Top Ten After Effects Keyboard Shortcuts – with FREE AE Starter Templates!

Top Ten After Effects Keyboard Shortcuts – with FREE AE Starter Templates!

on Jul 25th 2011 with 20 comments
Tutorial Details
  • Requirements: Just After Effects... enjoy
  • Difficulty: Beginner
  • Run Time: 10:35 min
Download Source Files

These are my Top Ten Favorite After Effects Keyboard Shortcuts that I use most often to help speed up workflow…. speeding up RAM previews, purging those previews, adding keyframes to any property, previewing and scrubbing audio only… check out the video below to see them all!

Tutorial

Download Tutorial .mp4

File size: 70.6 MB

 
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Rafael’s list of accomplishments, including his role as VFX Supervisor on two feature films, Dark Rising (2007) and Medium Raw (2010), and his talent for strategic brand planning, film direction, print, broadcast, and interactive design make him a multi-disciplined wizard of our industry.  

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  • Joshua Perlson

    Extremely useful. Thanks so much.

  • Mark

    Great Job! Thank you.

  • Steven

    German Keyboard:

    (num pad) * = ads a marker (dubble click it and you can make it a lable)
    j = jump to prev keyframe
    k = jump to next keyframe
    ö = suck selected layer in point to playhead
    ä = suck selected layer out point to playhead
    alt+ö = crop/extend layer in point to playhead
    alt+ä = crop/extend layer out loint to playhead

    In the tut Rafael told you to use ALT+APPLE to scrub the audio –> use APPLE and scrub so you´l get audio AND video scubbed.

    greetz

  • John

    What if you don’t have a numeric keypad?

    • Steven

      No Num-Pad….?

      How do you do RAM-Prew´s?
      Get out of the “WrightExpression”-Mode?
      Preview the Audio only?
      Jump direct to a Layer?

      Maybe it´s just me, but i can´t work without a NumPad.
      So, how do you work without one?
      Seriusly!

      • marcel

        if you don’t have num pad on mac, use CTRL and 0 to start a ram preview.
        should also work for skip frame ram-preview with extra holding Shift and for audio pushing the . (period).

        hope this helps

      • John

        It’s not just you. I could never live without a Num Keypad.

    • http://g2bproductions.com Greg

      You can change the shortcuts keys using this script, http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/exchange/index.cfm?event=extensionDetail&loc=en_us&extid=1698043, or the manual way, there’s a tut or creative cow on how to do this.

      On my laptop I have my “,” to ram preview and “.” for audio preview.

    • http://capricorn8.com Rafael

      if you are using a laptop press and hold the “fn” (function) key to access the numeric keypad buttons.

      • http://www.creacionesindiscriminadas.com toto.prinz

        On the new Mac book pro, there is no way to acces the numeric keypad through the “fn” key…

      • marcel

        @ toto.prinz, just CTRL with the ‘zero’ to start ram preview

  • http://adampalmer.ca Adam

    Great stuff man, REALLY handy shortcuts! I use AE all day at work and immediately after watching this video I started using the shortcuts right away and they really saved me some time! Thanks so much!

  • workflo

    Really good job. What is the difference between “output” and “final renders” in your after effects template?

    • http://capricorn8.com Rafael
      Author

      No difference really, it’s all a matter of preference – modify it how best suits your needs

  • steven

    Great tutorial, picked up a few good things.

    I’m really interested in the composition you used as a demonstration; is that your own work? The colours and motion graphics together are great; I wish I knew how to do that ;D

    • http://capricorn8.com Rafael
      Author

      Yes it is, it was a piece we did for Lexus. A really fun project to work on!

  • Jeff

    Nice stuff but ruined by all the ads that kept popping up over the video. WTF? Very annoying.

    • http://www.Krop.com/LillianYoung Lillian

      Download to see it ad-free

  • http://www.Krop.com/LillianYoung Lillian

    Thanks, Rafael. I knew 1/2 of the shortcuts, but learned others that’ll help greatly like scrubbing audio, moving a layer, purging and creating keyframes on the fly. I can really use that last one. Oh, and the organization is such an awesome tip.

    I have worked at a place where several hands were on a project at different times with NO structure, and it was a big mess. Having worked with teams in studios, even when working alone, I apply organizational structure.

    I may not be popular for this idea, but I wish that Adobe would implement a more visual interface with the ability to SEE accurate thumbnails of assets like in FCP’s (legacy and X) thumbnail view(s).

  • TogTobias

    Can’t give enough thanks. As a student of AE, this is a wonderful gift. Thank you kindly sir! Very professional guidance.