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Building a Non-Animated Track Matte Library - Adobe After Effects Tutorial
| Jacquelin Vanderwood | 1 | | It's a good idea to build your Track Matte Library that you can access immediately. Having to reproduce these mattes on a "as needed" basis is time consuming and a waste of money, that is "if time is money". Of course, you'll always be prompted to produce customized mattes at times, and in that case, this lesson does not apply. What is a Track Matte? If you're new to After Effects, a track matte is a defined layer with opaque and transparent qualities consisting of pure black, pure white, and various grays. It can produce effects in a piece that might not otherwise be possible. Begin by selecting New>Solid. | 
| 2 | | Let's begin by creating a ramp (gradient). | 
| 3 | | Change the Start Color to white and the End Color to black. Set the Ramp Shape to Radial Ramp. | 
| 4 | | Your matte should look like this if you haven't manipulated anything. | 
| 5 | | Select Output Frame To: and click on the New File icon and name the file RampLibrary. Click on the title and then name the ramp RadialRamp. Immediately the Render Queue screen will pop up. Set the Render Settings to Best, the Output Module to Photoshop 32-bit, Log Errors leave as is, and Output To: should be the title. | 
| 7 | | Let's make a twirl matte. Move the spinner around to 180 degrees. Go ahead and save this with a new name in the same library. You'll discover after awhile working with After Effects, just like Photoshop, that you'll being using several mattes at a time in a composition so it makes it a lot easier to have them right in one place where you can select the ones you need. Sometimes you won't even know which ones you'll use. It's trial and error at times no matter how long you've been in the business. | 
| 8 | | Let's do another twirl ramp. Click on the 1 and change it to 4. Name the file TwirlRamp4 to denote the times the spinner has been adjusted. Once you have saved, delete Twirl from the Effect Control palette, or hide it by clicking on the F. | 
| 9 | | Select Distort>Transform. Follow the settings below to achieve this effect. Save again. Hide this layer | 
| 10 | | Press Control+Y to create a new Solid. Select black as the background. Press Shift+Control+Y and change the layer name to Solid Black. Leave it at it's default settings and save naming it FractalBasic1. Let's leave Fractal Noise for now. We could stay here for a very long time. We'll do that in another tutorial. | 
| 11 | | Apply PS+ Lens Flare. (Tip: If you can get Knoll Lens Flare Pro, you should.) Follow the settings below and save. | 
| 12 | | This is the first in a series of After Effects 5.0 tutorials. Hope this tutorial was helpful to many of you. Continue creating mattes until you are satisfied. As you build them you will also come to understand the program better as well. | 
Copyright 2001, Jacquelin Vanderwood, All Rights Reserved |
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