ABSTRACT
Many of the more powerful effects in After Effects have properties that can be controlled with other layers. Some effects, such as Displacement Map, absolutely require these controller layers in order to work correctly. This chapter looks at a few options that might help the readers when controlling effect properties with maps. Frequently, maps are made right here in After Effects. And it makes sense, as there some great tools for the job. Once precomposed, the results of effects can be used as maps by other effects. While making maps in After Effects is the quickest way to go, it does not always allow for the most possible control in map creation. After Effects has a built-in feature to access the current version of an imported file, and use that version instead of the one that After Effects is using.
