Effects timing in After Effects

JazzyDJ · Post by **JazzyDJ** » Tue May 06, 2008 1:59 am

I'm just learning after effects and I am getting alot of head aches trying to do so.

For starters, I'm trying to do a normal shatter transition using the shatter effect. But for some reason I can't time it up right. Is there some way to set the start and end point for the effect? It seems the effect starts all the way at the beginning of the clip and I have yet to figure out how to slide down the timeline.

So what I did was use Vegas to trip down to the start of where I want the effect to begin. Then I tried to take the follow up clip that I want to be on the other side of the shattered frame, and in after effects place that in the layer below. But it doesn't seem to work. The shatter completely stops when the curser gets to that point.

I want to shatter one scene and have another come throug underneath the shattered frame, precisly done to the music.

How do I do this? What's the way to time up any effect your working with so it happens exactly where you want it on the clip?

Emotive · Post by **Emotive** » Tue May 06, 2008 7:29 am

You're probably looking for:
a) A way to listen to the audio to synch to while editing: hold ctrl while scrolling the timeline.
b) A way to set keyframes: they're under motion in the clip's drop-down menu on the timeline.

To have a different clip appear under the shattered one it's obvious you just put the clip in the layer below it as it shatters.. You might want to go to the guides section of this site and read through the after effects starters guide actually.

Zarxrax · Post by **Zarxrax** » Tue May 06, 2008 8:03 am

Shatter can be a tricky one because its difficult to make it start at anytime other than the beginning of the clip. If you search the forums on creativecow.net you can find an answer to that though, as I know it's been asked a few times over there.

Before doing any of that though, id just see if you can split your clip where you want the shatter to start. Ctrl+Shift+D

JazzyDJ · Post by **JazzyDJ** » Tue May 06, 2008 5:47 pm

Cast to Stone wrote:You're probably looking for:
a) A way to listen to the audio to synch to while editing: hold ctrl while scrolling the timeline.
b) A way to set keyframes: they're under motion in the clip's drop-down menu on the timeline.

To have a different clip appear under the shattered one it's obvious you just put the clip in the layer below it as it shatters.. You might want to go to the guides section of this site and read through the after effects starters guide actually.

Thank you both.

As mentioned in the OP, when I tried to set the 2nd clip that finished the transition underneath for some reason it didn't work properly. What would happen is the shatter peices would suddenly disapear in mid-flight and it would go directly to the fram of the solid clip underneath. It was either that, or be completely black underneath the shattered pieces. So that's why I asked about timing it up. It seems when I try to adjust the clips themselves on the time line, it's futile. They always seem to revet back to their original clip properties timing. It's seems as if timing a clip in AE is impossible. I'd just like to time the effect up to the proper frames on both layers.