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visual_website0D4D
Participating Frequently
November 8, 2020
Question

After Effects align 2 objetcs, one staying static

  • November 8, 2020
  • 2 replies
  • 3021 views

Hello everybody, this is my first question 🙂

 

So I have 2 objects: A and B. I wanna align B to the center of A, but without moving A. Pretty simple but how can I do that ? Because all I can get is B moving and A moving too, halfway to get them aligned..


I hope this is clear, I was very surprised but I didn't find the solution yet..

Thanx in advance to everybody who can reply.
Matei

2 replies

R
Community Expert
Rick GerardCommunity Expert
Community Expert
November 9, 2020

Make sure that the Parent/Link column is visible in the timeline by pressing Shift + F4. Select layer B, hold down the Shift key, and select Layer A as the parent. Layer A will snap to the same position, orientation, and scale as layer A. Both anchor points will be in the same position. As long as parenting is in place layer B will follow layer A, but you will still be able to animate the position, scale, and rotation properties of layer B independently. You can also cancel the parenting and layer B will remain in the same position. 

 

The Align panel is useless for what you want to do, use parenting, or as Mylenium said, copy and paste the position property.

    V
    visual_website0D4DAuthor
    Participating Frequently
    November 9, 2020

    Hello Rick,

     

    Thanx for this solution. First I must say I'm using Adobe After Effects CS6.

    Then, the problem is that this doesn't only change the alignment but also the size of Layer B, which has a new vertical size, although even weirder, nothing changes in the visible properties (the ones under "Transform" label"). Don't know if that changes something but layer A is a rectangle (shape layer) and layer B is a text layer and both have their anchor points in their middle.

     

    Any idea of why this happens that way?

    R
    Community Expert
    Rick GerardCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    November 9, 2020

    Shift + Parent will match position, scale, and rotation. If you want to go back to the original scale and/or rotation properties of the child layer release the parent after the child layer has moved. If you have scaled or rotated the B layer then you'll have to either enter the current values as an expression or remember them and set them again.

     

    Mylenium
    Mylenium
    Legend
    November 9, 2020

    It's not realyl clear what kind of alignment you are looking for. Could be as easy as simply dialing in the position values/ copy & pasting them or could be more complicated and require some expressions or whatever. Eitehr way. You need to explain better. A screenshot might hugely help to clarify matters...

     

    Mylenium

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