User Guide

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ADOBE AFTER EFFECTS 5.0
User Guide
To change the angle of a layer by dragging in the Composition window:
1 Select the rotation tool ( ) from the toolbox.
2 In the Composition window, click anywhere on the layer and drag in an arc around the
layer. For finer control over rotation, drag in a wide arc away from the layer’s anchor point.
To add multiple rotations, drag the rotation tool around the layer continuously for the
desired number of rotations. To constrain rotation to 45-degree increments, hold down
Shift as you drag.
To rotate a selected layer by nudging it 1 degree:
Press + or – on the numeric keypad.
To rotate a selected layer by nudging it 10 degrees:
Hold down Shift as you press + or – on the numeric keypad.
Rotating a layer along a motion path
You can make a layer rotate automatically as it moves along a motion path. For example,
if you animate a toy airplane careening through the sky, you can apply auto-orient rotation
to make the plane turn and change direction.
Before applying auto-orient rotation (left) and after (right)
To activate or deactivate Auto-Orient for a layer:
1 Display the Timeline and Composition windows for a composition.
2 In the Timeline window, select the layer you want to modify.
UG.book Page 181 Wednesday, February 21, 2001 12:05 PM