How to link objects positions after a certain point in time

[jwatson_atlantaballet]

Hi! I am an After Effects newbie here. 

I inserted a PSD with multiple layers of raster images (That together create one big picture) into After Effects and I would like to create the affect of zooming out from a point in the image while parts of the image (all in different layers) are appearing in and moving into place before it shows the final, big picture. 

Thing is after I introduce an object (object 2) I want it to then stick with another object (object 1) so that when I move that object 1, say to the left, object 2 now moves with object 1 and I don't need to make position changes for a whole bunch of things just object 1 and whatever I want to move with Object 1. Does that make sense?

I tried using the little whip on object 2's position and linking it to object 1's positoin, but it just kind of disappeared. I think I'm missing a part of clarifying that I want object 2 to stick with object 1 relative to its position. I don't know how to do that. 

Thanks in advance! : ) 

[Mrtn Ritter]

You can solve this very easily:

At first, you animate every single object appearing and moving in. Don't mind the zoom at this point. Let's call this comp "1".

Then you create a new comp in your final resolution and size (you said PSD and zooming, so I assume your artwork is above HD or you don't mind pixelation). Let's call this "2".

Finally, you just drag 1 into 2 as a layer and animate position and scale of 1.

You can solve this with just one comp, too:

As descriped, you animate the moving-in of all elements first. Drag the playhead to the end of this comp, where all animations have ended. Now you create a Null layer and parent all elements to this null.

If you drag the playhead through your animation now, everything should look like just before parenting.

Finally, you animate the scale and postion of this null layer.

*Martin

[jwatson_atlantaballet]

Oh interesting, I'll try this out, thanks so much! : )

[P.M.B]

First of all you should be working backwards, meaning go forward in the timeline and set a positional key on all of the layers in their final position.

Then go back (earlier) in the timeline and move the layers out to the positions they will be flying in from.  As for having them all move together just parent them all to a null.  Or if some layers are already parented to other layers just find all the layers with no parent and parent them to a null.  You can also parent to multiple nulls and then parent the nulls to nulls as many times as you'd like.  Unless you really plan out the hierarchy before hand, a good rule of thumb is to element layers as indipendant as possible (so you can move them around later if needed) and use parenting to nulls to create the secondary movements.   

[jwatson_atlantaballet]

Super helpful! Thank you! 

[P.M.B]

You're welcome.  What would save you alot of time in the future would be to find a script that automatically parents "all selected" layers to a null.  Otherwise you have o create the null (Alt-Ctrl-Shift-Y) and then manually attach each layer which can get tedious.  A script where you just select all the layers and hit a button that instantly creates a null and parents all the selected layers to it is a huge time (and hand) saver.