Adobe After Effects

Advanced Parenting

Chapter 2 of the Compendium explored basic parenting, in which a pickwhipped layer follows another layer’s position, rotation, scale, and anchor point. Advanced parenting is a quick and simple means of generating an expression in which you can link just about anything to anything. And no code is required. It’s a great way to get your feet wet with expressions.

Let’s set up this scene. Say I have six shape layers all being colored in by the Fill effect. I know I want them to all be the same color. However, modifying an effect on six layers means doing something six times. If I know it’s something that I’ll frequently need ...