Creating Motion Graphics with After Effects, 5th Edition

25 Presets and Variations

Alternatives to reinventing the wheel every time you use an effect

If you can copy and paste it, you can save it: That is the philosophy behind Animation Presets. Presets allow you to save static values or keyframed animations for text, masks, effects, layer styles, and transformations. These presets are saved to individual files on disk and presented in the Effects & Presets panel for later application to any layer in any project. You can later edit these values to suit their new application.

In addition to being able to create your own presets, Adobe provides hundreds of factory presets that include effects, text, and shapes. Later in this chapter we will focus on some of our favorite categories, including Behaviors, ...