Adobe After Effects ACP cheat sheet

Composition Settings (Ctrl/Cmd+K) fixes width, height, pixel aspect ratio, frame rate, and duration at creation; changing frame rate later does not retime existing keyframes.

Resolution choices in the Composition panel (Full, Half, Third, Quarter, Custom) affect preview only; final quality is governed by Render Settings in the Render Queue.

An .aep project stores links to source media rather than the media itself; Collect Files consolidates the project and its sources for archiving or handoff.

Auto-Save writes recovery copies at the interval and folder set in Preferences > Auto-Save (default interval is 20 minutes).

Disk cache is configured in Preferences > Media & Disk Cache; it persists between sessions and can be purged or moved to a faster drive.

Workspaces are saved panel arrangements; Window > Workspaces > Reset restores a workspace to its default layout.

Shy, Lock, Solo, and Label switches sit in the layer switch column; the Shy switch hides a layer only while the timeline's Shy filter is active.

Undo depth is set in Preferences > General; After Effects has no History panel, so undo depth is the only multi-step recovery beyond Auto-Save.

File > Import > File (Ctrl/Cmd+I) imports single items; selecting a numbered series and enabling the Sequence checkbox creates an image sequence.

Interpret Footage > Main sets frame rate, field order, pixel aspect ratio, alpha type, and color management; interpretation changes how AE reads the file but never alters it.

Premultiplied alpha is the default assumption; choose Straight only for footage saved with unmultiplied color channels, or semi-transparent edges will fringe.

Set Proxy > File links a low-resolution stand-in; the proxy switch toggles it, and the Render Queue uses proxies only when the Use Proxies option is enabled in Render Settings.

PSD and AI imports offer Footage, Composition, or Composition-Cropped Layers; Composition mode splits the document into a comp with one layer per source layer.

Consolidate All Footage merges duplicate source entries; Remove Unused Footage deletes project items not referenced by any composition.

Replace Footage > File relinks a missing or moved source while preserving the item's interpretation and every composition that uses it.

Folders, label colors, and the Project panel search field manage large projects; search matches item names and, when enabled, contents of compositions.

Transform order is anchor point, position, scale, rotation, then opacity; the anchor point is the pivot for scale and rotation.

Keyframe interpolation choices are Linear, Bezier, Continuous Bezier, and Hold; F9 applies Easy Ease to selected keyframes.

The Graph Editor is required to shape velocity over time; Separate Dimensions lets X and Y be keyframed independently.

Parenting propagates a parent's position, scale, and rotation to children but never its opacity, effects, or mask properties.

Blend modes composite a layer against the layers below; the TrkMat column uses the layer directly above as an alpha or luma matte and hides that matte layer.

Time Remapping (Ctrl/Cmd+Alt+T) keyframes source time; spacing between keyframes sets speed and reversing keyframe order reverses playback.

Pre-compose (Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+C) moves selected layers into a new composition; Move All Attributes carries effects, masks, and transforms into the nested comp.

Layer > Transform > Fit to Comp (Ctrl/Cmd+Alt+F) scales a layer to the composition size; Fit to Comp Width and Fit to Comp Height scale on one axis only.

J and K jump to the previous and next visible keyframe or marker in the timeline, which is faster than scrubbing for keyframe-heavy animation.

Mask modes are Add, Subtract, Intersect, Difference, and None; feather, expansion, and opacity are per-mask properties in the Mask property group.

Mask path keyframes animate the shape over time; RotoBezier masks compute curves without tangent handles and lose that behavior if converted to Bezier.

Effect order in Effect Controls is render order, top to bottom; an adjustment layer applies its effects to every layer beneath it in the same composition.

Masks are applied before a layer's effects, so blurring a masked layer softens along the mask edge unless the masked layer is pre-composed first.

Animation presets are .ffx files in the User Presets folder; apply them by dragging from Effects & Presets and save them via Animation > Save Animation Preset.

The Mask Feather tool drags a soft edge directly in the Composition panel, equivalent to raising the Mask Feather value in the timeline.

A track matte layer must sit immediately above the layer it mattes; the matte layer is hidden automatically but its own effects still shape the matte result.

Effects & Presets search matches names and categories; browsing by folder in the panel flyout is the reliable way to find presets whose names you do not know.

Shape layer Contents render group properties top to bottom; operators such as Repeater, Trim Paths, and Offset Paths affect the groups listed above them.

Trim Paths animates strokes on or off using Start, End, and Offset percentages and must sit below the path group it drives.

Create Shapes from Vector Layer converts an Illustrator layer into editable shape paths; Continuously Rasterize keeps vector layers sharp at any scale.

Text animators add properties such as Position, Scale, Skew, and Fill Color to a range selector or to the whole layer, and multiple animators stack.

Text on a path requires a mask on the text layer; Path Options control First and Last Margin, Reverse Path, and Perpendicular To Path.

Expression functions to memorize: wiggle(freq, amp), loopOut(), linear(t, tMin, tMax, v1, v2), time, and value; a failing expression is disabled and flagged.

A Repeater copies a shape group with offsets for position, rotation, scale, and start/end opacity, producing patterns without extra layers.

Create Shapes from Text bakes glyphs into editable paths; keep a duplicate text layer when the copy must stay editable.

3D layers gain X, Y, Z position, Orientation, Rotation, and Material Options; 3D layers are depth-sorted automatically against each other.

Camera options: Two-Node adds a point of interest for aiming, One-Node rotates in place, and Zoom and Angle of View are inversely related.

Camera Depth of Field uses Aperture, Focus Distance, and Blur Level; larger aperture values produce a shallower depth of field.

Light types are Parallel, Spot, Point, and Ambient; shadows require Cast Shadows on the light and Accepts Shadows on the receiving layer.

Collapse Transformations renders nested comps and vector layers at the parent comp's resolution and exposes their 3D content to cameras and lights.

3D Camera Tracker (Effect > Perspective) solves camera motion and can create a camera plus nulls; parent 3D layers to those nulls to integrate elements.

Warp Stabilizer methods are Position, Position/Scale/Rotation, Subspace Warp, and Perspective; higher Smoothness reduces jitter but crops more of the frame.

Mocha AE tracks planar motion and exports corner-pin or transform data back to After Effects for screen replacement and cleanup work.

The Render Queue (Ctrl/Cmd+Alt+0) renders output items in list order; Ctrl/Cmd+M adds the active composition as a new output item.

Each output item has independent Render Settings (quality, resolution, frame range, field order) and Output Module settings (format, codec, channels, depth, audio).

Channels must be set to RGB+Alpha with Straight or Premultiplied alpha chosen to match the consuming application, or edges fringe downstream.

The Lossless output module preserves quality and is the correct choice for intermediate renders destined for another encoder or compositor.

Enable Use Proxies in Render Settings only when the proxy resolution is acceptable for the final delivery.

H.264 and HEVC delivery runs through Adobe Media Encoder; Match Source presets or an explicit target bitrate controls web distribution quality.

Multi-machine rendering uses the aerender command-line executable, which renders a queued project without opening the interface.

Post-render actions are Import, Import & Replace Usage, and Set Proxy; they determine what happens to the finished file inside the project.

Project color depth (8, 16, or 32 bpc) is set in Project Settings; 32-bpc enables HDR and linear blending, and the output module depth must support it.

Frame blending requires both the layer's Frame Blending switch and the composition's Frame Blending switch; Frame Mix is faster and Pixel Motion is smoother.