Transforms

Twirl down any layer in the timeline, and you find the Transform controls. On a typical layer, transforms are spatial data related to Position and its cousins Anchor Point, Scale, Rotation, and, um, Opacity. Opacity isn't really spatial transform data, but Adobe decided to sort of grandfather it in here as an essential layer property; transforms has a snappier ring to it, evidently.

• The keyboard shortcuts to reveal individual transforms are the first letter of each type: P, A, S, R, and, um, TOpacity is the oddball again, because O is already in use as the Out point of the Work Area (mentioned above).

• To reveal additional properties, hold down Shift when typing the letter shortcut.

A property in After Effects is a data channel that you can find under a twirled-down layer. Typically the channel can be animated and has a stopwatch icon beside it which, when clicked, sets the first keyframe at the current time.

That's simple enough. But there are, in fact, many different ways to animate a property in After Effects. How many can you think of? As an example, if you wanted to move a layer 200 pixels along the X axis over 24 frames, after setting the first keyframe and moving the time needle forward 24 frames, you could

• Drag the layer to the new position in the Composition window (with the Shift key held down to constrain it to one axis)

• Shift+Right Arrow 20 times to move the layer exactly 200 pixels

• Enter the new value by highlighting the X Position numerical value and typing in the new number

• Use rub text to drag on the X Position numerical value, dragging to the right until it was 200 pixels higher (and to move faster, holding down Shift to increment it by ten pixels)

• Enter a numerical offset by highlighting the X Position numerical value and typing +200

• Copy the new Position keyframe from another layer or another point in time (if there were a keyframe with the needed Position value) and paste it to this layer at this time

And that's just an example of some of the things you could do with an added Position keyframe. There are options for causing the animation without setting a new Position value. You could also get that layer to transform 200 pixels over 24 frames by

• Offsetting the anchor point in the opposite direction (negative 200 pixel X value) and keyframe that over 24 frames

• Enabling 3D for the layer, adding a 50mm camera, and animating it moving 200 pixels, again in the negative X direction

• Parenting the layer to another layer that has the transform

• Replacing the layer with a composition that contains the layer and transform

• Assigning an expression to the Position channel that performs the animation without keyframes

If that's not crazy enough, you could even

• Apply the Transform effect to the layer and animate the effect's Position value

• Animate in real time via the cursor using Motion Sketch (I did say crazy)

• Paste in a path (from a Mask or a Path from Photoshop or Illustrator) to the Position channel, adjusting timing as needed (this method defaults to creating a two-second animation)again, crazy, but possible

The last two sets of options, in particular, are obviously designed for situations more complicated than the one I set up. Parenting is useful when several layers should all transform in the same manner, and expressions let you link just a single property or create one from scratch. The Transform effect exists for one reason only: to allow you to change the order in which Transforms occur. Normally, they occur before all effects, but this plug-in lets them occur after an effect is applied as well, without the need to pre-compose.

My point is not that you need to be able to rattle off this list to qualify for a job in a production situation. The point is that there are many approaches to a given problem in a program like After Effects, and the more of them you know, the more prepared you'll be for whatever comes your way.

Note that there are even many ways to enter values while animating: You can click and drag using the Selection tool (shortcut: V), the Pan Behind tool to move the anchor point (shortcut: Y), or the Rotate tool (shortcut: W, which the official documentation even points out is for "wotate"). But you can also work directly with the values found in the timeline, and you can do so by entering values or using the rub text feature.