Adobe After Effects CS4 - Manual (Page 168)

162 USING AFTER EFFECTS CS4
Layers and properties
Last updated 12/21/2009
Set a property value
If multiple layers are selected and you change a property for one layer, then the property is changed for all selected
layers. Sliders, angle controls, and some other property controls are only available in the Effect Controls panel.
To change the units for a property, right-click (Windows) or Control-click (Mac OS) the underlined value, choose Edit
Value, and choose from the Units menu. The available units are different for different property types. You can’t
change the units for some properties.
• Place the pointer over the underlined value, and drag to the left or right.
• Click the underlined value, enter a new value, and then press Enter (Windows) or Return (Mac OS).
Note: You can enter simple arithmetic expressions for property values and other number entries. For example, you can
enter 2*3 instead of 6, 4/2 instead of 2, and 2e2 instead of 200. Such entries can be especially useful when incrementing
a value by a specific amount from its original value.
• Right-click (Windows) or Control-click (Mac OS) the underlined value and choose Edit Value.
• Drag the slider left or right.
• Click a point inside the angle control or drag the angle control line.
Note: After you click inside the angle control, you can drag outside it for more precision.
• To increase or decrease the property value by 1 unit, click the underlined value and press the Up Arrow or Down
Arrow key. To increase or decrease by 10 units, hold Shift while pressing the Up Arrow or Down Arrow key. To
increase or decrease by 0.1 units, hold Ctrl (Windows) or Command (Mac OS) while pressing the Up Arrow or
Down Arrow key.
• To reset properties in a property group to their default values, click Reset next to the property group name. To reset
an individual property, right-click (Windows) or Control-click (Mac OS) the property name (not the value) and
choose Reset from the context menu.
If the property contains keyframes, a keyframe is added at the current time with the default value.
Alan Shisko provides a video tutorial on his Motion Graphics 'n Such blog shows how to use label colors and multiple
selections to rapidly change properties for multiple layers simultaneously.
Charles Bordenave (nab) provides a script on the After Effects Scripts website that sets the properties in the Transform
group for selected layers to random values within constraints that you set.
More Help topics
“ Effect Controls panel ” on page 392
“ Showing properties and groups in the Timeline panel (keyboard shortcuts) ” on page 748
“ Modifying layer properties (keyboard shortcuts) ” on page 749
Layer anchor points
Transformations, such as rotation and scale, occur around the anchor point (sometimes called transformation point
or transformation center) of the layer. By default, the anchor point
for most layer types is at the center of the layer.
Though there are times when you’ll want to animate the anchor point, it’s most common to set the anchor point for a
layer before you begin animating. For example, if you’re animating an image of a person made up of one layer for each
body part, you’ll probably want to move the anchor point of each hand to the wrist area so that the hand rotates around
that point for the whole animation.