How to Use Axis Modes in Adobe After Effects 7 Video

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How to Use Axis Modes in Adobe After Effects 7

Now we are just going to hit the tilda key here to go back to our workspace and now open the next composition just for a short while. This is called grids RGB. If we double click and open it, you will see it looks almost exactly the same as the previous one, apart from the fact that this layout is now colored to match the X, Y and Z handles that we have been working with before. If we hit F11 to go to our custom view and just go to the full screen here, we can see the X axis represented in red, the Y axis in green, and the Z axis in blue. Now this is very handy because we are going to take a look at here at different axes controls. We have local axis, world axis, and view axis. Now what does this mean? If we come up here and select say the X and Y layer we can see that the handles here in the center correspond to what we are now familiar with. The green handle pointing outwards is the Y axis, the red handle pointing right is indeed the X, and the blue is the Z. Well let us select this layer, the one that actually is facing towards the camera on the Z axis. It handles actually show up differently. The green is correct, the red and the blue have actually changed orientation. It is now telling us that the Z axis is actually the X axis as the red arrow shows here and likewise, the X axis is showing up now as the Z axis. Well that is because this layer has been rotated. If we go out to full screen mode, we can see the layer selected here in the timeline. If we hit the R key that shows us that the rotation value is currently set to 90° on the Y axis, and that also serves the purpose of changing the orientation of the handles here. This is an immediate visual feedback to tell us that this layer has been rotated and this is actually very, very handy. We know by now that the red axis should always go from left to right. As soon as an object moves off its standard rotation, this gives you immediate feedback. Now the reason this might become confusing is if you start dragging on these, just going to zoom in a little bit so we can see this more clearly. If we hover over the blue arrow, you can see that it is showing us that the Z axis is selected, and if we look in the timeline and just hit the P key, we can see the position property for this layer is at 400, 400, and 0. Remember that is currently world center with this entire composition. If we drag on the Z handle now, we are in fact moving the X axis. You can see that down there in the position value and on screen, it is giving us exactly what we would expect to see. We are dragging from left to right in the 3D scene even though we are dragging on the Z axis handle. If we undo that and select the red handle this time, it suggest that we are going to move on the X axis, but we are indeed moving on the Z closer to and further away from the camera. So do not be confused by that because you should have a sense of which direction you are moving something, but if you do find that that is a problem, there is a way to switch back to having the handles in their regular orientation. These three icons across the top here set the axis modes in After Effects from local axis, which we are currently looking at here whatever the local rotation is, to world axis which is the second one. You will see that even though the layer is rotated the X, the Y and the Z handles now default back to their original position. X is X, Z is Z but you also have a third axis here which is the view axis. This actually sets the handles perpendicular to the view that we are currently looking at. Even though we have no 3D camera on the scene, and we are currently looking at custom view 1 which is not even using a 3D camera essentially itself, the handles are now perfectly arranged as if we were looking from the front. So the Y axis is up, the X axis is to the right and left, the Z axis is towards us. Now the reason this can also be confusing is if we grab the X axis handle here and drag from the side, what we are actually doing is moving this object currently on potentially three different axes, because it is perpendicular to the camera, we think we are only moving along one axis. Well let us just drag this off to the side here and then come over here and look at perhaps our top view, and we can see what happened to the layer, just going to zoom back down so we could see the whole thing. The center point has indeed moved on both the X and the Z axes, even though we were only moving only one because the angle was perpendicular to the camera and we dragged it on one direction, our camera is at a slight 3D angle to the entire scene on the X, the Y and the Z axes, therefore moving this inadvertently move it on two, possibly three axes at the same time. So this can be handy in rare instances but do beware, if you accidentally have that turned on and you start moving things around, you may end up with undesirable results. So do be aware if you are using that tool. I am just going to undo that back and make sure that we are resetting back to local axis that is more than likely the most popular one that you will use.

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Photoshop Special Effects - Masking

You might try to use the lasso tool to outline the edges of the object (and then have to start all over when your mouse slips), or use the eraser brush to painstakingly wipe away pixels from the edges of the object.

http://www.articlesbase.com/digital-photography-articles/photoshop-special-effects-masking-560946.html/9461024403

Now we are just going to hit the tilda key here to go back to our workspace and now open the next composition just for a short while. This is called grids RGB. If we double click and open it, you will see it looks almost exactly the same as the previous one, apart from the fact that this layout is now colored to match the X, Y and Z handles that we have been working with before.

If we hit F11 to go to our custom view and just go to the full screen here, we can see the X axis represented in red, the Y axis in green, and the Z axis in blue. Now this is very handy because we are going to take a look at here at different axes controls. We have local axis, world axis, and view axis. Now what does this mean? If we come up here and select say the X and Y layer we can see that the handles here in the center correspond to what we are now familiar with.

The green handle pointing outwards is the Y axis, the red handle pointing right is indeed the X, and the blue is the Z. Well let us select this layer, the one that actually is facing towards the camera on the Z axis. It handles actually show up differently. The green is correct, the red and the blue have actually changed orientation.

It is now telling us that the Z axis is actually the X axis as the red arrow shows here and likewise, the X axis is showing up now as the Z axis. Well that is because this layer has been rotated. If we go out to full screen mode, we can see the layer selected here in the timeline. If we hit the R key that shows us that the rotation value is currently set to 90° on the Y axis, and that also serves the purpose of changing the orientation of the handles here.

This is an immediate visual feedback to tell us that this layer has been rotated and this is actually very, very handy. We know by now that the red axis should always go from left to right. As soon as an object moves off its standard rotation, this gives you immediate feedback. Now the reason this might become confusing is if you start dragging on these, just going to zoom in a little bit so we can see this more clearly.

If we hover over the blue arrow, you can see that it is showing us that the Z axis is selected, and if we look in the timeline and just hit the P key, we can see the position property for this layer is at 400, 400, and 0. Remember that is currently world center with this entire composition. If we drag on the Z handle now, we are in fact moving the X axis. You can see that down there in the position value and on screen, it is giving us exactly what we would expect to see.

We are dragging from left to right in the 3D scene even though we are dragging on the Z axis handle. If we undo that and select the red handle this time, it suggest that we are going to move on the X axis, but we are indeed moving on the Z closer to and further away from the camera. So do not be confused by that because you should have a sense of which direction you are moving something, but if you do find that that is a problem, there is a way to switch back to having the handles in their regular orientation.

These three icons across the top here set the axis modes in After Effects from local axis, which we are currently looking at here whatever the local rotation is, to world axis which is the second one. You will see that even though the layer is rotated the X, the Y and the Z handles now default back to their original position. X is X, Z is Z but you also have a third axis here which is the view axis.

This actually sets the handles perpendicular to the view that we are currently looking at. Even though we have no 3D camera on the scene, and we are currently looking at custom view 1 which is not even using a 3D camera essentially itself, the handles are now perfectly arranged as if we were looking from the front. So the Y axis is up, the X axis is to the right and left, the Z axis is towards us.

Now the reason this can also be confusing is if we grab the X axis handle here and drag from the side, what we are actually doing is moving this object currently on potentially three different axes, because it is perpendicular to the camera, we think we are only moving along one axis.

Well let us just drag this off to the side here and then come over here and look at perhaps our top view, and we can see what happened to the layer, just going to zoom back down so we could see the whole thing. The center point has indeed moved on both the X and the Z axes, even though we were only moving only one because the angle was perpendicular to the camera and we dragged it on one direction, our camera is at a slight 3D angle to the entire scene on the X, the Y and the Z axes, therefore moving this inadvertently move it on two, possibly three axes at the same time.

So this can be handy in rare instances but do beware, if you accidentally have that turned on and you start moving things around, you may end up with undesirable results. So do be aware if you are using that tool. I am just going to undo that back and make sure that we are resetting back to local axis that is more than likely the most popular one that you will use.

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