Friday, March 28, 2014

A lesson on Keyboard Shortcuts

Today, I decided to write my blogpost on one of the most useful things in any software: the Keyboard Shortcuts. Abusing keyboard shortcuts can help you maximize efficiency, and help you work a whole lot faster.

The Easy Ones:

Alright, these are the ones that are pretty standard in most programs, so we'll run through them quickly...

Hotkey Command
CTRL-N New Composition
CTRL-S Saves the project
CTRL-D Duplicates a layer/composition/effect
CTRL-I Imports a file
CTRL-K Opens up the Composition Settings
CTRL-ALT-; Opens up After Effects' Settings
CTRL-R Enable Rulers
Shift-F10 Reset your workspace to default

Composition Hotkeys:

Here we have a bunch of hotkeys that add or do something to a composition...

Hotkey Command
CTRL-Y Creates a New Solid
CTRL-Shift-Y Opens the Layer Settings
CTRL-M Add the Composition to the Render Queue (to export)
U Opens all the parameters that contain active keyframes
P Opens the Position parameter
S Opens the Scale parameter
T Opens the Opacity(transparancy) parameter
R Opens the Rotation parameter
SHIFT (R/T/P/S/etc.) Keeps current parameters open, and also opens a new parameter
M Shows a list of available masks on your layer
Space Allows you to Click-And-Drag around your composition
Shift-? Sets the composition to "Fit To Window" view
/ Sets the composition to "100%" view
CTRL-Alt-Shift-Y Creates a Null Object

General Useful Ones:

These are all around really useful and should be used whenever you can...

Hotkey Command
` Hover over a window and click "`" to maximize that window, and hide the other views
V The basic selection tool
Y The Pan-Behind tool
Q The Rectangle/Elipse/Polygon tool
G The Pen tool
CTRL-T The Text tool
Alt-W The Roto-Brush tool
Numpad 0 The "RAM Preview" play button
F4 Shifts between Switches/Modes in the timeline

And there you have it! Now, I didn't want to go into EVERY hotkey that exists in After Effects, that would take forever. These are simply the hotkeys that I find myself using on a day-to-day basis, and think they are essential for people to know.

No pictures today, so enjoy this stock image!

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