Customizing an animation preset

Previewing a range of frames

Now, preview the animation. Although the composition is 10 seconds long, you only need to preview the first few seconds, which is where the text animation occurs.

1 In the Timeline panel, move the current-time indicator to 3:00, and press N to set the end bracket of the work area.

2 Press 0 on the numeric keypad, or click the RAM Preview button () in the Preview panel, to watch a RAM preview of the animation. The letters appear to evaporate into the background. It looks great—but you want the letters to fade in and remain onscreen, not disappear. So you will customize the preset to suit your needs.

3 Press the spacebar to stop the preview, and then press the Home key to move the current-time indicator back to 0:00.

After you apply an animation preset to a layer, all of its properties and keyframes are listed in the Timeline panel. You’ll use those properties to customize the preset.

1 Select the Road Trip text layer in the Timeline panel and press U. The U key, sometimes referred to as the Ьberkey, is a valuable keyboard shortcut that reveals all the animated properties of a layer.

2 Click the Offset property name to select both of its keyframes. The Offset property specifies how much to offset the start and end of the selection.

_ Tip: If you press U twice (UU), After Effects displays all modified properties for the layer, instead of only the animated properties. Press the U key again to hide all the layer’s properties.

3 Choose Animation > Keyframe Assistant > Time-Reverse Keyframes. This command switches the order of the two Offset keyframes so that the letters are invisible at the beginning of the composition, and then emerge into view.

4 Drag the current-time indicator from 0:00 to 3:00 to manually preview the edited animation. The letters now fade into rather than disappear from the composition.

5 Press U to hide the layer’s properties.

6 Press the End key to move the current-time indicator to the end of the time ruler, and then press N to set the end bracket of the work area.

7 Choose File > Save to save your project.

Дата добавления: 2014-11-20