15 After Effects Tricks Most Pros Don't Know
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- Опубликовано: 10 фев 2025
- These 15 Advanced After Effects tips & tricks will level up your workflow for motion graphics, VFX, and navigating the software to help you create your motion graphics.
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Thanks to the wonderful Andrew Marston for helping write and edit this one. :)
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It's rare that I see a "tips you didn't know" video that is actually almost entirely tips I didn't know, but there you go.
Amazing! That was our goal with this one. I had to enlist the help of the amazing Andrew Marston to help me include tips I didn't even know.
@@BenMarriott Glad to contribute ideas!
so true! the mask mode one fucked me up!!!
Yeah
One that really saved me lots of time when I learned about it was "x" to reveal the selected layer on the layers panel. It's probably a well known shortcut, but I have no idea, so I thought I'd share it just in case.
Also on the project panel moving one file on top of another while pressing "alt" replaces all instances of one file for the other on every comp and stuff. Also probably well known but super handy
My tip I learned from Visionary Fire youtube channel:
If you have ever needed to draw a 2D mask on a layer that has a 3D effect like CC Cylinder (or Trapcode Particular), or a distortion effect like Polar Coordinates, the mask will get distorted along with the effects.
However, if you add a "Fill" effect to the end of your effects stack, set it's opacity to 0%, and then scroll down in the "Fill" effect's panel in the timeline you can click the "+" icon next to "Compositing Options" which will add a mask to the "Fill" effect ONLY. This effectively circumvents the distortion issue. I like to rename the Fill effect to something like "MASK" to make it extra clear what it's purpose is for.
Why dont you just re-comp the layer :D
Holy fudge I will be watching this on loop today.
Wow Ben, these tips are gold, GOLD I tell you!
👀👀👀
RIP channel 😔
Press NUMPAD + / - to rotate a selected layer/shape by 1%. Hold SHIFT to increase the amount by 10 %
Press NUMPAD + / - and CTRL to scale a layer/shape by 1%. Hold SHIFT to increase the amouny by 10%
Oh I gotta use these shortcuts more. thanks for sharing!
@@BenMarriott Also, Press Ctrl + Alt + NUMPAD + / - (Command + Option + Num +/-) to change opacity of a selected layer/shape by 1. Hold SHIFT to increment by 10.
Great
Okay, I gotta forget about my gaming numpadless keyboard, enough rebinding.
Or just buy a custom numpad :o
This is wonderful stuff, Ben. You're one of the most consistently informative people on YT. I love both your deep dives into specific effects, and the short tooltip/shortcut stuff no one knows about because why would they unless they grew up with the software as it was being added. Thank you for being generous with your craft and sharing so openly.
that's so nice of you to say, thanks so much for the awesome comment dude, the pleasure is all mine! :)
Nice and really useful tricks!👌
Worked in AE daily for nearly 10 years so smugly thought I'd know all of these. Not smug any more 😀 Not only were they new to me but they're also really useful! Many thanks 👍
I just learned this: if you want to disable all expressions on a layer, you can right click on it and under "switches" you can find the two buttons for Enable/Disable Expressions. and naturally if you would use it often you can make a ketboard shortcut for it.
saved me a bit of time out of my everyday work!
Wow. Some absolute gems in there. Most “tips you don’t know” videos are either tips I do know, or things I can’t imagine wanting to do. This, on the other hand, is super useful. Thanks Ben!
CMD/CTRL + OPTION/ALT + Home > recenters the anchorpoint
CMD/CTRL + Home > recenters the layer in the comp based on the anchorpoint
If you hit the first one and let go of OPTION/ALT, then press home again you can very quickly recenter a shape/layer to the center of your comp
+1
I keep using this shortcut all the time... even in photoshop, before realising that there is no such thing. every. single. time. lol
One that I use frequently is to select a layer in the comp, then CTRL+double click the anchor point tool (whatever it's called, I can't remember off the top of my head) to center the anchor point on the layer. I use this when drawing a mask. Then I can realign the anchor point to the center of the mask (and then I move the anchor point where I need to from there). Would CTRL+ALT+Home do the same thing? Because that would make my life a wee bit easier!
@@camerastooge If I'm understanding correctly what you are saying, then yes!
Amazing tips!! The most helpful tips I recent found out is right click on project files/files in comp and reveal it in composition/explorer. It's super helpful for a billion layers!
And you told us all of this information for free? You’re a gem!
You're the gem for watching!
I'm so glad to know your channel! Thanks a lot! I'm watching every video from now to the past
Your updated and refreshed sense of humor is the best thing on the internet right now :D Love your new style
Parenting a 3d camera to a null gives you easier xy pan controls.
If you want to create a parallax scene and keep everything at the same scale really fast then
1. Create a 3d null and a camera
2. Parent the null to the camera and then zero its position
3. Unparent the camera from the null
4. Parent all your parallel layers to the null
5. Unparent the front most layer you want to stay in place from the null
6. Scale the null and watch as all the child layers move back in space while maintaining their scale.
7. Repeat by unparenting the next closest layer to the front
I use Pt_multi plane for this purpose and it’s an amazing one click solution. Highly recommended.
Ben knows the shortcut to our hearts
Dawwww, This.Comp.Layer"My heart" scale = 200%
If Adobe has any say in it it will be CTRL-ALT-SHIFT-CAPSLOCK-BACKSPACE-H
0:33 OOOOHHHHHMAZING!!!!!® 😱🤩😂
But REALLY LOTS in this vid, thanks Ben!
Tip #2 similarly applies to selecting items in a right-click menu! It's most useful when the item you're selecting starts with a letter that none of the other items start with. I saw Zack Lovatt use this trick recently as a quick way to separate dimensions on the position value. Right click > S > enter.
I also learned this separate dimensions shortcut from Zack in a Ukramedia video. Small world.
I use ctrl + alt + shift + H to scale a layer to fill the comp proportionally all the time
Isn’t that to only scale to height. If you change the H for a G then it scales proportionally to the width.
I gasped at the Alt+* to add marker with opened dialog box, you have noooo idea how much I use this feature and double clicking it every time was really starting to annoy me 😄
Also pressing letters to switch between mask modes is a true gem because I use them a lot too! Thank you!
The world needs more Ben Marriotts 🐐
Ben Marriott. You. Are. Awesome.
Appreciate the quality content you put out👍
Someone has been reading the Ae manual.😉 Great video btw, new shortcuts added to my list, thanks!
😍🤩😮 After 18 years, most of them are brand new to me.
Thanks a lot 💙💙💙
that Shift + pickwhip tip is about to save me TONS of time
Got my inspiration about editing and 2d 3d animation from your vdos and this year I am getting in college to study that. THANKS MAN.
Amazing! Good luck at college my friend!
I love that you can toggle between blending modes using Shift + "+" and Shift + "-"
OMG!! How did I not know this? Thanks Leo!
Thanks a lot
I know this exist but I have forgot how to make that, thanks!!! haha
Your videos are really kicking it up a notch! I cant see the effort Ben, very nice bud!
Keep up the fantastic work!
tip 10: you have a faster way to colapse all properties. just hit the "L". and with "u" you open all properties with keyframes
The add marker and open marker window in one go is a beaut
Your new style of videos is really spectacular! Keep it up!
OMG that last tip just blew my mind!!!
no more SHIT+CTRL+arrow for counting spaces between keys, BLESS YOU SIRE
Yep! I always used to drag them to the nearest second to make the counting easier XD
@@BenMarriott That's some hardcore hacking lol
More and more tips and still not enough of what AE can do. Ben you are the master. Your videos always help me learn something new.
ten year of working with after effects and I knew none of these. you sir, are something else! cheers
For this 15 Tricks i just knew 5! So i'm 300% Grateful! Thanks Ben!
I watch almost all of your videos, even if I don't do motion graphic nor use Ae, the editing is good and your thumbnails are beautiful :)
Some of these are game changers! Thank you!
#15 was by far the best of them to me!
This was very well done. Thank you.
Awesome 😎😎😎😎😎 as always ben.
You are Chard!
Great tips, thank you. And thank you for allowing these techniques to know what it's like to feel joy.
My jaw dropped three times in the first minute alone. How did I not know these?
I worship the ground you walk on, once again you have made my day-to-day life so much easier! Thank you Ben!
Once again, thank you for sharing your vast knowledge of this cryptic program!
Awesome, great tips!!!... Thanks for sharing!!!
Ooo that last one got me
very talented teacher - cheers
I really love how you don't have ads in your videos. X-D Also: Nice use of speed lines.
The duration between keyframes tip it's so simple and so useful. Black magic.
i will def be training my brain with these. super useful. TY!!!
What an absolute legend! Been working on after effects every day for the past 3 years and didn't know any of this ahahah
Thank you Ben ❤❤❤
My favorite shortcut has to be hitting ~ while mousing over a panel I want to maximize. Especially useful for long expressions in the timeline window 👨💻
This has saved me hours and hours of frustration when dealing with expressions. I also use it occasionally for previewing in a larger window. I would say this is the most useful thing I've learned so far.
I liked so much this video, then I came and saw all this coments with tricks & tips, WOW, this was absolutelly GREAT!
wow. thank you for the amazing video
You're a real ' Old hands of ae!!!'
Great!!!
To hide all properties for all layers I just unselect all layers, done by a quick leftclick on my mouse on anywhere in the layerview or viewport. The doublepress S. This opens and closes all layers scaleproperties.
I've also mapped the PageUp and PageDown to the "thumbbuttons" on my mouse. This way I can navigate time with ease 😁 no need to take my right hand of the mouse or my left hand out of position. Maybe my best timesaving trick ✌️
This ''shortcut'' to create folders can be summarized by clicking on the folder icon on the bottom of the pannel. Always worked for me and feels faster once I have to click there anyways.
May gods of animation bless your workstation! Thank! You've just provide me few more years of life and less gray hair!
2:32 - Tip 10 for those who have different keyboard, the function "Show/Hide All of the Selected Layers' Properties" must be reassigned to another shortcut.
These tips are amazing! The mask one especially. I think that's just saved me half a year of my life
WOW MAN, thanks for the lovely information which was needed
Just started your motion practice course two days ago!
keep up the great job. I appreciate you sharing your knowledge and expertise with us.
Hey Ben, i got a tip :D
You can open different transform properties at the same time by using shift+shortcut, lets say, P to open position, then use shift+R and now you have position and rotation.
Don't know if i explain myself right, not a native english speaker
Very useful!! thanks ben
HOLY SHIT the move shapes with the spacebar is a literal game changer, thankyou. So little but so good
Love the tricks series so much 😍
Clicking and dragging on a color swatch in the Timeline panel will change the color without using the eyedropper or opening the color picker dialog. Holding Cmd/CTRL or Shift will increase or decrease the drag speed. (Victoria and I just rediscovered this yesterday.)
For those that don't know, Tim is on the After Effects team. There are few people who know more about the program than him.
@@AndrewMarston There are a few, and I work with most of them. 😉
Insane! Thank you, Ben!!!
Never knew you could add comments to an AE layer. Niceee!
Neat thing about holding space when working with shapes, you can do it with path points too, even when you're draging the bezier points!
Ctrl/Cmd - Double click on pan behind tool: set anchor point in the middle of the layer
Ctrl/Cmd - Shift - Toggle mask and shape path visibility. (for windows users hard one to use with one hand but there is a way :P: pinky on Ctrl - ring finger on shift - thumb on H)
CMD D for expressions?! Crazy! So useful!
My favorite Ben tip is still "name layers" :)
BECAUSEWEALWAYSLABELOURLAYERS is something that runs through my head when working a lot. Though not always as often as I'd like it to.
- When you're writing down an expressions, If you hold down ALT while pickwhipwing the property you want, it'll reference it's Index instead of the name as string, saving you 0.01ms of processing (not really tested it) , as strings are heavier than integer values to process, that's a fact :)
- With the mouse on the Effect Controls, hold down ALT and press the property to automatically add a Keyframe on the timeline, it's very useful if you want to add an additional key without having to dig into the timeline
Holy Damn! These are some nice tricks you got here!
Why thank you :)
Amazing
Could you do a general shortcut video?
And I thought I have been using after effects efficiently...
PS. To collapse all layer properties I just hit F5 + U. F5 to deselect all layers, and U to collapse them, other than that, supreme tips Ben!
Is it okay if i add a lil extra to ur tip?? The U hotkey will only display properties with keyframes attached to them
@@MegaSparksss Oh I didn't know about that, thanks for the addition
Love it. LOVE IT!!!!! I almost said wow on every one of these. Thank you!!
Mindblowed emoji just wouldn’t describe it. Thanks so Ben.
Some tips i actually didn't know! Thanks!
This 4 minutes are so packed!so, 15th was under my nose all this time? What a shame.
Fantastic tips, Ben. Thank you!
I also like if you want to reverse the layer order of several layers in the timeline, select them from the bottom up. CMD/CTRL + X and paste them again with CMD/CTRL V.
There were some nice ones :) I did one of these videos some weeks ago. Just love them. Always new things to learn in AE :)
I'm actually pleased with myself, being fairly n00b, for knowing one of these shortcuts! (Shft+Ctrl+Alt+N for creating a new folder in the project panel.) Another one that I use all the time (probably not a secret one tho) is Alt+\ to create a new comp from an element. The great thing is that it keeps the properties of the clip, including the starting timecode!
Whaaaaat!? I never knew about Alt+\ until now . Thanks for sharing!
@@AndrewMarston You're welcome!
2:53 You can also use the letter U to close. Selected layers then press 'U'.
0:14 - 1 - Invert layer selection.
0:23 - 2 -Mask Layer switch.
0:51 - 3 - Moving shapes with space bar.
0:56 - 4 - Hold Control + Scroll to enlarge text.
1:07 - 5 - AE Time stone (Tool reset)
1:20 - 6 - No commitment mode (Soft tool switcher)
1:28 - 7 - Children selection.
2:00 - 8 - Child inherits Parent property
2:20 - 9 - Effect Detox (Remove all effects)
2:32 - 10 - Show and hide all properties. First Select all by pressing Control + A, then Control + `
2:57 - 11 - Advanced marker (Pro Marker Labelling)
3:12 - 12 - Expression duplication (Duplicates selected expressions text)
3:25 - 13 - Mr Robot Tab (tabs expression text)
3:35 - 14 - Project: Crab_Claw (New folder shortcut)
3:45 - 15 - DBZ duration scanner (Duration between 2 key frames)
Select a keyframe, Alt and press arrow ← or → on the keyboard to displace it 1 step on the left or right
Shift + Alt + ← or → to displace by 10 steps
This is a life saver!
My favourite most used shortcut, although custom, is "1" to "Toggle Switches/Modes" in the layer panel.
Or the tilde key to fit comp to screen.
are you using windows? because I also use tilde for fit (option/alt + ` specifically) on windows but it doesnt work on m2max.
actually fit and fit100 doesnt work on mac if you rebind them.
@@bendixtrinity I'm on windows, yeah.
super helpfull stuff in this!!
*on the first one:
select all and ctrl click the layers, to deselect them, faster, fewer clicks!
;)
omg #15 its such a timesaver!!
You know how when you need to replace a layer in the timeline with something in your project panel, you need to hold ALT and drag it to the layer?
Forget that! Use CTRL + ALT + / and say goodbye to the dragging days
so useful, thanks a lot. i hated the dragging..
wait what does it do exactly?
Necrossauro you are a legend!!! I do replace comps a lot, this is so good.
click the audio layer + click L 2 times in the keyboard
to show the audio waveform
I've been working using AE for over 5 years, and this just blew my f*ckn' mind
Re tip 5, you can also double-click the 🖐Hand Tool with the Composition window active to reset it's size and position to fit in the window if you've zoomed-in and/or moved it off-centre
🧠🧠🧠
I recently found a shortcut for that in the keyboard shortcut menu.. but I changed mine to control + 0.. yunno, like photoshop, cuz I somehow couldn’t stop clicking that anytime I wanted the ae window to fit 😂😅... muscle memory
Fantastic! Thank you!
Awesome Ben... Thankyou for these great tips
Lastone is just amazing!