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 overlooked command that will quickly speed up your workflow. I often see editors exporting timelines from their editing application, and bringing them into After Effects to do some color correction work, or to add supers. They start by exporting their entire timeline, and once in After Effects, they will start duplicating their layer multiple times and start dragging the in and out point to recreate their timeline just as it was in their editing application. Take a look below at what I mean.

There is a much faster way to do this, that doesn't involve all the work you saw in the above movie. First, create a timeline by dragging your clip onto the "COMP" button at the bottom of your project window. By doing this, After Effects creates a composition with the exact same parameters as the clip you dragged on it. Next, move your timeline bar to where your first shot ends. Once there, press CMD+SHFT+D (CTL+SHFT+D on Windows). That is the command for Split Track. What After Effects will now do is crop your clip to that length, create a new layer, and put the remainder of the clip on the next layer. You can now repeat this for the rest of your clip. Take a look at the clip below to see how easy it is.

Now, this may seem like an extremely fast way of doing this, but believe it or not there is an even faster way but it requires Automatic Duck's Pro Import AE from www.automaticduck.com ($495 US) that takes your timelines from Avid/Final Cut Pro/Motion to After Effects, with all your layers and effects (supported by OMF) in tact. Keep an eye out for an upcoming article where I will show you how easy it is to use Automatic Duck to move your timeline from FCP to After Effects.

OPEN IN EDITOR

This is another shortcut that will save you the time and headache of closing and reopening After Effects to get layers to update once they have been altered. Here is the scenario. You have just worked on a project for an entire week, and you get to the end and realized that you spelt a word wrong multiple times in one of your Photoshop files. A lot of motion graphics artists would go to Photoshop, fix the PSD file, reimport it into After Effects, and replace all the incorrect words. Well, there is a much easier way to fix this problem, and that is using the "Open in Editor" command. Here's how it works. In your composition, select the file that has the incorrect spelling, right click, and select "Reveal Layer Source in Project"

After Effects will immediately reveal the clip to you in your Project window. Now, press CMD+E (CTL+E on Windows), the command for "Open in Editor". Now, After Effects knows that that clip came from Photoshop (which makes Photoshop its editor), and will open Photoshop to edit the file. Once in Photoshop, make whatever changes are necessary, and once you click "Save" (CMD+S on the Mac, CTL+S on Windows), After Effects will immediately update the file in your composition, and any other composition that uses that Photoshop file. Take a look below.

This simple technique is not just about saving you time, but it also saves you pulling out your hair when your client realizes that they made a mistake and have to change something. It also works with any other type of graphic, video or audio file.

REPLACE FOOTAGE

If you only learn one trick in After Effects, this is the one to learn. Everyone has had a client change something on them at the last second, and you the editor, are scrambling to replace a clip or a logo so the client can walk out of your edit suite with a DVD or tape in their hand. Well, fear not, as there is a quick and simple way to replace that incorrect shot or graphic file in your composition. With the composition open, simply select the clip you want to replace, then navigate to the clip you want to replace it with in your Project window, now press Option on the Mac and Alt on Windows, and drag the clip from your Project window to your composition. Done. All your effects transfer over to the new clip, and you are ready to click render.

KEYFRAME ASSISTANTS

For motion graphics gurus, Keyframe Assistants are their best friend. Keyframe Assistants (KA) are just that. They assist you with different aspects of your keyframe work. I'm going to look at the five main KA that will help your workflow immensely. First, let's look at the Easy Ease's which consist of Easy Ease In (EEI), Easy Ease Out (EEO) and Easy Ease (EE). Think of the way you drive a car, when you think of these KA. If you want to have your car go from 0 mph to 100 mph, the car doesn't just suddenly go 100 mph. It ramps up to that speed. It works the same with braking. If you are going 100 mph, and want to stop, the car just doesn't lurch to a stop, it ramps down to 0 mph (or you would have some serious whiplash). This is the same as EEO, and EEI. You can use EEO when you want to have something start stationary, and ramp up to a full speed movement. On the flip side, you can use EEI, when you want to go from full speed to stationary. Something to keep in mind is that even though I am using the example of your elements going from a speed of 100% to stationary, you can use the EEO and EEI assistants to slow down your movements without them actually stopping. Take a look at the below examples.

The last KA is Easy Ease, and you can think of it as a combination of both EEI and EEO. Take a look at the example below

The next KA that you will use on a regular basis is Time-Reverse Keyframes, and it does just that. Select two keyframes that you want to swap, and select Time-Reverse Keyframes, and the two keyframes will swap places in your timeline.

Finally, the last KA you will use on a regular basis is Sequence Layers (SL). What this KA does is take layers that you select in your composition, and put them back to back so that they would cut as they would in an editing application like Final Cut Pro or Media Composer, and you even have the option of adding dissolves in as well. Where you would use something like this is if you created a whole bunch of text layers in Photoshop that you want to dissolve through quickly, or if you had photos that you want to create a quick and easy montage with. SL is the assistant to use. Check it out in action below.

Keyframe Assistants bring an extra bit of reality to your projects, and once you discover them, you will use them all the time.

INTERPRET FOOTAGE

This command is an editors best friend, and will help you fix "stroby" video problems that arise after you render your projects. Something to remember about your editing applications, and that is that unless you are working in either 720p or 24p (23.976psF), you have to deal with field dominance. For SD (DV and D1 NTSC), you will be dealing with lower field dominance, and upper field dominance for HD (1080i - 1920x1080 HD Cam). What is important to remember about this is that you need to make sure you tell After Effects what the field dominance of every clip is, or you will get a major case of the "jaggies". For all you Final Cut Pro users out there, this won't be an issue, as FCP embeds that information in the Quicktime file when you export it, and once imported, After Effects will show you the field dominance when you click on the clip.

Avid Media Composer and XpressPro users will need to tell After Effects what type of field dominance the clip has, and it is quite simple to do. Navigate your way to FILE>INTERPRET FOOTAGE>MAIN (CMD+F on the Mac or CTL+L on Windows is the shortcut), and the Interpret Footage window will open, and you can tell After Effects your field dominance.

From this window, you can also adjust the frame rate of your clip, you can add 3:2 pulldown, change the pixel aspect ratio of your clip, and you can even loop a clip as well. Where you would use this is if you had created a looping five second animation that you want to have loop for a minute long in your comp. Simply select the clip in your project window, press CMD+F, then enter the amount of times you want the clip to loop. Once you click O.K., you will immediately notice the duration of your clip has changed to the length of your clip multiplied by the amount of times you told it to loop.

Whether you are a beginner, intermediate or advanced After Effects artist, these quick and easy tips will speed up your workflow, and impress your co-workers and clients alike. If there is anything you would like to know about After Effects or motion graphics in general, feel free to drop me a line at kevin@reelclever.com, and maybe your question will be the topic of my next article.