How To Copy & Paste Keyframes - An Adobe After Effects tutorial

Learn how to, and what's going on when you, cut, copy and paste keyframes in adobe after effects. I know it sounds easy but if it was that easy I would not have so many questions in my inbox about it now would I. Today we're taking it back to basics and responding to overwhelming comment questions at the same time y'all.

I know it's been very very basic so far but stick with me and I'll make something way cooler. I promise. In fact the next one will blow you're mind... or not. I don't know what I'm doing next.

[BackyardAmusement]

Awesome. 11 minutes to teach a 5 second task.

[danielcjtodd]

Step one does not begin until 4:53 minutes of fluff! geez.

Select keyframes.
Copy it. (cmd-c (mac) or ctrl-c (pc)).
move to different time.
Paste it. (cmd-v or ctrl v)

[AlienWithABox]

For those who don't want to sit through an 11-minute video for 20 seconds of instructions, here's how to do it:
select only the keyframes
copy (cmd-c / ctrl-c)
move to a different time
click the layer you want to make sure it's selected
paste (cmd-v / ctrl v)

[alicanyeksan]

"When you select a layer it turns from light grey to dark grey" Awesome piece of info i cant belive it

[ECAbrams]

Looks to me like they have a camera that just moves back in 3d space and there are 3d layers about. How that helps.

[cristiparpalea]

Hi. Can you please help me. I need to make the background of a subtitle to appear/disappear with the subtitle. Is it a way to copy the key frames from the "Source text" over the layer of the background? Thanks so much!

[JohnnyQuestFishing]

Ok. I got the whole copy and paste but I have a question. If I convert audio to keyframe how do I cut out the keyframe so that the text is affected only after half of the keyframe.. I tried to drop it in scaling but even when I take say the front part of the keyframe the text is still affected even though it does not show the keyframe anymore.. OK OK. let me run thru this.
I put audio in. I use animation to convert to keyframe, I then create text, I split the keyeframe and take off the front of one and the back of the other, i add text to timeline, I link the text to back end of keyframe, when I run the audio the text is still affected by the other part of the keyframe but yet, I never linked the front part of the split keyframe.. what am i doing wrong?

[ECAbrams]

I'm pretty sure this one was done in CS6. Alt+drag still does the same thing and copy/paste still does the same thing. What exactly are you trying to copy and where are you trying to paste it?

[AsgardMedia]

I almost didn't watch this because I know how to cut & paste keyframes. Still learned something new. Thanks for all the tutorials.

[zoebrinkley]

Thanks for the tutorial. I'm new to After Effects, so little bits of info like this are helpful :]

[ElidanPlayGames]

Isnt there a way to just aply it to the first and last keyframes?

[ECAbrams]

Sadly I can't duplicate the error. If you're alt+dragging something it should be to stretch or compress existing frames.

As for your pasting a whole new layer. it must be a miss match in source to location. Do you perhaps also have the layer selects for duplication? That might be it.

Either way I've never had the problem myself and I can't seem to make it happen on my setup so I'm not totally sure what to offer as advice except to try copying and pasting one property at a time.

[vivokhanh]

what did you do at 3:50 ? Can you tell me! thank u so much :)

[germinator]

came from your website to say thanks for taking the time to help with your tutorials

[anganas]

Can we do this same thing in flash CS5.5?

[socheathsun]

Thanks Evan... I'm always learning something new looking at your videos... You are the best!

[keios]

I didn't fully understand why it would paste keyframes in a seemingly random place. Now I know it all depends on where the play head is at. Thanks you Evan.

[skyex]

I agree, this is definitely using the stock settings in Twitch. I'm currently in the process of creating my own library of glitch effects so I can have more granular control over the effects, and my process for the RGB splitting effect involves creating 3 duplicate layers of the precomposed source material, using the Set Channels effect to set each one to a separate color channel, and writing twitch expressions for each one, the controls of which are tied to independent sliders on each channel.

[ralph]

Thank you for replying. Well I am doing this game animation and I have 3 positions of the character. The 1st and 3rd animation are the same and the 2nd is different so it will have a loop. I did the 1st and 2nd and now I'm trying to make the 3rd by alt+dragging the 1st. But to my surprise it does nothing. I tried the good ol copy+paste method and it duplicates the entire layer with all the properties. So I'm really wondering why it doesn't do that. I tried CS5 and I had no problem. IDK why. :/

[tardiskeeper]

How do you duplicate a key frame to the same layer? I am trying to do an extended pause in animation.