Hi, this is Paul and welcome to After Effects Within your After Effects timeline, there
are a variety of different layer types, in this video we will go over each one and how
they can be used. Before we get into the types of layers and
their differences, let's talk about what they have in common: All layers have a duration. You can adjust
the in and out points in the timeline, even if the original source of the layer is longer.
Layers with shorter durations cannot be made longer without using Time Stretch or some
other Effect. All layers will have some Transform properties
available – like Position and Rotation. Most layers will also have Scale, Anchor Point,
and Opacity. Some layers, such as Cameras and Lights, will
have special Transform properties like Point of Interest, Orientation, and 3-axis rotation. Most layers can have Effects applied to them
–with the exceptions being Camera and Light layers. There are many ways to create layers. The
easiest probably and most common is to drag a media asset from your Project pane into
your Composition's timeline. This creates a layer with that media asset. Now, if it's
a static image, the duration of that image will default to the duration of the Composition.
If it's a movie or audio file, it will default to that file's duration – though it may
be truncated during playback if your Composition's duration is shorter than that of the media's. After Effects also has a selection of special
Layer types which enable certain techniques. These layers include:
Text Solid
Light Camera
Null Shapes
And Adjustment Some of these layers – such a text and shape
– can be created using tools in your toolbar. However if you're just starting off, it may
be easier to use the Layer Menu. After creating a Composition, you can go into
the Layer menu, select New, and you will see the variety of different types of layers you
can create. Let's go through them starting from the top: A text layer is exactly what it sounds like
– it's a layer that contains and displays text. Creating a text layer from this menu
option will give you a center-justified, center-aligned text layer with default settings. You can
also create a text layer using the Text tool from the Toolbar – this will also allow
you to start the text layer anywhere. Using the text tool, you can also click and drag
to create a text box, which will cause the characters and words to wrap into paragraphs.
When selected, Text layers can be edited using the Character and Paragraph panels. If you're
familiar with text behavior in almost any other design app, then this layer type will
already be familiar to you. In addition to regular Transform properties, Text layers
also have special Text properties including Source Text, which can be keyframed, in addition
to other options which can be enabled from the Animate submenu. A solid is a bit of a throwback, but it still
can be an important part of your After Effects workflow. Adding a Solid layer will generate
a rectangular swatch of color. In the Solid Settings dialog you can pick the size and
color of that solid. And these can also be changed at any time by revisiting that Solid
Settings window. If the solid is being used in more than one composition, you will have
the option of changing only the instance in your current Comp, or in all Comps when you
revisit these settings. Before After Effects had a proper shape tools, it was very common
to use masks on Solids to create vector shapes. It's still my preferred way to create foregrounds,
backgrounds, fade ins, fade outs and anything else that just requires a large area of color.
Solids are very light-weight when it comes to memory usage and they're also just a great
canvas for applying effects. For example, many advanced plugins like Trapcode Particular
are designed to be applied to Solids. Solids do not have any special properties other than
the basic Transformation ones. Next are Light layers. Lights are typically
used in conjunction with Cameras when creating 3D animation in After Effects. Creating a
light from the Layer menu will present you with the Light Settings dialog. From here
you can select the shape, color, intensity and quality of the light. Like Solids, these
settings can -and usually will- be revisited. By default Lights will only affect 3D layers
– so you'll want to make sure that switch is turned on. Lights themselves are 3D layers,
so you'll need to familiarize yourself with the 3-axis controls within After Effects and
how they are controlled from the properties in the timeline. There's also a very cool
plugin from Trapcode called Lux, which when applied to a Solid layer will show the beam
of a light layer – this can be very helpful for adding realism to your lights. Cameras are another 3D-only layer. They have
many of the same animation properties as lights. The Camera Settings dialog can be very overwhelming
at first. If you're unsure about what settings to use, then simply select one of the presets
and start from there. Cameras will actually affect what you see in your composition viewer,
so when using one it can be useful to change your view to include Top, Front, Right as
well as the Active camera. This will allow you to move, animate and control your other
layers with more predictability. Again, like lights the properties of a camera layer are
very complex. Try doing simple pan and zoom animations to start off with to get yourself
familiar with the tool. And again, don't forget that you need other layers to have their 3D
switch enabled for the camera to make any difference at all. Null objects are my favorite. Nulls are not
visible in your final output But instead can be used as utility workhorses to move things
around. I most frequently use them in parent-child relationships. By parenting another child
layer to the Null object, the child layer will take on many of the properties of the
parent. So if I create a Solid square, parent it to this Null, and then animate the position
of the Null, the child Solid will follow. This becomes particularly powerful as you
can attach as many children as you want to a parent. Perhaps most useful is the fact
that multiple children will then scale and move based on the common anchor point of the
parent – this makes certain animations, like orbiting, or scaling multiple items much,
much easier. Shape layers are a lot like shapes in Adobe
Illustrator. Once a Shape layer is created, you can use the shape tools, or the pen tool
to create your vector shapes – complete with fills and outlines. It's not as advanced
as Illustrator, but it's a very useful way to quickly generate assets without leaving
the program. Worth noting, you can create multiple shapes on a single Shape layer. The
layer itself will have shared Transformation properties, but the individual shapes will
also have their own Transformation properties, which can allow for some rather clever animation
techniques. Adjustment Layers are very similar to the
layer type of the same name in Photoshop. Any Effects applied to an Adjustment layer
will then be applied to all the layers below it in a Composition. The same technique can
be achieved by Pre-composing the layers and applying the effects to that new composition,
but that will often have unintended consequences. The last two options in this menu aren't necessarily
special Layer types... they will just automatically create either Photoshop or Cinema4D files,
and place them in your Composition, and then open up their respective editors. It can be
very useful, but if I'm being honest, I always forget they're there. Functionally this isn't
all that different than dragging an existing Photoshop or Cinema 4D file into your Composition. I hope you found this helpful. If you have
any questions, please ask below in the comments and thanks for watching.
