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Activity Forums Adobe After Effects AE parent fonction doesn’t work like I want! HELP!

  • AE parent fonction doesn’t work like I want! HELP!

    Posted by Johann Baron lanteigne on July 12, 2009 at 9:58 pm

    Hello, I’m trying to follow a tutorial on video copilot: Earth Zoom

    https://www.videocopilot.net/tutorial/earth_zoom/

    The technique used really inspired me for a much more complex effect, but the core of what I’m trying to do is essentially the same.

    I use After Effect 9.

    At 6min25s, Andrew selects all layers but the layer number one, and parents them to the layer number 1. By doing so, he only has to control the scale (or other transforms) of layer 1 to control the rest and by scaling the layer one at a value under 100%, we can see the other layers behind the layer 1.

    My problem: It simply doesn’t work. Once I link the layers to layer number 1, all I see is this very layer, scaled at 0.0000000001% (or something close to that) and all other layers seem to have that same scaling. In Andrew’s tutorial, when he does so, the last layer shows at about 100% and when he raises the scale of layer 1, his last layer reaches crazy scales next to 3 000 000%.

    I tried using my last layer and parenting my other layers to it, but I have to deal with crazy numbers[/b], in my project its more like 350 000 000 000% in order to see my first layer at 100%, also, I had to mess with the anchor point and position… It’s doable, but [b]once it comes to animating it on the time line with keyframe points, it’s simply too crazy to get what I want.

    Please help me with this issue!

    Thanks!

    Rob Dahl replied 17 years ago 2 Members · 2 Replies
  • 2 Replies
  • Johann Baron lanteigne

    July 14, 2009 at 6:16 pm

    I guess the best way to learn is to find out by yourself, which I did.

    However, I know that I’m not doing the right thing as my solution makes the process really long.

    I did like I started in the previous post, I’m using my last layer to parent them all and I now work with a scale value from 90% to 1 000 000 000% with 35 layers linked together. It’s doable, just annoying. The thing I also have to animate the anchor point to align each of my layers, which takes a lot of time because moving my anchor point by 0.00001 moves it radically when I’m at 1 000 000 000%.

    Then I found that by making a new comp and by linking my previous comp in it and doing motion tracking, I could achieve a really stable effect. Which is nice.

    The thing is I have several other clips to do with the same effect. So I gotta to find a faster way to work. I understand that parenting to the first layer will not work, but is there a way to change my range from 90 to 1 000 000 000% to something like 0 to 100%?

    Thanks

  • Rob Dahl

    July 15, 2009 at 5:04 pm

    At frame time 6:25 he selects the other layers that were already sales preset and then parented to layer one. This mutliplies the scale on all 6.

    If you did that and then reversed linked (selected the top 7 layers and then linked to the bottom) your scales are going to explode into really unuasable numbers.

    Try going back to about 6 minutes in the time frame and restart from there.

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