Adobe 65008009 - After Effects CS4 Using Manual page 395

Last updated 12/21/2009
Note: Path operations on shape layers, such as Zig Zag and Pucker & Bloat—which you apply through the shape layer's
Add menu—are called effects in Adobe Illustrator, but they function differently from other effects in After Effects.
You browse and apply effects using the Effects & Presets panel. You modify effect properties using the Effect Controls
panel or Timeline panel or by moving effect control points in the Layer panel or Composition panel.
You can apply multiple instances of the same effect to a layer, rename each instance, and set the properties for each
instance separately.
For a video tutorial on applying and working with effects and animation presets, go to the Adobe website at
www.adobe.com/go/vid0228.
Note: If you open a project that uses an effect for which After Effects has not loaded the plug-in, a warning dialog box
appears, and instances of the effect have Missing: at the beginning of its name in the Timeline panel and Effect Controls
panel. To show all instances of missing effects in the Timeline panel for the active composition, press FF.
Effect plug-ins
All effects are implemented as plug-ins, including the effects that are included with After Effects. Plug-ins are small
software modules—with filename extensions such as .aex, .pbk, and .pbg—that add functionality to an application. Not
all plug-ins are effect plug-ins; for example, some plug-ins provide features for importing and working with certain file
formats. The Photoshop Camera Raw plug-in, for example, provides After Effects with its ability to work with camera
raw files. (See "Plug-ins" on page 641.)
Many effect plug-ins are written in C/C++; increasingly, many image-manipulation effect plug-ins are written in the
Adobe® Pixel Bender™ language.
Because effects are implemented as plug-ins, you can install and use additional effects that parties other than Adobe
provide, including effects that you create yourself. You can add a single new effect or an entire folder of new effects to
the Plug-ins folder, which is located by default in one of these folders:
• (Windows) Program Files\Adobe\Adobe After Effects CS4\Support Files
• (Mac OS) Applications/Adobe After Effects CS4
When After Effects starts, it searches the Plug-ins folder and its subfolders for all installed effects and adds them to the
Effect menu and to the Effects & Presets panel. After Effects ignores the contents of folders with names that begin and
end in parentheses; for example, the contents of the folder (archived_effects) are not loaded.
Adobe provides many third-party effect plug-ins with After Effects. Keylight, Color Finesse, and Cycore FX (CC) plug-
ins are installed by default with the full version of Adobe After Effects software. These plug-ins are not included with
the trial version of Adobe After Effects software. The installers for some plug-ins install their documentation in the
same directory as the plug-ins themselves. Documentation for the Cycore FX plug-ins is available on the
website.
The EXtractoR and IDentifier plug-ins from fnord software are included with After Effects to provide access to
multiple layers and channels of OpenEXR files. See
Animating effects
You animate effect properties in the same way that you animate any other properties—by adding keyframes or
expressions to them. In most cases, even effects that rely on animation for their normal use require that you set some
keyframes or expressions. For example, animate the Transition Completion property of a Transition effect or the
Evolution setting of the Turbulent Noise effect to turn a static effect into a dynamic effect.
"ProEXR plug-ins, IDentifier and
USING AFTER EFFECTS CS4
Effects and animation presets
Cycore
EXtractoR" on page 431.
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