7. Properties and Keyframes

Once they see what After Effects can do, most folks can’t wait to take a closer look at the program that produces such artful results. Upon closer inspection, however, it’s easy to recoil from the cryptic array of controls that look more like the tools of a scientist than those of an artist.

But don’t let a few numbers and graphs intimidate you! This chapter fearlessly unveils layer properties and demystifies animation. Once you understand how to define properties, you can extend a few simple techniques to control practically any property of any layer in a composition. Having conquered that paper tiger, you’ll be ready to animate those properties using something called keyframes.