Learn how to control what portions of your Adobe After Effects timeline get previewed and exported using the work area bar, and see how to manually create fade-ins and fade-outs for both video and audio. This article walks through techniques such as using keyframes, keyboard shortcuts, and timeline adjustments to refine your project output.
Key Insights
- The work area bar in After Effects determines both what preview plays and what gets exported; users can adjust it manually or use keyboard shortcuts like B (beginning) and N (end) to set the range efficiently.
- Creating video fades requires manually adding a black solid layer and animating its opacity with keyframes to achieve fade-in and fade-out effects, as there is no automatic command for this task.
- Audio fades are achieved by animating the audio levels property, with zero representing the original volume and negative values lowering it; Noble Desktop’s training emphasizes precise keyframe placement and adjustment for smooth transitions.
Note: These materials offer prospective students a preview of how our classes are structured. Students enrolled in this course will receive access to the full set of materials, including video lectures, project-based assignments, and instructor feedback.
Right now, when I go to export, my entire timeline will export all 15 seconds of it. If that is what you want, that is what you currently have. However, if that is not what you want, you can limit what exports.
Also, every time I press spacebar, do you notice it's playing the entire timeline and then going back and playing it again? That preview area is controlled by the same thing that controls export, okay? In your time ruler, below the numbers is a thick gray bar with a blue start and a blue end. This bar, this gray bar, is the work area. It can be changed by dragging its beginning and end like so.
When I press preview right now, spacebar, it'll only play that area now, okay? If I export, it will only export that area right now. So, to control what exports and previews, we use the work area bar in After Effects. If I double click on it, it makes it full size again, okay? So, let's say that I do not want to export all 15 seconds of my timeline.
Let's say I want to export 11 seconds of my timeline. I can use the work area bar to limit what exports and, again, what previews. So, if I don't want to preview all of it, I can just limit this.
I can drag it or I can use a keyboard shortcut. Now, by the way, down here, sorry, wait a minute, sorry. My cursor thing preview turned off.
Cursor pro, okay. Yeah, that's what we're looking for, allow. Okay, so, below the numbers is the work area bar.
Above the numbers is a thin gray bar. The one above the numbers is magnification. It zooms in on your timeline or zooms out.
Do not confuse the two. This is the work area. Okay, cool.
So, I want to move the end of the work area bar to 11 seconds. I'm going to go to 10 seconds on my timeline and 29. 10,29.
Why 10,29 and not 11? Because when you move the work area bar, it always gives you one extra frame. So, I moved to 10,29 as it says in the instructions. I can drag the end of the work area bar.
Or if I want to use the keyboard shortcut, it's letter N on the keyboard, N as in Nancy. Moves the end of the work area bar to the current time indicator. B, as in Brian, moves the beginning of the work area bar to the current time indicator.
Whatever you do, never put them in the same place. If you do that, no good shall come of this, okay. Because if you try to preview right now, you'll get an error message.
To preview, you need more than two frames. Okay, you need two frames or more. So, never put them in the same place, okay.
Ever, ever put them in the same place. So, one or the other. So, you can either drag it, hold down shift to make it snap to the work area bar or keyboard shortcuts.
This is now the active area. This is now what plays and this is now what exports. Okay, moves by.
And again, if you want it to be full size again, just double click on it and it makes it full size. That's changing the work area. Okay, adding a video fade.
Some of you already started this. There is no automatic command for this. So, I'm going to make a new layer, make it black, put it above everything and fade it in and out.
Okay, so I need a layer that's going to be a color black. Layer, new, solid. A solid is basically a layer of any color you please.
And can be any size you please. It's a make comp size button. I'll make the color black.
Color block, black. I don't care about the name. It's irrelevant for me.
Okay, I'll put this on top of all my other layers. I'll name it fade in slash, okay. Oh, it's nice.
I'm going to animate its opacity. So, by the way, I'm going to make four keyframes. At the beginning of my timeline, zero opacity.
Not three, zero. 15 frames in, 15 frames is what I said to do in this. 15 frames, 100% opacity.
Oh, that's backwards. That fades it in. I want to fade it out.
I made them backwards. Okay, if I highlight both keyframes, right click, assistant, can't reverse them. So, I can make it reverse the keyframes in time.
For the record, the instructions tell you to build them in the right order, okay. I built them wrong. But if you accidentally built something backwards, like I just did, you can always select the keyframes and make the program flip them.
But again, make them right. Make them right, by the way. It's a struggle, okay.
I'll go to the end of the work area bar. The instructions tell you the exact number. I don't recall off the top of my head what it is, okay.
10,14. That makes sense. 10,14.
I need another keyframe where the opacity is zero. I can copy and paste it, but that's the button. That diamond button adds a new keyframe, and it does it by copying whatever your last keyframe was.
So, fully visible, fades out, stays faded out. I'll go to the end of the work area bar. That's 10,29 again.
Opacity back to 100%. So, they're just mirror reversals of each other. Zero to 100, and at the end, 100 to zero.
And it's the same exact thing for audio. There is no built-in audio fade. I'm sorry.
I'm going to make the timeline a little taller by dragging the top of it up a little bit so I can see it. And I'm going to use J and K. Background audio. L reveals audio levels, okay.
Zero means no change in the volume. I'll make zero lined up with the second keyframe. I'll go back to the beginning.
I'll make that like negative 30 or something. The audio now fades up. If you look at the waveform, by the way, it actually does animate.
Wait, why did that fail? Oh, yeah, I need to turn my audio back on. So, it actually animated the picture smaller to larger. I'll go to the end.
I'll do the same thing. Little diamond to make a new copy of the keyframe. I'll go to the end again.
I'm just pressing K to jump to keyframes. Again, negative like 30 or 25, whatever you want. So, now when it plays, the audio fades up, holds, and at the end, it'll fade out.
So, audio is animating audio levels. Zero is the starting value. It means it's neither louder nor lower than the original file.
Negative numbers make it lower. Positive numbers above zero would make it louder. So, again, in this case, I'm just not changing the volume.
So, most of the time, this is normal volume and opacity. And that's the phase. So, there's no automatic features for this.
It's basically, you got to do it. Okay, so there's no automatic, I can just put on, cross is all. No, you got to do it.
Okay, sorry. There is a way of saving it as a preset, but there's no way to set the timing for this. So, it's not there.
You'll do that now. There's many optional bonuses, by the way. And the last thing is exporting.
Exporting is like five minutes. So, do that. The audio video fades, and you're cool.