Advanced Shape Layer Techniques in After Effects - with Alex Deaton

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Is your workspace cluttered with Alpha Mattes and messy precomps? We’ll show you how to build single-layer shape “precomps” utilizing groups, merge paths, and simple path expressions so you can kiss those redundant matte layers goodbye...forever.
In this tutorial, After Effects guru Alex Deaton is going to show you a few simple techniques that lead to advanced methods for motion design. Don't forget to grab the free project files above so you can follow along!
(New) Alex Deaton addresses incorrect information from the "Drawbacks" section!
• Merge Paths School of ...
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Auto-Generated Transcript Below 👇
Alex Deaton (00:00): Are you tired of cluttering up your workspace with alpha mattes and messy pre comps, the break, as soon as you infinitely rasterize them or make them 3d fret no more.
Alex Deaton (00:17): Hi, my name is Alex Deaton and I've been a motion designer for almost 10 years along the way. I've picked up some after effects work arounds that saved me from daily Adobe induced frustration migraines. One of these techniques is a shape layer workflow. I utilize in almost every project to avoid layer clutter and over complicated matting and pre-computer issues. And this tutorial I'll show you how to build single layer shaped pre comps, utilizing groups, merge paths, and simple path expressions. So you can kiss those redundant matte layers, goodbye forever to make things easier. You can download the project files I'm using in this video to follow along or to practice this technique. After you're done, watching details are in the description.
Alex Deaton (01:04): Alpha mats and pre comps can be useful tools for combining several visual elements in a complicated design, but they make your timeline messy and introduce frustrating glitches and comp failures. When infinitely rests, rising pre comps or making layers 3d let's work around this by taking advantage of after effects, shape layer tools. We're going to start with a pair of eyes because this is a really, really simple way to use this trick. I use it all the time and it'll get you sort of, uh, oriented with the methods here so that you know what you're doing before you move into something a little more complicated like that vase. So let's jump into an empty empty comp here. So the first thing we're going to do is just go up here and grab an ellipse and, uh, real quick, we're going to twirl that down and change the size to a 500 by 500 seems about right, get rid of this stroke.
Alex Deaton (01:53): I'm going to duplicate it. And then I'm just going to name this bottom layer here. I am going to go ahead and call it I'm main. So I know that that's, that's my main eye layer. Then up here, I'm going to name this pupil. Cool. So first I'm going to take this, I layer and change the color to white. Then I'm going to go to this pupil layer and I'm going to shrink it to a, let's say 300 by 300. Great. So now we have our eye and our pupil. So first what I want to do since I'm going to make this eye blink. And I don't want to just, uh, you know, use the dimensions here because that would look a little awkward. I want it to have like a more realistic looking blink. I'm going to change the path here to a Bezier path.
Alex Deaton (02:37): So all you have to do is right click on the ellipse path and click convert to Bezier path. And that way I can animate the handles of the actual, uh, ellipse itself, like, like, so, so then once I have that finished, uh, I'm going to duplicate the eye main layer, rename it eye mask, and then simply pick whip the path of the mask to the, the main layer there. Like, so, and then I'm going to take this, drag it up here, highlight both the iron mask and the pupil and click command G to group those two together. I'm going to rename this whole group pupil. So now that we've got our pupil inside of this group here with our iron mask, all we need to do is make it so that the pupil itself can mask through the eye. This is where all the magic happens.
For the full transcript visit: som.bz/35iC6IW

[@firstanointed]

So this is an absolute game changer. Every day I learn something useful and new thanks to you all and I've been animating for a few years now. Thank you for helping us to level up our game and make things easier and less keyboard smashy!!

[@LoganPinney]

Whoaaa meger paths is a really neat workflow! Thanks for sharing and helping declutter my layer stacks!

[@_marvinjose]

Wow this is amazing! It literally save your time and stack of layers with this technique

[@pennedarts]

Beautiful optimization of work process. 💛

[@NilabhUmredkar]

Superb techniques! Learnt so much yet still need to practice for the Vase part. Thank you!

[@hebelegubelel]

This is something i can honestly say "what did i do in past with unneccassary layers?" Great job. Real game changer.

[@patrickhanscom2336]

Saw this on The Furrow's Covid-19 project breakdown and have been using it ever since! Really an amazing technique!!

[@jordansbryant]

This is insane! Amazing. Thank you.

[@Satysatonachair]

this is so simple, and should be SO obvious, but it just goes to show that even if you know what stuff does -which I do-, it doesn't mean you know what to do with it. Thanks for this!

[@ajeet1994]

i was struggling with the same problem..this will definitely help me.. Awesome tutorial..

[@annafromm6]

perfect lesson! very very useful! thanks for sharing your knowledge, you are cool!

[@BadreCh_]

amazing techniques, thanks for the tips

[@jayeshstacks7974]

Wow, thanks for this great tutorial

[@opptender1975]

Very nice technique, now i change my workflow. Thanks to share this knowledge. Best regards from Portugal

[@ismailalaia]

I believe this is really useful for the texturing process

[@prashamshinde4811]

Thanks for for this video. 🙌❤️

[@KarenAJS]

I learned SOOO much! Thank you for this video!

[@semillerimages]

Alex!! Thank you so much! Watched this back in November, but I finally had a project to use some of your ideas on today and it would have never worked if I hadn't re-watched this video! The biggest thing for me was using a repeater and not using a merge paths on it, so it wasn't working properly! Thank you again!

[@alexdeaton6842]

So glad this helped you with a project, Steve! Ae is often a frustrating program, but it has a lot of tricks up its sleeve.

[@michaelumoetuk7588]

This is great !!

[@gaston.]

great techniques! thanks for sharing!

[@zohaibmalik819]

Nice and great tips.

[@yixuewang919]

It's amazing!!!!

[@marcovanzomeren4941]

Such an eye opener ;)

[@marykirmo]

Brilliant!! Thank you

[@andytonkin5227]

So sweet!

[@trevorleake2010]

Very well explained!

[@filipemecenas]

Thanks thats great !!!!

[@terencereyes696]

Outstanding in his field - Genius! Haha

[@ShirazVisuals]

nice video thanks a lot

[@mathijsluijten]

Great tutorial! exactly how I use shape layers myself. Next tutorial please include "set matte". More people need to know about it! Great work Alex, as always

[@alexdeaton6842]

Thanks Mathijs! Agreed about Set Matte. We need some tutorials from you someday. Shower us with your knowledge.

[@fredilsonmelo]

"Outstanding in his field"; I saw what you did there. Props for that. :D And thanks for the tips.

[@alexdeaton6842]

Glad you liked it! And I wish I could take credit for that pun but it was 100% the School of Motion team :D.

[@manuelabahamon9614]

you! SO MUCH THX!

[@leomazzei2176]

Very cool! I'm still looking for animade's tutorials, thought

[@cessers]

While I learned a LOT from this video (that I will be using immediately in today's work), the MOST IMPRESSIVE thing to me is that it was recorded at nearly midnight. Thanks!

[@alexdeaton6842]

It was a late workday!

[@cessers]

@@alexdeaton6842 I was shocked for a second to see I have 128 layers in the current comp I'm working on and only 9 matte layers... then I remembered the shy button was pressed. 🤦‍♂️. Definitely needed this video. Thank you again, Alex.

[@alexdeaton6842]

@@cessers So glad it was useful! I'm obsessed with having a clean timeline so I feel you :)

[@chavesandref]

for the blur applied at @21:15 depending on the case, you could use "CC Composite" set to Stencil Alpha as a way to mask it out without having to create new layers :) and if you have a blurred shadow on the edges, you can add a Levels effect before the Composite and set the Alpha Input White to the lowest possible

[@alexdeaton6842]

I have made an update video with a little thank you at the end here! kzbin.info/www/bejne/hHfdn55ohNCqo9U

[@mohamedelhadey5229]

Completed ur 500 likes mate

[@usamahsaifulhakiem7731]

with it in a few weeks or months if I pour enough ti and effort into it. I'll be watcNice tutorialng many more of your videos for tips and inspiration.

[@mdshibli1009]

Important class

[@tief1975]

Nice tutorial, which way did you create the morph between the 2 vase shapes? Cheers

[@slee6261]

As a work around for the drawback of using strokes and and Merge Paths (20:22), you could always generate the artwork in AI and use the Outline Stroke to get a perfect path of the stroke. Object>Path>Outline Stroke.

[@shabbyarts]

Already excited 😁

[@futuristica1710]

Great tutorial! Thanks! One tip: move the shortcut info graphics away from the layers ;-)

[@noktos.5883]

THANK YOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

[@oyvindhoel9757]

Lots of good stuff in here! @19:19 Just add an Offset Path with a value of 0 in the Stroke Group (before 'Stroke 2'). This way it closes the loop... no further layers or bits will be needed and the path stays editable as an open path.

[@alexdeaton6842]

Perfection! This worked gangbusters. I'm recording a little addendum this weekend to post online and I'll thank you and Herbert (other commenter that pointed this out). Much appreciated!!!

[@alexdeaton6842]

I have made an update video with a little thank you at the end here! kzbin.info/www/bejne/hHfdn55ohNCqo9U

[@herbertmuller2816]

@19:03 you could add an offset path with fill to the stroke. insted of having to close the path. it doesnt solve the blur problem but should work with the intersect

[@alexdeaton6842]

Perfection! This worked gangbusters. I'm recording a little addendum this weekend to post online and I'll thank you and Oyvind (other commenter that pointed this out). Much appreciated!!!

[@ArisMelachroinos]

@@alexdeaton6842 If you go to 19:10, on the timeline you have "Stroke" group selected. Having that selected, you can apply this preset I made: drive.google.com/file/d/1TNDEYOmBmb6y39MzzIwq15GaTNU0uD-1/view This will create a new "Path 2" path inside the "Stroke" group that you had selected, and it should be positioned just bellow "Path 1"

[@alexdeaton6842]

I have made an update video with a little thank you at the end here! kzbin.info/www/bejne/hHfdn55ohNCqo9U

[@pupungpurnama6386]

complete. So I put a few videos up to show what i

[@mogaro7525]

bookmarked for life

[@soniavivosarria8385]

Nice video! Could you please send the 'Animade Learn Tutorial', it was not uploaded in the description of the video as the video said.

[@schoolofmotion]

Just added to the description. Enjoy!

[@JoshuaMDy]

ive been making complete verses on a single soft, it seems everyone of these tutorials i find like to put a single instrunt on each

[@semakulanicholas3626]

I need more light and the so many masks you made starting with duplicating the pupil.. please

[@winslowdonovanbeats]

yessssss

[@EdWutke]

Really like the video and I am looking through the project file. I have a slight off topic question: Why do you use the Z-rotation on the flower and not just the normal 2D rotation? Is there any merit to that?

[@alexdeaton6842]

Hi Niek! Thanks for the kind words. The reason the layers are 3D is to illustrate that this method works wonderfully in ae's 3D setting with no complication like you get with precomps. I was planning on including design elements that would make the 3D more obvious besides a zoom in/out, but ran out of time!

[@MouseGuardian]

Command G has no effect on mine? How do I go about grouping then?

[@magdalinayankova2024]

I am new to AE and watching this video somehow makes me feel sad. It is like an ocean of information. But yeah great tutorial. You are definitely a master. :)

[@MarianDwarfol]

I feel the same way. Keep going! We can do it.

[@guilhermecheberle1397]

AE can be scary at first, but as you keep going it gets easier

[@greg_reacts]

Don't worry. I'm about 2-3 months into it, everyone starts confused haha keep going. We can do whatever we put our focus on

[@reideristadoppyrakhadini7693]

in soft rolls?sorry in my English.I hope you can help

[@francescoauguad6029]

Wow

[@frogiac]

I keep going back to the section where one vase turns into the other and I don't see any explanation for how that happened... how did you do that?

[@poojasawant9117]

How do you rename ellipse layers?

[@osutorakisumosu]

do you know why and if so how do i fix it?

[@CGCharacterArtist]

Animade Lernz : vimeo.com/41558459

[@kylemaven5956]

For the part around 22:20 - you could complete the shape by having the points outside of the comp window?

[@ArisMelachroinos]

If you go to 19:10, on the timeline you have "Stroke" group selected. Having that selected, you can apply this preset I made: drive.google.com/file/d/1TNDEYOmBmb6y39MzzIwq15GaTNU0uD-1/view This will create a new "Path 2" path inside the "Stroke" group that you had selected, and it should be positioned just bellow "Path 1"

[@alexdeaton6842]

I have made an update video with a little thank you at the end here! kzbin.info/www/bejne/hHfdn55ohNCqo9U

[@chemapaz5326]

The first one doesn”t work if there are two pupils with different fills 😢 is there any solution if you want to mask without create other shape?

[@francis9506]

anyone know how he did the stem with the layercontrols?

[@alexdeaton6842]

Hi Francis, I meant to make a short tutorial on this but got buried in work and family duties. The answer is pretty simple. I drew a line in after effects with a stroke on it, selected the path for that line, then used After Effect's native "Create Nulls From Paths" script that you can find under "Window" at the bottom of the dropdown. When you click "Points Follow Nulls" in the script's window, it creates a null for every point on that path, so you can control the individual points on a shape layer independently! This was revolutionary for my workflow when After Effects added the feature, so definitely get comfortable with it! Just Google "Create Nulls From Paths" if my explanation didn't make sense, and while you're at it, grab the extra useful "Create Nulls From Paths Extended" script from Crunchy Creative which adds some phenomenal functions like individual bezier handle controls. crunchycreatives.com/create-nulls-from-paths-extended/ Happy animating!

[@skyex]

When creating the solid shape for your workaround at 19:50, I suggest exporting your path to AI, using Path>Outline Stroke, and then reimporting your newly-created perfectly matching shape. Overlord would be the most accurate way to do this, but copying and pasting the paths should work just fine as well.

[@alexdeaton6842]

Hi Skye, there's actually a brilliant workaround for this problem that other commenters have pointed out! I'm wrapping up a very short additional video to illustrate the execution. Stay tuned!

[@ArisMelachroinos]

If you go to 19:10, on the timeline you have "Stroke" group selected. Having that selected, you can apply this preset I made: drive.google.com/file/d/1TNDEYOmBmb6y39MzzIwq15GaTNU0uD-1/view This will create a new "Path 2" path inside the "Stroke" group that you had selected, and it should be positioned just bellow "Path 1"

[@alexdeaton6842]

I have made an update video here! kzbin.info/www/bejne/hHfdn55ohNCqo9U

[@MichaelBakowski]

How'd you do the little wave effect at the bottom of the ghost 8:35?

[@alexdeaton6842]

Hello, Michaelbak! I achieved the wave with the very handy Wave Warp effect in After Effects. I had a separate rectangle for the bottom of the ghosts body from the main body and applied the effect to the lower rectangle. I believe the Ghose is in the project files you can download from School of Motion!

[@animated_creed]

Surely 4 years late but, If anyone is reading this, where can I find the .aep file to work along for the vase tutorial? The link in the caption doesn't have it.

[@vikasdubey8523]

Hey man, can you pls tell me the technique behind the sequence at 0:28 sec.

[@yousawnothing644]

Alex actually did here! kzbin.info/www/bejne/o6HXmGV5ar6ra9k

[@tylerdawson7232]

This is great! How did you animate the stem?

[@alexdeaton6842]

Hi Tyler, I will make a very short tutorial illustrating that process. It is very simple! A brief explanation is that I use After Effect's "Create Nulls from Paths" script (native to the program after 2018, I believe) and attach one of the nulls to the flower layer. Then, all I have to do is animate the flower and the stem bends along with it as you see here. No extra animation necessary.

[@tylerdawson7232]

@@alexdeaton6842 Thank you, Alex!

[@bowlinglm]

I am trying to group layers 'Eye - MASK' and 'Pupil', but Ctrl-G does not group on Windows 10. What am I doing wrong?

[@smdevaraj5981]

How did you change the shape of flower pot and flower

[@alexdeaton6842]

Hi! I wish there was an easy answer for this, but unfortunately I just hand animated the path after roughing it out in cel. No plugin for that trick :(

[@tree1177]

i have an important question. how to use stem script????? i don't understand the' STEM' layer.....Please make a tutorial on this part.

[@alexdeaton6842]

Hello! I meant to make a short tutorial on this but got buried in work and family duties. The answer is pretty simple. I drew a line in after effects with a stroke on it, selected the path for that line, then used After Effect's native "Create Nulls From Paths" script that you can find under "Window" at the bottom of the dropdown. When you click "Points Follow Nulls" in the script's window, it creates a null for every point on that path, so you can control the individual points on a shape layer independently! This was revolutionary for my workflow when After Effects added the feature, so definitely get comfortable with it! Just Google "Create Nulls From Paths" if my explanation didn't make sense, and while you're at it, grab the extra useful "Create Nulls From Paths Extended" script from Crunchy Creative which adds some phenomenal functions like individual bezier handle controls. crunchycreatives.com/create-nulls-from-paths-extended/ Happy animating!

[@JonBeech]

Is it possible to add an iris to the eye and make that work or would more shape layers be required?

[@schoolofmotion]

You sure could! Just add the iris design into a group with the pupil. That would give you a group transform for the iris + pupil, and you'd still have individual control over the pupil shape if you wanted to scale that up or down for some added character. You could add a little bit of light reflection over both, too. These shape layer groups can go as deep as you want them to - it really just becomes a matter of keeping track of everything!

[@JonBeech]

@@schoolofmotion As soon as I add a Iris group into the pupil group the iris takes on the dark fill property of the pupil in spite of it having its own fill attribute. I am finding it confusing and I must be missing something fundamental here. It would be great to understand how to get this to work

[@rarapuff7547]

Hi! @6:00, after converting the keyframe to a hold keyframe, he inserted another keyframe (which is a square) and deleted the first one. Could anyone tell me what's the purpose of doing this? Thanks!

[@alexdeaton6842]

Hi Rachel, I'm fairly positive there is a quicker way to do this, perhaps with a key command, but the reason I added another keyframe after making the hold keyframe is to make the "double" hold keyframe so if I apply new value to that property on EITHER side of the first keyframe, they would instantly become hold keyframes! Again this is probably a bad habit and I just haven't learned the more efficient way of doing this, but it's pretty engrained into my workflow. Hope that helps!

[@rarapuff7547]

@@alexdeaton6842 Thank you very much, Alex! Loved your tutorials! Super helpful!

[@michaelvestergaard4251]

How do you rename groups?!

[@alexdeaton6842]

Hit enter with a group selected and it should make the text editable for you. Then hit enter again when you're done!

[@maaxthecat451]

Regardless of how important the information is

[@Blessupph777]

0:22

[@trungquocduy2582]

It ans you have completed the ga

[@3epicequipmentchannel253]

I don't even have soft soft I just have the demo

[@esang9840]

did he co back?

[@ArisMelachroinos]

19:00 I have made an expression to fix that and it works correctly without closing the path. Comment if you are interested.

[@user-yo5yr9yr2h]

that's awesome pls share!

[@ArisMelachroinos]

@@user-yo5yr9yr2h I did share it on another comment, I am reposting it after this:

[@ArisMelachroinos]

​@@user-yo5yr9yr2h If you go to 19:10, on the timeline you have "Stroke" group selected. Having that selected, you can apply this preset I made: drive.google.com/file/d/1TNDEYOmBmb6y39MzzIwq15GaTNU0uD-1/view This will create a new "Path 2" path inside the "Stroke" group that you had selected, and it should be positioned just bellow "Path 1"

[@alexdeaton6842]

Hi Aris, this is cool! Thank you for sharing. There's also another workaround that a few other commenters have pointed out and I have outlined in an update video here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/hHfdn55ohNCqo9U

[@user-yo5yr9yr2h]

@@ArisMelachroinos Thank you aris! This did help!

[@nataliamathias3825]

I have pro tools 12.5 wNice tutorialch I bought back in 15 and It is really nightmare DAW for my soft creation. I have powerful computer but

[@otiniano]

are you anyhow related to Marty Scorsese? you kinda have the same speech cadence.

[@alexdeaton6842]

Lol no I wish :D

[@zelalemtadesse]

it is very good video but i couldn't follow it up because the properties are very small and you also a bit fast. but anyway thank you for the video

[@zonasemarang7330]

but I’m learning the mobile version

[@phitran1450]

Well my GMS is softing like my old broken Hard Drive ?!

[@peprego]

My head hurts.

[@BigMike246]

My brain hurts.

[@eriklindahl7376]

Great tutorial but very complicated and shows some serious shortcomings of After Effects. Comp organization gets really messy in a different way since all your objects are with-in one layer.

[@noufalrahbi2753]

I'm not, too late

[@vandanasah8367]

First

[@chengjiudu5915]

This is way too complicated for me lol

[@Robert-en6cs]

in the background you are pressing a lot of keys and you just tell me a few of the keys you press. The first 5 min of you video took me 90min to go with you. But @4:23 you pressed a key I am not able to find out. I still have more (4) bezier-handles than you have to close the eye and when I tried to copy 'n paste the frame where the eye was open, my pupil disappeared when the eye is open again. Oh man. I can use Photoshop and Illustrator with closed eyes and I thought it's not going to be really difficult to start with AE, but I am totally lost, need to check some basic tutorials. Good video, but way too fast, and not for beginners but THANK GOD without backgroundmusic! Why everybody uses backgroundmusic to explain somthing? Does a teacher starts his spotify-List before explaining the structure of DNA to his students? Keep going like this but add a software, automatically showing the keys you press. I think you are in something like a isolated-mode where you just can modify a specific layer, like in AI, double-clicking on it. That's why you have to move just some bezier-handles.

[@2424rocket]

one of the most convoluted tutorial I've ever seen - but okay.

[@markusmark3151]

"Vwela" it's pronounced VOILA jesus christ dude