What you learned: Animate multiple layers. The problem is that it can be a bit complicated to figure out how and when to use it. Let's copy those keyframes onto the other Pre-comp. Select Layer 4 and if you look in the Composition panel you'll see control handles around that layer. After Effects has pins which are used to manipulate the animation controls by the user. Since I already like how the layer is positioned I'll move my Current Time Indicator to 1 second in the Timeline and then I'll press P to open the position and add a keyframe by clicking on the Stopwatch. Select the layers you wish to have sway. When the null is placed in the scene it's just placed at the center of the project and the null’s anchor point is in the upper left corner of the Null Object. Okay. Press S to open the Scale and just scrub on the Scale Parameter of any of the layers and notice this is problematic because all of these layers are scaling around their own center point and I would like to actually maintain this animation where they're fanning out and not have them accidentally floating through the scene. - Tree front (hides the nest and bluejay slightly to give appearance of depth), - Blue Jay (in front of BG but behind tree front). With multiple layers selected, click the colored square to the left of any one of the selected layers in the timeline to change the label color of all the selected layers. To offset the animation, I'll stop playback and move this second layer to the right and I'll hold Shift as I start to drag and it'll snap to the second Keyframe. Click on that icon and drag it towards the [Null 1] and just have it point directly on [Null 1] and let go. Why isn't After Effects preview real-time. This is the actual bar and then this is the next title: Hiking. Introduction to Puppet Tool in After Effects. If we press the Spacebar you'll see it's a rather linear animation. The Puppet tool is used in Adobe After Effects to give animation to your images. It takes some practice to really … Now when we go back and watch a preview again, it's going to slide in and stop with a much more natural motion. Any tips? I want the bluejay to go inside its tree home (its just a nest half way inside the tree). Just so we can see all of the layers all at once and the Composition panel at the same time I'm going to come up to the upper left corner of the Composition panel and click right on the name Composition which is the tab of that panel, making sure to hold your mouse button down as you drag, drag the panel down to the Bottom panel and then go over to the right until you see the trapezoid. There are so many things you can do with the Advanced Puppet Tool in After Effects. Let's group these together in the Timeline. Press Ctrl + Z on Windows or Command + Z on the Mac to undo the last change, then press S to hide the Scale Parameter. I know this might look a little strange but now I can see all the layers here and I can see their visual representation right here in the Timeline. Nulls are created in correct positions. Activating tools (keyboard shortcuts) Note: You can activate some tools only under certain circumstances. These tools can be used for artistic purposes as well as to repair problem areas in footage. What happens is that the Puppet effect will deform part of your image based on where you place the pins. Okay, so let's go through and select all the titles. To select multiple layers that are not in a continuous stack, select a layer; then hold Control (Windows) or Command (macOS) and select additional layers in the timeline. So, if I wanted to create animation in here I could and whatever happens in this Composition, also flows through to this main Composition. I'll click on the Label Color for 17 and I'll choose Red. Step 1:Create a New Composition. Back to: Create animated backgrounds | Up next: Work with 3D. I cant find one that shows how to deal with moving intersections. Let's change the scale up to a value of 135.0% and press Enter. Create a new Illustrator file using the same settings you plan to use in your After Effects file. One quick way to speed up your daily workflow in After Effects is to become a master in how to quickly group and select multiple layers for animation. If the parent column isn’t visible in the Timeline, open the timeline menu in the tab at the top of the Timeline to the right of the composition name and select. Step 2. And so, the aspect ratio is more vertical than horizontal. So, let's move our Current Time Indicator back to the beginning of the Timeline and change the Scale Parameter to a setting of 0.0. Now we can go down to the Timeline select Layer 1 and press P to open the Position parameter. Click on the Label for Layer 2. To select all layers with the same color label in the composition, click the square to the left of one layer in the timeline to open the drop-down, Select multiple layers in the Timeline using either Shift, Control (Windows) or Command (macOS), or the. We want them to be fanned out a little bit. Since the Menu Lines appear to be on their own I'm going to move them all the way to the top of the layer hierarchy and I'll just leave them their original layer color. This will skip over (and not select) other layers in the stack. Go to the bottom of the Timeline, click and drag up to the left drawing a lasso around all the layers so they're all selected. Make sure your Current Time Indicator is anywhere down the Timeline other than frame 0;00;00;00. Select the layers you wish to have sway. You have two options. If you are on a Mac Shift + Ctrl/CMnd + 3 will take a screenshot and deliver it to the desktop. So, let's press the Spacebar to stop playback. I have the tree split into 2 layers, one BEHIND the bluejay, and 1 INFRONT. This selects both the top and bottom layers, and all layers in between. Using the pre-compose command in After Effects gives you the ability to clean up a composition that contains a bunch of layers while still maintaining the flexibility of having access to all of the original layers in your composition. If you are on windows just select the layers you are experimenting with, press the u key twice to reveal the modified properties and then PrintScreen and paste to this forum. Now this wasnt a problem but my daughter suggests I should make the tree sway to give it more "aliveness" so I cant say no. Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. … Here, we'll see how we can … In this course I will take you through the process of rigging and animating a character using the Puppet Pin Tool in After Effects. Click on any one of the labels and let's change the color to Orange. So, to quickly select our Layer Groups let's go to the Label for Layer 1 and click and choose Select Label Group. Auto-suggest helps you quickly narrow down your search results by suggesting possible matches as you type. Lots of video tutorials showing how to use the tools … This selects both the top and bottom layers, … So, what I'm going to do is go up to the Layer menu and then choose New, Null Object. Can figure out how to work Puppet tool multiple layers. You also cannot animate the position, scale and rotation of a layer that has Puppet Pin … Finally, before I finish working with this project I'm going to go up to my workspaces and right next to the Standard workspace I'll click on its Menu bars and I'll say Reset to Saved Layout. With puppet tools I can get the bluejay to … I'll put all these bars into a group, so I'll select the top bar. Yea I the tree's going to be swaying the entire scene (maybe even some of the nest). To start let's go down to the Timeline and click once to make sure the Timeline panel is active, then press the Spacebar to preview the animation. How to fix "Display Acceleration Disabled", Fix dynamic link between After Effects and AME. So, if I want to open up the (Bottom Pre-comp), I'll just double click directly on the Pre-comp here in the Timeline and it automatically opens that Pre-composition. However, instead of strings, you will use pins. Click on one of the labels and this time let's change it to Dark Green. And while this animation is nice I'd like to make it a little more dynamic by adding some scale and make them actually pop up in the middle of the scene. Let's go down and select Layer 10. Go ahead and click OK when you're finished and notice all those layers collapse into this one Pre-composition Layer. Parenting puppet pins to null objects I created a free addon script for After Effects that allows parenting puppet pins – it creates control Nulls for all Puppet Tool pins of the selected layer. Layer mode. For these last few layers let's use the Select Label Group function, click on the label and choose Select Label Group and it will select all those layers with the same color. You can set one pin to move in front of another so arms can swing in front of a body on one side and behind on the other. Click on Layer 16 and drag up and then let go of your mouse just underneath Layer 4. Have you spend some time with the help files and the community resources available when you type Puppet Pin in the search help field. I'll press the Spacebar to stop playback. Now we can go to the Parent column and this icon here is called a Pick Whip. So, I have Hiking and Mountain Climbing. Now when we preview you can see one comes in and then the next one comes in. Changing the label color of multiple layers offers a visual method of grouping layers. In the latest release of After Effects, you can't even apply puppet pin to a shape layer or a vector layer that is continuously rasterized. I don't think your link is working. You can do the same thing in After Effects by using the Puppet tools. So, that looks like a title and if I click on the next one, okay, that's the Menu bar that pops up. Use the tabs at the top of the Timeline panel to switch back to the main composition. Graph Editor. From the sound of all this it looks like im going to have to use clever image layering to get this done. Go ahead and right-click on either of the Keyframes, go to the Keyframe Assistant and choose Easy Ease. Select the layer … Selecting a region changes the language and/or content on Adobe.com. Rather than grouping these all in a row let's leave them alone and just give them their own custom label color. When working with image assets (especially vector designs), subtle application of the Puppet tool in After Effects … The only other way I can see to do this is to use a distortion mesh of some kind to move the tree and everything else so you don't have problems with puppet pin mesh. Now, let's give this group a custom color and change its label color to Yellow. Copyright © 2020 Adobe. Join Alan Demafiles for an in-depth discussion in this video, Distort layers with the Puppet tool, part of After Effects CC 2019 Essential Training: VFX. - [Instructor] Of the many ways in After Effects … to distort a layer, the Puppet tool offers us direct control … over how we can warp, compress, and stretch a layer. Without seeing your comp with the modified properties of all layers revealed it's pretty hard to visualize exactly what is going on but I suspect that the easiest solution may be to drop a colored solid behind the animation of the bird moving into the tree then precompose all layers and animate the tree swaying using puppet pin, then use Keylight to remove the solid background and insert the background artwork you want in the scene. How and when to use clever image after effects puppet tool multiple layers to get this done and bottom,... Without doing some serious study and experimentation and the help files and the help files are good. 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