM memory. The card comes standard with a 3 year warranty with email/phone support.
If you want to make it snow in your world After Effects has the solution. The CC Snow plug-in comes standard with your After Effects application and is a great way to add snow to a picture or movie and if you take the time to tweak the settings you make it look very realistic. It is very important that you add the snow effect to an adjustment layer. This will allow you to change the mode, make the snow come down at an angle, and like most effects it will give you much more control over your effect if you add it to its own layer. You can change the rate of fall, amount of flakes, how large your flakes are, opacity and many other useful settings. This is not a plug-in that you will use on a daily basis but when you need to make it snow it is worth its weight gold. Make sure you sign up for our latest After Effects class and learn how to use this great plug-in and all the great features that Adobe After Effects has to offer. Also, stay tuned for our full Adobe Creative Suite class. 
