Real World Application for Parenting in Adobe After Effects

Parenting is not just used to create spinning galaxies. It is extremely useful, especially when combined with motion tracking and Null objects. When you track a moving shot, you will usually end up with a few animated null objects that follow some visual elements in your scene. In the example below I tracked the telephone pole throughout the movement of the shot.

If you wanted to add some other visual element into the scene, say we wanted to set the fields on fire, you can use parenting to make sure the fire follows the camera’s movement correctly.

First, add the fire element into your scene. You can find free stock footage of fire at detonationfilms.com or and footagecrate.com also has some free fire elements. Once you’re done, parent the fire element to the Null object.

This will cause all transformations on the Null object to also be applied to the fire element and since the Null object is animated to follow the camera’s movement, the same now happens with the fire.

I hope this tutorial has shown you a few of the great things that you can do with parenting and is giving a feeling for how powerful this simple technique really is. You will use it very extensively when you start working with more complex visual effects.