Adobe After Effects ACP study guide
Adobe After Effects ACP · Work through your exam, one topic at a time.
The Adobe Certified Professional in After Effects credential validates practical, job-ready skill in motion graphics and compositing. It is aimed at editors, designers, motion graphics artists, and multimedia students who already use After Effects and want independent evidence of competence for employers or clients. The Adobe After Effects ACP study guide has 7 sections and about 2,217 words.
01Project Setup, Interface, and Workflow
Setup questions test whether you can name the layer of settings responsible. There are three: application Preferences (undo levels, auto-save interval, memory, media and disk cache location), Project Settings (color bit depth of 8, 16, or 32 bpc, plus color working space), and Composition Settings (dimensions, pixel aspect ratio, frame rate, resolution, duration, background color, 3D renderer).
326 words, about 2 min02Importing, Organizing, and Managing Assets
Importing a file offers several interpretations: as footage (merged, one item), as a composition retaining layers, and as composition cropped layers. Photoshop and Illustrator documents benefit most: import as a composition to keep layers or artboards editable, as footage to flatten.
320 words, about 2 min03Compositing Layers, Keyframes, and Animation
Compositing questions center on stacking order, layer switches, and time. Higher layers cover lower ones; blending modes and track mattes modify that relationship.
301 words, about 2 min04Masks, Effects, and Presets
A mask is an animated path plus mode, feather, expansion, opacity, and inversion. Modes (Add, Subtract, Intersect, Lighten, Darken) evaluate in stack order, so order changes results.
334 words, about 2 min05Motion Graphics, Shape Layers, and Typography
A shape layer contains groups; each group holds contents (paths, fill, stroke, gradient, operators) and its own transform. Operators modify geometry in stack order: Merge Paths, Repeater, Trim Paths, Round Corners, Offset Paths, Pucker & Bloat, Twist, and Zig Zag.
315 words, about 2 min063D Space, Tracking, and Advanced Compositing
3D layers gain orientation and respond to cameras and lights. Two-node cameras have a point of interest; one-node cameras orbit from their position.
312 words, about 2 min07Rendering, Exporting, and Output for Delivery
After Effects offers the Render Queue (rendered by After Effects using Render Settings plus an Output Module) and Adobe Media Encoder (queued from After Effects or via watch folders). Delivery codecs such as H.264 are normally produced through Media Encoder with a format and preset; the render queue's default Lossless module writes QuickTime with the Animation codec, which is high quality and supports alpha but creates large files.
309 words, about 2 min