After Effects is loaded with powerful features, impressive presets, and sexy special effects but when you begin to create your composition, you need a management tool to keep everything organized. Welcome to After Effects Layers!
Layers are just what the name implies, separate entries for separate objects and players in your composition. As you view your timeline that is exactly how layers appear, as bands of separate entries with their layer specific information displayed on the left, and timeline specific information on the timeline on the right.
There are seven types of layers: text, solid, light, camera, null object, shape layer, and adjustment layer. Each of these special layers appears under the layer column with their name and an identifying icon. For example, the text layer appears with a roman letter ‘T’ icon on left, while a light layer appears with a little light bulb icon, a camera layer with a camera icon, shape layer with a little star shape icon.
These layer types all have special properties that belong to their object type but they also have some basic properties in common. For example, they all have a transform category with position attributes. You can place any layer anywhere you like on the stage which means you can animate the position property. Picture a camera dolly rig zooming in on your ‘starlet’ or a stage light following your actor’s motion. The null and adjustment layers are a bit more esoteric with a bit more subtle purpose but for now, let’s stick with the obvious guys.
One of my favorite examples of animation is the special text treatment at the beginning of any movie, television show, or news flash. Typically you will see an associated logo such as ‘Warner Brothers’ or ‘NPR News’ and this will be a combination of text, graphics, and animation. In After Effects this would probably be a single text layer with the many available fonts and special treatments available for text. There would be a backdrop with texture and color and this would be a solid layer. There would also be some accompanying activity, clouds or stellar objects, fireworks or animated shading and color. This simple animation would be presented and adorned using light layers and perhaps camera layers to present different perspectives as it unfolds.
One of After Effects most attractive features is that it offers both complexity and simplicity, getting comfortable with it’s control features will help you make this journey and enjoy the ride ! The layers have several controls and display options, some of which are specific to the type layer it is but there are three display ‘switches’ in the lower left hand corner that are important to know.
As you develop your animation, at different times different views will be helpful. I like to see the complete timeline. There is something about the complete scope that appeals to me but as you begin to use more features and controls such as the layer switches, it will be helpful and flexible to use these display options. The switch on the far left turns off and on the ‘layer switches’.
These include the selections for ‘shyness’, collapsing transformation, quality, function, frame blending, motion blur, adjustment layer, and 3d. We’ll delve more into what these features provide but the ‘switches’ essentially turn them off and on. You could simply compare an animation that you have added a blur effect to, by turning it off and on. You could disable a function you have added to compare it’s effect, ‘off’ and ‘on’. The switch on the lower hand far left, turns this entire set of switches off and on, presenting them with each layer, next to the layer name.
The next layer switch in lower left hand corner turns off and on the transfer controls pane. These columns display the blending mode, if chosen, and the track matte. Blending modes are just that, settings that help you blend different layers together. A track matte is an overlay that blocks out part of the underlying image. Picture a Christmas Card that reveals part of the image with an overlay on the outside, sometimes using verse or a greeting. There are countless uses of matte in our world of animation and presentation including a matte that is itself, part of the meaning such as a cutout of a planet, a character, a flag. Turning this switch off and on presents your mode and track matte columns.
The third default layer switch is the timing switch which displays when each layer enters and leaves the animation, it’s duration and it’s ‘stretch’ factor. The ‘in’ and ‘out’ are pretty intuitive as they identify when a layer enters and leaves your movie. Your movie begins with a title and a blue sky, then your main character appears on the set. As the story plays, different layers may appear and disappear as they contribute to the action.
These four columns that let you view and set the time settings ‘eat up’ quite a bit of your timeline viewing width. I never have them on by default. However, when you are tuning the interactions of different layers, when things appear and disappear and you are synchronizing their duration, these switches are indispensable! You can also key in precise numbers in the ‘In’, ‘Out’ and ‘Duration’ values. This is very important too as you seek to synchronize activity precisely and move on to expressions and meaningful precision in the presentation of your movie. I rarely adjust the ‘stretch’ time setting but if you expanded the time of say, some clouds floating by to match another activity, if you reduced the time of a car driving by, it is when you adjust the default ‘duration’ settings of a layer that you see this ‘stretch’ value change. It is 100% by default.
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