Run Multiple Movies Simultaneously with Matter Layers in Text - Adobe After Effects Tutorial

Jacquelin Vanderwood June 1, 2004   1 In this lesson I'll show you how to make movies with the alpha matte and luma matte options. (I will be using stills from Master Clips but you can use movies for this lesson.) I first import the "movies" and the text I made in Photoshop into Adobe After Effects.   2 Next I want to create a project by pulling the movies and the text down into the timeline with the text on top. Notice the text layer in the TrkMat column is empty.   3 Here is our text on top. As you can see it is opaque.   4 The first thing we want to do with the text is animate it. Hit P for Position to set the first key frame then drag the text off screen to the right. Hit the End key to go to the last frame to last frame and make a checkmark in Position. Drag the text using the Shift key off screen to the left.   5 Your animation is now ready to use.   6 Select the apples layer and apply Alpha Matte to it.   7 As you can see the apple layer is now encased in the text. The problem is that the Alpha Matte will only work on one layer at a time. So if you want to showcase a variety of movies within the text you'll need to PRE-COMPOSE.   8 To Pre-Compose, select the text layer and the apple layer.    9 We now have the apples layer with TrkMat empty.   10 For the glass layer set Mode to Stencil Alpha and set TrkMat to Luma Matte.   11 At this point click on Collapse Transformations for the last pre-compose layer.   12 For the face layer apply Alpha Inverted Matte.    13 You should now be able to view all of the layers.   14 Pre-compose again. Now import a background layer and drop it below the pre-composed layers. Set the background layer to Luma Inverted Matte. Set the pre-composed layer to Classic Color Dodge.   15 If we then select the pre-composed layer and apply Brush Strokes without setting any new specifications, the result will be very interesting. You can then apply Bevel Alpha and set Light Intensity to 100% to give some depth to the layer.   16 Hit the Home key and watch the animation. What you should see if all the pieces you used were movies will be all the movies running at the same time throughout the animation. Otherwise, if you used stills for this piece you'll see all the images within the text as it runs across the screen.     Copyright 1998-2004, Jacquelin Vanderwood, All Rights Reserved