After Effect Timeline

Adobe After Effect is graphic editing software that can be used for the editing of video graphics. There are different working panels of this editing software that makes our work very easy. The timeline is one of the important panels of this software. It can be used to monitor the keys and frames of any video footage/ animation.

We will discuss the layers panel along with the Timeline panel to have a better understanding of the timeline panel because these two panels will be used together.

Step 1: You can see on the top of the working screen that there are two ribbons. One is the Menu bar, and the other is the Toolbar. Below these bars, there are another three sections, i.e., project panel on the left side of the working screen, composition window at the center of the working screen and Parameter section at the right of the working screen. The timeline panel is available on the right side of the bottom end.

After Effect Timeline

Step 2: First, we will create a new composition. Go to the Composition menu on the menu bar, which you can find on the top of the screen. Once you click on this sub-menu, a drop-down list will be opened. Click on the "New Composition" from the drop-down menu.

After Effect Timeline

Step 3: A composition settings dialogue box will be opened once you click on this option. Press OK after setting up your desired settings to save these settings.

After Effect Timeline

Step 4: After that, select the ellipse tool from the tool panel.

After Effect Timeline

Step 5: Now, go to the studio area and draw a circle by click and dragging the pointer.

After Effect Timeline

Step 6: Click on the tools panel and select a Rectangle tool by clicking over it. Then draw a rectangle in a new shape layer, as shown below with this tool.

After Effect Timeline

Step 7: Go to the Layers panel. There you can see two layers in the layer panel. One at the bottom end and the timeline is at the right side of this section.

After Effect Timeline

Step 8: The given figure shows the timeline indicator, which can be used to set time, key, and frame for animating properties of our object or editing our footages.

After Effect Timeline

Step 9: The below image shows the Time ruler, which shows us the time and frame rate of the animation made by us.

After Effect Timeline

Step 10: The image below shows you the working area of your animation and the last end of this ruler called Work Area End.

After Effect Timeline

Step 11: You can adjust the Work Area End by dragging the arrow Indicator by the mouse button when the arrow indicator comes at the end of this ruler.

After Effect Timeline

Step 12: You can animate the object by adding a key in the timeline by clicking on the small arrow icon of the shape layer, as shown below.

After Effect Timeline

Step 13: Now, open the position property of this layer by pressing the P button and then place the Time indicator head at some seconds and change the value of the Position property of this layer.

After Effect Timeline

Step 14: Using the same way, you can add more and more keys for animating the object.

After Effect Timeline

Step 15: You can also add keys to the other layer of this composition.

After Effect Timeline

Step 16: After that, play the animation by pressing the space bar, or you can go to the preview tab of the parameters section to play the animation.

After Effect Timeline

Step 17: Now, Drag the scrollbar with the mouse pointer while holding the click to zoom in or out of the Timeline work area.

After Effect Timeline

Step 18: In case you want to end the layer at 3 sec, then press the ']' button from the keyboard.

After Effect Timeline

Step 19: You can also hold the bar of the shown layer with the mouse button and drag it to that place where you want to place it.

After Effect Timeline

Step 20: To trim the layer into two parts, then choose the selected layer and press Ctrl + shift + D keys. After pressing these buttons, then the layers will be trimmed, as shown below.

After Effect Timeline




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