Beginning user trying to add preset transition

[MorganK777]

Hi,

I'm a complete beginner and I'm trying to use one of the preset transitions between film clips. I've searched YouTube Videos and this forum and I can find the one step I seem to be missing. I set the time indicator to where I would like to begin the transition and nothing happens. In the fx attributes, I can't find a start or end point---only a 'completion' bar that also doesn't seem to change anything with I try to set it with keyframes. Can anyone tell me what steps I'm missing? What happens after you add a preset transition to a film clip? What exactly do I do next to make it work? Thank you in advance for any help. 

[Mylenium]

Impossible to know since you haven't offered any details liek the actual name of the preset. Chances are it's rigged with expressions. And, no offense, your wrong terminology alone suggests that you seriously, seriously need to read the online help. AE is not an editing program and you don't work with film clips. You work with layers and their stacking order matters which in fact may be what you are getting wrong - transitions don't apply to adjacent clips, they reveal layers beneath other layers.

Mylenium

[MorganK777]

Thanks? The name of the preset in CC Glass Wipe. I'm trying to use a transition between LAYERS. The first layer, my LOGO REVEAL, is above the second layer, the not-film clip that came out of my camera. I'm trying to find the exact steps, and I have looked in the online help for anything resembling the procedure related to the practical application of transitions between layers. Do you kindly know what search terminology, question, query or prayer might actually return a helpful answer instead of anything but a helpful answer? Thank you so much for time.

[Kyle Hamrick · Accepted solution]

You've got a couple things working against you here - I think the biggest is that you might be thinking of After Effects like a video editor, in terms of how effects/transitions work. You've also chosen an effect that's actually relatively complex, despite having only a few controls. 

First, what you're applying is an effect, not a preset. Presets can involve effects, but don't necessarily have to.
An effect will contain properties that can be changed to achieve different looks - it changes pixels - but typically require you to make the necessary adjustments, and often animate properties, to complete the process.

CC Glass Wipe, while it's under the Transition category, needs something even further to work. It's what's known as a compound effect, which means you need to "feed" other layers into it to help drive the functionality. This is also a category of effects that's probably not well-understood by that many people, which explains why it's been hard for you to find a straight answer on it.

CC Glass Wipe requires:
- An effected layer, we'll call it Layer A - the layer the effect has been applied to.
- A layer to reveal, which we'll call Layer B - this is any other layer in the composition. This may not seem very intuitive, but because of the way the effect works, this second layer doesn't necessarily need to be below Layer A, nor does it even need to be otherwise visible in the composition, just present.
- A gradient layer - a third layer (or could technically be Layer A or Layer B) which provides white and black values to the effect as an additional control input. Ideally, this layer should also have the same dimensions as Layer A, to ensure predictability in the way it applies this gradient to the transition. This could be a simple white/black gradient, or a complex image, and the amount of gray in the image (softness/distance between areas of pure white/pure black) will determine the direction and severity of the "wipe" once you animate the effect.

Once you have those other layers applied, then changing/animating Completion property will actually show you what you're after. 

TL;DR - is this effect actually the look you're after? If not, you might be better served to just choose something simpler. If there a specific look you're after in this transition? If you're actually just looking to transition between two video clips, you'd probably be much better served just doing this in Premiere. After Effects isn't always this complicated, but the above is a good example of how quickly it can become a very deep rabbit hole if you don't know what you don't know.  😉 

[MorganK777]

Thank you so much! I understand a bit better now and I really appreciate it. This gives me a good place to start understanding this process.