Adobe After Effects CS4 Classroom in a Book

Chapter 4. Working with Shape Layers

Lesson overview

In this lesson, you’ll learn to do the following:

• Create custom shapes.

• Customize a shape’s fill and stroke.

• Use path operations to transform shapes.

• Animate shapes.

• Repeat shapes.

• Explore design options with the Brainstorm feature.

• Add a Cartoon effect to a video layer for a distinctive look.

• Use Adobe After Effects in a DVD interface workflow.

Shape layers are created automatically when you draw a shape with any of the drawing tools. You can customize and transform an individual shape or its entire layer to create interesting results. In this lesson, you will use shape layers to build a dynamic background ...