At first glance Adobe After Effects seems similiar to FCP, Premiere Pro, or Media Composer. In reality, it is more like Photoshop in motion. Bearing that in mind, here are 5 After Effects tips to help you avoid common ‘gotchas’ and make you a better user.
Here are 5 must-know tips and tricks to increase your speed and efficiency in Adobe After Effects.Nudge an AE layer with arrows
A common way to navigate in video editing applications is to use the LEFT and RIGHT ARROWS to move up or down the timeline a frame at a time. In After Effects however using a LEFT or RIGHT ARROW button will actually nudge an entire layer.
Instead in After Effects, the PAGE UP or PAGE DOWN buttons will move navigate a frame left or right. Holding down SHIFT while tapping SHIFT UP or DOWN will move you 10 frames. As an alternative you can hold COMMAND (Mac) or CONTROL (PC) and tap the LEFT or RIGHT arrows, to move a frame left or right in the timeline.
A bit of advice: pick one of the above and stick to it! There are generally 3-4 ways to do everything in After Effects. If you commit to one way it it will cut down on mistakes, be easier to memorize and make you more efficient.
Go to Time – Timecode And +/- frames
If you type in numbers, After Effects will move you to the appropriate timecode. 2 is 2 frames and 200 or 2. (two with a period) is 2 seconds.
If you add a + it will move you that many frames in your AE timeline. The gotcha here is that if you type -10 it moves you 10 frames before the start of the composition. You need to type +-10 to move 10 frames earlier.
Navigating with J & K
In video editing apps the J, K and L keys are used to shuttle left (J), stop (K), and shuttle right (L). In After Effects, tap J to move to the previous keyframe, & K to the next keyframe. This is important when creating keyframes, because if you are not on a frame (and you think you are), you create a keyframe where the playhead is. So use J & K instead of moving the playhead manually to avoid accidental keyframes in AE.
Hk parts kotor 2. Jan 16, 2007 HK seemed funnier/better in KOTOR, but in TSL, his only great moments, where taking the mic out of Carth/Bastila and discussions with T3-M4/GO-TO. I remember that my first playthrough of TSL, I forgot to finish rebuilding HK, he's that forgettable in TSL. Aug 03, 2006 In KotOR I, you just buy HK-47 on Tatooine. In KotOR II, you get a part each time you destroy a group of HK-50's, and you can buy a part from several merchants. Other Answers. After every time that you fight a group of them, you should get a part for HK-47. There are 4 parts in all. As for the holocron on the Sith world of Korriban, I do not know what you are talking about. There is a special door in the back of the Shyrack cave that you can go. Feb 29, 2008 For Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II - The Sith Lords on the Xbox, a GameFAQs message board topic titled 'where are HK 47's parts??'
You can’t modify AE keyboard shortcuts
Unlike like Premiere Pro, FCP, & Media Composer, you can’t modify the After EffectsShortcuts. To do this, you need to download the free script KeyEd Up. This will allow you to create your own custom shortcuts in After Effects. You need to register with Adobe, but it’s free.
Composition & Layer Markers
If an After Effect layer is selected and you press * (asterisk), you put a marker on the layer. Double click on the marker in AE to open the dialog box to add comments and change duration, or Option/Alt click to create a marker and open the dialog box.
If a layer isn’t selected and you press * this creates a composition marker.
You can also create numbered composition markers. Press Shift + the number to create a numbered composition marker. You can then type the number to move to the marker.
Learn more about working with markers in After Effects on the Adobe site.
Were these AE tips helpful? Got an After Effects tip to share?
Let us know in the comments. Speed up your rendering times in After Effects with these quick tips.
Rendering is an annoying (but unavoidable) aspect of the motion graphics process. However there are a few steps you can take to make your After Effects renders as fast as possible.
1. Use the Right Graphics Card
After Effects is an incredibly intense program for your graphics card (no surprise, right?) And while there may be hundreds of graphics cards available for your computer, only a few are recommended by Adobe to run After Effects. Adobe specifically recommends certain GeForce, Quadro, and Tesla cards. You can find the full list on the system requirements page on Adobe’s website. If you’re using a sub-par card, you’ll likely see an instant render speed increase when you switch.
2. Upgrade Your RAM
If you work day in and day out in After Effects then upgrading your RAM is the way to go. Adobe recommends at least 4GB of RAM to run After Effects, but you’ll benefit from much more than that. It’s not uncommon for professional AE users to have 32GB of RAM or more.
3. Use a Solid-State Drive
A solid state drive is a quick way to increase not only rendering speed in After Effects, but also the overall speed of your computer in general. If you purchased your internal or external hard drive for less than $100 it’s time for an upgrade. With a solid state drive After Effects will be able to load assets, reference the cache, and load effects much faster….all leading to reduced render times.
4. Use Two Hard Drives
When you render your footage to the same hard-drive your project is saved on, you are forcing that hard-drive to perform two operations simultaneously: read and write. While this doesn’t lead to render times that are twice as slow, it does lead to reduced render times. Instead, try using one hard drive to run the program with assets and another hard drive to render the finished video.
5. Turn On Multiprocessing
After Effects has the hand ability to render out multiple frames at the same time using multiple processing cores. By default, multiprocessing isn’t turned on in After Effects, you have to do it by hand. To do so navigate to After Effects>Preferences>Memory & Multiprocessing. A screen that looks like this will pop up:
Simply click the check box next to ‘Render Multiple Frames Simultaneously’ and adjust the settings to your liking.
6. Reduce Pre-Comps
Pre-comps are a funny business inside of After Effects. When it comes to creating an organized and convenient workflow in After Effects, pre-comps are a extremely efficient. However, pre-comps aren’t always best when it comes to creating fast render times. This is because pre-comps require pixel information to pass through multiple compositions before rendering to your hard drive.
7. Clean up your Compositions
Just because you can’t see a layer inside your composition doesn’t mean it isn’t being rendered by your CPU. So before you send your composition to the render queue make sure you delete/trim any unused layers inside your composition.
8. Trim Layers Off-Screen
Files that are actually out of the video frame will still take a toll on the rendering time, especially if you are using 3D cameras. If your goal is to optimize render times you need to use the trim feature (option + [ or ]) to trim your layers up to the exact frame that they will be used in your composition.
9. Turn off Ray-Traced 3D
Ray-Traced 3D layers was one of the coolest features introduced into After Effects in CS6 – finally a way to create 3D models directly in After Effects! This excitement was short-lived though, as Ray tracing takes way to long to be practical for everyday use. Make sure your composition is set to Classic 3D instead of Ray-Traced 3D before you render. If you don’t you will see your render time increase by at least double.
10. Close Other Programs
It can be easy to forget, especially when using the Adobe Dynamic Link, but before you render a composition in After Effects you need close out all the unused programs running on your computer. This will free up space for your CPU to run After Effects.
11. Choose the Right Codec
Less compressed codecs like MOV take longer to render in After Effects than smaller codecs like H.264 or ProRes. It’s important to ask yourself what your video will be used for once it’s done. Will it be on TV or simply embedded on the web? If it’s going online, chances are it’s going to be incredibly compressed anyways. So maybe you don’t need to export your video as lossless?
12. Turn Off Motion Blur, Depth of Field, & 3D if Unnecessary
When it comes down to increasing your render speed in After Effects you need to ask yourself, “will this feature be used in my video?” Often you can toggle unused features off to make your render times much faster. For example, if you don’t need your layers to have motion blur you can toggle the motion graphics button to off. If you have a 3D camera do you really need to have depth of field or are you trying to get a 2D flat look? If your layers are set to 3D is it for a good reason? Could you simulate 3D by scaling down your objects and moving them in 2D space?
13. Be Selective with Effects
Not all effects are created equal. Some take more time than others to render. To speed up render times you need to become very selective about the effects you use. Most effects have been optimized to render across multiple threads on your CPU, but there are a few that will only allow After Effects to use one thread at a time. If an effect only uses one thread it will take much more time to render. These effects are:
This list of effects was created by Edward Korcheg from Template Monster.
14. Newest Version of AE
While each update to After Effects may not seem revolutionary, Adobe is constantly trying to make After Effects faster and more optimized for users. It is important to install the latest version of After Effects available to you. Sure, back in the day it was a large financial commitment to purchase each Creative Suite update as they would be released, but now that the Creative Cloud is prevalent you should always have the latest update.
Bonus: Use Media Encoder to Export Compositions
One of the biggest problems with using the render queue in After Effects is the fact that you can’t do anything else while rendering. However, this is a “hack” that you can use to render AE compositions and still work on another project, using Adobe Media Encoder. Simply import your AE project into Media Encoder and you will be able to select which composition you wish to export. Because this doesn’t go directly through After Effects you will be able to work on other projects during this process.
Know of any other ways to improve render speeds in After Effects? Share in the comments below.
Chemotherapy is a powerful drug regimen that is used to kill cells that replicate rapidly. The chemotherapy process is physically demanding, and many patients notice side effects after a single treatment. There are a variety of different drugs used for chemotherapy. Depending on the choice of chemotherapy medication, the doctor may be able to predict the likelihood of the patient developing different side effects.
Types
Fatigue, nausea, vomiting, loss of appetite, diarrhea and fever are all common side effects that may occur after the first session of chemotherapy. Some people experience these symptoms immediately after their first session, while others may develop some or all of these side effects within hours of the completion of their first chemotherapy session. Other early chemotherapy side effects include mouth sores, pain and hair loss, but these side effects typically develop in the weeks after treatment begins.
Time Frame
It is difficult to determine the exact time frame for developing side effects of chemotherapy. The most well-known side effect, hair loss, does not normally start until 2 weeks after the first chemotherapy session. However, many people don't make it out of their first chemotherapy session without experiencing profound nausea and even vomiting or diarrhea. Fatigue typically develops soon after the end of the first chemotherapy session and may last a day or so after each treatment or plague the patient throughout the course of treatment.
Considerations
One side effect of chemotherapy that few people are able to escape is fatigue. Chemotherapy is typically given as an outpatient service, and many people mistakenly believe that because they are returning home the same day, they don't need to take any special considerations for their health. Having some help arranged at home can greatly reduce the fatigue levels of the chemotherapy patient. Someone to prepare proper meals and help with household chores will allow the patient to recover better between chemotherapy sessions.
Misconceptions
Often people believe that their hair will immediately fall out after their first chemotherapy session. Hair loss typically begins in the first month of treatment, but not immediately. The hair loss is also gradual. Losing your hair can be an emotional process, but the fact that it occurs gradually, over a period of weeks, may allow the patient time to come to terms with the process. Side effects that cancer patients should prepare for early in the treatment process are various digestive issues, including nausea and loss of appetite, and overwhelming fatigue. Preparing for these allows the patient to keep her strength up for the rigors of treatment.
Prevention/Solution
While there is no way to prevent side effects from chemotherapy, there are ways to manage them. By carefully monitoring how they feel, patients can work with their doctors to develop a plan for controlling fatigue, nausea and other digestive issues. After the initial chemotherapy session, the oncologist may provide medications that will lessen the effects of certain side effects or wait until the patient develops specific complaints before offering treatment.
By Phil Ebiner for Udemy
Interested in more than a guide? Check out Phil’s complete After Effects course.
Note: This post is part of our “Getting Started” series of free text tutorials on some of our most popular course topics.
To jump to a specific section, click the table of contents below:
Getting Started
Program Layout
Starting a New Composition Importing Footage The Timeline Video Playback in After Effects Basic Tools
Selection
Hand Zoom Rotate Pan Behind Shape Pen Text Adjusting Layers
Layer Transformations
Position Scale Rotation Opacity Understanding the Anchor Point Animations
What are keyframes?
How to set keyframes Position Animation Opacity Animations Scale Animations Rotation Animations Easy Ease Shape Layers
Creating New Shapes
Creating Custom Shapes with the Pen Tool Editing Stroke and Fill Working with Effects
Adding Effects to a Layer
Text Preset Animations Radial and Linear Wipe Effects Color Correction in After Effects 3D in After Effects
Enabling 3D to Layers
Adding a Camera Layer Moving Objects in 3D Space Editing a 3D Camera Move Intermediate and Advanced Techniques
Adding Motion Blur
Using the Graph Editor Precomposing Adding Trim Paths to Shape Layers Green Screen in After Effects Stretching and Reverse Time Creating Freeze Frames Exporting from After Effects
How to Export your Video
Exporting Best Quality for Online Playback Exporting with a Transparent Background
Adding motion graphics and visual effects to your videos will dramatically improve their quality. Viewers will find your videos more engaging and professional. Adobe After Effects is a powerful application that can create Hollywood-style effects and super clean motion graphics titles and animations. With this tutorial, you’ll have a complete understanding of how to use After Effects and start improving your own videos in no time.
Getting Started
If you’ve ever opened up Adobe After Effects, you might have felt intimidated by all of the buttons and windows. Let’s cover the basics so that you understand how to navigate the application. Then we’ll jump into more intermediate and advanced techniques. This tutorial uses the latest version of After Effects Creative Cloud, so it will be easiest if you are using the same version. However, you can still use an older version like CS6, CS5, or CS4. The program layout might just look a little different.
Program Layout
Starting from the top, you have your file menus. Here you can access anything you’d need to do with a project such as changing preferences, adding new compositions (a composition is basically a separate timeline for a new video), adding effects, changing the windows and layouts, and much more.
Right below the top menus is a bar with all of the tools used to create objects. Later on in this tutorial, you’ll learn how to use the most important ones.
Below the tools on the left are two windows (aka panels): the project panel, which contains any imported footage, graphics, or compositions; and the effects controls panel, which is where you would adjust effects added to your video layers.
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In the middle is your composition window. This is where you see the video you are working on. There are a lot of buttons at the bottom of this window. The two to keep in mind are the one with the percentage showing and the one that says ‘Full.’ The percentage drop-down menu changes the size of the video playback box. Most often, you’ll want to keep it at ‘Fit up to 100%.’ The ‘Full’ drop-down menu changes the quality of the playback. If your computer is having trouble rendering out your composition, decrease the quality to improve playback speed.
On the right are panels for Effects & Presets, Character, and Paragraph. You’ll find all sorts of effects in the Effects & Presets panel that do everything from color correction to chromakeying. The Character and Paragraph panels adjust text like any standard text editor.
At the bottom of the program are your composition timelines. This is where you’ll be adding layers (text, shapes, video, etc.) and actually putting together your video. There are lots of buttons that will be covered throughout this course. Behind that panel is the Render Queue, which is used for exporting videos.
The best thing to do to learn how After Effects works is to play around with it. Hover your mouse over any of the buttons to see what it does. Go to the Window menu to change what panels you see or don’t see. Throughout this tutorial, you’ll be learning a ton of new information. By the end, you’ll be comfortable navigating the After Effects program.
Starting a New Composition
The first thing you’ll want to do when using After Effects is create a composition. There are a few ways to do this.
Once you do any of these things, a Composition Settings window will pop up. This is where you can choose the settings for your video.
Choose a Composition Name.
Change the Width and Height to match your desired settings. Typically, 1920 px width and 1080 px height is good for HD playback.
Choose a Frame Rate. Popular ones are 23.976 and 29.97. Choose the frame rate that matches the video that you shot and are adding graphics to. For example, if you shot your video at 59.94 frame rate, choose the 59.94 frame rate for your After Effects composition. If you don’t know what to choose, start with the 29.97.
The last important setting is Duration. This is how long your composition is and can be changed later.
Click OK, and your new composition will appear in the Project panel and a new timeline will open.
Importing Footage
While many of the things you will do with After Effects are done within the application (creating titles, shapes, animations), there are also many things you can do by importing your own footage (color correction, green screen, visual effects, slow motion, etc.).
To import video, photos, or graphics to After Effects, simply drag and drop the items from your Finder/Documents into the Project panel. Otherwise, you can hit Command-I on your keyboard, or go to the File menu and select Import – File.
The Timeline
The Timeline is where you’ll be doing a lot of work, so it is good to look a little more closely at how it works. In this example, add a new Solid to your timeline by going to the Layer menu and selecting New – Solid. Select the desired color and click OK.
A new item has appeared in the timeline. From left to right, you’ll see a variety of options that affect this layer. The eyeball turns on and off the layer visibility. If the layer has sound (i.e., an imported video clip with audio), the speaker button turns on and off the audio for this layer. The solo circle button turns off all other layers if you want to focus on only one particular layer. The lock button disables and enables editing of this layer.
The triangle to the right of the lock button drops down more options, which will be covered in the Adjusting Layers section. The color of the layer can be changed by selecting a different label color. The # identifies the order of layers in composition, which can be helpful when creating compositions with lots of layers. The Layer Name / Source Name shows the original file name or a new name that you can create for each layer.
To the right of the Layer Name are more advanced options, some which we’ll cover later. If you click the Toggle Switches / Modes button at the bottom of the timeline, you’ll notice that even more options pop up.
To the right of all these options is the actual timeline. Depending on the label color of your layer, you’ll see a colored bar. On top of the bar are numbers that represent the time of your composition. There are two gray bars with blue caps. The top one can be used to zoom in and out of the timeline by clicking and dragging one of the blue caps. The bottom one can be used to change the Work Area of your composition. The Work Area is the portion of the composition you are making adjustments to. When you are working on a specific part of the composition, it may help to decrease the Work Area to just that moment so when you play back your video, you can focus on just that moment.
Video Playback in After Effects
Playing through your composition can be tricky in After Effects. By simply clicking the space bar (which typically plays through video in a video editing application), After Effects will try to play through your video. But if you’ve added a lot of layers and effects, it will have a hard time playing through the entire Work Area smoothly.
After Effects needs to render the Work Area before it can play it smoothly. To do this, click the the number 0 on your keyboard number pad (the number pad to the right of the letters and arrows, not above the letters) or press Control-0 on your keyboard (if you have a smaller keyboard without the number pad). This will render out the entire Work Area of your composition and play through it.
Notice that the playback will loop until you stop it by pressing the space bar.
Basic Tools
Now that you are more comfortable with navigating After Effects, you’ll need to know all of the tools you have at your disposal. Choose each tool by clicking on the tool’s button just below the top menus.
Selection
The Selection tool is the basic tool you’ll be doing 90% of the work with. This tool allows you to select layers and move them around. This is also the tool you’ll want to go back to when navigating around After Effects. It is the tool that allows you to select options and click buttons.
Hand
The Hand tool moves the composition window within the Composition panel. You would use this if you were zoomed into a specific part of the composition, and needed to move the actual playback window (and not the layers inside the composition).
Zoom
The Zoom tool does just that: zooms in and out of the composition window. Zoom in by clicking in the Composition panel. Zoom out by holding the option/alt key down and clicking.
Rotate
The Rotate tool actually rotates the objects within your composition. For example, if you have a shape that needs to be rotated, you can use the Rotate tool to do so. Just click and drag it left or right. Make sure you have selected the right layer in the timeline before doing so.
Pan Behind (Anchor Point)
The Pan Behind tool is a very important one. You’ll learn more about anchor points in the next section. For now, know that this tool moves the anchor point of a layer.
Shape
The Shape tool allows you to create new shapes (Rectangle, Rounded Rectangle, Ellipse, Polygon, and Star) and also allows you to create masks. Create new shapes by de-selecting any layer in the timeline, then clicking and dragging in the composition window. Create a mask by selecting a layer in the timeline that you want to create a mask of, and clicking and dragging.
Clicking and holding down on the Shape tool button allows you to select the different kind of Shape tool you want.
Pen
The Pen tool allows you to create custom shapes and masks. Similar to the Shape tool, select or de-select layers in the timeline to either create a new shape or a layer mask. Click in the Composition panel to start your new shape. Click again to create the new points of your shape. Then complete the shape or mask by clicking on the very first point. You can also click-drag to create curved shapes.
Text
The Text tool is for create new titles or text boxes. Simply click in the Composition panel then start typing to create standard text. To create a text box, click and drag with the Text tool. To adjust the text, use the Character and Paragraph panels to change font, font style, size, alignment, stroke, width, height, kerning, leading, and anything else that has to do with text.
Adjusting Layers
As you learned before, adding new layers to your composition is as simple as creating a new shape or text box. You can also create a new layer by dragging an object (image, video clip, music clip, graphic, etc.) from the Project panel onto the timeline or directly onto the Composition window.
Layer Transformations
With every type of layer, there are options for transforming it. Aside from audio-only layers, each layer will have position, scale, rotation, anchor point and opacity options. Get to these options by clicking the triangle to the left of the Layer Name in the timeline. This drops down a new menu that says Transform. Dive deeper into that menu by clicking the triangle next to Transform.
Position
The Position of each layer is represented by two numbers: one that represents the x axis (left to right) and the other represents the y axis (up and down). Move the layer around by clicking and dragging these numbers to the left or right. You can also move the object by simply selecting it in the Composition window with the Selection tool and moving it around. You’ll notice that the Position numbers change as you move it around. You can also click the number and type in a specific number to move the layer to an exact point.
The keyboard shortcut for bringing up the Position transformation property is ‘P’.
Scale
Scale changes the size of a layer. You’ll notice that there are two numbers with a little chain-linked icon. These are the horizontal and vertical scale properties. Typically, you’ll just click either number and drag it to the left to decrease the scale or to the right to increase the scale. You can also click and enter a number of your own.
If you want to adjust the height or width without affecting the other, click the chain-linked icon to unlink the height and width properties. Then adjust the height or width individually.
Realize that if you increase layers significantly, they will start to get pixelated. This depends on the type of layer you are adjusting. Text layers and shape layers created within After Effects won’t be pixelated, but photos and videos that you import will.
The keyboard shortcut for bringing up the Scale transformation property is ‘S’.
Rotation
Rotation rotates the layer. You will see the number 0x+0.0º when rotating a new layer that hasn’t been rotated before. The 0x refers to the number of times it has been rotated 360º. The 0.0º refers to the number of degrees that the object has been rotated. You can rotate positively or negatively. And as always, you can adjust the rotating by clicking and dragging the number to the left or right, or entering your own number.
The keyboard shortcut for bringing up the Rotation transformation property is ‘R’.
Opacity
Opacity is the transparency of a layer. More opacity means it will be less transparent. 100% opacity means the object is completely non-transparent (i.e., can’t be seen through). Click and drag the percentage to the left or right to adjust the opacity, or enter your own number.
The keyboard shortcut for bringing up the Opacity transformation property is ‘T’.
Anchor Point
The Anchor Point of an object is the point of a layer that all properties are anchored to (i.e., adjustments to a layer’s properties change depending on where the anchor point is). The best way to understand this is to move the anchor point by changing the transformation properties, then try rotating or scaling the object. You’ll notice that if the anchor point is at the bottom of a layer, the object will scale up or down from the bottom. If it is in the middle of a layer, the object will scale up or down from the middle.
The easiest way to move the anchor point is to use the Pan Behind tool. Select that tool from the toolbar, and then click and drag the anchor point of an object, which looks like a circle with four lines coming out from it.
You can adjust the anchor point from the transformation properties of the layer, but you’ll notice that doing this moves the layer within your composition, which is something you might not want to happen.
The keyboard shortcut for bringing up the Anchor Point transformation property is ‘A’.
Animations
The real magic of After Effects begins with animating keyframes. This is how you’ll create title cards that fly in and out of the screen, shapes that move around, and all sorts motion graphics.
What are keyframes?
A keyframe is a point in time that defines how a particular layer looks. For example, a keyframe can say that at one second, the object is at 0% opacity. A second keyframe can say at two seconds, the object is at 100% opacity. From one second to two seconds, the object changes from 0% opacity to 100% opacity. This is how you would fade an object into the composition.
In After Effects, you can create keyframe animations for almost anything, from position and scale to rotation and effects. How to set keyframes
Set a keyframe by moving the Current Time Indicator (the timeline marker that shows where you are on the timeline) to the desired time, opening up a transformation property such as position, and clicking the stopwatch icon next to that property.
A diamond appears on the timeline at that spot. To create a new keyframe, first move the Current Time Indicator to a different time. Then adjust that property (so if it was a position that you already set a keyframe for, change the position of the layer). Just by adjusting that property, a new keyframe will appear.
If you want to set a keyframe without adjusting the property, click the keyframe diamond button on the far left of the layer property.
Delete keyframes by selecting them with the Selection tool and pressing delete on the keyboard. You can select and delete multiple keyframes at once.
You can also move keyframes on the timeline by clicking and dragging left or right with the Selection tool.
Lastly, if you have keyframes on multiple layers and multiple properties, a quick way to view all of the keyframes you’ve added to a composition is to press the keyboard shortcut ‘U’. This will show or hide all of the keyframes you’ve added.
To visualize and learn how keyframes can work even better, let’s run through some basic examples.
Position Animation
A position animation is a change in place of a layer. This can be a movement within the composition window. It can also be movement from outside of the composition onto it.
This example shows how text can be set to fly onto the screen with a position animation.
Opacity Animations
An opacity animation is basically a fade. You can fade a layer completely on or off, or partially. A practical example of this might be to fade a solid layer partially over an image. The example shows how a dark blue solid fades on from 0% opacity to 50% opacity over two seconds.
Scale Animations
A scale animation is basically a change in size. In this example, the ball increases from 0% to 150% and back down to 100%. A keyframe of 0% is set at 0:00, 150% at 01:00, and 100% at 2:00.
Again, all you have to do is move the Current Time Indicator to the time in the timeline, open the position property by dropping down the Transform menu of the circle layer or pressing S on the keyboard. Then click the stopwatch to set your first keyframe. The next keyframes will automatically be set if you move the Current Time Indicator to a new spot in the timeline and then change the Scale property.
Rotation Animations
Rotation animations are great for adding quality to your motion graphics. Combining rotation animations with a scale animation can be a great way to introduce an object to the viewer.
This example shows how a square that is scaling from 0% to 100% can look interesting with a rotation animation from -90º to 0º over one second.
Easy Ease
After Effects automatically adjusts the timing of the an animation linearly. What this means is that from the beginning of the animation to the end of the animation, the object is transforming at the same rate. So if you have a scale animation from 0% to 100% over 10 seconds, the object is scaling up just as fast between seconds 1-3 as it is from seconds 7-9.
Easy ease is a good way to improve the look of an animation. What is does is ramps up and down the speed of the animation in a more natural way. The rate of the beginning of the animation from the first keyframe slowly ramps up and peaks at the midpoint between the two keyframes. Then the rate decreases as it reaches the end of the animation at the last keyframe.
Think of someone driving a car between two stop signs. The two stop signs represent two keyframes. The car doesn’t start at 30 miles per hour. The car starts at 0 miles per hour, ramps up to 30 miles per hour, then slows down as it reach the second stop sign. That is basically how easy ease works with keyframes.
Quickly add easy ease to a keyframe by selecting the keyframe and pressing F9 on the keyboard. You can also add easy ease by right-clicking the keyframe(s), and selecting Keyframe Assistant – Easy Ease.
In the advanced section, you’ll learn how to customize the speed of keyframes using the graph editor.
Shape Layers
If there is one thing you should spend a lot of time practicing, it is using shape layers. Shape layers are the backbone of many motion graphics, from simple lower thirds titles to advanced character animations. You already learned about the shape tool. Now you’ll learn how to use the tool more efficiently and effectively.
Creating New Shapes
As you know, shape layers are created with the shape tool. Choose either the rectangle, ellipse, or other shapes to create basic circles and rectangles. Simply clicking and dragging will create a new shape.
To create a perfect square or circle, click and drag while holding the shift key.
Hold option/alt + shift after clicking and dragging to create a perfect square or circle from its center.
When you create a new shape layer, look at the layer in the timeline. Along with the Transform properties of a layer, shapes also have a Contents menu. Underneath the Contents is the shape that you just created. You can create multiple shapes within this layer by continuing to use the shape or pen tool to create shapes while that shape layer is selected. To create a new shape in a new layer, de-select all layers in the timeline and create a new shape the way you did with the first one.
Creating multiple shapes in one layer is a great way to have a clean timeline. It’s easier to manage a composition with fewer layers.
Access more options for each shape by going into the shape’s dropdown menu under Contents. There are options for the shape’s path, stroke, fill, and individual transform properties. So while the Transform properties of the overarching shape layer affect everything in that shape layer, the individual Transform properties of the different shapes only affect specific shapes. There are also more options, such as Skew and Skew Axis.
Creating Custom Shapes with the Pen Tool
It’s very easy to create custom shapes right within After Effects with the pen tool. Select the pen tool and create a shape’s points by clicking in the Composition panel. These points are also called vertexes. Holding the pen tool button will give you tools to add or delete these points.
The Convert Vertex tool allows you to change a straight point into a curved point with a simple mouse click.
Notice that if you click and drag while creating a new vertex, the shape become curved. From each vertex are two lines. Clicking and dragging the ends of these lines change how the curve looks. If you don’t see the two lines, click the vertex with the pen tool.
You can also delete these points by selecting them and pressing the delete button on your keyboard.
Editing Stroke and Fill
Each shape has a stroke and a fill. The fill is the color within the edges of the shape. The stroke is the line surrounding the shape. The stroke is automatically set to 0 pixels wide, which means that you can’t see a stroke.
Adjust the stroke and fill properties from the shapes’ drop-down menu or from the options that appear above the Composition window. Click the colored box next to the word Fill to change the color of your shape. Click the colored outline next to the word Stroke to change the color of the stroke. Increase or decrease the size of the stroke by changing the pixel width to the right of the stroke color options.
You can also delete the fill entirely by clicking the word Fill and either changing the opacity to 0% or changing from Solid Color to None (selecting the white rectangle with the red line through it). There are also options for linear and radial gradients.
Note that even the stroke and fill properties can be animated with keyframes on the timeline.
Combining custom shapes and animating individual shape properties can result in some really cool motion graphics.
Working with Effects
Up until now, you’ve mostly learned how to create After Effects compositions filled with shapes and text. The Effects & Presets panel is where you’ll find hundreds of effects that can manipulate your video in an infinite number of ways. Before diving into specific effects, take a minute to browse through some of the effects. While it would be impossible to go through every single effect in this tutorial in a manageable way, the best way to learn is to add the effects to your own video and see what they do.
Adding Effects to a Layer
To add an effect to a layer, just drag and drop the effect from the Effects & Presets panel directly onto the layer in the timeline, onto the layer in the Composition window, or into the Effects Controls panel (as long as the layer you want to affect is selected). However you add an effect to a layer, you’ll notice that in the Effects Controls panel are options for adjusting these effects.
Notice that next to many of these options, a stopwatch icon appears. This means, as you probably know by now, that these effects are keyframe-able.
Animations Presets
While most of the effects in the Effects & Presets panel are static effects that have to be animated, there are preset effects that do specific things. These can be found under the Animation Presets folder. In the folder, you’ll find everything from backgrounds to transitions.
Text Animation Presets
In the Animation Presets folder is a Text folder with hundreds of unique text-based animations. These can only be added to text layers. They are great for creating unique kinetic typography motion graphics.
Some of these text presets add motion to text throughout the entire composition. Others only add the effect for a specific time range. Once you add the effect to a text layer, you might notice keyframes added as well. Press U on the keyboard to bring up any keyframes added to that layer. You can then adjust the speed and timing of this effect by moving the keyframes around.
To get started, use effects in the Animate In and Animate Out folders. These are great effects for introducing and exiting text.
Radial and Linear Wipe Effects
Some great effects that can add a cool transition to your layers are the radial and linear wipe effects. These can be found in the Transition folder or by typing in the effect name in the search box at the top of the Effects & Presets panel.
With either effect, there is a Transition Completion percentage. Set a keyframes at 0% and 100% to create a transition. Then add feathering to soften the edge of the transition.
Color Correction in After EffectsAfter Effects Get Specific Time Zone
In the Color Correction folder, you’ll find a lot of great effects for color correction and color grading. The basic ones to use are Brightness & Contrast, Curves, Hue/Saturation, and Photo Filter.
Brightness & Contrast does just what it says it does: increases or decreases the brightness/contrast of your layer. Increasing contrast makes the darks of your layer darker and brights of your layer brighter. For video, this can make it pop more and look better. Or you may want a very flat, non-contrasted image. This can be done by decreasing the contrast.
Curves allows you to increase contrast like you would in Photoshop or another editing tool. Click and drag the line in the Curves effect to change the brightness and contrast of your layer.
Hue/Saturation is good for increasing/decreasing the color vibrance or your image. You can make a layer monochromatic (black and white) by setting the saturation to 0. You can also correct the white balance by adjusting the Master Hue.
The Photo Filter effect is familiar to you if you’ve edited photos in Photoshop. This filter has several warming and cooling filters that can change how your image feels.
3D in After Effects
With After Effects, you can create three-dimensional scenes. You can then place a virtual camera within that scene and move the camera, creating different kinds of shots: zooms, pans, tilts, focus racks.
Enabling 3D in Layers
To enable 3D editing of layers, go to the layer and click the check box beneath the three-dimensional cube. As soon as you do this, you’ll notice additional transform properties that appear, including x and y axis rotations, and a third number in the Position property. This number is the layer’s position on the z axis.
Moving Objects in 3D Space
Edit the 3D position and rotation as you would normally edit any transform properties. Editing the Z position of a layer will move the layer forwards and backwards in space. Placing layers in front and behind each other this way can create a very cool scene.
In the Composition panel, change from Active Camera to any of the other views to see how the layers align in 3D space. Next to that menu is the Views menu. Change from 1 view to 2 or 4 views to see multiple camera angles at one time.
Adding a Camera Layer
Moving layers in 3D space is great, but it really looks amazing with a new camera layer. Add a new camera to your composition from the Layer – New menu. A window will pop up with different lens and camera options. Stick with the 50mm preset when starting out. Click OK. A new camera layer will be added to your timeline.
The camera layer has multiple Transform properties like rotation and position. It also has a Point of Interest property that acts as if you were panning or tilting your camera.
Along with the Transform properties is a Camera Options drop-down. Turn on Depth of Field and play with the Aperture and Focus Distance to get a shallow depth of field. This means that some of the layers in your sequence are in focus while others aren’t. This is a more cinematic look.
Editing a 3D Camera Move
All of the camera’s properties can be animated with keyframes. To create simple dolly in move, set a keyframe animation for the Z position.
To create a tilt up move, set a keyframe animation for the Point of Interest.
Intermediate and Advanced Techniques
The following tips will make your After Effects work look more professional, and will give you more skills to handle different types of projects.
Adding Motion Blur
Wave your hand in front of your face and the motion of your hand isn’t crisp. That is natural motion. In After Effects, a quick way to make the motion of your animations look more natural is to add motion blur. Enable motion blur for individual layers by clicking the box underneath the Motion Blur icon (the three overlapping circles). Then click the Motion Blur button at the top of the timeline to actually enable motion blur for that composition. Notice the difference between a shape moving across the screen with motion blur and one without. There are times when you won’t want to add motion blur, but for most animations it looks better with it enabled.
Using the Graph Editor
The Graph Editor is a way to customize the speed of keyframe animations. Just like we learned about how easy ease can make the motion more natural, using the Graph Editor can take it to the next level.
Once you’ve added keyframes to a layer and added easy ease to any of those keyframes, select the keyframes with the Selection tool, and then click the Graph Editor button. (It is right next to the Motion Blur button at the top of the timeline). The timeline changes to a graph. This graph represents the speed of the animated keyframes.
Make sure that you are viewing the Speed Graph and not the Value Graph. Change the view by clicking the button next to the eyeball icon.
Click on one of the squares (these squares represent the keyframes). A yellow line with a circle now extends from each keyframe. Click and drag that circle to the left or right to adjust the speed of the easy ease. For example, by extending that line, you can have the animation slowly ramp into or out of a key frame.
By playing with the speed of animations with the graph editor, you can make animations look more natural or unnatural, depending on what you’re going for.
Pre-composing
Once you’re creating a complex After Effects composition, your timeline will be filled with so many layers that you won’t know what to do with them all. One way to clean up a composition is through precomposing. This is basically grouping layers together. If you’ve used Premiere Pro to edit, this is similar to nesting.
To pre-compose multiple layers, select them in your timeline. Select multiple layers by command-clicking all the layers you want. Then right-click any of the selected layers and click Pre-Compose. You can rename this new composition. Make sure ‘Move all attributes into the new composition’ is selected. Then click OK. The original layers will disappear from the timeline, and a new Pre-comp will replace them.
This Pre-comp has all of the Transform properties of a normal layer.
You can edit the contents within the nested Pre-comp by double-clicking that layer or by opening the Pre-comp from the Project panel (there will be a new Pre-comp composition in the Project window after you create it).
Other reasons you would pre-compose layers is if you need to use that set of layers multiple times. For example, you can pre-compose a title graphic and put it in many compositions.
Adding Trim Paths to Shape Layers
A very useful trick to play with is Trim Paths. Trim Paths is an option that you can add to any shape layer. With any shape layer’s drop-down opened, click the Add button and choose Trim Paths. Notice that there are a variety of options you can apply to a shape layer from this menu.
Once you’ve added Trim Paths, a new menu will appear in the Contents drop-down. Open the Trim Paths menu and you’ll see Start, End, and Offset percentages. Adjusting these percentages is a way to draw on or erase a shape layer. This looks particularly good if the shape layer has no fill and just a stroke.
After Effects Get Specific Time Youtube
Look at this example of how an intricate shape is drawn on using a keyframe animation to the layer’s Trim Paths.
Green Screen in After Effects
Editing green screen video in After Effects is very powerful. The Keying effect Keylight (1.2) is a quick way to chromakey any green screen video. Just add the effect to your desired video clip. Choose the screen color (the green background) by selecting it with the eyedropper tool. Then adjust Screen Gain and Balance to perfect the chromakeying.
Stretching and Reverse Time
You can easily play with time in After Effects using the Time Stretch and Time Reverse Layer effect. Apply these effects by right-clicking the layer and then going to Time.
Time-Reverse Layer will reverse the speed of your layer.
Time Stretch will allow you to slow down or speed up the video. Adjust the Stretch Factor to do so. Increasing the percentage will speed up the footage, while decreasing will slow it down.
Creating Freeze Frames
It’s also easy to create a freeze frame in After Effects. In the same Time menu where you found the previous two effects is a Freeze Frame effect. Just place your Current Time Indicator to the desired frozen frame. Then right-click, and go to Time – Freeze Frame.
Exporting from After Effects
Once you’ve finished creating your video in After Effects, it is time to export it for the world to see. Let’s cover the basics of exporting your composition from After Effects.
How to Export your Video
With the desired composition timeline open, go to the Composition menu and select Add to Render Queue. The render queue panel will open. The two things you need to pay attention to are Output Module and Output To.
Output Module is where you change the settings of your export. Click the Lossless text to open up the export settings. Here is where you can change the size and format options. Once you are happy with your settings, click OK.
Output To is where you change the destination of the export. Clicking on the composition name will open up your file structure where you can choose the location of your final export.
When you are ready to export, click the Render button on the top right of the Render Queue panel.
Exporting Best Quality for Online Playback
To export with the best quality for online playback, next to Output Module click the downwards-facing triangle. This brings up a menu with a variety of presets. Choose H264. H264 is a high-quality Quicktime format with small file sizes. If your composition is the right size (1920 x 1080 for HD playback), you are ready to render it.
To double-check the settings, click the H264 text that appears on the right. You’ll see that the Format is Quicktime. Under Format Options, the Spatial Quality is set to 100. If you want to resize the video to be smaller or larger, you can do so by clicking the Resize button and choosing a new size. When you’re happy with the size, click OK and then Render.
Exporting with a Transparent Background
A common issue that After Effects users need to figure out is how to export with a transparent background. For example, you created a lower thirds title that you want to export and use in a Premiere Pro project. If you export using the methods explained above, the background will be black.
To export with a transparent background, make sure that the Output Module is set to Lossless. Then click Lossless to bring up the export settings. Where it says Channels, change it from RGB to RGB + Alpha. This is the key to exporting the video with a transparent background. Click OK, and then Render. Now if you bring that file into Adobe Premiere Pro, it will have a transparent background.
How to Use the Loop Expression in After Effects
Let’s talk about the loop expression in After Effects.
Today we’re talking about one of the most useful expressions in After Effects, the loop expression. This tutorial and article will share everything you need to know to get started with creating loops in After Effects. So buckle up and grab notebook, it’s Groundhog Day at School of Motion.
To help explain the benefits of the loop expression, we’ve put together a tutorial that will walk you through some real-world uses of loops.
If you want to download the project files used in this tutorial you can do so by clicking the button below.
Download the project files and follow along with the tutorial! Plus, a PDF Guide!
Download Project File and PDF Guide
A loop expression does exactly what the name implies, it loops a series of keyframes. However, there's a lot more to the loop expression than simply cycling between the first and last keyframes. Loops can help a ton when working with walk cycles, logo reveals, background design, and more.
A loop expression can be broken up into 3 distinct parts: The Property, Loop Type, and Modifier. Understanding each part is important for getting the most out of your loops. So we’re going to talk about each part in excruciating exciting detail.
There are technically 4 different types of loop expression properties but we’ll take about the other two at the bottom of this post. The main two properties that you will want to know about are the loopOut and loopIn properties. Both loop properties essentially do the exact same thing with one key difference:
Both have their own potential use-cases, but for 90% of the projects that you work on you’ll want to use the loopOut property.
Not all loops are created equal. There are actually 4 different types of loops that can change the way your loop works in After Effects. To change your loop type all you have to do is add “loopname” to the inside of your parentheses. Like this: loopOut(“pingpong”);Here’s a breakdown of each loop type:
The cycle loop simply repeats your keyframes forever and ever. Once a loop approaches the last keyframe it will jump right back to the first keyframe. By default a loop property without a type defined will be a cycle.
As the name implies the “pingpong” loop type goes back and forth between your first and last keyframe. From start to finish and finish to start, over and over again.
The Offset loop type simply builds on itself by adding or subtracting the ending value from the starting value and applying the difference to your final or opening keyframes. That explanation is admittedly confusing, but just look at the example above. As you can see the offset continues the loops movement without reverting back to the original start value. In my opinion the Offset loop type is the most powerful and potentially useful loop type, but it never gets the love it deserves.
The “continue” loop type is really specific, but it’s still pretty cool. Essentially the continue loop continues the speed/value of the final keyframe. So if your loop ended with a rotation speed of 30 degrees a second that speed would continue beyond the final keyframe. Nothing else happens, just continued inertia.. forever. #NewtonsFirstLawofMotion
Note: You can see a visual representation of the continued motion of the loop in the graph editor (called the post expression graph) by selecting the small graph button to the left of the expression window.
The last thing that you can add to your loop expressions is an argument modifier. While the name sounds really scary it’s actually not that difficult to understand. Essentially an argument modifier will tell After Effects which keyframes you want to loop. For example, if you had a sequence with 5 keyframes you could tell After Effects just to loop the last 2. This is done by simply adding a comma and a number.
The number tells After Effect how many keyframes should be included in the modified loop. For example, a loopOut property with a modifier of 1 will only include 2 total keyframes: the last keyframe and the one before it. Here’s a few examples so we’re on the same page:
Modifiers are actually really easy to use once you get the hang of them. Modifiers can only be applied to the cycle, pingpong, and offset loop types.
Lastly we should talk about two different types of loop properties: loopInDuration(); and loopOutDuration();. Both properties act in a very similar way to the loopIn(); and loopOut(); properties, but with one key difference:
Duration Loop Properties will loop based on time (seconds) when an argument modifier is applied to it. (That was a nerdy sentence..)
Basically if you add a comma and a number after your duration loop property your expression will loop based on seconds instead of keyframes. I don’t find this type of loop to be very helpful in a lot of cases, but it’s there and now you know about it.
See you Later! See you Later! See you Later! See you Later! (It's a loop..get it?)
Hopefully you feel ready to add loops to your next After Effects project. Loops really are a fantastic tool that can save you a lot of time. If you want to learn more about After Effects or Motion Design check out our blog where we regularly post exhilarating tutorials.
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