After effects parent to null

[Steve Blacker]

Are you using CS6? If so, did you hold shift while parenting? A new feature in CS6 will snap a child layer to the position of the parent if you hold shift while parenting the layer.

http://www.stephenblacker.com

[Darby Edelen]

If you’re holding Shift (in CS6) or Option/Alt (at least as early as CS3) while parenting it can cause the layer to move.

Shift will move the child layer to the parent layer’s location (set the child layer’s position to [0,0]). Option will move the child layer relative to the parent layer’s position (the child layer’s position property remains unchanged).

If you look at the position property of the child layer while you try the three parenting modes (no modifier, +shift, +opt) you should see the difference.

Darby Edelen

[Ben Gogh]

I’m using a liquify filter on an adjustment layer. When I parent the mesh offset value in the filter to the null postion value, the liquify filter moves to the position of the null. The filter is motion tracked but out of position by say x value 200 y value 400. (Parenting the adjustment layer position to null does nothing is not relevant for liquify).

Is there an expression I can add to the end of the motion offset expression to move the x values-200 and the y values -400? So it will sit back in place where it should be and track normally?