Anchor point of shape layer

[Suraiya A]

Hello,

Am curious about something, When I draw something I see a baby anchor point in the middle of a shape, and then there is a big anchor point. I can move them both using the pan behind the tool. what is that baby anchor point? what is its role in animation? what can I do with it? why its even there?

[Mylenium]

The "baby anchor" is the anchor of the shape group, the other one is the one for the layer as a whole.

Mylenium

[Suraiya A]

Thank you so much.

[David Arbor · Accepted solution]

The large anchor point is for the entire layer, the baby anchor point is for the specific shape. You can have multiple shapes on one layer and in the case of scale or rotation, the entire layer will move around that. Try putting one shape on the left side of your comp and the other on the right side, but both within the same layer and you'll see this in action. Now compare how this large anchor point affects both shapes vs. the baby anchor points that are taken into account when you animate the individual shapes' transform properties.

[Suraiya A]

Wow! So nicely explained. Thank you so much.

[Aaron Cobb]

The big anchor point is the layer's anchor point, accessible under the layer's Transform property group. If you open up the shape layer's Contents property group and then open the Rectangle 1 group, you'll see another Transform group, which has its own Anchor Point property. Every group in a shape layer's Contents has its own set of transforms, which allows you to set its position, rotation, scale, etc. and each by necessity has an anchor point to set its position within its parent coordinate space. The parent space of Rectangle 1 above is the layer's local coordinate space.

[Suraiya A]

Thank you so much. I learned something new from your answer.