2d Post Motion Blur

After Effects has 2 built in options for 2d post motion blur. CCForceMotionBlur effect is the first, Timewarp is the second. Set the speed to 100 and enable motion blur. Both are reasonably good once you master the settings. Timewarp can be quite slow.

Shape/Mask Presets

Don't forget if you make a nice star or something, to save it as a preset. Therefore you will build up a library of shapes that you can reuse.

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Thanks,
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Alan Eddie

W:     www.alaneddie.com

B:     http://alaneddie.blogspot.com/

Reshape Morphing

Remember After Effects has a little used effect called reshape which can be used for morphing techniques using masks on layers. Perhaps use the Auto Trace feature to create a mask and use the results with Reshape.

2. Save RAM Preview

Don't forget to Save RAM Preview once your scene is loaded into RAM. I always forget and then add it to the render queue and it has to go again!

1. Sources & mainSource

Understand the difference between source / mainSource. So  theLayer.source would reveal an item object in the project window. theItem.mainSource would reveal a type of FootageSource object like a SolidSource. Of course a folder item wouldn't have a mainSource! Potential error there.