Guide Layers in After Effects

Download Project files here.

Playing Back Preview

1. First thing, hit the Spacebar to play back the animation. Note how the background elements are misaligned with the main logo text.
2. Double click on the Logo layer to go inside that Precomp.
3. Click on the CLIMBING layer.
4. Hit Cmnd-C (Mac) / Ctrl-C (PC) to copy the layer.
5. Double click on the Logo BG Objects to go inside that Precomp.
6. Hit Cmnd-V (Mac) / Ctrl-V (PC) to paste the layer.
7. Hit U to see all its animated keyframes.
8. Click the stopwatch on CLIMBING layer’s Position to remove all its keyframes.

Using Guide Layer

1. Right click on the CLIMBING layer.
2. Choose Guide Layer from the menu options. This will ensure the layer does not appear in the rendered animation while still providing a reference.
3. Now with the Guide Layer in place, click and drag the main yellow rock into the correct position, centered behind the words. Tree Left will be around 450, 470. Tree Right will be around 790, 490.
4. Click on the Flags layer.
5. Hit S to view their Scale.
6. Change their Scale back down to 100%.
7. If the flags still have a gap between them and the rest of the logo, go up to Layer > New > Null Object.
8. Parent the Flags layer to the Null Object by clicking and dragging the swirly icon on the Flags layer to the Null.
9. Either click and drag the Null slightly downwards to close the gap, or manually change the Position of the Null.

Do this by hitting P for Position on the Null layer and changing the Position values.

1. Delete the Null layer.
2. Go back to the Main Comp by clicking on Main Comp name at the top of the Layers Panel.
3. Hit Spacebar to play back the animation. Note how the background elements are now in place.

Video Transcript

Hi, this is Tziporah Zions for Noble Desktop. And in this tutorial, I'm going to show you how to use Guide Layers in Adobe After Effects. So we're going to be doing some simple transformation animations on this logo here, mainly the background elements. And we're going to be using guide layers specifically to make sure that we've gotten our elements right where we want them to be without having to worry about rendering extra layers that we don't visible so you can see this is what the project looks like when it's done and guidelines are useful and that they can help you align and layout other objects without actually being rendered in the final animation if you animated something off-center to reference an image or a path started, layers are there to help provide that reference without getting in the way of the font render. So as for external assets, we're going to be using this logo here. It's going to be animated already, and the file comes with a stone texture for a visual address and while it's going to be animated already, we're going to be doing some tweaks of our own.

So you can find this project plan with those assets included in the video description below and with that, let's get started. So the first thing we're going to be doing is double click on Logo to get into this pre-comp and let's play it. So you see what I mean? So you can see it animate, but clearly, some things are misaligned. So let's get to fixing that. And the background objects, as you can see, are in this pre-comp. So it's hidden there and you'll see it when we play them. Yeah, they're animated by themselves and also like how do we know how to add if it's not like we want them to be behind the text player, but we don't know where the text layer is.

Like if I wanted to I could try fixing them, put them right there and move the rocks for it over there. Head back into here. We look OK. OK, this is a little bit like a little more to the right. Oh, that's got a gap that needs to be fixed. And then I can grab Sloughed on. Oh, go back in there, grab the flags, maybe do I want to fix it like that?

And yeah, you know, it means going back and forth, back and forth. And then I want to move that again and I want to move these a little bit out. It's not fun. So instead of like going back and forth and back and forth and back and forth, let's use a guide layer. So what we're going to be doing is let's use the word climbing as our guide layer doesn't always have to be like text, whatever, but it's just something you want to use for reference.

So I'm going to hit control here, command C to copy it, head into the logo and I'm going to paste it right there. I'm going to hit you see any keyframes, I'm going to hit control on any of those keyframes to make sure it's not moving around because I just want this thing static. Now, you're probably wondering, well, at this point is that's going to be annoying because I want to render this and I'm going to have to remember to get rid of this thing because if I don't, then I'm going to just kind of have doubled when I render my prop.

So kind of again here. I would just want to check the other counts for a second. But yeah, and you know that I'll take a picture file size if it's a reference layer, like a background map that you're trying to use as reference or something, you know, that's going to be annoying to have to remember to delete it every time.

So the great thing about time layers is that watch, I'm going to right-click on this thing, head up to the guide layer and see this little crisscross pattern that appears. That means it's a guide layer. And this thing, it's going to give me a reference, but it's not going to be in the final render. I can draw you, you know, the background here.

If I make it a guide layer, it appears in my project window, once I render it, it's not my final video, so it's perfect. I can always have it for reference. I don't have to put flop between my previous comps and try to match it up with the position of everything else. I don't have to worry about deleting it.

I got a guard layer. I don't have to worry about that. So now we've got a guy layer. Let's fix up our animation. Now I'm just going to make it another color. Let's make it all just because I want to make sure that I can denote the difference. So let's start with the rock. I'm going to hit you.

You have some scale positions on you. So you know, this is off center. Let's move it a little bit over to the right. The flags you lift up position on them. So instead of animating, so instead of like dragging them off, they're a little bit too big for my taste. So let's set you what else you have animated all those.

You double like a double click. You'd see all of the transform properties right over here. All right. So I have scale me. See, that scale is a little bit too big. That's why this looks a little bit too big. Let's add 100 OK, to put it back to where it was. And I didn't want to grab it and like, move it out of the way because it already has like position keyframes I want to mess up. And then the tree left. It's got a scale property tree, right? That scale property so I can grab those without any consequences, grab and move this thing right let's OK, let's move you right there. Let's move you right there. And I've noticed that my flags over here, they because I've changed the scale, they're kind of floating above where I want them to be.

So what I'm going to be doing for that is I want to go to layer new. No so now I come on layer new, layer new, no object because more than one reason and I'm just going to parent this no position and by changing the position of my knowledge, a transition of flags without deforming these keep them already on it's going to believe that now so heading back over here is from the timeline all right looking better make it one little tweaks by heading back in here but yeah, I think you're getting the idea of what a guide layer can do.

Right. See, I headed right back in here and I don't have to, like, mess around and figure out where everything is and go back and forth and back and forth. Back and forth. All right, so that's what I like to see. Looks so much better now. So let's play the whole thing so there you go. So guidelines are a pretty great tool to have, especially for working with lots of nested comps, pre comps then you're bound to run into some misalignment issues or just need to have some reference.

Maybe you're drawing in an object, an after effects, any image reference or this specific path you're supposed to animate around five layers are there to make things progress a lot smoother than if you had to keep going back and forth reference and eliminate guesswork from the process. So that's all for this tutorial. I hope you enjoyed learning style layers and Adobe After Effects.

This has been Tziporah Zions for Noble Desktop.