USER GUIDE FOR LOUPEDECK CT & ADOBE AFTER EFFECTS CC€¦ · effects cc. table of contents getting to know loupedeck ct 3 connecting & setting up loupedeck ct 4 loupedeck ct & after

USER GUIDE FOR LOUPEDECK CT & ADOBE AFTER EFFECTS CC

TABLE OF CONTENTSGETTING TO KNOW LOUPEDECK CT 3

CONNECTING & SETTING UP LOUPEDECK CT 4

LOUPEDECK CT & AFTER EFFECTS 5

General Elements 5

Workspace Elements 5

KEYBOARD MODIFIERS 7

ADOBE AFTER EFFECTS DEFAULT PROFILE 8

AFTER EFFECTS DEFAULT WORKSPACES 10

Accessing Workspaces 10

WORKSPACE 1: HERO ACTIONS 11

1.1 HERO ACTIONS - TOUCH PAGE 11

1.3 TOOLS PAGE - TOUCH PAGE 12

Dials 13

Navigation 14

Wheel 14

WORKSPACE 2: ANIMATION & EFFECTS 14

Keyframes 15

Keyframe INTERPOLATION 15

WORKSPACE 3: COLOR 16

Curves 19

Vignette 20

WORKSPACE 4: 3D 20

TASKBAR OPTIONS 23

UPDATING LOUPEDECK 24

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS 24

Copyright (c) 2017 Loupedeck Ltd. All rights reserved. 2

GETTING TO KNOW LOUPEDECK CT

Loupedeck CT is the perfect companion to all creators from passionate hobbyists to experienced

professionals. It’s a highly customizable hands-on device that extends your creativity to a whole new level.

Loupedeck CT is designed to be the perfect addition to your creative process. No more jumping in search of

right shortcuts – Loupedeck CT is for you!

We recommend you to read through our general user guide for Loupedeck CT HERE, before getting familiar

with Loupedeck Creative Tool and all that it offers for Adobe After Effects,

Current operating system support for Adobe After Effects CC (minimum requirements):

• Windows 10

• MacOS 10.13 or later

• Adobe After Effects (most recent version)

• Loupedeck Software version 3.1 or later

TIP! For up-to-date support information, please visit www.loupedeck.com

1. Mac TIP! Remember to install applications into application folder – otherwise Loupedeck Setup may

not be able to detect supported applications correctly. Loupedeck CT does not work on MacOS 10.11 or

older.

2. Win Tip! Remember to install Loupedeck Software with Admin account to prevent software privilege

issues! Loupedeck CT does not work on 32-bit Windows versions. 64-bit Windows 7, 8 or 8.1 versions

are not supported, but Loupedeck Setup software may work if .NET Framework 4.5.1 (or later) is

installed.

DON’T TOUCH THAT USB CABLE JUST YET

We know that you might be impatient to get started and are about to connect Loupedeck CT to your

computer. However, before you connect Loupedeck CT to your computer, you must download the

Loupedeck software. You need an Internet connection to download the software.


https://loupedeck-software-release.s3.eu-north-1.amazonaws.com/UserGuides/LOUPEDECK_CT_GENERAL_USER_GUIDE.pdf

http://www.loupedeck.com

CONNECTING & SETTING UP LOUPEDECK CT

Setting up Loupedeck CT with After Effects is as easy as 1-2-3.

1. Download the Loupedeck software from www.loupedeck.com/en/setup and install the software (Note!

OS user account must have admin rights!).

2. Connect the USB cable to the USB port of your computer.

3. Start editing!

Note! Your computer keyboard should be using UK or US keyboard settings (you can change this in your

OS preferences). For the time being, this has to be done for CT to work within Adobe After Effects. Some

actions do not work properly with Scandinavian and German layouts, for example.


http://www.loupedeck.com/en/setup

LOUPEDECK CT & AFTER EFFECTS

GENERAL ELEMENTS

All of the Round Buttons and some of the Square

Buttons are customizable. These control elements

are generally used across all areas of your editing

software and their function remains constant and

fixed and does not change alongside the editing

software used.

All buttons are equipped with RGB color backlight,

which is used to indicate the type of action

assigned to the button.

WORKSPACE ELEMENTS

The content of Dials, Touch Buttons and The Wheel

changes based on the current workspace and all

content is fully customizable.

Dials are separated into two banks (located on the

left and right). Dials control variable values and

are prioritized for the most used adjustments (e.g.

Zooming). Dials also have a press function, which is

usually assigned to resetting the value back to zero.

Dial information is displayed on the left and right

bars of the Touch Screen (next to the dials).

Tip!: If you don’t need resetting a value, you can

assign a different press function to dials.

Loupedeck CT’s control elements are: Six rotatable Dials (with a press function), Touch Screen (with

Touch Buttons), eight Round Buttons, twelve Square Buttons and a rotatable Wheel (paired with a

touch-sensitive Wheel Screen). These five elements have been divided into two groups.

Group 1: General Elements

Group 2: Workspace Elements


•

Touch Buttons:

Are used to activate different functions (e.g.,

tools, macros, presets, and actions). Touch

buttons have back-colored icons which

indicate the type of the function assigned –

icon colors match with the buttons’ backlight

color.

The Wheel:

Combines both dial and button functions and

can be used to control both variable values

and to activate functions. The Wheel has a

number of different kinds of templates (e.g.,

lists, “action cakes”, etc.) and widgets (e.g.,

color wheel and clock), which are selected

based on the functions needed.


KEYBOARD MODIFIERS

As some editors love their keyboard modifiers, e.g. to copy a clip, we have them available on CT,

too. Pressing the keyboard modifier button, makes them accessible on the round buttons.

*The round buttons will turn white when keyboard modifiers are enabled.


ADOBE AFTER EFFECTS DEFAULT PROFILE

Loupedeck CT has a pre-configured profile for Adobe After Effects, which contains most common After

Effects adjustments and actions utilizing all three workspace elements: Dials, touch buttons and the wheel.

Default Actions: The default profile that you get with Loupedeck CT may not be 100% fitting for your

needs and workflow, but don’t worry, you can customize it to your likeing!

Buttons 1-8 DEFAULT ACTIONS

1 Change Workspace to Hero Actions

2Change Workspace to Animation and Effects

3 Change Workspace to Color

4 Change Workspace to 3D

5 -

6 -

7 Copy

8 Paste


ARROW BUTTONS A B C D E: With ABCDE arrow buttons, you can jump to next/previous layer, go forward/

back 1 Frame, and play current preview.

Tip! Remember that pressing the Fn button gives you a second layer of actions. So for example, behind

the Undo button, you will find a Redo action by pressing Fn + Undo. Esc can be found when you press Fn +

Enter.

BUTTONS ARROW BUTTONS: A B C D E, Undo, Save, + Fn

A Select Previous Layer

B Select Next Layer

C Go Back 1 Frame

D Go Foward 1 Frame

E Play Current Preview

UNDO Save

SAVE Undo

A + Fn Previous Blending Mode

B + Fn Next Blending Mode

C + Fn Go to Previous Keyframe

D + Fn Go to Next Keyframe

E + Fn Add Render Queue

UNDO + Fn Redo

SAVE + Fn Save as


AFTER EFFECTS DEFAULT WORKSPACES

Loupedeck CT has a pre-configured profile for Adobe After Effects, which contains most common After

Effects adjustments and actions utilizing all three workspace elements: Dials, touch buttons and the wheel.

Default Workspaces: To get you editing with your Loupedeck CT and After Effects right away we have

provided 4 default workspaces.

You can of course have more workspaces: you can have sub-workspaces that you access with the Fn key.

This could be handy, for example, for creating a sub-workspace for your favorite macros under the main

editing workspace.

DEFAULT AFTER EFFECTS WORKSPACES

HERO ACTIONS

ANIMATIONS AND EFFECTS

COLOR

3D

ACCESSING WORKSPACES

Access the workspaces directly using the dedicated round buttons. If you double-tap the home button,

you will see a “home screen” that has links to workspaces. The order the workspaces are on the pads of the

home screen reflects the order they are on the physical workspace buttons. These can be set by the user. If

you are viewing a page of a workspace that is not its first one, the first tap of home button takes you to the

first page for touch pads and dials of that workspace.

TIP!: For more information on Workspaces please see our Loupedeck General User-Guide HERE.


https://loupedeck-software-release.s3.eu-north-1.amazonaws.com/UserGuides/LOUPEDECK_CT_GENERAL_USER_GUIDE.pdf

WORKSPACE 1: HERO ACTIONS

1.1 HERO ACTIONS - TOUCH PAGE

• This first page is filled with shortcuts that

most designers would use frequently

throughout the editing process, along with

two blue page links for “Organize” and

accessing “Tools.

Tip!: In case you don’t recognise an icon

right away, a long press on the touch display

will show the action name on the wheel. This

might be useful if you want to try out other

applications that you are less familiar with

or Windows/Mac/System Apps

1.2 ORGANIZE PAGE - TOUCH PAGE

With the actions on this page, you can:

• Organize your project by adding layers and

comps (Timeline or Composition View-er

needs to be the selected Panel)

• Import materials

• Toggle Rulers to composition viewer

• Jump between viewer resolutions

• View composition settings

Tip!: Whenever a dialog window opens, you

can confirm your selection by pressing Enter

or close the window by pressing Fn + Enter

(= ESC).


1.3 TOOLS PAGE - TOUCH PAGE

Here you can access quickly all TOOLS so that

you can either reduce your mouse usage or

keep your hands on the device.

Pressing the blue page link takes you back to

“Hero Actions” touch page.

Tip!: You can also access the touch pages that

are linked under “Organise” and “Tools” with a

horizontal swipe on the touch display instead

of clicking the page link button. If you need

more space for your favorite actions on the

first page, remove the page links and free two

buttons that way.


DIALS

We have implemented rotate functions for CT dials that replace selecting a tool and dragging with mouse.

For example, to adjust Scaling, Rotating, Opacity or Positioning, simply select desired layer with the

“Select layer” dial and start rotating the dedicated dial. It gives you a very precise feel of adjustment, as

one tick corresponds to one pixel or degree (unless stated otherwise in action name).


NAVIGATION

There are several ways of navigating within your

timeline and compositions. You just need to find

what feels best depending on the situation and

controls needed.

WHEEL

Wheel controls both rotary adjustments (the outer

dial) and touch button actions on the central

screen.

Wheel doesn’t have a second layer when pressing

FN button, but it can have, like dials and touch

buttons, multiple pages. Wheel pages are changed

by swiping the wheel screen horizontally.

Wheel screen swiping can be locked by pressing

both FN keys simultaneously. Wheel screen swipe

is also locked when entering a wheel widget with

a variable that is controlled by swiping A rotary

action is assigned to the wheel is indicated by

light blue line and an active adjustment has a

brighter color indicator (normal actions do not

have any color indicator).

The active adjustment is changed on Wheel

widgets by pressing FN and rotating the wheel.

TIP! 1: For precise control, we suggest using

the pre-defined NAVIGATION WHEEL with the

navigation functions to move “1 Frame”, “10

Frames” and “Select keyframe”. The activated

function is indicated with blue circle line.

TIP! 2: Alternatively, use the square buttons (Fn +)

C and D, or assign 1 frame navigation to a dial of

your liking.

TIP! 3: Pressing E-button activates “Play current

Preview”.

TIP! 4: With the Zoom dials “Zoom Timeline” and

“Zoom Comp”, you can zoom in and out your

timeline or composition. By pressing the Zoom dial,

all material is fit into timeline / viewer.

Note! English keyboard layout must be selected for

Zoom dials to work.


WORKSPACE 2: ANIMATION & EFFECTS This workspace is dedicated to animate layer properties using keyframes. You can animate a layer or an

effect on a layer by making one or more of its properties change over time. Any property with a stopwatch

button to the left of its name in the Timeline panel or Effect Controls panel can be animated.

By pressing the blue link “Effects”, you find some common effects displayed. You can apply them with one

press to selected layer(s). Please modify this page according your needs with your favorite effects.

KEYFRAMES

Keyframes are used to set parameters for motion, effects, audio, and many other properties, usually

changing them over time. A keyframe marks the point in time where you specify a value for a layer property,

such as spatial position or opacity. Values between keyframes are interpolated.

KEYFRAME INTERPOLATION

• By changing and adjusting keyframe interpolation, you gain precise control over the rate of changes

in your transitions (or other effects).

Ease In

• Slows down the value changes entering a keyframe. You can manually adjust the handles in the graph

editor.

Ease Out

• Gradually accelerates the value changes leaving a keyframe. You can manually adjust the handles in

the graph editor.

Easy Ease

Creates an evenly-paced change from one keyframe to another, with each in-between frame given an

equal share of the changed value.


WORKSPACE 3: COLOR

GETTING STARTED WITH THE COLOR WORKSPACE

The Basic Corrections Adjustments are laid out to Dials and the Wheel, so you can start adjusting values

right away

Tip!: You need to “Add Lumetri Color” effect to selected layer(s) before adjustments can take effect. Always

the last applied Lumetri effect is being manipulated by CT.

This workspace is dedicated to the color grading tools that After Effects offers. Using CT dials and the

wheel is intuitive and gives you very precise control.

You can access the sliders and curves of Adobe After Effects Color Panels:

• Basic Corrections

• Creative

• Curves

• HSL Secondary

• Vignette


Dials: ROTATE to adjust

• Temperature

• Tint

• Contrast

• Saturation

Wheel, SWIPE up and down to an adjustment of

your choice and ROTATE the Wheel to adjust

• Blacks

• Whites

• Exposure

• Highlights

• Shadows

Changing between Adjustments works also by

pressing Fn + rotating the wheel.


When you open one of the blue links, you can choose

which controls you want to have displayed on CT.

Some controls are assigned to dials and others to the

wheel. Simply open the page link for dials or wheel,

and most After Effects color controls are already

laid out for you, ready to be adjusted by wheel / dial

rotation.

As an alternative to pressing page links, you can

access all wheel and dial pages again by swiping the

displays up / down & left / right.

You can undo your changes by pressing the dial,

double-tapping on wheel, or removing the whole

effect by pressing the touch button “Remove All FX”.

Tip!: For Fn + wheel rotation of color and tint wheels, we have

pre-defined “10 Frames” Navigation, so you can quickly check

applied adjustments throughout the whole clip, or copy and paste

Attributes with the round buttons 7 and Fn + 8 to another clip.


CURVES

Accessing Curves inside After Effects is fast and

easy, as rotating the wheel automatically sets a

point on the curve when you have navigated the

cursor close enough to the curve.

You can manipulate curves either inside Lumetri

effect or “Add Curves” as its own effect layer.

Start rotating the wheel, and you will find out

how smoothly and precisely it works, as there

are separate controls for horizontal and vertical

movements. You can add as many points to a

curve as you want


WORKSPACE 4: 3D

Make sure to enable 3D on a layer to position 2D layers in 3D space. You

can then adjust the parameters of any 3D layer with dials or wheel. Let’s

take a Camera as an example.

VIGNETTE

Applying a Vignette has never been faster. Once you have

added a Lumetri effect, you only need open the Vignette

Wheel Page (blue link) with one click and start rotating the

wheel.

Additional Vignette controls can be activated with a tap on

the wheel or by pressing Fn and rotating the wheel. If you want

to reset your Vignette, make sure you double-tap on the wheel

on the area of the action you want to reset.

Tip!: Pressing Fn + Rotating the wheel jumps to the next action

on wheel pages with several actions (list, cake layout etc.)


Add a camera to your composition by pressing

the touch button “New Camera”

The press button “Camera Tool” toggles

between the different Camera tools and lets

you change camera parameters with mouse.

However, by selecting camera layer, it’s

possible to adjust the camera precisely with

dials or wheel.

Tip!: : You can display several adjustments

at the same time when you split them to be

displayed on dials and wheel, e.g. Rotation

/ Anchor Points adjustments on dials, and

Position adjustments on wheel.


Tip!: You can change dial and wheel pages by swiping on the displays.


TASKBAR OPTIONS

Within the Windows taskbar icon or OSX menu bar icon, you can find more options for Loupedeck. Icon

you are looking for, is this:

OPTION NAME ITEM WHAT CAN YOU DO WITH IT?

Loupedeck Setup (Win)

Open Setup… (OS X)

Click Loupedeck Setup (Win) or Open Setup… (OS X) to access Loupedeck Setup software.

Download Loupedeck update (Win)

Update Loupedeck (OS X)

Opens Loupedeck’s setup web page where downloadable manuals and up-to-date software can be found

https://loupedeck.com/en/setup/

Keyboard Mode (Loupedeck+ only)

Click Keyboard Mode to set Keyboard Modifiers mode ON or OFF.

Works only for Loupedeck+.

Help

Click Help (and OS X User Guide sublink) to open Loupedeck’s Support webpage, where answers to most commonly asked questions question can be found.

Also provided on this page is access to Loupedeck’s support form, which is located at the bottom of the page. Please fill out the support form if you need further technical assistance.

https://loupedeck.com/en/support/

Click User Guide to open

Legal (Win only)

Opens Loupedeck’s Legal Guide web page, which provides all the needed information regarding Loupedeck’s warranty, product and safety information, trademarks, legal rights, etc...

About (Win only)

Version: 2.5.0.981 (OS X only)

Click About to open information about your current Loupedeck Software version (build number) and copyright information.

Example: Version 3.0 (3.0.0.2362) Copyright © 2017-2019 LoupeDeck Ltd.

On OS X, click on Loupedeck icon on top menu bar to see version (3.0.0) and build numbers (2363) in gray text.

Restart Loupedeck (Win only)

Click Restart Loupedeck to shut down and restart both Loupedeck service and software.

Stop Loupedeck (Win only)

Quit (OS X only)

Click Stop Loupedeck (Win) or Quit (Mac) to shutdown Loupedeck service and software.


Enable Debug (Mac only)

Usage of this function is instructed separately by customer service. Enabling debugging for no reason is not advised, as your computer might slow down significantly.

When Enable Debug is activated, the menu item will change to Disable Debug. Click Disable Debug to stop debugging process.

Once debugging process has finished, a loupedeckLogs.zip file will appear on your desktop. That file can be deleted if Customer Service has not requested for it.

UPDATING LOUPEDECK

A small mark appears on the taskbar icon when a new version is available:

Open Taskbar icon and select Download Loupedeck update (Win) or Update Loupedeck (OS X) to open

Loupedeck website www.loupedeck.com. Locate moset recent version from the web page and download

Loupedeck Setup software.

QUESTIONS & ANSWERSEncountered something unexpected? Here are a few helpful hints.

My After Effects doesn’t seem to work with Loupedeck CT.

Check your After Effects version. Loupedeck CT is compatible with Adobe® After Effects® (most recent

version).

I am unable to install Loupedeck Setup.

Loupedeck setup is compatible with Windows® 10 or later and Mac® OS 10.12 or lat-er. Loupedeck software

also requires a 64-bit OS version. Loupedeck software is not specifically developed for Windows 7 or 8, but

it might work normally, as the OS base is very similar.

Some of the actions don’t work.

Make sure you have your keyboard language set to English. Some actions do not work properly with

Scandinavian and German layouts, for example.

You can find FAQs and support at www.loupedeck.com/support.


http://www.loupedeck.com

http://www.loupedeck.com/support

www.loupedeck.com

USER GUIDE FOR LOUPEDECK CT & ADOBE AFTER EFFECTS CC€¦ · effects cc. table of contents getting to know loupedeck ct 3 connecting & setting up loupedeck ct 4 loupedeck ct & after

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