FREE After Effects Basics -2D Flat Shadows in After Effects

Please download this practice file with the sample animations so you have compositions to work with in the lectures on Technique 1, Technique 2 and Technique 3.

In the first technique we will focus on using Effects to achieve the flat shadow into our composition. We will use a combination of 4 different After Effects FX and try to save them as a animation preset so we can use this basic animation in our future projects.

In this lecture I want to show you what can be done if there is a problem with the size of a composition. Often once we work on PNG or other simple files which are not directly layers in After Effects we get stuck because their size is limited to the content itself. Here I want to show you 3 techniques how to overcome this problem:

1. You can precompose the given file
2. You can try to create a shape layer from the vector file
3. You can use a effect called Grow Bounds (but that doesn't always work) - it's worth a shot!

The second technique we will learn is creating a flat shadow using the repeater. There are pros and cons to use this technique, but it's definately something worth knowing about and useful in any after effects project we may make in the future. You can duplicate the main layer on a separate layer to acheve a parallel flat shadow effect.

The last technique will be I think the most difficult one because it will need to create a few expressions (which is a rather advanced topic) to finalize the shadow. I will however show you everything and later on show you how you can easily link it to a slider and basically have it done with just 3 effects. You will learn how to use the pickwip and create simple After Effects expressions.

With this lecture I would like to summarize what we've done and ask you politely for a review if you enjoyed this course. This would mean a lot to me!

This is a bonus lecture for the course.