Hey everyone! After effects question. Im trying to create an animating list and this grey shape is supposed to expand downward as the list goes on. I moved the anchor point to the bottom edge of my graphic and disabled proportional scaling. Still scales both bottom and top. Am I doing it wrong?

Brent Hannigan: I think anchor point should be at the top of the shape.

Noel Ross: Same results

Scott Cunningham: You are changing the anchor point for the shape and not the layer and then changing the scale of the layer. You need to either change the anchor point of the layer and then change the scale of the layer or within the layer in the actual shape. Not sure if this makes sense, but Im pretty certain this is what youre doing.

Noel Ross: How may I find out which one Im messing with?

Scott Cunningham: From your screen shot it looks like youre moving the shape anchor point. Twirl down the properties of the layer and find the scale for the shape.

Marcus Pun: I just select the lower anchor points and move down as needed

Scott Fisher: Create your shape, deselect all. Then select just your main layer and press y. This will allow you to reposition the anchor point of the layer itself, not mess with the shape (which should be visible in the center of the comp). Drag your true center to the top of the shape, unlink the scale and youre good to go.You can do this quickly with Motion2 or reposition anchor point scripts. They will see the alpha of the shape layer as the edge of the whole layer and you can set it to top, side, bottom, corners, etc.

Noel Ross: Im pretty sure I just did what you said. Im getting the same results.

Scott Fisher: Maybe this will help?

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Noel Ross: OH MY GOD THANK YOU!

John E. Collucci: If you animate by stretching the layer, your rounded edges will change shape & get flatter. Is that your intention?

Noel Ross: Nah I dont want that to happen but Im super stoked that I finally understand what you guys meant by the LAYERS scaling options. How may I also do this without losing that those smooth rounded sides?

John E. Collucci: Noel Ross see my next comment for exactly that. You’ll need to animate the shape itself rather than the scaling.

Bryan Colvin: Either shape animation or 9grid type object. Im pretty sure after effects would have 9grid techniques (this is a webdev trick for scaling with designed edges)

Bryan Colvin: Youtu.be

9 Slice Scale Plugin for After Effects, Final Cut Pro, Premiere Pro and…
youtube.com

Bryan Colvin: 9 slice, sorry. But yeah wed use this in web dev to preserve edges and corners

Bryan Colvin: I guess thats a paid plugin, but Google 9 slice after effects and try to find a free one

John E. Collucci: I really strongly dislike FX Factory plugin management. I would rather find an alternative plugin than ever use FX Faxtory again. *Thumbs down* (for the platform, not the comment and suggestion)

John E. Collucci: My preferred method would usually be to animate the nodes in the shape path itself, which offers far more control. But the overall-scaling approach is simpler, and may do everything you need. The above comments already said what’s needed to get the correct anchor point selected.

Scott Fisher: I agree with john. To be more accurate you could make guides to snap the shapes to. Then create a first state layer, and a seperate end state layer. You can then copy and keyframe the path of one onto the other so you arent stretching but just tel…See more

Noel Ross: Scott Fisher Sorry Im getting confused on that one.

Scott Fisher: Noel Ross See if this works for you needs.

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Noel Ross: Dude I love you thank you so much!

Scott Fisher: Ive struggled through so many stupid things that people have helped me with its my pleasure to help those stuck 😀

Stephen Lambert: Hero

Anne T. Vinsel: Instead of using and shape layer, use a solid and animate a mask.

John E. Collucci: The same ease can be achieved by making a shape and then expanding the layer and converting the path with a right-click. I’m sharing this because it’s news to me, and super useful in certain situations! 🙂

Jonathan Wing: Scale will scale the entire shape on whatever axis you choose, and the anchor point merely acts as the starting point from which everything scales. It sounds more like you want to expand the actual shape; Id do this by animating the actual shapes points/nodes, or using a mask and animating the mask in a similar way, by animating the path, not scale.