How do you use keyframe assistants and presets to speed up your workflow in After Effects?

Adding ease to your motion is like adding salt to your food! Food without salt is still food but often lacks flavor. Similarly, adding ease with the Keyframe Assistant makes your motion smoother. You can refine it with the Graph Editor to match your motion perfectly. Another handy feature in the Keyframe Assistant menu is "Reverse Keyframes," which is both useful and essential. "Convert to Keyframes" is another great tool, perfect for syncing animations. With these tools, you can make your animations smoother, more dynamic, and perfectly timed to your creative vision. Plus, you have full control over your timeline!

O segredo de uma boa anima??o se encontra justamente no uso correto dos assistentes de keyframes, pois é no spacing que vamos ditando o ritmo da anima??o. O gráfico de velocidade é um excelente exemplo de como podemos ditar este ritmo. Devemos sempre lembrar que toda movimenta??o organica é definida por pontos de acelera??o e desacelera??o, ent?o entender a fundo todas os assistentes de keyframes é fundamental para criarmos uma anima??o primordial.

Keyframe assistant is the key to making a smooth animation that delivers the feeling we want the viewer to get through the animation. Different variations in the keyframe curves deliver different feelings about the animation. Recently, there have been several scripts that save you the time of adjusting the motion curves manually, like Motion V3, Motion Tools 2, Flow ...etc. They have additional keyframe assistant features like distributing layers and more.

Keyframe assistants are your animation wingmen. They help you create smoother motion by automating transitions between keyframes. Think of them as the cool cats that make your animations look effortlessly slick.

Utilizing keyframe assistants and presets in After Effects significantly speeds up workflow. Features like Easy Ease, Motion Sketch, and Animation Presets streamline animation tasks. Easy Ease adds smooth transitions, while Motion Sketch enables intuitive motion path creation. Animation Presets offer pre-built animations for quick application. By leveraging these tools, animators can achieve complex effects efficiently, saving time and enhancing productivity in After Effects.

Presets are a wonderful way to save time in After Effects. Let's say you have a project that requires the same complex animation on every text layer, well, you have two options: painstakingly create the complex animation every time you need it, OR: you create the complex animation ONCE and then create a preset that will allow you to apply it instantly every time you need it. Better yet, if you've created a really nice in-depth preset you can actually share it with your friends or perhaps sell it online to make a bit of extra cash.

Presets are pre-configured settings bundled into a single package. They can include keyframe settings, effects, or even entire animations. Presets are your shortcut to awesome – they save time and maintain consistency across projects.

Every animation tool is going to have it's own ecosystem of keyframe assistants. Some will have both internal tools and external tools that work in tandem, like After Effects, where there is the native assistant and hot keys, and additional tools like Rift and Keyframe Wingman.

Keyframe Assistants: Select your keyframes, right-click, go to Keyframe Assistant, and pick your flavor – whether it's Easy Ease, Easy Ease In, or any other assistant that suits your vibe. Presets: Head to the Effects & Presets panel, drag and drop your chosen preset onto the target layer or property. Boom! Instant magic.

Preview: Before committing, use the RAM Preview (press 0 on the numeric keypad) to see how your animation flows. Adjust as needed. Fine-Tuning: Open the Graph Editor for precise control over keyframe velocity. Tweak those curves until your animation dances to your tune.

Custom Folders: Create custom folders in the Effects & Presets panel to keep your assistants and presets organized. No more hunting for that perfect wiggle expression! Naming Convention: Adopt a clear naming convention. Know at a glance what each preset or assistant does – your future self will thank you.

A great way of organizer Keyframes is through colors. In new versions of After Effects you can right -click a keyframe present in the timeline and select the "Label" option. I like to organize the colors by property, so it is very easy to focus on something specific when needed.

Remember that more does not equal better. Do not overuse presets. Use presets and plug-ins to optimize your workflow. Familiarize yourself with the 12 principles of animation, and you will know how to finesse your keyframes using keyframe assistants so that your animation is dynamic and beautiful. If using After Effects, use the Graph Editor to smooth out your motion. Use presets and plug-ins to make your workflow faster and more efficient. Motion Design School offers some great products to make your workflow faster.

It's nice to first learn how to achieve different results without any assist. So you get a better understanding in curves, behavior, etc. And then Yes, you can use something like Flow, which it can be really helpful to for example copy easing between different animations.

Take note: presets aren't backwards compatible. A preset created in After Effects 2022 won't be compatible with After Effects 2021. However, they are forwards compatible, so a preset created in After Effects 2021 would work in After Effects 2022.

Writing values of eases that worked in your project is a great method for creating a unit of motion in your portfolio, do not limit yourself to 2 keyframes to move a point A to B, you can always soften a curve using 3 or up to 4 keyframes.