Learn how animation properties like scale, position, and opacity behave differently when copied across layers in motion graphics workflows. Understand the importance of mastering animation concepts such as overshoot and easing to create more dynamic and controlled visual effects.
Key Insights
- Scale, rotation, and opacity are relative to individual layers and can be copied across layers without issues, while position is relative to the document origin and must be adjusted manually for each layer.
- Overshoot animations—where an element goes beyond its final position and then settles—add visual interest and are especially effective for properties like scale, rotation, and position.
- Noble Desktop emphasizes conceptual understanding over replication, encouraging users to grasp how animation techniques like easing and keyframe manipulation affect the overall motion.
This lesson is a preview from our After Effects Course Online (includes software). Enroll in a course for detailed lessons, live instructor support, and project-based training.
Scale. Scale is always relative to the size of the layer. So the scale key needs to be copied to the other logo layers and the other circle layers without a problem.
Okay. The radio wipe effect can be copied and pasted to the other layers. However, the one thing that's got to be set for each of them is the wipe center because they're in different places obviously.
Okay. The only thing that has to be animated manually are the number animations. If you try and copy and paste a position animation to another layer, it fails miserably because it pastes it to the exact position.
Position is relative to the document's upper left corner, not layer by layer. So scale, opacity, and rotation are relative to the layers itself. So they can be copied and pasted without a problem usually.
Position is the one thing that is based on the document size. So it needs to be manually done, which it tells you in the instructions. Okay.
So for the record, it is more important to understand the concept of what you're doing than copy what we're doing. Keep that in mind. As long as you understand the concept of like how the overshoot works or how the animation of the effect works, which is the same way everything does by the way, that's more important.
It takes time because some people just aren't good at following like written instructions by the way. I get that. It's fine.
Okay. But again, the concept of an overshoot animation is that you're going to have your whatever the animation is extend past where it's supposed to finish. So for example, if I was animating the headline dropping down, yes, I would make the key frame for the ending headline position first.
I'll go back to the beginning and I'm going to raise the layer up. When I play that, that's what happens. It just kind of falls down.
Now, is that bad? No, it's a little slow, I'd argue. It's not necessarily bad. But if I were to extend this past where it's supposed to finish, so it has to pop back up.
And if I add a little easing to that, let me actually just, so that's a little more interesting. Okay. Like so.
So an overshoot animation is often elastic animation. It's something that basically goes past and then stops. And you can do it for anything.
The only thing you're not going to notice it with usually is opacity. But if you do it for scale, rotation, position changes, it usually works out pretty nicely. Okay.
I think pretty much in all this stuff here, we're going to be doing some kind of overshoot that actually is not the animation for that headline. It'll be a different animation, but it still is overshoot. By the way, if you delete key frames, delete animation, the layer does not go back to its original value.
The layer will stop at whatever you're currently looking at. So if I deleted my key frames and the layer is off screen, the layer will stay off screen. If I delete my key frames after the last key frame, that's where they'll be.
So be careful when you delete animation, because again, it locks wherever it was. Sometimes you can right click on a property and choose reset, but notice that failed in this case. Okay.
Sometimes it doesn't, like certain properties like scale and rotation, opacity are fine, but position is a little wonky sometimes. So just, I don't know why that failed. So be careful.
