After Effects Weekly

Get short tips to become a better After Effects artist. Learn how to reset tools, control animations, create effects, control layers, troubleshoot issues, and much more.

New This Week

• Reduce project and archive

Introduction

• Welcome

Fall 2018

• Random shapes animation
• Fix Photoshop layers
• Bouncy animation
• Cut out stop-motion animation
• Dangerous curves
• Reveal layers and melt colors
• Track matte with Colorama
• Match color and motion blur
• Useful utility effects
• Morph type weights
• Animated decorative shapes

Winter 2019

• Create jumpy characters
• Shatter and explode
• Changing the default Cinema 4D file
• Parenting Cinema 4D files
• Extracting Cinema 4D passes
• Extracting Cinema 4D layers
• Environment options
• Easy seamless textures
• Creating fan cards animation
• Folding elements
• Choosing the best color to key
• Render Water
• Liquid Text
• Stabilizing color
• Displacement recipe

Spring 2019

• Alternative options, part 1
• Alternative options, part 2
• Reset tools
• Poster time and thumbnails
• Hidden things
• Timeline extras
• Uprez video
• Good parenting
• Light control
• Object orientation

Summer 2019

• Render to GIF
• Silky smooth roller titles
• Upgrade legacy blurs
• Animating with transitions
• Compositing smoke and water
• Fade audio
• Audio breakdown
• Vignette options
• Easy, fast pie chart
• Scrub colors
• Accelerated effects
• Faking rack focus
• Export a Premiere Pro project

Fall 2019

• Open multiple After Effects instances
• Easter eggs
• Content-Aware Fill
• Removing the wobbling effect
• Ghost smearing effect
• Applying tracking to an effect point
• Reverse stabilization
• Puppet tool tricks
• Animating an emoji
• Using masks to control effects
• Refine edge matte
• Creating a watermark template

Winter 2020

• Creating a social animation template
• Baking Cinema 4D keyframes
• Saving Photoshop layers
• Importing Illustrator artwork through XD
• Reposition the anchor point
• White balance workflow
• Chromatic aberration effect
• Maintain hair details
• Compositing with multichannel EXR
• Isometric camera
• Camera control
• Infinite zoom
• The Dependencies menu

Spring 2020

• Water effects, part 1
• Water effects, part 2
• Water effects, part 3
• Effect controls
• Drop-down menu control
• Auto-trace video
• Fast bokeh
• Reset the camera tracker
• Contact shadows
• Light transmission
• 3D channel effects
• Depth using duplicates
• Per-character 3D text

Summer 2020

• Keyframes 101
• Control paths
• Animating paint strokes
• Stretch lights
• Revealing using offset paths
• Concentric shape repeaters
• Tapered shape strokes
• Unmult
• Creating a precise matte with Auto-trace
• Auto resize comp
• Planar tracking
• Attaching graffiti to a building
• Compositing sky and birds

Fall 2020

• Paint bucket matte
• Exporting alpha channel
• Firey, swirly text
• Dynamic text templates
• Paragraph text settings
• Clone Stamp tool
• The importance of mockups
• Match curvature surface distortion
• Merge camera
• Viewport render
• Quick multi-plane

Winter 2021

• Advanced camera options
• Particles controller

Spring 2021

• Eyedropper tips
• Changing stroke caps and weight
• Controlling word spacing
• Mask modes
• Rotobrush 2.0
• 3D design workspace
• 3D shortcuts
• 3D models from dimension
• Colorful torus
• Essential properties
• Logo repeater
• Previewing After Effects project
• Better displacement

Summer 2021

• Improved composition toolbar
• Media replacement in MOGRTs
• Rule of thirds grid
• Flat look extrusion
• Simple environment layer
• Easy inertia
• Match composition duration
• Un-precomps
• Crop precomps
• InDesign and After Effects workflow
• Sine line
• More accurate content-aware fill
• Convert text to sand

Fall 2021

• Controlling text styling with expressions
• Using variable fonts
• Working with SVG fonts
• Libraries integration
• Using behaviours
• Cylinder lines logo
• Fixing color over time
• Rendering to .mp4
• Removing noise
• Wipe with border
• Particle text dots
• LED screen effect
• Motion trails

Winter 2022

• Search tips
• Color accuracy
• Speculative preview
• Composition profiler
• Multi-frame rendering
• Render faster
• Out of frame cutout
• White balance with Divide
• Move between comps
• Correctly transform shapes
• True layer duplicator
• Fractal noise perspective offset
• Storm particles transition

Spring 2022

• Quick wireframe
• Magic switcher
• Reference text
• Faster previews
• Inner glow
• Effects motion path
• Channel operations
• Light leaks
• Dust specks
• Animated scribble text
• Multicam edit
• Halftone effect