Working with parent and child layers

When you assign a parent, the child layer's properties become relative to the parent layer instead of to the composition. By default, After Effects adjusts any keyframe values of the child layer so that its properties appear to remain relative to the composition and, thereby, there is no visible alteration to the layer itself. However, you can choose to have the child layer jump, or visibly alter its properties relative to the parent layer. For example, consider two layers in a composition, where one of the layer's position property has been changed and the other has not. If you assign the unchanged layer as the child of the changed layer and do not choose the jump option, then the child layer will not move. If you do choose the jump option, then the child layer's position shifts so that its position is now relative to the parent layer.

Alternately, when you remove a parent from a child layer, you can choose to have the child layer jump to show that its transform properties are now relative to the composition.

Jumping a layer is useful to depict a change in focus for a particular layer or layers' animation. For example, you could animate one child layer to encircle a parent layer, then jump the child to another layer that may be positioned away from the first parent layer. The child layer can then encircle the new parent at a position relative to the new parent.

To show or hide the Parent column:

Choose Columns > Parent from the Timeline window menu.

To parent a layer:

In the Parent column in the Timeline window, do one of the following:

• Drag the pick whip of the layer you want to be the child layer to the layer you want to be the parent layer.
• Click the menu of the layer you want to be the child, and choose a parent layer name from the menu.

To remove a parent from a layer:

In the Parent column, click the menu of the layer you want to remove the parent from, and choose None.

To make a child layer jump when a parent is assigned or removed:

Hold down Alt (Windows) or Option (Mac OS) as you assign or remove the parent.