Introducing layer properties
Duplicating layers is an essential tool that you need to master very quickly. This is helpful because you can reuse layers in your project:
Select your layer.
You can either hit Ctrl + D/command + D on Windows or macOS, respectively, or just choose Edit | Duplicate from the menu:
Duplicating an image
When you follow this process, your layer is duplicated. This duplicated layer is an exact copy of the layer. Look closely at your layer and find the triangle to the far right. Click on this triangle. This is called twirling down:
Twirling down properties
Twirling down your layer will reveal the Transform properties. Twirl down the triangle icon to the left of the word Transform. You will see the Transform properties: Scale, Rotation, Opacity, and Position. All of these have shortcuts.
Here are the shortcuts for your layer transform properties:
The shortcut for the scale is S
The shortcut for rotation is R
For opacity, the shortcut is T
For position, the shortcut is.. yep, you guessed it, P
These shortcuts are easy to remember. The only shortcut that's not self-explanatory is T for opacity. An easy way to remember that is to think of T for transparency, or that T is the last syllable of opacity (opaci-T):
Transform properties
To select anything in After Effects, you need to have the selection tool selected. Navigate to that tool in the upper left-hand corner of your screen in the tool bar. Choose the top layer of the timeline:
Selecting the top layer
With this layer selected, we are going to select our scale property. To use the shortcut, simply hit the letter S. You will see that this reveals the scale property only. Let's adjust the scale parameter. To the far right of the word scale, you will see two numbers. Scrub either one of those parameters to the left. This will shrink this layer down in size:
Scaling down the image
As you can see, this layer scales down in the center of the screen.
Layer panel
Now I will talk to you about our layers and our timeline. It's very important to know your way around this part of the interface. This layer panel is how you control the way your images move. This is where you can see, at a glance, what's going on in your movie. This panel is similar to Photoshop's layer panel. Each one of these icons to the right of the layer has an important function. If you hover your selection arrow over any of these icons, a description will appear on the screen:
Layer panel
Let's take a closer look some of the buttons and switches of the layer panel:
The animation stopwatch
The shy button
The continuously rasterized button
The visual effects button
Motion blur
The 3D button
The hide switch
The audio switch
The solo button
The lock switch
The parenting pick whip
The shy switch
Motion blur
Graph editor
Current time editor
The zoom-in timeline
Workspace
Looking at all these buttons and switches can be overwhelming. Let's look at handful of switches that you will find helpful for organizing your layers:
#7 The eyeball switch: This is to the far right of your layer. Turning off the eyeball next to the layer determines whether that layer is seen.
#9 The solo switch: The circle icon to the far right of your layer is called the solo switch. The solo switch will isolate a layer that has that solo turned on.
#10 The lock switch: This is for locking your layers.
#12 The shy switch: If this is turned on in both of these locations, you will not see that layer.
#13 The motion blur switch: This also needs to be activated in both of these locations (#5 and #13); this will enable motion blur.
The footage panel
The footage panel is used for previewing your footage. There are also some tools that work only in the footage panel.
To access the footage panel, double-click on the layer. However, this panel is often accessed by accident. It's accessed when double-clicking on a layer. You can tell you're in this panel when you see the white bar at the bottom. There are specific things you can do in this layer, but we usually don't need to be in this panel. Here is a screenshot of the footage panel:
Footage panel
You will find this is a mistake that happens frequently. To get out of this panel, go to the top of that panel and choose the name of your main comp. Or you can reset the workspace area back to the saved layout:
Resetting layout
Resetting this will not change anything in your project. It simply restores your workspace area to the default standard layout.
The timeline panel
Let's talk about time. The timeline panel is one of the main things that differentiates After Effects from Photoshop. Unlike Photoshop, After Effects has the ability to make things happen across time. Another big difference between After Effects and Photoshop is 3D space. You can create compositions with 3D depth. After Effect movies are comprised of frames, just like real films.
The timeline lifespan
Think of the timeline like a lifespan. The beginning is the timeline's birth and at the end of your work area, that's considered the death or the end of the lifespan.
Zooming into the timeline
You can zoom into any point of the timeline with the button at the lower-center of the timeline. Or you can zoom into your timeline by moving the slider. If you look closely, you can you can see (F), which stands for frames:
Zooming into the slider
The timeline is measured with time codes. The F next to the numbers on the timeline stands for frames.
Navigating in the timeline
The timeline is always moving from left to right:
Use the Page Up key as a shortcut to navigate forward in the timeline, frame by frame, and Page Down to navigate backward in the timeline, frame by frame.
A shortcut for moving down one frame in the timeline is Page Down or Ctrl + the right arrow (on a PC) or Page Down or command + the right arrow (on macOS). You can also use the arrows in the preview panel:
Preview panel
The f on the timeline stands for frames; the numbers represent the number of frames:
Frames
Go to the beginning of the timeline. The shortcut is for this is pressing the home button on the numeric keypad.
Current time indicator
This guitar pick-shaped object highlighted in the following screenshot is called the current time indicator icon. Moving this time indicator is another way to navigate through the timeline:
Current time indicator
The workspace area
The timeline is the entire length of your composition. Your workspace area is the length of your movie. This is also called the rendering area. When I hit the play button for previewing my movie, it happens within that space. This can be trimmed and edited. To trim your workspace area, perform the following steps:
Move your time indicator to the desired spot on the timeline
Press the letter N to activate the shortcut to trim the work area
There is usually more than one way to do something in After Effects. To manually trim your workspace, perform the following steps:
Move your mouse to the beginning the timeline and hover over the blue bar. This is the start of your workspace area.
Drag this bar to the right, to trim your work area.
You can drag either the start or the end or the workspace area. Trimming this shortens the duration of the comp. This is useful for previewing your movie or previewing a small section of your movie. Remember when you export or render your movie, this workspace needs to be trimmed, to reflect exactly what you want exported. The duration of the workspace is the only thing that will be exported or rendered:
Trimming the workspace area
Trimming layers
You can edit the duration of your layers by trimming them. Trimming your layers will give you control when your layers appear in your movie:
Trimming layers
To trim your layer, perform the following steps:
Move your time indicator to the desired spot on the timeline
Press Alt + [ or Option + [ on macOS to activate the shortcut to trim your layer
To manually trim your layer, perform the following steps:
Move your time indicator to the desired spot on the timeline.
Bring your selection tool to the very beginning of the layer and hover over the start of the layer. You will see the trim layer icon represented by two arrows. (You must see this or your dragging you're layers, which is different to trimming them.) Use this to drag and trim your layer.
You can trim any type of layer using the preceding methods. This layer will be trimmed exactly where the time indicator is. Move your time indicator back and forth in the timeline across this trimmed layer. See how the layer appears where the image is trimmed to? This is how layers can appear across time.
Creating composition markers on your timeline
You can further organize your timeline by adding information to the timeline. You can also create markers, notes, and metadata on your timeline. These markers can also be used to align layers to a point in the timeline. The following are the steps for creating a composition marker:
Hit Shift and a number.
Double-click that number to enter a note:
Composition markers
These markers and notes can be particularly helpful when organizing your project and writing notes from clients and team members.
Animating a property
Animating a property is essentially marking a parameter in time and adjusting that property further down the timeline. We create animation by creating at least two key frames. The steps to animate a property are simple. But you need to be sure you follow these steps each time. When you want to animate any property, you need to perform the following steps:
First hit the stopwatch, which will automatically create a key frame for you.
Move down the timeline, and change the Transform property to whatever you want it to be. That will automatically create a blue diamond key frame for you. But you have to be sure and press the stopwatch first.
After you have created key frames, you're free to move and adjust those key frames. Later, I will get into a lot more detail regarding adjusting key frames.
Animating scale
You can animate your scale parameter to make your layer change in scale over time. Follow these steps to begin your animation journey:
Press the keyboard shortcut S for the scale parameter to come up.
Indicate in the timeline where you want the animation to begin.
Hit the stopwatch for scale.
Page down to the right, getting closer to the end of this animation.
Scrub the scale parameter. This will automatically create a blue diamond key frame.
Let's preview that. If I want to give my layer a little bit of blur, I'll hit the blur icon. Look in the timeline:
Motion blur
This is an effect that has to be turned on in two places. It has to be turned on in the timeline, just above the timeline. If you hit the preview button, you will see how it gives it a nice blur. That's how things move in real life. There is always some sort of blur when things move fast.