Precomposing and parenting

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[00:00:00] thank you

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[00:00:00] hello and welcome to this after effects

[00:00:00] certification preparation series of

[00:00:00] videos I'm Louisa Winters in this video

[00:00:00] I want to cover objective 3.1 C which is

[00:00:00] to manage multiple layers in a complex

[00:00:00] composition so let's talk about

[00:00:00] pre-composing parenting null objects

[00:00:00] render order synchronizing aligning

[00:00:00] audio with visual effects and that sort

[00:00:00] of thing all right so let's go on to

[00:00:00] After Effects and if you haven't done so

[00:00:00] please download the exercise files or if

[00:00:00] you prefer to work with your own files

[00:00:00] please just create an After Effects

[00:00:00] project and create a couple of

[00:00:00] compositions alrighty so let's go ahead

[00:00:00] and open this same composition that

[00:00:00] we've been working with which is the

[00:00:00] footage a text solid

[00:00:00] etc etc so I reset it I reverted to the

[00:00:00] original and you can do that by going to

[00:00:00] file

[00:00:00] revert and of course for me it's now

[00:00:00] grayed out because I haven't made any

[00:00:00] changes and remember After Effects Grays

[00:00:00] out anything that is not applicable to

[00:00:00] what you're doing alrighty so let's talk

[00:00:00] about pre-composing right so we talked

[00:00:00] about it a little bit now imagine I want

[00:00:00] to do something with this as a whole

[00:00:00] right uh maybe I'll hide this I want to

[00:00:00] do something with this entire

[00:00:00] composition as a whole maybe I want to

[00:00:00] make it bigger maybe I want to fade it

[00:00:00] in fade it out whatever it is I can

[00:00:00] select all of these layers right click

[00:00:00] and then I can go pre-compose

[00:00:00] done I have now a couple of choices I

[00:00:00] can move all attributes into the new

[00:00:00] composition that's the one I always

[00:00:00] choose or I can adjust the composition

[00:00:00] to the duration of the time span of the

[00:00:00] selected layers and I can also open the

[00:00:00] new composition right I can name it

[00:00:00] anything I want I'll name it uh new

[00:00:00] pre-comp right and once I click OK there

[00:00:00] you go all of these layers are now

[00:00:00] inside of this it would be like a smart

[00:00:00] object in Photoshop very very similar so

[00:00:00] if I want to go inside of this

[00:00:00] composition all I have to do is double

[00:00:00] click it and it opens the original

[00:00:00] notice that I have two tabs now

[00:00:00] I have the composition called footage

[00:00:00] text solid blah blah blah and then I

[00:00:00] have the one that I created called new

[00:00:00] precomp and there are a myriad of really

[00:00:00] cool uses for this let me just give you

[00:00:00] one and

[00:00:00] um

[00:00:00] I'm going to select all of the video

[00:00:00] files and I'm going to create a new comp

[00:00:00] from selection

[00:00:00] uh it doesn't matter which one of these

[00:00:00] I select because they're all the same

[00:00:00] size we talked about this before and I

[00:00:00] am going to sequence uh the layers but

[00:00:00] not yet so I'm going to deselect that

[00:00:00] and now I'm going to click ok

[00:00:00] uh the green screen one is very short so

[00:00:00] I'm going to delete it now I'm going to

[00:00:00] make sure that all of these layers are

[00:00:00] the same length so I'm going to select

[00:00:00] them and I'm going to go a little bit to

[00:00:00] the left of the shortest one

[00:00:00] and now alt option on the Mac right

[00:00:00] bracket and now all of them are the same

[00:00:00] length

[00:00:00] this is important for what I want to do

[00:00:00] as for scale and now I'm going to make

[00:00:00] these a little bit

[00:00:00] smaller like yay

[00:00:00] and now I'm going to animate all of them

[00:00:00] at the same time so that they go from

[00:00:00] left to right so I'll select all of

[00:00:00] these again P for position I get it we

[00:00:00] haven't covered keyframing yet we

[00:00:00] haven't covered any of that but again

[00:00:00] this is a certification preparation

[00:00:00] series of videos so I am assuming that

[00:00:00] you are ready to take the test and this

[00:00:00] is merely a review alrighty so I'm just

[00:00:00] gonna go here all the way to the left

[00:00:00] let me scrub it a little bit more there

[00:00:00] you go and I'm going to keyframe them

[00:00:00] and now I'll move my playhead and I'm

[00:00:00] just going to go all the way to the

[00:00:00] right

[00:00:00] and this is what I have right all of my

[00:00:00] Clips are going at the same time and I

[00:00:00] can only see one because there is a

[00:00:00] layer stacking order thing right so here

[00:00:00] we go

[00:00:00] I'm going to put my playhead where I can

[00:00:00] see

[00:00:00] one that I can see all of the layers

[00:00:00] right just the top one in this case and

[00:00:00] now I'm going to drag to the right

[00:00:00] the second one

[00:00:00] and I'm going to keep on dragging until

[00:00:00] I like that Gap in between them

[00:00:00] now I'm going to see by how much they

[00:00:00] overlap and do a b here and then do an

[00:00:00] an O here and by the way you can scrub

[00:00:00] as you press the shift key and then the

[00:00:00] n and now you can say trim comp to to

[00:00:00] work area right and then you can go

[00:00:00] composition composition settings and

[00:00:00] copy these numbers click OK and now

[00:00:00] let's undo

[00:00:00] all right let's undo I'm going to reset

[00:00:00] the work area bar right and now I'm

[00:00:00] going to select all of my clips all

[00:00:00] right all of my Clips right click

[00:00:00] keyframe assistant

[00:00:00] sequence layers overlap

[00:00:00] I'll select these numbers and paste

[00:00:00] remember I copied them from the

[00:00:00] composition settings I'll click OK and

[00:00:00] now I'm going to get a perfect

[00:00:00] film strip from the videos and you know

[00:00:00] this works the same whether you do it

[00:00:00] with six videos or 600 all right so you

[00:00:00] know the how many videos you have

[00:00:00] doesn't really matter but we're talking

[00:00:00] about pre-composing so I can select all

[00:00:00] of these guys right click one of the

[00:00:00] layers and now go to pre-compose I'll

[00:00:00] name it films

[00:00:00] strip

[00:00:00] and now this is just one right

[00:00:00] but it's even better than that because

[00:00:00] now I can duplicate this command d right

[00:00:00] and I can move this up say I want to

[00:00:00] move this to here and I'm going to

[00:00:00] duplicate this again and I'm going to

[00:00:00] move this to here right

[00:00:00] now I have three of them right

[00:00:00] now they don't have to be all the same I

[00:00:00] can simply select one of them and I can

[00:00:00] go layer transform

[00:00:00] and I can flip horizontal

[00:00:00] and now look at what I have

[00:00:00] I can even offset them a little bit

[00:00:00] right so they don't have to all come in

[00:00:00] at the same time

[00:00:00] I can have this

[00:00:00] I can even take those and pre-compose

[00:00:00] those layer

[00:00:00] pre-compose

[00:00:00] film

[00:00:00] strip

[00:00:00] many whatever right

[00:00:00] and now I have just one I can make that

[00:00:00] layer 3D and now I can manipulate this

[00:00:00] in 3D space I can give it an X rotation

[00:00:00] I'll make it go like yay I can give it a

[00:00:00] z rotation and now I can make it larger

[00:00:00] again and now I have this kind of effect

[00:00:00] and quite frankly it's very easy to do

[00:00:00] and

[00:00:00] um

[00:00:00] people love this stuff and in fact I can

[00:00:00] make this a tiny little bit bigger there

[00:00:00] you go

[00:00:00] I can add light shine all kinds of stuff

[00:00:00] so imagine you're doing a series or

[00:00:00] whatever what a great intro this makes

[00:00:00] right and it's all possible because of

[00:00:00] the pre-composing so pre-composing

[00:00:00] becomes an important part of our After

[00:00:00] Effects workflow now let's talk about

[00:00:00] synchronizing and aligning things uh

[00:00:00] time wise so let's go ahead to the audio

[00:00:00] files and right click the drums clip

[00:00:00] drums remember this is Audio Only now

[00:00:00] let's do a new comp from selection and

[00:00:00] you can play it if you want

[00:00:00] right so you could do something on the

[00:00:00] downbeat for example this is the one

[00:00:00] two

[00:00:00] three

[00:00:00] right and we can add markers remember

[00:00:00] how to add markers we can add

[00:00:00] composition and layer markers I'm going

[00:00:00] to add layer markers this time and just

[00:00:00] as a little reminder if we go to the

[00:00:00] keyboard shortcuts

[00:00:00] and we go to markers so add layer marker

[00:00:00] is shift eight all right shift eight

[00:00:00] I'm going to cancel out of this and here

[00:00:00] we go I'm going to add one at the

[00:00:00] beginning

[00:00:00] shift 8 and I'm just gonna play it

[00:00:00] foreign

[00:00:00] [Music]

[00:00:00] so now that I have this I could do

[00:00:00] something like I don't know I'll just

[00:00:00] type uh talk whatever right

[00:00:00] so I have just the word

[00:00:00] talk and every time

[00:00:00] this appears I want for a new talk to

[00:00:00] appear that's fine all I have to do is

[00:00:00] duplicate this and now as I drag this

[00:00:00] I'll press and hold the shift key right

[00:00:00] so start dragging and then press and

[00:00:00] hold the shift key and these layers snap

[00:00:00] to the markers that you already have and

[00:00:00] I'm just going to do these it's not too

[00:00:00] uh

[00:00:00] not too difficult now I'm gonna go to

[00:00:00] where I can see all of the talks

[00:00:00] and I'm just gonna put them like yay

[00:00:00] doesn't really matter right it doesn't

[00:00:00] really matter at all but right now the

[00:00:00] appearance of those talks

[00:00:00] it agrees with the rhythms of the drum

[00:00:00] foreign

[00:00:00] [Music]

[00:00:00] and right now we're just synchronizing

[00:00:00] the appearance of text to sound but it

[00:00:00] works with anything if you want to

[00:00:00] synchronize anything to anything else

[00:00:00] you can use markers whether they are

[00:00:00] timeline markers or composition markers

[00:00:00] remember they come from here or layer

[00:00:00] markers which is what I did in this case

[00:00:00] so don't forget you have here AIDs that

[00:00:00] help you with positioning not just in

[00:00:00] the uh in the comp panel so here we have

[00:00:00] grids and guides right you also have

[00:00:00] things that help you with the

[00:00:00] positioning or the timing of things in

[00:00:00] the timeline and the main one is markers

[00:00:00] it's not the only one but markers would

[00:00:00] be the main one

[00:00:00] alrighty let's talk about parenting so

[00:00:00] let's start a new composition so Ctrl n

[00:00:00] which is command n on the Mac and then

[00:00:00] just name it parent

[00:00:00] or parenting right leave the defaults is

[00:00:00] all good and let's create

[00:00:00] three solids

[00:00:00] layer new solid look at the shortcut

[00:00:00] Ctrl Y which is command y on the Mac

[00:00:00] right so there you go let's make one

[00:00:00] white sure why not white

[00:00:00] Ctrl y let's make this one red

[00:00:00] I'll call it red

[00:00:00] and the next one let's make it blue

[00:00:00] doesn't really matter right

[00:00:00] blue I just want to wait for us to

[00:00:00] differentiate them easily all right so

[00:00:00] now I'm going to select all three of

[00:00:00] them and I'm going to make them smaller

[00:00:00] so that we can see things a little bit

[00:00:00] better and right now I'm going to hide

[00:00:00] that and I'm going to hide Keys as well

[00:00:00] all right so here we go

[00:00:00] I'm going to put this one here this one

[00:00:00] here and I'm going to put the

[00:00:00] white here in the middle so I'm going to

[00:00:00] talk to my white layer and I'm going to

[00:00:00] say hey white you are the parent of blue

[00:00:00] and red

[00:00:00] in After Effects you tell a layer who

[00:00:00] its parent is you don't tell a layer who

[00:00:00] its children are you talk to the

[00:00:00] children and you say hey children

[00:00:00] here is your parent so we're going to

[00:00:00] talk to blue and red and we're going to

[00:00:00] say hey blue and red white is your

[00:00:00] parent so there is a parent and Link

[00:00:00] column here if you don't see it right

[00:00:00] click one of the column names column

[00:00:00] header go to column and choose parent

[00:00:00] and Link

[00:00:00] all right so remember we're talking to

[00:00:00] blue and red we're going to go to this

[00:00:00] drop down menu and we're going to say

[00:00:00] hey

[00:00:00] white is the parent white is the parent

[00:00:00] we could have also done it by using this

[00:00:00] pick whip we just click and select white

[00:00:00] same thing so you can either use the

[00:00:00] drop down menu or the pick whip it's

[00:00:00] makes no difference right look what

[00:00:00] happens now when I modify White

[00:00:00] as for scale right

[00:00:00] Boom everybody becomes bigger

[00:00:00] P for position yep everybody comes with

[00:00:00] are for rotation yep and they are all

[00:00:00] rotating around the Anchor Point of

[00:00:00] white in other words the parent so I can

[00:00:00] again make this these much smaller I can

[00:00:00] move the position they all come with and

[00:00:00] now I'm going to keyframe the rotation

[00:00:00] of all of them so R for rotation I'm

[00:00:00] going to keyframe

[00:00:00] all of them and then just go to about

[00:00:00] here doesn't really matter and have them

[00:00:00] go three times look what happens they

[00:00:00] are rotating around their own axis and

[00:00:00] also around the axis of the parent

[00:00:00] so parenting works with transform

[00:00:00] properties the child layer in this case

[00:00:00] red and blue

[00:00:00] will follow the parent which is white in

[00:00:00] everything the parent changes transform

[00:00:00] wise so transform wise what are we

[00:00:00] really talking about we're talking about

[00:00:00] Anchor Point position scale and rotation

[00:00:00] yes opacity is part of uh transform but

[00:00:00] it's not affected by parenting it's the

[00:00:00] only one that is not affected by

[00:00:00] parenting

[00:00:00] and remember that when the child layers

[00:00:00] when the child layers follow the parent

[00:00:00] they are using the Anchor Point of the

[00:00:00] parent and not their own so right now

[00:00:00] when you see all of these rotating

[00:00:00] they're rotating around their own axis

[00:00:00] because they have their own keyframes

[00:00:00] but they are also rotating around the

[00:00:00] white axis all right

[00:00:00] the next thing that you need to know

[00:00:00] about parenting is that where your

[00:00:00] playhead is when you parent matters and

[00:00:00] it matters a lot

[00:00:00] so if I type in a word let's say I'm

[00:00:00] just gonna this is my first

[00:00:00] sentence

[00:00:00] right I'm going to go to my paragraph

[00:00:00] I'm going to have it yay and I'm gonna

[00:00:00] make it a little bit smaller oops it

[00:00:00] helps if I select the text no this is

[00:00:00] not a lesson on text I'm just talking

[00:00:00] about parenting right

[00:00:00] and now I am going to

[00:00:00] keyframe this so I'm going to move it

[00:00:00] here

[00:00:00] there you go and now R for rotation and

[00:00:00] it's gonna last one second and this is

[00:00:00] going to be 90 degrees right so it's

[00:00:00] going to be that

[00:00:00] making sense that

[00:00:00] that's it well this is what's going to

[00:00:00] happen when this rotates like that it's

[00:00:00] going to bring a second layer here so

[00:00:00] I'm going to type that layer

[00:00:00] second layer whatever right and now I am

[00:00:00] going to rotate this layer right so R

[00:00:00] for rotation at a 90 degree angle and I

[00:00:00] know I want it to be here

[00:00:00] right here so right now nobody has

[00:00:00] parented so who cares what the one layer

[00:00:00] is doing but I'm going to move now my

[00:00:00] playhead to the right of that second

[00:00:00] keyframe to the right in other words

[00:00:00] after it finished and now I'm gonna tell

[00:00:00] the second layer hey your parent

[00:00:00] is the first one look what happens when

[00:00:00] you go backwards

[00:00:00] and there you go

[00:00:00] that first sentence brings the second

[00:00:00] layer with it but had I not done it then

[00:00:00] imagine I do the parenting here

[00:00:00] look what happens I'm going to use the

[00:00:00] pick whip this time

[00:00:00] see it

[00:00:00] that's not at all what we wanted

[00:00:00] see it

[00:00:00] um

[00:00:00] so I'm going to not parent it there and

[00:00:00] I'm going to go to after that second

[00:00:00] keyframe and now I'll parent it and

[00:00:00] that's the animation exactly the way

[00:00:00] that I want it so parenting becomes a

[00:00:00] very powerful thing in After Effects

[00:00:00] especially in 3D where you can parent

[00:00:00] all of the layers to an all and then

[00:00:00] manipulate the null or parent a camera

[00:00:00] to a null object and then manipulate

[00:00:00] that and all of that but parenting is a

[00:00:00] very very powerful thing to do in After

[00:00:00] Effects all right the last thing that I

[00:00:00] want to talk about in this one video is

[00:00:00] the render order so I want you to know

[00:00:00] that after effects renders from the

[00:00:00] bottom up

[00:00:00] so it looks from the top down so uh

[00:00:00] whatever layer is on top let me uh you

[00:00:00] know what I'm going to revert

[00:00:00] um

[00:00:00] and I'm going to open the same

[00:00:00] composition

[00:00:00] so even though it's looking from the top

[00:00:00] down because we we see this right we see

[00:00:00] this layer first and it's covering

[00:00:00] everything else it actually renders from

[00:00:00] the bottom up and that's what makes some

[00:00:00] of these

[00:00:00] um blending modes and all of that work

[00:00:00] the way that they do so don't forget

[00:00:00] that so we see it from the top down but

[00:00:00] it renders from the bottom up

[00:00:00] all right and this brings us to the end

[00:00:00] of this video thank you for watching and

[00:00:00] I'll see you on the next video

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