Keyframe Basics in After Effects

Keyframes! They make things move in After Effects, and things moving is what animation is all about. Learn the basics of animation keyframes in this tutorial from Noble Desktop!

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Setting Keyframes

1. Select the object that’s going to be animated.
2. Hit P for Position to open up the property in the layer stack.
3. Next to the word Position, click the stopwatch. Clicking the stopwatch sets a keyframe.
4. Move the blue Playhead further down the Timeline.
5. Move the object’s Position in the Composition window. Moving a keyframed object will set a new keyframe automatically.
6. Repeat step 4.
7. Manually change the Position values in the layer stack to automatically set a new keyframe.

Adjusting Keyframes

1. Select any keyframe and drag it along the Timeline. The speed of animation will change accordingly.
2. Press Spacebar to play the animation.
3. Select both keyframes and hit Option (Mac) / Alt (PC) while clicking and dragging the last keyframe. Doing so will adjust the space between the keyframes relative to the last. This method will also work with the first keyframe.

Keyframe Types / Eases

1. Right-click on any keyframe.
2. Navigate to Keyframe Assistant > Easy Ease In.
3. Press the spacebar to preview the animation. Note how the object now slows as it approaches the modified keyframe.
4. Right-click on another keyframe.
5. Navigate to Keyframe Assistant > Easy Ease Out.
6. Repeat step 3. This time, note how the object slows as it leaves the modified keyframe.
7. Finally, right-click on the final keyframe.
8. Navigate to Keyframe Assistant > Easy Ease.
9. Preview the animation one last time. Notice how the object slows in and out of the modified keyframe.

Motion Paths

1. When an object moves, a path appears in the Composition window. This line is called the Motion Path and operates much like vectors in Adobe Illustrator.
2. Click on one of the anchor points in the Motion Path.
3. Drag the anchor point anywhere else on the Composition.
4. Preview the animation again. Finally, note how the object now travels along the modified Motion Path.
5. To return the keyframes to their default state, just hit Cmnd (Mac) / Ctrl (PC) and click on any modified keyframe.

Video Transcription

Hey, everyone, we're going to be talking about keyframes and this Adobe After Effects tutorial. So what are keyframes? Keyframes are what make objects move. Keyframes. Mark changes in position, transparency, rotation and tons more properties. After Effects does the work of filling in the spaces between the keyframes, which forms animation that we see. So if you want to animate, you need to know how keyframes work.

So no external assets here. I just made up this quick mock up. But honestly, at home you can just use whatever shape you pull out. We do have a tutorial on making shapes, so check that out before this one if you have a chance. All right. So first, let's tug open the transform properties. We're going to be going down here to the layer stack and I'm going to be working with this circle layer here, this yellow one.

I'm going to hit this area, toggle it open, and I'm going to be looking for the words transform. Now we also tutorial. It goes more in-depth on what transform means and all the properties inside of it. But for this tutorial, we're going to be focusing on positions when toggling open, you could see position right there. So I'm going to click the stopwatch to set an initial frame and see this thing.

My little stopwatch over here. So this tells a program that we want to start animating at this point. Now, where ever your play hit is this little thing, this marker, that's where your keyframe is going to be dropped down. You can also see over here, it gives you more detailed, easier to tell. The time code over here shows you exactly where you drop that keyframe.

Now, if I grab this play head and move it further down to, like, 2 seconds. Now, if I animate anything here, it's going to be 2 seconds. Now, I'm going to change the position. Either I can just click and drag this, or I can click and slide on these properties right here. Or I can click and slide on these properties right here.

Down here, you see this number is next to position and I'm just going to put it in random numbers. Doesn't really matter. Now, we don't have to press anything here like, you know, the stopwatch like before, as once we've hit that stopwatch, any new changes all the time on here, it will automatically drop down to keyframe wherever the play hit is.

Now, technically, what I can do is I'm going to move to play hit again. What I can do is hit this little keyframe and then put in some assets, you know, some numbers over here, but it's not that efficient to do so. So I'm going to get rid of that now. I'm going to move my play it back to the beginning.

And I want to show you this animation. I'm going to hit Spacebar to preview. And there we go. And after effects filled in the space between those two positions. Now, if I were to grab these key frames and if I were to slide them further apart, the rate of change slows down. Now, if I were to grab these keyframes and move them closer, the rate of change speeds up.

Now this section is about eases, so I'm going to show you the different kinds of eases. And what does keyframes mean? So first, I'll show you easy ease in. So I'm going to select both of these. We also have a fuller tutorial on uses up on our YouTube page. So I'm going to select both of these keyframes are going to right click.

I'm going to go to key for my assistant. I'm going to hit easy ease in. And what this means is that the object drifts in and out more slowly. Now, technically speaking, it really adjusts the speed of the change as object approaches each keyframe. So these eases give a sense of momentum and make animation smoother, generally speaking. Now I'll show you the other ones again.

Select them both. Right click Keyframe Assistant is out, as this one suggests, easy is out. Has the object drift out more slowly so you can see it move in like that and you can see it looks a little more organic. And lastly, keyframe assistant is ease and this one gets it from both sides. Drift in and out more slowly.

By the way, I hope you noticed, as I change these keyframes, the shape of the keyframe changed. So this little thing over here, this is an easy keyframe. That's this is a easyshare keyframe. I hope you noticed, by the way, that the shape of the keyframe change, this means that it is has been added. Now there's another kind of keyframe, by the way, right click.

I'll show to you toggle hold keyframe that looks like this. See? And basically, you can see that the object doesn't move. Wait, wait, wait until it's a second keyframe. Then it blinks to the next one. So it does. After Effects is not filling in the middle between these two keyframes. It's just basically teleporting it to different places, you know.

And then that has its own use as well. Now finally, if I go over to one of these keyframes and I hit commander controlled by hand machine, you see this around keyframes. This is an auto basia keyframe and that automatically smooths out your animation. So it doesn't really like affect the rate of change in a dynamic way, like the easiest do, but it's a little smoother than the other techniques.

Now finally, if I want to change back to regular keyframes again, control or command, depending on your machine, and now they're back to regular old plane keyframes. One last thing to note. Now, this might be getting a bit too advanced, but for those who want to select one of these keyframes, I'm going to show you to change the motion path.

So you see, like this little line appear this handle. So I can grab one of these. And, you know, if you've done Illustrator, you'll recognize these. But these are basically anchor points and I can grab these. And now this most motion path, which initially was straight because the circle is going from one side to the other. Now, motion path tracks basically where the object is moving.

How is it moving? It was going from here to there. Right now, I've changed that motion pass by grabbing these handles and pulling them out. Now, this will take a bit of practice. These aren't necessarily very intuitive. If you come from Illustrator, I think we'll have an easier time of it. But honestly, all you got to do, try grabbing one of these handles and move it around and experiment with it, and I think we'll get the hang of it in no time.

But now check it out. When I play the animation, it's following that new motion path that I set for it, and I never had to add any keyframes. So that's quite important if you want to keep your keyframe simple, but your motion path interesting. So yeah, you could keyframe pretty much any property. This goes for opacity rotation properties on effects like you can animate the color changing on a fill color effect.

And there's advanced techniques that involve adding bits of code to keyframes that have them automated or perform more complex tasks. Now, as always, we have a bunch of tutorials on this on YouTube, so check out the mobile desktop playlist because we'll see when we have all sorts of tutorials from beginner to, you know, more advanced. So yeah, up your animation game when it comes to keyframes and after effects.

So check those out.