"Flip Horizontal" in After Effects?

Hey guys, I have looked all over, and I can't seem to find a "Flip Horizontal" option for video in After Effects? Does it not exist? If so, that just plain retarted.

 

You know how when you click the video layer, it gives you points, that line up on the walls of your composition? Drag the left point and pull it to the right side of your composition and that should flip it.

 

In the layer controls, Transform > Scale > -100 X 100

That should do it.

 

You could also rotate the layer 180° in the y-direction in 3d mode.

 

Ok, I'll try those. Geez, that's alot of work when they should just have the option of flipping it.

 

Yeah. It's "retarted."

 

I about choked when I saw who posted this...

 

Alternatively, to avoid scaling your layer, you can achieve a flip by applying Effects > Transform to the layer and scale the X by -100 in there, which will not affect the actual transformation of your layer. It can be useful if you have complex comps where altering the scaling of a layer will mess with parenting or expressions, etc. You could also do this to an adjustment layer above multiple layers to flip them without pre-composing.

 

You calling me stupid? ha ha.

 

PixelMagic, not knowing something, gasp

 

Yeah I've noticed this. Adobe makes all the simple things a tad more complicated to do in all their programs. Especially Adobe Encore(which kinda sucks).I mean try to make an outline circle in photoshop (well I have ver 5.5)...it's such a mission!

So yeah...Pixel just flip the scale of the horizontal to -100%

~Rory

 

Maybe.

Actually, I'm just surprised and oldbie would be asking such a question considering how many times I've seen newbies ask it.

 

Just add a "stroke" layer style.

 

Oreckel *is* right LOL

 

Retarted.

 

Fruity, are you saying I mispelled retarted? Did I?

 

Retarded

 

"Retarded" is not permitted as a derogatory on this board system.

I don't want to have to edit every post in this thread, so let this just serve as a blanket warning not to let it happen again.

M. Scott

 

Yep. Wasn't deragatory, Mike. Like I'd use "retarded" as a deragatory. Or "****," or any other term along those lines.

(I will however use "Cramer" as a double entendre.)

 

Sorry Dorkman, it won't happen again.

 

Go to the "Scale" property. Unlink the x and y sliders. Add a negative sign in front of the y value. Done. (beep beep)

 

Yes, that's what DVeditor and fireresq7 already said.

 

I don't mean to turn this into an Adobe-bashing thread, but After Effects suffers from a number of glaring interface issues, especially when you're working with masks, which made some of the roto work I did for Revelations take a lot longer than necessary.

I don't care for multiple functions for certain keys or actions... for example, pressing and holding the Space key allows you to pan your composition, while just pressing Space goes into "Play" mode. This annoyed me to no end when I wanted to pan but suddenly the comp was advancing in time. In one context, the double-click selects all points on a mask, but if you don't manage to click on the thin little line, it opens up some random layer in a new window. The worst thing is the utter lack of customization... not being able to map the keys the way I want is a real let-down.

I also didn't like trying to move a point on a mask, only to have EA move all other masks that weren't locked down. (Unless I SPECIFICALLY de-selected all masks, adding two or three clicks to each selection. Did I ever hate that.) This was especially disheartening when I had a bunch of Stormtroopers walking along and was roto'ing each of their separate armor pieces.

Still in all... if you can bear through some of the interface issues, there's a whole lot you can do with AE that makes your work sing, so I tend to be somewhat forgiving.

 

It gets a lot of the pros everytime. Even people who know how to do it and its just been a while since they last had to do it... lol

Heck, each time I have to ease a key frame like an object's position I have to spend a while adjusting it as it takes a while to re-acquaint myself with the curves that Aftereffects has. I can never get used to what AE thinks is easing on the graph especially from one type of keyframe to the next.

The one thing I really hate about AE is when you have audio layers and it has to pre-render the audio everytime you ram-preview something once you've made a small change. It should really have a render buffer for audio and picture seperate. Heck, even changing the layer order with sound affects it a whole ram-preview even though it doesn't affect the picture.

But its one heck of a program nonetheless and I can't live without it !

Major M.