Preparing a Painting for After Effects

If you take all the layers in the Photoshop file into After Effects, it will make the task of turning the painting into an animation more complicated. Therefore, you must reduce your file to as few layers as possible while maintaining a good representation of the scene. Any item you plan to animate must be on a separate layer. If you would like to try this process yourself, use the final file from the end of Chapter 12, “Changing Seasons.” When you have reduced the file to only eight layers, it should match SeasonChangeForAE.psd in the Chapter 13 section of the DVD in Photoshop. The Layers panel for the reduced Photoshop file looks like Figure 13-1.

Figure 13-1: Eight layers to be used in After Effects

All the alpha channels and paths have also been deleted. The black Mask layer was eliminated, but the composition still has the work area around the edges (Figure 13-2). This allows you to see what you’re doing when you animate the clouds.