Creative Communities of the World Forums

The peer to peer support community for media production professionals.

Activity Forums Adobe After Effects How to move without moving

  • How to move without moving

    Posted by Bobby Mesozoic on March 18, 2017 at 12:15 pm

    I’m quite the after effects beginner but as i learn and progress i get ideas i know are possible but i just dont know enough about this extensive program to make it happen.

    I have a shape a circle let’s say in the middle of the screen….i have some effects that give trails to the shape if it moves….whatever direction it goes a fading trail will be made behind the shape….the shape must change it’s position parameters and this is seen as movement on the screen.

    How can I make the circle stay in one spot but keep it’s movement without seeing that it’s moving….as though the circle was connected to the end of the camera and you are just moving the camera…I’m going to assume this is part of the camera feature but that’s one of the areas I have the least experience with.

    Could someone point me in the right direction for information on how to achieve this?

    Thank you very much, always grateful for replies here

    Greg Gesch replied 9 years, 1 month ago 2 Members · 5 Replies
  • 5 Replies
  • Bobby Mesozoic

    March 19, 2017 at 9:50 am

    I think i get a little bit of what you’re saying but im lost on how to go about doing that keyframing without there being noticeable movement….

  • Bobby Mesozoic

    March 19, 2017 at 9:54 am

    btw im using sapphire > time > trails as my effect….so with that effect like i mentioned above……are you speaking about literally the echo effect in AE?

  • Bobby Mesozoic

    March 19, 2017 at 4:45 pm

    im no further in understanding how to make an object move while the camera follows it so it appears like it’s not moving…if u could point me to a tutorial that would be great

  • Greg Gesch

    March 20, 2017 at 8:14 pm

    Hi Bobby, this isn’t perfect but is this the general idea of what you are trying to achieve?

    With your 3D layer selected Layer/Transform/Auto-Orient/Orient Towards Camera

    Select the camera’s Point of Interest and (holding down Alt) click on its stopwatch – an expression will appear – use the pickwhip and drag it to Position of your layer.

    The layer itself will now move but the shape will appear to stay in the same position (though with some distortion when it moves in the Y).

    Is that it?

  • Greg Gesch

    March 21, 2017 at 2:20 am

    Knew there must be a a better way – not using camera:

    Keep the layer 2D and pre-compose it. In the precomposition select Position so all keyframes are highlighted, move to the first keyframe and press Ctrl(Command)+C to copy.

    In the main comp, with the precomp selected, press Ctrl+V to paste the keyframes.

We use anonymous cookies to give you the best experience we can.
Our Privacy policy | GDPR Policy