How to Move an Anchor Point Without Moving the Layer in After Effects

Repositioning a layer anchor point is an important step to simple design changes, to advanced animation projects. Adjusting an Anchor Point in After Effects means changing the "center-point" that the layer can be adjusted around.

The Native After Effects Workflow

For many years, there wasn't a great native solution to changing Anchor Points. The standard workflow is to use the Pan Behind tool for anchor point adjustments.

Pan Behind can be used to snap anchor points (by holding CMD/CTRL) to the bounding box of layers, or to place anywhere in or, on a layer.

Alternatively, with the native Pan Behind, you can also lock the anchor point and move a layer around the anchor point by holding OPTION while dragging.

What's good about Pan Behind and the native solution?

For single non-animated layers, with no keyframes, the built-in Pan Behind tool to adjust anchor points is a great quick method. And, with the newer snapping ability to Anchor Point boundaries, makes simple anchor point changes easy.

Are Pan Behind and native Anchor Point changes perfect?

Actually, Pan Behind is not the best solution for many commercial motion design situations. When layers have expressions, keyframes, parent-child layer relationships, or various property changes Pan Behind can leave large gaps in support.

The complication is that Position keyframes don't update when the anchor point moves. Meaning changing an Anchor Point with Pan Behind, only changes the "current" frame you see, while miscalculating the rest of the pre-existing Transform animations like Position, Scale, Rotation etc.

For expression nerds, did you know in expressions toWorld() and toComp() are different coordinate spaces? That causes huge issues with manually using Pan Behind for anchor point adjustments.

Then there are further issues with 3D layers, masked or matted layers, and other edge cases. So, Pan Behind is a great solution for early adjustments to Anchor Points, but as your project builds up dependencies, adds keyframes, has layer relationships, or has expressions results with Pan Behind are not the most reliable commercial solution, and can lead to a lot of tedious manual fixing.

What's the fastest way to move an anchor point in After Effects?

The fastest way, is not always the best way, but with Motion Studio's Anchor tool you will get the fastest and reliable, production-ready Anchor Point adjustments.

With Motion Studios Anchor, you select a layer, click an Anchor Point position, and you're done.

On the surface, this might seem similar to Pan Behind but Motion Studio Anchor has a solution for every complication in adjusting Anchor Points natively.

Anchor supports batch operations, meaning you can adjust the anchor point of multiple layers, or your entire composition in one click.

Anchor is non-destructive and does all the complicated math translations for your keyframes and expressions so your animation looks exactly the same, while having a totally new Anchor Point.

What are other benefits of Motion Studio Anchor vs Pan Behind?

Masks, matted layers, keyframes, expressions, property transforms, 3D layers, any layer type and more all handled by Motion Studio Anchor automatically. Before AE had a native solution, Motion Studio had Anchor to help with your bounding box snaps, and still supports many more situations for professional designers.

Past basic support listed above, Motion Studio's Anchor even has an Advanced workflow with even more extended options, that Pan Behind can't support natively.

Hold CMD/CTRL + click on a Motion Studio Anchor adjustment and your layer will also align to the center of the current composition.

Snap anchor points to mask edges, or true Layer bounds.

Motion Studio's Anchor can also snap bulk layers to first or to last layer index selections, and even calculate anchor points with intelligent rotation locks to maintain current property values.

Common Questions about Anchor Points in After Effects

How do I center an anchor point in After Effects?

To change an anchor point natively in AE, you need to use the Pan Behind tool to manually position single layers. Or, you can right-click > Transform > Center Anchor Point in Layer Content. This option works, but can be destructive for animated layers with dependencies.

To support professional production pipelines most After Effects designers use tools like Motion Studio's Anchor for all the automated calculations for bulk layers, masks, expressions, keyframe support and more.

Can I move anchor points on multiple layers at once?

In After Effects, you cannot handle batch/bulk anchor point changes with the Pan Behind tool. Each anchor point change must be done one layer at a time.

With Motion Studio's Anchor you can batch process layers without breaking any pre-existing layer setup, property or animation.

Do my keyframes break when I move the anchor point?

With the Pan Behind tool, the native After Effects solution, keyframes will drift and won't be compensated for. Meaning yes, your animation will "break" in many setups that have expressions, keyframes, or layer dependencies like Parent-Child layer setups etc.

Use Motion Studio's Anchor to be 100% non-destructive, flexible and support almost any situation a professional motion designer would have with Anchor changes in After Effects.

How do I set anchor points for rotation and scaling?

Spatial translations like PSR (Position, Scale and Rotation) are very important to Anchor Point since all the properties use the "anchor" as the center of the PSR translation.

When you move an anchor point to the corner of a bounding box, for example to the corner, then the layer uses that as its fulcrum on something like a rotation, rotating around the "corner" instead of the layer center.

After Effects is an incredible application, with many native solutions including partial support for anchor point with Pan Behind. But, in most circumstances (since layers typically have keyframes) using Pan Behind or the native solutions, can cause a lot of headaches and doesn't support many common situations with animated layers, masks, expressions and more.

There wasn't a good native solution for changing Anchor Points easily, so that's why Mt. Mograph made the Anchor tool to support animators who like changing anchors to be simple, consistent and easy.

Anchor is available in Motion Studio. Try Motion Studio free for 7 days, no credit card required.