From the course: Learning After Effects

Unlock the full course today

Join today to access over 24,600 courses taught by industry experts.

Layers are the building blocks of After Effects

Layers are the building blocks of After Effects - After Effects Tutorial

From the course: Learning After Effects

Start my 1-month free trial Buy for my team

Layers are the building blocks of After Effects

“

It's only with more than one layer that you unlock the power of this application. Here are the basics to control and combine layers, the second foundation. Now let's see what happens when we start to add additional layers to the composition. For that, I'll import more source and I'll use import file. Let's choose a still image this time, and it appears in my project panel, but not in the composition until I add it. One way you can do that is to drag down to the timeline, and if I hold my mouse button, I see this blue line that appears above the other layer, or if I drag it below, below the other layer. This is introducing the idea of the layer stack, and it's the same idea as in Photoshop. So if I drag it above, it now blocks out the other layer. To reveal that other layer, I can move it down, or I could use properties. Relatively recently, After Effects added the Properties panel. And this gives me control of the same properties that are actually part of virtually every type of layer…

Contents