Form
Harnessing multiple forms magnifies Form’s functionality and power. The Designer allows a much easier and more visual way to work with multiple forms while also containing a wealth of multiple-form presets. Individual blocks for each form component can be quickly disabled or deleted. Also, since creating a new form from the After Effects Form UI launches the Designer anyway, the Designer should be thought of as a hub for both creating and adjusting multiple forms.
On the left side of the Effects Chain, a Systems area displays all forms in current use. This area also gives you a great deal of power for creating and adjusting forms.
The Designer provides several ways to add additional forms to your effect.
You can quickly add a new form by clicking the blue plus symbol in the Systems area (on the left side of the Designer’s Effects Chain). This creates a new form similar to the default Form settings.
Method 2: Option/Alt+Clicking Single Form Presets
Option/Alt+click any single form preset to add it as an additional form within your form chain. Using this method, you could potentially combine multiple- and single-form presets.
To select the different forms in your project, click the name of the form in the Systems area. Selected forms are white while unselected forms are gray. When you select a form, its blocks become brighter and full size, showing the block’s thumbnail in the Effects Chain. Deselected forms have gray blocks and have their thumbnail temporarily hidden. In the below example, you can see how Form 4 is selected. Because it lacks a Shading element, that block has no contents, although we could easily add Shading values.
Click on the pull-down arrow of a form selector (or right-click anywhere on the form selector) to get a helpful pop-up menu. From this menu, you can choose to create a duplicate form, delete the selected form, or any of several other operations. Duplication generates a new form with the same settings.
To change a form's visibility, click the eye icon next to the form selector in the Designer’s Forms area. A white eye icon indicates that a form is visible. A gray eye icon with a slash through it indicates that the form is currently hidden.
When you have an invisible form, a message indicates that a form is hidden. To restore visibility to all forms, choose Unhide All Forms from the form selector pull-down menu.
It’s often helpful to see just one form at a time, or to “solo” it. There are several ways to solo a form.
You can choose Solo System from the form selector pull-down menu. When only one form is visible, a message indicates that you have a soloed form.
Alternatively, you can solo a form by holding the Alt/Opt key and clicking the eye icon to the left of the form selector.
Occasionally, you might want to reset just one form to a particle form’s default settings. Simply choose Reset System from the form selector menu. Note that this will reset to the defaults of that selected form, not to the defaults of the Primary Form. Nothing from the Primary Form inherits to the newly reset form.
You can delete a form in the Designer in one of three ways.
When you create an additional form, it generates a new form with nearly the same default settings. For secondary forms (i.e., non-Primary Forms), you can cause attributes to be inherited from the Primary Form by deleting blocks. We’ll look at exactly how to do below. For now, though, let’s examine a very brief tutorial to understand how this works. You can follow along using the Presets > Lines > Slashes 1 preset.
Let’s add another form. Notice the white form particles over the red and yellow squares.
Now, go to the blocks in the Effect Chain for Form 2. Delete the Color Block. (We’ll cover this below.)
By deleting the Color Block on Form 2, it tells Form 2 to “inherit” this particular attribute (color) from the Primary Form Block. Thus, it turns red and yellow, using the Primary Form’s color instead of its own color.
Understanding this idea of attribute inheritance is essential for getting the most out of using Multiple Forms and the following features on this page.
Disabling Form Blocks
For secondary forms (non-Primary Forms), we can delete or disable blocks. When we disable blocks, Form lets you see what that Form Block would look like using inherited values instead of that block’s values.
To see this, go back to our previous example of a Primary Form with red and yellow coloring and a newly created Form 2 with the default settings.
Now, disable a block by clicking on the circle/slash icon in the upper-right corner of a secondary form block.
In this case, we’ll disable the Color Block on Form 2 (the one with the default Form settings). This will cause all other attributes except Color to stay the same. By disabling this block, it will no longer use its own settings. Instead, it will use the Particle Color of the Primary Form.
Remember that this is only temporary. To turn the block back on, just click the icon again. To permanently use the inherited values for a block, delete it.
Deleting Form Blocks (trash can/block)
Deleting a block from the Effects Chain of a secondary form will cause the settings for that Block to be inherited from the Primary Form. You can delete a form’s block in two ways.
If you delete the block accidentally, press Ctrl+Z/Cmd+Z to undo that action.
Adding New Form Blocks
When a secondary form inherits attributes from the Primary Form, a plus icon appears in lieu of a block.
If you want a secondary form block to become a “form adult,” making its own choices with its own set of values, click the plus icon and choose a block preset. This will create a new block for the secondary form, which will function independently from the corresponding block on the Primary Form.
In the following example, dispersed particles generate from Form 2, a secondary form. As you can see, Color inherits from the Primary Form.
However, if we click the plus icon in the Effect Chain’s Color block area, the Blocks pane will open. When selecting a new block preset, Form creates a new Color Block for Form 2, giving it a new color independent of the Primary Form settings.
Saving Form Presets
In Designer’s presets, we saw how to save your own presets by clicking the Save Multiple Forms preset button at the Designer’s bottom.
This handy button saves all forms and settings for later use within the Custom folder in the Preset pane’s Multiple Form Presets tab. To save just a single form, go to the form selector pop-up and choose Save Form Preset.
This will save a Single Form Preset for that form only. It will then be accessible for current and future projects in the Single Form Presets tab of the Presets pane.