Adobe After Effects 7 - How to Select Composited Layers Video

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Adobe After Effects 7 - How to Select Composited Layers

Now, just in case you have accidentally selected something which I certainly have done here. What we are going to do is just hit F2 on the keyboard. This is a nice shortcut eventhough we cannot even see the timeline. It is a nice way to be able to deselect any layer that is currently highlighted. Now, the reason I am doing this is we going to look at how you can also select layers without seeing them in the timeline. What we are going to do is again in anyone of these views maybe click in the lower left one over here. I am just going to zoom in with the scroll wheel and then drag over here because I want to play around with the position of these two animated elements. Now, the other windows I am going to show any changes that we make which is really nice. So, what we are going to do is click here on the character of the guy with the white tie and if you pick that up and move it around. Have a look it was going on in the other three views. It does not matter what size you were looking at the map or overall position, any change is immediately updated. So, this is a great way to work in focus detail but also see the overall finish effect on the rest of the comp. But this presents us also with the problem. These layers are actually all the same size. So, let say you have position him where he needs to be and you come over here and now decide to pick up this silhouette and drag that around as well. We will give that a try and you will notice one problem. We still have the other layer selected. You can see in the upper left hand view here, this pink boundary line is actually showing us. This is the size of the layer that the man silhouette is on. Because the layer is that big, we are having trouble selecting through the layer to pick up the one underneath. Well, there is a nice option that will allow us to select through eventhough we do not have the timeline currently visible, we will come back over to this view again for just a second. What I am going to do is right click or control click if you do not have a two-buttoned mouse, directly on top of the silhouette that we wish to select and this brings up a separate menu that we can scroll to the bottom off and we have a select function. Now as long as you are over the right layer, you will see its name represented here. We have tool one silhouettes.psd which is the male character in the center. If we simply go ahead and select tool two silhouettes, you may see a slight shift of selection on the screen. But if you just simply click and drag now, you will see that we are indeed moving the second character. So if you are working closely, you do not have to keep jumping back out of this maximized view to go the timeline just to select the layer of your cursor where it used to be right click and you can go ahead and select it very easily. Now, I am just going to undo a couple of steps here, so these characters return to their original position. And once again, you are going to hit F2 to deselect any of the layers. Now, the next couple of items across in the timeline are going to slightly relate to each other. What we will do is focus on this one first. Now, this is simply the current time. Again, we are not inside the timeline, so if we need to navigate to a certain point along that timeline, all we have to do is simply click on this to bring up the go to time dialog box. Now you can also do that a different way. Just escape to get out of that. You can press “Command+G” or “Ctrl+G” on the PC to do the exactly the same thing. It does not matter whether you are in a timeline or the comp window, the same thing will work. Now, we are going to jump forward a little way maybe three seconds and 20 frames. So, I am keying in 3.20, click “Ok” and we will get to a point in the animation where the actual San Francisco titles up here. Now again, I am working in a close up view here, so I am just going to scroll across so I can see the time and maybe just back out to a 100% so it looks nice and smooth. Now if I go ahead and click on this to select it, you will notice that there are series of

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Now, just in case you have accidentally selected something which I certainly have done here. What we are going to do is just hit F2 on the keyboard. This is a nice shortcut eventhough we cannot even see the timeline. It is a nice way to be able to deselect any layer that is currently highlighted.

Now, the reason I am doing this is we going to look at how you can also select layers without seeing them in the timeline. What we are going to do is again in anyone of these views maybe click in the lower left one over here. I am just going to zoom in with the scroll wheel and then drag over here because I want to play around with the position of these two animated elements.

Now, the other windows I am going to show any changes that we make which is really nice. So, what we are going to do is click here on the character of the guy with the white tie and if you pick that up and move it around. Have a look it was going on in the other three views.

It does not matter what size you were looking at the map or overall position, any change is immediately updated. So, this is a great way to work in focus detail but also see the overall finish effect on the rest of the comp. But this presents us also with the problem. These layers are actually all the same size. So, let say you have position him where he needs to be and you come over here and now decide to pick up this silhouette and drag that around as well. We will give that a try and you will notice one problem.

We still have the other layer selected. You can see in the upper left hand view here, this pink boundary line is actually showing us. This is the size of the layer that the man silhouette is on. Because the layer is that big, we are having trouble selecting through the layer to pick up the one underneath.

Well, there is a nice option that will allow us to select through eventhough we do not have the timeline currently visible, we will come back over to this view again for just a second. What I am going to do is right click or control click if you do not have a two-buttoned mouse, directly on top of the silhouette that we wish to select and this brings up a separate menu that we can scroll to the bottom off and we have a select function.

Now as long as you are over the right layer, you will see its name represented here. We have tool one silhouettes.psd which is the male character in the center. If we simply go ahead and select tool two silhouettes, you may see a slight shift of selection on the screen. But if you just simply click and drag now, you will see that we are indeed moving the second character. So if you are working closely, you do not have to keep jumping back out of this maximized view to go the timeline just to select the layer of your cursor where it used to be right click and you can go ahead and select it very easily.

Now, I am just going to undo a couple of steps here, so these characters return to their original position. And once again, you are going to hit F2 to deselect any of the layers.

Now, the next couple of items across in the timeline are going to slightly relate to each other. What we will do is focus on this one first.

Now, this is simply the current time. Again, we are not inside the timeline, so if we need to navigate to a certain point along that timeline, all we have to do is simply click on this to bring up the go to time dialog box.

Now you can also do that a different way. Just escape to get out of that. You can press “Command+G” or “Ctrl+G” on the PC to do the exactly the same thing. It does not matter whether you are in a timeline or the comp window, the same thing will work.

Now, we are going to jump forward a little way maybe three seconds and 20 frames. So, I am keying in 3.20, click “Ok” and we will get to a point in the animation where the actual San Francisco titles up here. Now again, I am working in a close up view here, so I am just going to scroll across so I can see the time and maybe just back out to a 100% so it looks nice and smooth.

Now if I go ahead and click on this to select it, you will notice that there are series of

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