Building Your Project - The Focal Easy Guide to After Effects - page 110

demonstrate this principle, select all four Sphere layers, then click on their
Parent buttons to open the Parent Menu. Click on Null, then all four layers
display their connection. Select layer 1 and open its Rotate (R) properties - click
and drag over the Rotation Degrees value to spin the Null to any number. As
you change the number, the four Sphere layers spin with the Null.

Reset the Rotation value and change the order of Parenting, but this
time use the Rubber-band selector tool (left of the Parent buttons) to
choose the Parent layers: Parent Sphere 1 to Sphere 2, Sphere 2 to Sphere 3,
Sphere 3 to the Null, and leave Sphere 4 as is.

Spin the Null again and nothing has changed - because, ultimately, the
Parenting structure has not changed.

Create the following Keyframe animation:

1

Select all layers - go to 0:00, press 'R' and set each Rotate Keyframe
with the default values (turn on the stopwatches).

2

Go to 10:00 and set Rotate's first value (number of complete rotations
value) to 2 for all layers.

By setting the End Point Keyframe at 10:00, the Comp Window becomes blank
because the Timeline's last active frame number is 9:23.

3

Select layer 1 and change its Scale value to 25%.

4

Save the project as Spinning Balls, then run an RAM Preview.

Looping Etiquette - Part 2

When you set Keyframes for looping transformations, or any keyframed event,
you must be certain that the end Keyframe is located on the frame after the
loop's last visible frame. This is because if you set the end keyframe at the