A Grab-Bag of Shape and Vector Tips for After Effects

WorkBench’s Joe Clay has another instalment of some After Effects quick tips. Although it can be said that there are some tips in here for all areas, it is a Mographer’s bed of information. Joe has a look at some workflow things in After Effects, for creating perfect vector shapes, or shapes that have a specific ratio. There are also some tips for drawing non-parametric shapes, or turning shapes into paths.

If you use multiple ArtBoards for your source work in Adobe Illustrator, Joe shows one method that he uses to handle those in After Effects. There are quite a few good ones in here, check the list below, and watch the video.

  • Make a quick square/circle
  • Make a rectangle with a specific ratio
  • Convert parametric shapes to paths
  • Drawing non-parametric shapes
  • Shortcut to select shape paths
  • Using multiple artboards
  • Rotation and scale shortcuts
  • The Strobe Light effect
  • Separate dimensions
  • Unstagger keyframes