Copying Motion Between Layers Changes Anchor Point — Need Help

Thanks for the responses — and thank you @nishu_kush  and @Warren Heaton10841144 for the explanations.

Just to clarify my situation a bit more:

I'm not trying to copy just the Position values — I'm trying to copy the animation/motion path from one layer to multiple other layers (or sometimes just one). But when I paste the keyframes, the receiving layer jumps to the same coordinates as the original, instead of just applying the same movement relative to its own starting point.

So instead of getting the same animation behavior, everything snaps to the original layer’s position.

Is there a way to paste the animation so that:

✔ The movement path and timing are copied
✘ But the receiving layer doesn’t inherit the original layer’s actual Position coordinates or Anchor Point?

Basically I want to keep each layer in its own place, but move the same way.

Thanks again — I’m still learning, so trying to understand the logic behind why AE treats keyframe pasting this way.

@Anant35257713lc9k 

The video you link to demonstrates how like values can be inadvertently copied and pasted to another property.   

To better control copying and pasting Position coordinates:  Click on the word "Position" and then use Edit > Copy.  Then click on the word "Position" for another Layer and then do Edit > Paste.  This only changes the Position property and all other properties will remain.

Instead of clicking the word "Position" we can also click the i-beam for the parameter anywhere under the Time Ruler before doing Edit > Paste.

If you happen to also have "Anchor Point" selected at the time you do Edit > Paste, that Anchor Point will accept the coordinates being pasted because its the same type of value (x, y coordinates); however, if you select "Opacity" and then do Edit > Paste then that Opacity property will not accept the coordinates because that's a different value (percentage).

Thanks for writing in.

This is expected because the Anchor point moves with the position of the layer. There are a few ways to workaround this. You can move the Anchor point manually from the layer properties after pasting the keyframes. How I like to do it is, once I have pasted the keyframes, create a new null > roughly place it in the centre of the layer > Parent the layer to the null so that the layer moves with the null > Move the null object to change the position of the layer. The layer will move and keep the transformation. You can now delete the null object if you like.

Let me know how it goes.