Estrella Studios, LLC » After Effects

After Effects Quick Tip: Sequence Layers

Dan — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 22:58:26 +0000

Whether you are doing a slideshow or trying to reorganize your clips on the timeline, the “Sequence Layers” option can help you speed things up.

With this example we have four layers with overlapping clips.

In the menu go to: Animation>Keyframe Assist>Sequence Layers:

With this dialogue you can choose to overlap the clips and how long to overlap if needed. You can also set a transition which is great for quick slide shows.

Hit OK and AE will have properly distributed your clips according to your settings.

After Effects Quick Tip: Layer effects

Dan — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 22:30:43 +0000

After effects has layer effects that are very similar to photoshop. There are multiple ways to access them. First you will need multiple layers, of course.

Then in the bottom left corner of the timeline panel click on the “Expand/Collapse Transfer control panel” icon.

This will display the Mode column.

Now you can easily change the blending mode of you After Effects layers just like Photoshop.

After Effects Quick Tip: Fill display with shape

Dan — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 23:05:02 +0000

If you want to create a shape the exact size of your preview just double click the Elipse, rectangle or rounded rectangle tool.

This is a great technique for starting a vignette, or creating a quick background.

After Effects Quick Tip: Change background clolor

Dan — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 22:59:29 +0000

If you want to change your default black background color, a common way is to make a solid layer with preferred color then move it to the back.

Another, less common, way of doing this is to just change the background color. Hit Ctrl+Shift+B and you will get this window:

Change to the desired color. Keep in mind, if you are exporting this movie with an alpha channel your chosen color will show up as transparent.

After Effects Quick Tip: Preview exposure

Dan — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 22:59:18 +0000

You may find yourself working on a dark or light project with very little contrast. A simple display adjustment can help you navigate through you without having to hunt for those low contrast elements.
You will find the “Adjust Exposure” icon to the bottom right of your display window.

Changing this only affects your display and will not change rendered output.

After Effects Quick Tip: Toggle Transparency

Dan — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 22:21:44 +0000

If you are planning to export an after effects clip with an alpha channel and need to see what is transparent you should set your view to display the transparent area.

Just click the toggle transparency icon located under the display window.

(Located here)

The transparent are is now shown with a gray grid similar to photoshop.

After Effects Quick Tip: Renaming Layers

Dan — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 21:59:16 +0000

In most other programs when you want to change the name of a layer, you just double click the name and start typing. This is not the case in After Effects. To change the name you need to first highlight the layer by clicking on the name.

Then hit Enter (Windows) or Return (Mac OS).

Now that the text is activated, change the name then hit Enter/Return again or click anywhere on the screen to finalize.

Note: Make sure you do not hit the Enter or Return on the keypad as that will not work.

After Effects Quick Tip: Shy layers

Dan — Fri, 30 May 2008 05:26:09 +0000

Lights, cameras, backgrounds and other layers can sometimes get in the way and slow you down. Using AE’s “shy” feature you can hide these layers to get them out of the way.

First click the shy button directly to the left of the layers name you want to hide.

Then activate all the shy layers by clicking the shy button at the top of the timeline.

Enjoy the extra space!

After Effects QuickTip: Fast, Easy Vignettes

Dan — Fri, 30 May 2008 04:35:51 +0000

Need a vignette and need it fast? Well, first make a new adjustment layer (solid layers work too if you dont need blur or tone effects) in your composition and name it “vignette”. Creating a new layer will place it on top of the layer stack. If you add your footage after the vignette layer just make sure the vignette is above the footage.

On your toolbar select the “Elipse Tool”. Make sure the vignette layer is selected then double-click the Elipse Tool icon.

Select the vignette layer an press the “m” key to open the mask attributes. Make a check in “Inverted”. Increase “Mask Feather” and “Mask Expansion”. I recommend the settings below for a 720×480 composition:

Now add some effects to the vignette. I chose “fast blur” and here are my settings:

Play around with different effects and settings to get interesting results.

After Effects QuickTip: Speed up previews

Dan — Tue, 27 May 2008 12:27:56 +0000

If you have a complex project with tons of layers and multiple or advanced effects, you will notice extreme slowdown when scrubbing through your timeline. An easy way to help speed things up is to lower the resolution on the display window.

All you need to do is click the dropdown menu and select “half”, “third”, or “quarter” located under the preview.

It may not be as pretty but this lowers the resolution giving After Effects less information to process.

Also, if you export your movie with the “export” setting After Effects will render your project at the resolution of your preview.

Another note. You can disable the preview altogether on-the-fly by pressing “Caps Lock”.