Viewing The Expression Graph; Saving Expressions; To Reuse An Expression - Adobe AFTER EFFECTS 7.0 Manual

To toggle between layer bar mode and Graph Editor mode, press Shift+F3.
•
To view only properties with expressions, select one or more layers, and then press EE on the keyboard.
•
To show the expression field in the Graph Editor, choose Show Expression Editor from the Choose Graph Type
And Options menu at the bottom of the Graph Editor.
To resize the expression field, drag its bottom edge up or down.

Viewing the expression graph

To see how an expression changes the value or velocity graph, click the graph overlay icon
or velocity graph in the Graph Editor. The dimly colored graph displays the value or velocity before the expression
is applied, and the brightly colored graph displays value or velocity after the expression is applied.
Turning on the graph overlay for the Position property also changes the motion path display in the Composition
panel so that you can see the expression-affected path.
See also
"Working with the Graph Editor" on page 189

Saving expressions

Once you have written an expression, you can save it for future use by copying and pasting it into a text-editing appli-
cation, such as Notepad, Simple Text, or even Stickies. However, because expressions are written in relation to other
layers in a project and may use specific layer names, it doesn't always work to simply save and load expressions into
a project. If you want to save an expression for use in another project, you may want to add comments to the
expression or save the entire project file so that you can use it as a reference when you reuse the expression.
You can save an animation preset that includes an expression and reuse it in other projects, as long as the expression
does not refer to properties that don't exist in the other projects.
See also
"To save an animation preset" on page 203

To reuse an expression

You can copy an expression from a layer property, with or without the property's keyframes. Copying an expression
without keyframes is particularly useful when you want to simultaneously copy multiple expressions and paste them
onto one or more new layers, or when you want to copy one expression and paste it onto more than one layer.
•
To apply an expression and copy keyframes, copy the layer property that contains the expression and paste it onto
other layers.
•
To apply an expression to any other property without copying keyframes, copy the expression in the expression
field and paste it into other expression fields.
•
To apply an expression to the same property in a different layer without copying keyframes, select the layer
property that contains the expression, choose Edit > Copy Expression Only, select a different layer, and choose
Edit > Paste.
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User Guide
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