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parkerr5716204
Participant
Oct 6, 2019 12:57 AM UTC
Answered

Child layers distorted

To put it simply, I have a layer that is rotated and I want to parent it to another image, but the problem is that the layer gets skewed and messed up when it's made a child. I know the rotation is doing it because the image is normal when the rotation is 0.

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Roland Kahlenberg
Roland KahlenbergCorrect answer
Legend
Oct 7, 2019 7:54 AM UTC

It's most likely that your Parent Layer has a scale value that is not proportionate - something like [80,145], for example.

 

When you parent a child to such a layer and you rotate the Child Layer, it will inherit the parent's scale. To prevent this skewing/distortion, do the following.

 

1) Start afresh without any parenting structure in place.

2) Ensure the child layer's scale values are proportionate

3) create a Null Layer and drag it's Anchor Point towards the Anchor Point of the soon-to-be-parent layer - as you drag and get close to the target Anchor Point, hold down the CTRL/COMMAND key to invoke the Snap Feature.

4) Parent the Null Layer to the Parent Layer

5) Parent the original child layer to the Null Layer.

 

HTH

Very Advanced After Effects Training | Adaptive & Responsive Toolkits | Intelligent Design Assets (IDAs) | MoGraph Design System DEV

11 replies

Roland Kahlenberg
Roland KahlenbergCorrect answer
Legend
Oct 7, 2019 7:54 AM UTC

It's most likely that your Parent Layer has a scale value that is not proportionate - something like [80,145], for example.

 

When you parent a child to such a layer and you rotate the Child Layer, it will inherit the parent's scale. To prevent this skewing/distortion, do the following.

 

1) Start afresh without any parenting structure in place.

2) Ensure the child layer's scale values are proportionate

3) create a Null Layer and drag it's Anchor Point towards the Anchor Point of the soon-to-be-parent layer - as you drag and get close to the target Anchor Point, hold down the CTRL/COMMAND key to invoke the Snap Feature.

4) Parent the Null Layer to the Parent Layer

5) Parent the original child layer to the Null Layer.

 

HTH

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Very Advanced After Effects Training | Adaptive & Responsive Toolkits | Intelligent Design Assets (IDAs) | MoGraph Design System DEV
parkerr5716204
Participant
Oct 8, 2019 12:49 AM UTC
Thank you so much, your answer was very precise and it was the exact solution to my problem.
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Roland Kahlenberg
Legend
Oct 8, 2019 12:25 PM UTC
Thanks for reporting back and for sharing your kind words.
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Very Advanced After Effects Training | Adaptive & Responsive Toolkits | Intelligent Design Assets (IDAs) | MoGraph Design System DEV
Anna Lander
Inspiring
Oct 6, 2019 2:05 PM UTC

is it needed to use non-uniform csaling everywhere? When you compose in one movement 2 different rotations and 2 different non-uniform scaling, it make a "3D-rotation" effect and looks some skewed and messed.

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Participating Frequently
Oct 6, 2019 1:18 AM UTC

Hi. First thing to check is that your Pixel Aspect Ratio Correction switch is set (it's next to the 1View dropdown at the bottom of yur viewing screen). This will correct it you are not using square pixels.

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parkerr5716204
Participant
Oct 6, 2019 3:03 AM UTC
I am sorry, but your solution did not work for me, but I will try to add attachments to see if that clears anything up
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Mylenium
Legend
Oct 6, 2019 7:14 AM UTC
Not really much to see from your clipped screen photos. On first look it definitely looks like they are they are 3D layers, but the timeline properties don't corroborate that. It would perhaps help if you provided a screenshot of the whole interface with the relevant timeline switches for the layers revealed.
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