#yariaftereffects

[vhatdehel]

After Effects Progress 8/2/18

For my own reference.

-In a layer, Alt + [ trims the left part (beginning) of the layer to be where you’ve placed the timeline cursor. Alt + ] trims the right part (end) of the layer to be where you’ve placed the timeline cursor.

-Right-click keyframes -> Keyframe Assistant -> Easy Ease. Speeds up beginning of keyframe animation and slows down end of keyframe animation. Great for making the animation flow better and look less boring.

   -You can click the graph-like symbol near the left part of the timeline to bring up the Graph Editor. This lets you toy with the keyframes. You can move them to change their timing, or you can alter their trajectory (like with pathing) to alter the speed at which they go through their animation. They will still complete the animation within the timeframe, but you can adjust the line graph to, for example, start the first few frames of animation quicker.

-Highlight keyframes and do Alt + right arrow to move them to the right about 3 frames.

-Ctrl + right arrow to move timeline cursor forward by 1 frame.

-Ctrl + left click on keyframes removes the effects you had on them, like Easy Ease.

-If you scrub through timeline while holding Ctrl, you can hear the audio while you scrub.

-Press L twice on audio layers to see the waveforms.

-Press U to collapse a layer and all of its specifications (Position, Scale, etc.)

-Ctrl + Shift + Right moves the timeline cursor forward 10 frames.

-The whip setting on a layer lets you attach one layer to another. This lets the whipping layer follow the whipped layers keyframes. Ex: one layer is growing text, the other is an underline. Whip underline to growing text layer, now the underline scales up when the growing text layer scales up.

-Every time you transform some object, whether it’s a shape, text, etc...be wary of the anchor point. To adjust its position - for example, putting it in the center of the object - look for the pan behind tool on the tool bar.

-flatuicolors.com is a great place to instantly have a color copy+pasted to your clipboard. It even makes a cute sound effect when you select a color. :)

-Ctrl + D allows you to duplicate layers.

-Right click a layer and select “Create Shapes from Text.” When this layer is selected, you can go to the top tool bar and find “Fill” and “Stroke.” Holding Alt while clicking Fill or Stroke lets you alter from normal to gradient to no fill. To do the cool effect as in the video I saw, make “Fill” no fill, and Stroke any color I want.

   -You can select those letter outlines by holding Shift and clicking. Go to layer, hit Add -> Trim Paths. Has all the individual shapes/letters, but also has “Trim Paths 1″ with a “Start” and “End” option. You can use keyframes here to basically have outlines traced/animated over where the shapes are supposed to be.

-Motion V2 is a paid but very useful plugin that speeds up some of the processes described here by giving you easy ways to do them. Ex: adjusting the anchor point of objects is a simple click instead of click + drag just right.