Adobe After Effects CS4 - Manual (Page 146)

140 USING AFTER EFFECTS CS4
Layers and properties
Last updated 12/21/2009
Note: By default, new layers begin at the beginning of the composition duration. You can instead choose to have new
layers begin at the current time by deselecting the Create Layers At Composition Start Time preference (Edit > Preferences
> General (Windows) or After Effects > Preferences > General (Mac OS)).
Often, the next step after adding a layer to a composition is scaling and positioning the layer to fit in the frame. (See
“
Scale or flip a layer ” on page 164.)
More Help topics
“ Working with footage items ” on page 80
“ Trim, extend, or slip-edit a layer ” on page 148
“ Layers (keyboard shortcuts) ” on page 746
Create layers from one or more footage items
When you create layers from multiple footage items, the layers appear in the layer stacking order in the Timeline panel
in the order in which they were selected in the Project panel.
1 Select one or more footage items and folders in the Project panel.
2 Do one of the following:
• Drag the selected footage items to the Composition panel.
Hold Shift while dragging to snap the layer to the center or edges of the composition.
• Drag the selected footage items to the Timeline panel. When you drag the item into the layer outline, a highlight
bar indicates where the layer will appear when you release the mouse button. If you drag the item over the time
graph area, a time marker indicates where the In point of the layer will be when you release the mouse button.
Hold Shift while dragging to snap the In point to the current-time indicator.
• Drag the selected footage items to the composition name or icon in the Project panel, or press Ctrl+/ (Windows)
or Command+/ (Mac OS). New layers are created at the top of the layer stack and at the center of the composition.
Create a layer from a trimmed footage item
You can trim a moving-image footage item in the Footage panel before inserting a layer based on that footage item
into a composition.
1 To open a footage item in the Footage panel, double-click it in the Project panel.
Double-clicking opens some footage items—including MOV and some AVI movies—in a media player window. To
open some kinds of footage items in the Footage panel, you must Alt-double-click (Windows) or Option-double-click
(Mac OS) them. (See “
The Footage panel ” on page 81.)
2 Move the current-time indicator in the Footage panel to the frame that you want to use as the In point of the layer,
and click the Set In Point button at the bottom of the Footage panel.
3 Move the current-time indicator in the Footage panel to the frame that you want to use as the Out point of the layer,
and click the Set Out Point button at the bottom of the Footage panel.
4 To create a layer based on this trimmed footage item, click an Edit button at the bottom of the Footage panel:
Overlay Edit Creates the new layer at the top of the layer stacking order, with the In point set at the current time
in the Timeline panel.