After Effects CS6 : Template Compositions

Question

I'm trying to put together a library of 'clips' and/or 'effects' to use in some upcoming training videos I am developing. Is there a 'best practices' that includes making each effect into a composition? Or are 'best practices' usually individually developed and there really isn't any such thing for After Effects.

My effects are things like:

1. templated layouts
   • Specific lower thirds fonts and colors
   • outlines that draw themselves
   • text blocks that swoop in and settle that can have their text updated per video
2. color palettes or swatches
3. intro videos
4. etc.

I am trying to reduce repetition. I could create these effects each video, but I would like to create an effect ( i.e., text block swooping in at angle x and changing color at arrival ) and then replace JUST the text each video so that the effect becomes something the viewer recognizes as part of my training series.

Answer 1

There are a few different ways you can do this depending on your scenario. Normally, for things like lower thirds, I make one composition in which I enter just the lower third text and plate. I then use that composition as an asset in another composition to do the actual animations. I can then simply turn on or off any particular text I need to in the static composition and render the final composition to get the needed output.

Similarly, for a video at the beginning of a clip, you can have a wrapper composition that has the lead-in and then you can replace the contents of the composition that is shown after the lead-in plays.

Alternately, you could probably do a fair bit of it using expressions too, but I've yet to have any tasks that were complex enough to have bothering to setup something with expressions.