Transform Properties in After Effects

Rotation? Position? Opacity? If those terms sound unfamiliar to you, don't worry! They're the basic animating properties in After Effects, and you can learn how to get started with them in this tutorial from Noble Desktop!

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Position

1. Select any object in the Composition window.
2. Hit P to open up the Position property. Alternatively, toggle open the Transform options in the layer stack.
3. Either manually type different values into the Position property or click and drag the object around the Composition window.
4. The two numbers next to Position are the X and Y coordinates of the object, with 0,0 being the top left corner of the Composition window.
5. As the object moves, note the changing values next to Position. Also, remember that Position can move objects entirely off the Composition window, so they’re not visible.

Rotation

1. With the object selected, hit R for the Rotation property.
2. The first number next to Rotation is the number of revolutions the object has gone through. The second number denotes the angle the object is currently.
3. Either change the values manually or use the Rotation tool (hotkey W) to manipulate the object. Note the changing values next to Rotation.

Opacity

1. Hit T to open up the Opacity property.
2. Opacity controls how transparent an object is. Change the value of Opacity and note how the object becomes more or less see-through.

Anchor Point

1. The Anchor Point is the crosshair-like icon in the middle of any object. The Anchor Point tool (hotkey Y) can change the location of the Anchor Point itself.
2. Toggle open the Transform options if they’re not open already.
3. Hit Y to activate the Anchor Point tool, or select it from the top toolbar.
4. Drag the Anchor Point of the object around. It’s possible to manually change the Anchor Point values within the Transform options, but that method is a bit roundabout.
5. Either change the Position or Rotation values of the object now. Note how the object will move or revolve around the new Anchor Point location.

Video Transcription

Hey, everyone, we're going to be going over the very basic transform properties and after effects position, rotation, opacity and also the anchor point tool. I'll run it through the terms of each and how to change them too. Now you can consider this tutorial kind of a companion piece to the Transform Tools tutorial that we've made. The Transform properties are the things that are changing.

The tools are what is changing those things. You can you can consider the transform properties like the would and the transform tools are like the hammer and nails. So let's get to it. There's no external assets here. This stuff will work on any object and after effects you can just pull up anything you're working on for this. I just happened to have this handy.

So first things first. We're going to be working only with this star over here. You can see it over here in the layer stack. It is the yellow layer. It's called Star. And the first thing we're going to be doing is so on your layer that you want to transform into all the transform properties, we're going to toggle open that layer and we're going to toggle open the transform properties.

Here they are. So the numbers on each of them mean something relative to each property. But I'm going to walk you through them and you're going to see what I mean exactly by that. So we're actually going to be starting with position rather than anchor point. Well, actual. We're going to be circling back to anchor point at the end.

But position is what it sounds like. So clicking and dragging around the object changes where the position is and I keep an eye on those numbers down there. You can see that they're changing now after effects is set up like a grid and the origin of the grid like 0.00. That coordinate is set up over here. So if I were to manually change the position over here to zero and zero, that's where it is.

Now, keep in mind, I want you to take note of you see this little doohickey here, this little kind of crosshair thing? That's the anchor point. And you can see that that's lined up with the origin, the .00. Now that's quite important, as Will mentioned later with Anchor Point, but basically this is where the program is like this is where the object is.

Now you can also tell that things can move off the visible composition window, too. And if you take a look at those numbers down there in position, you'll see that some of them have gone to the negative. So the X coordinate, the horizontal coordinate has gone to negative. And if I were to drag this upwards, then the Y coordinate goes into the negative.

So it's a bit funky. It's a little bit like an upside down coordinate system. But if you keep in mind that this point over here is zero zero, that should help you out. Now, you saw, by the way, to change these things. I could either I can click and drag the shape, move it around. I could slide these numbers and move it around.

I can manually put in numbers and move it around. So those are a couple of different ways to change the position. So scale is the size of my shape. So you'll see this little paperclip thing here or thing it's supposed to be chain. Right now it's linked to each other. That's constrained proportions. So if I were to slide and change one of the proportions, the other one changes as well.

Now, if I were to turn that off, the chain is gone. I can change one of them next coordinates and now it's getting wider. Or I could make it thinner by changing the white board it. And now they're independent of each other. I'm going to turn it back to where it was before. Now, if I were to make one of these coordinates, by the way, negative, I would actually be flipping it upside down.

But again, I'm going to return it back to where it was before. Now we have rotation. So rotation is what it sounds like. I can use the rotation tool to make it move around. Come on there. So you see them click and drag and spin, spinning it around and again, watch those numbers over here. I'll tell you about what they mean in a second, but also notice that it's revolving around that.

Anchor said anchor point is basically where after effects to simplify it is saying like, oh, that's where that's where this object is and that's what's going to determine how it spins, how you position it, all sorts of things. So that anchor point is quite important. Now heading back to where rotation was before. Now check it out. The first number shows how many revolutions object has already.

By changing that number, it'll make the object complete, however many revolutions. So if I turn to three now, it doesn't look like it changed. But in the program effectively, I've made the spin three times and I'm actually going to animate it. So you see what I mean? The second number is the angle that it's at, see. So again, remember that anchor point is determining where it is moving relative to moving it to the right, makes it go clockwise, moving it to the left makes it go counterclockwise.

So like I mentioned, I'm going to be animating this revolution in part this revolution number over here. So give me just a second. I'm going to change that to six. And now that it played back, see, it's spinning three times in between those keyframes. So that's what I mean by how many revolutions. So like always, you can manually input these numbers by clicking on them and putting in anything you want, or you can use the rotation tool, you know, the selection tool for all of these as well.

All right. We are almost done. Let's talk about opacity. So opacity is how transparent this thing is, how see through is it so at 100% it's completely opaque. You can't see through this thing. But I'm going to turn down the number and now you can already see it's fading a bit. I'm going to click and drag it. Now, look, you can start to see stuff behind it.

Now, when it's turned back up all the way to 100, you can't see anything through it. But down, down and down until it's basically invisible. It's zero. So that's key. That's all of these are like I mentioned, you can animate them. So this is quite nice for an appearing effect. You know, going from invisible to visible. So finally, the anchor point tool.

So like before you can technically change the where the anchor point is or where the shape is relative to the anchor point by manipulating these numbers manually. But I would rather use anchor point tool by hitting why am I keyword? It's also this thing up here. Like I mentioned, we have a transform tools. Transform Tools tutorial. I think you would get a lot out of by checking that out.

Now I can just click and drag this and now I can change where my anchor point is. So if I click it down to one of the legs of a star and I'm now revolving it, it's going to revolve around that. Instead, you know, if I move it down to this part of the star, it's going to revolve around that.

Instead, you know, the position is going to be changed by that anchor point. Instead, that's it for all these transform tools. These tools form the backbone of after effects animation. And that's just a couple of properties you can use these on objects, footage effects and even advanced techniques like rigs, puppet pen and 3D animation all rely on these.

We have tutorials on the transform tools like I mentioned, and an upcoming one on Keyframes that will help you expand your understanding here. So stay tuned and check out our library of tutorials.