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I thought that for this article I would take a look at a great feature of After Effects that will help you in ways you might not even think of, and that is a Null Object.

Most people might not understand what a Null Object is because the definition of Null is "without value, effect, consequence, or significance", but as we, as graphic artists know sometimes...

After Effects can seem like a daunting application for newcomers, and in some cases for intermediate and advanced users as well. I thought that I would take a look at five techniques that a lot of motion graphic designers overlook when using After Effects. These techniques will not only speed up your workflow, but give your animations a new look they never had before, and even correct a very common problem that a lot of editors/designers run into.

SPLIT TRACKS

This is a great, often...

Much like any other "final" project, we are going to render this out, but instead of rendering out a normal Quicktime or TGA sequence, what we are going to do is render it out as an Adobe Clip Note file. How you do that is simple. First, drag your comp into the render queue, and make sure that your "Render Settings" are set to your liking. Then, click on your "Output Module", and here is where we are going to set up a PDF file, so our client can approve the animation using Adobe's Clip...

I thought that for this article I would look at a hidden gem of After Effects, and it is an effect that you definitely need, and you don't even know it.....yet! The effect I'm talking about is "Offset". Let's take a look at how the Offset effect will save you alot of time and work!

Here is a situation that you probably experience on a semi-regular basis. You are creating a background "look", and want to have some text scrolling across the screen, and you want it to loop until the end of...

In a previous article entitled "Speed Up Your Workflow With These After Effects Quick Tips", I showed a quick technique to take layers from your NLE application and move them into After Effects. Once there, you can use the "Split Tracks" command (CMD+SHFT+D on Mac or CNTL+SHFT+D on Windows) to make your AE composition look like your NLE timeline. I had teased this before, but what if I told you that there was a much easier way to do the same job.

Well, there is! Automatic Duck's Pro Import...

One thing that I find myself using quite a lot these days is particles in After Effects.  In a lot of cases, I am having some kind of particle flying around the screen and/or interacting with an element in one of my comps.  I used to do things in what I call the "painful" way, which was to use the particle effects "position" cross hairs to create a path for the particle to fly around on, and I always ended up with the same result.  A very linear, boring path that seemed fake, as...