Use the Layer Snapping feature

After Effects has this cool feature - called Layer Snapping.

What it allows you to do is that when you work in the Comp panel - and you're dragging a layer around, you can have it snapped to another layer.

And that may not seem like a big deal, - but when you're working in 3D space, that's really helpful because when you're trying - to connect two layers together so you can have them behave - in 3D space in some way, it's really hard to get them to line up.

But snapping makes it, - well, a snap, right?

We're going to work in two comps here.

In this Comp, we're going - to make a cube out of those six squares.

And the other Comp, we're going to work - in what's called the Ray-traced 3D renderer.

I want to show you something here, - we can bend the letter, have these other guys connect - that bended letter, so you get kind - of a curving group of letters.

Go back to squares here.

First of all, After Effects - has had a Snapping feature built-in for a long time.

The Layer Snapping mode - is something that's new to the most recent version - of After Effects.

The older way of snapping, - which still applies, you can take any layer here, if I start moving it, - holding on the Shift key, it will stay in its original horizontal - and vertical space like that.

Hold on the Control key with the Shift key - or the Command key with the Shift key, it'll snap to the edges, and pull it away like that.

But it'll snap - when I get close to the edges.

So you can align things fairly easily with the Control or the Command - and the Shift key.

You can also get at the center like this.

It will snap to the center - when I get inside there.

See how this snaps to the center?

That's the way things have worked - for a long time.

But the newest thing is now Layer Snapping - where you can snap one layer to another.

The way that works is - that wherever you hover your cursor inside an object like this, if snapping is turned on then the closest vertex - or the center point will be the magnet, - the thing that snaps to some other layer.

The keyboard shortcut to turn on Snapping is to hold down the Control - or the Command key.

But I found - that it's a little unpredictable because when you work - with the Pan Behind Tool, it behaves different than when you work - with the Selection Tool.

So I'm going to show you these methods, - but right after that, I'm going to show you - how to turn Snapping on all the time and then how to use the Control - or the Command key to turn it off temporarily.

So then I click away from the square - to deselect it, I'm going to hold on the Control - or the Command key and I'm going to click - near this corner vertex there, and notice that box that appears there, that is the snapping magnet there.

That's the vertex - that's going to be the magnet.

Now, if I go to the right here, I can snap to the edge - of that one next to me.

Notice the green line that forms there - that shows I can slide up and down there?

When I get to a vertex, - it turns into a double box.

Saying that I've connected it - to the vertex there and there, I could connect - to the center point as well.

See how that works?

Pretty slick.

It'll even be slicker when we start - putting this box together in 3D space.

So that's how it works.

But when I use the Pan Behind Tool, - it works a little differently.

I'll select the Pan Behind Tool here.

I want to move the anchor point.

The anchor points currently in the center, - so I'll drag it off center.

Now that I'm dragging it, - hold on the Control or the Command key, and now it's going to snap.

You can't tell if it's going to snap, - but when I get to the center, it snaps.

When I get to a vertex, - it snaps like that.

Now, if I hold on the Control - or the Command key before I move it, then it becomes a Selection Tool - and moves the entire box around.

So that's the kind of confusing thing when you're working - with a keyboard shortcut like this.

What I suggest you do - is turn on Snapping all the time.

You do that right here.

Just check that little box there, - and now Snapping is on.

So if I grab this - with the Pan Behind Tool, it won't certainly start - moving around the entire square, it just moves around - the anchor point there and will snap to the center - or wherever you move it, which is a good thing.

If I go get the Selection Tool - by pressing V, I get it close to this vertex and click, - it turns on to a little box, lets me snap.

If I want to turn - Snapping off temporarily, I'd hold on the Control or Command, - and I can move the box around freely and there's no Snapping.

So I think the better way to work is to have Snapping - turned on all the time.

So you can use snapping - for the anchor point and for vertices here inside a layer.

You can also use it with a mask.

I'm going to add a solid layer here; New, Solid...

I make it a color that's pretty obvious.

Put it right on top like that.

And I'm going to take the Pen Tool, draw a quick mask here.

And now if I take this guy over here - using the Selection Tool, with masking turned on now, and I take this corner right there, - for example, click.

And now I'm going to snap - to the vertices of this mask, and also to the border of the mask.

Not just to the vertices, - but it snaps to the border.

When I get to a vertex, - you'll see that snaps right to the vertex.

I can go inside - to the anchor point as well.

So you can work with masks as well as working - with just regular layers like that.

Let's just get rid - of that solid layer for now.

So our goal here now is to make a cube.

And so I'm going to take my Selection Tool - and start connecting things.

So I've got this guy, - I'll just drag it like that, he'll snap to him.

Get this guy near the vertex, - snap this guy, snap.

I want to have this guy snap again, - looks like I missed it, there we go.

I'm going to take you - and snap you on the top there like so.

Take you and snap you over here - on the right-hand side.

So you see that is.

What I want to do now - is move the anchor points, and also, I want to slide - these guys around a little bit, so I'm going to connect these guys - to this one on the middle.

So I'm going to select all of them, top one, Shift click on the bottom one, and then deselect that light green one, Control or Command key to deselect it, and deselect the purple one now, too.

We're going to parent everybody - to that guy right there.

Parent to light green.

And then the purple guy, - we'll parent it to the dark green.

Click away - and open up the light green one here.

Change its position, press P.

We'll slide it to the left - and they'll all move along with it.

Slide it down a little bit.

Now I want to move the anchor point so that they're all along - their vertices here.

So when we tip them up with a rotation - and then I'll tip in the right place, so we'll get this guy first, take the Pan Behind Tool, - which is this one over here, It'll snap when I grab it, - so snap to that vertex.

Take this one over here.

It'll snap to that vertex.

See how easy this is snap?

Snap.

And up here.

Now let's put them all in 3D space.

I'll select them all, - Control A or Command A for all of them, click on this little 3D box, - they're all 3D now, close this down like that.

I'll rotate each one here, - so let me go do the red one, press R for rotation, - I want to rotate that on its X-axis.

We'll take it like so, - rotate it up like that.

And make it 90 degrees.

I can rotate the blue one now, dark blue, R for rotation for it, rotate it on its Y-axis.

I can put it to -90 degrees.

And the light blue one.

Light blue.

Rotation for that one.

We'll rotate that one - on the X-axis like so.

We make that -90 degrees.

We'll rotate the green - and the purple one will come along with it because the purple - is parented to the green.

So we'll go to the dark green, R for it.

We're going to rotate it on its Y-axis.

We'll make it 90 degrees.

Let's just take this light green one here.

Get the light green one here.

Open up its rotation, rotate it on its Y-axis a little bit.

There's our purple guy right there.

So we'll go get the purple one, - press R for it.

We want to rotate it on its Y-axis, scroll down a bit here and rotate it over there like that, - I will make it 90 degrees.

Now we've made ourselves a little cube.

Let me just change - the opacity on this just a little bit.

I'll do Control or Command A - for all of them.

Press T for Opacity.

And we'll knock - the Opacity down a little bit so you can see inside there.

We'll click away with the Selection Tool.

We can see them all.

I'll take that light green one because that's the one - that controls everything.

Scroll down to the light green one here.

I'll go to it, and I'll say - let's go for a rotation for you.

We can start seeing - all these guys rotate together.

So easy now to make this cube.

I'm telling you, - you may not think this is a big deal, but to put these guys together - in a cube like that is a huge deal, to make it all work so smoothly like that - and have it go so quickly.

And it's a really cool thing, - and Snapping, let us do that.

We snapped the vertices, - and we snapped the anchor points.

Let's go over here to this Text Comp.

This Text Comp will be rendered - using the Ray-traced 3D renderer.

I'll show you how we get there.

I'll right-click on the Text layer, - we'll go to Composition Settings, we go to Advanced, under the Renderer, - it's the Ray-traced 3D renderer.

The normal one's Classic 3D, but Ray-traced 3D renderer - is the non-default one.

We'll cancel out of that.

Once we go to the Ray-traced 3D render, - we can bend things and extrude things.

We can extrude text and shapes, - and we can bend footage, we can bend layers.

We can't bend text, but if we pre-comp and we take text - and nest it another composition, then we can, and it behaves like footage.

So first of all, - I wanna connect these three guys together Snapping is on by default.

I've got my Selection Tool.

I grab you like this.

Go to the right vertex and snap you there.

Like this one here.

Move you around, - snap you there as well like that.

Go get my Pan Behind Tool here.

There's a Pan Behind Tool - to snap these guys to the vertex as well.

You, too, right to the vertex there.

Good, now we're all set up.

Let's change the view here - from Active Camera, which is the way - that people see this thing, to the Custom View.

So it's kind of off to the side - so you can see it a little bit better.

Now I'm going to select the B Comp here.

Let me show you - a little trick here that you can do when you switch - to the Ray-traced 3D renderer.

Open this up.

It's going to have geometry options.

We can curve it, - which is really pretty amazing.

So I'll curve it now.

See how it pulls back like that.

Pulls back in kind of four chunks there.

That's because - there's many segments there.

I want to increase the number of segments - to make it smoother.

Now we'll close it down - and let's rotate the A and the C.

So I click on A, go to R for rotation.

I want to rotate here on the Y-axis.

There we go, we'll go to 90 degrees or -90.

And we'll go get the C now, - the letter C, click on it, press R for rotation and we'll rotate that - to +90 on the Y-axis.

Type in 90.

I want to parent these guys to B so I'm going to take them - and connect C to B, and A to B.

So now if I go to B, press R for rotation - and rotate on the Y-axis, these guys will behave together like this.

Working as this unit here, - this kind of curved group of text.

What I'm going to do now - is go back to the regular view, the Active Camera view.

And I'm going to add a light, which is something else - we also haven't discussed yet, but I want to just add a light - to show you what you can do when you work in 3D space like this, and you've got these guys - kind of curling around at each other.

So I'm going to close you down.

Right-click here, add a new light.

Let's take the default settings - for the spotlight here with the cast shadows, click OK.

You can see all the light - now falls on these guys.

We double-click on this - and increase the Intensity a bit, make it a little bit brighter.

Now I'm going to take that B Comp again, press on Rotation.

And we'll rotate on the Y-axis again.

We'll see how the light - plays off these guys as we move them around.

Pretty fantastic.

And we were able to set this thing up - so easily like this using the Snapping feature.

I'm telling you, - without the Snapping feature, it would be tough - to get everybody to line up like this.

So that's how you use - the Layer Snapping feature. -