As we mentioned earlier, we're in the process of recording our book After Effects Apprentice as a series of training videos, where you get to look over our shoulders and hear what we're thinking as we work through each lesson. Our latest installment is on the subject of Parenting.

Parenting is a way to group multiple layers within the same composition inside After Effects. In this lesson, Chris shows how to set up a parenting chain, discusses what makes a good parent, and demonstrates several techniques using Parenting such as creating a title animation with a minimum number of keyframes, building a geometric construct, and bringing an anthropomorphic robot arm to life. Sidebar topics include avoiding a scaling gotcha with parenting, and creating abstract backgrounds using the Fractal Noise effect.

This video course is the first one that breaks pattern from the corresponding chapter in the printed book. Parenting (our subject here) and Nesting (treating entire composition as single sources inside other comps) each get their own shorter stand-alone courses. We'll continue this pattern for the book chapters on Expressions and Time Games, Track and Key, plus Paint and Puppet. We also used this as an opportunity to stretch out beyond what was covered in the book.

The content contained in After Effects Apprentice – as well as the CMG Blogs and CMG Keyframes posts on ProVideoCoalition – are copyright Crish Design, except where otherwise attributed.