Shift parenting not causing layer to snap to the exact position of the null object.

[Evelyn___]

I have a solid with the particle system II with producer position keyframes. I added a null object renamed emitters and copy and pasted the producer position keyframes onto the null object's position. Then I clicked shift and parented the producer position to the position of the null. My goal is to have the solid layer with the particle system producer follow the null. However, it seems that the entire layer is moving with the null object as you can see with the bounding box, when I'm just trying to have the producer of the particle system move with the null object. I'm wondering these two things:

1. Why is the entire layer moving when I just have the particle effect producer parented to the null object?
2. I don't understand why shift parenting didn't put the producer's position smack dab on the null when shift parenting would normally snap it to the exact position of the null object.

[David Arbor]

In this case, you don't want to use parenting, as that will make the entire layer move around with the null (as you saw). The particle system lives within the layer, so you want to unparent layer 2 from the null, remove the now unnecessary keyframes on the Producer Position parameter, but leave the expression. As long as the layer with the particle system is back in the center of the comp and filling it completely, the particle emitter will properly follow your Emitter null because the expression is linking the particle emitter's position to the null's position.