Control animation of multiple layers with parenting

What you learned: How to use parenting to animate multiple layers

Defining parenting

Parenting is the process of setting up multiple layers so that the movement of one layer follows the movement of another layer.

Set layer anchor points

• To make sure a selected layer rotates around a specific point, select the Pan Behind tool and reposition the layer anchor point in the composition.

Use the pick whip to establish parent layers

1. Drag the pick whip for the child layer on top of the name of the layer you want to be the parent; then release.
2. Repeat setting parent layers for multiple layers to set up a chain of control.

Once you have three or more layers linked together, you can quickly create seemingly complex chains of animation where one layer follows another layer, which then follows yet another layer.

Set the visual hierarchy of the layers

• Once the parent-child relationships are set up, change the layer stacking order by moving layers vertically in the timeline.