Parallax style animation is pretty simple in After Effects. All you really need to do is stack your layers in the right order, then make them all 3D layers and add a camera. Setting the camera to move will automatically give you that parallax look, depending of course, on distance and camera settings. The more complex the scene is, the more tedious separating the 3D layers in After Effects gets. 20 layers can be fine, but what about 100?
If you find yourself doing a lot of those parallax moves in Ae, then you might want to look at automating that process. One solution is ParaLight, a tool with a small interface, that lets you create that 2.5D parallax animation at the click of a button.
ParaLight will offset all layers in Z space based on the layer index, and then creates a camera with all the controls that you would need for animation, including controls for camera focus. The script works in a nondestructive manner too. If you want to remove the effects that are generated by the script, you can simply reset back to the way that it was.
The script is available through VideoHive for $22.00, visit the ParaLight page for more information.
[via Robert Paige]
