Mikey Borup gets you started creating your own shape layer presets in After Effects. Mikey walks through creating a shape layer preset, showing how to use After Effect’s expression controls to add a bit of intelligence behind the preset.

This tutorial will take you through the steps. of building a man/woman symbol preset

Using the expression pick whip and some simple expression syntax, Mikey creates some simple controls for the shape layer preset that can handle visibility, style, and animation.

Having the forethought to create shape layer presets can save you some time in After Effects, rather than continually building, importing or using previous files.

You can also download the preset used in the tutorial courtesy of Mikey Borup and Cinema Spice.