Introducing the Parent and Puppet Tools in Adobe After Effects

In this tutorial, you’ll learn the basics of Parenting and Puppeting in Adobe After Effects. Parenting lets you link layers so they move together, making it easier to animate groups or keep elements connected. Puppeting allows you to add natural movement to a single layer using control pins. We’ll show you how each tool works and when to use them to add flexibility and realism to your animations. By the end, you’ll know how to use both tools to bring more control to your motion design projects.

Sometimes you want layers to move together. Other times, you want more organic movement—like bending arms or squashing a shape. That’s where the Parent and Puppet tools come in. Both give you ways to link and animate layers in more natural, flexible ways.

Parenting Layers

Parenting lets one layer follow another. When a child layer is parented to a parent layer, it inherits the parent’s position, scale, rotation, and opacity. This is helpful when building objects that need to move as a group.

How to Parent a Layer

1. In the Parent & Link column of the timeline, use the pick whip to drag from the child layer to the parent layer.
2. Or, use the dropdown menu in that same column to select the parent layer by name.

Now, when you move or animate the parent layer, the child moves with it.

Example Uses

• Attach text to a moving shape

• Make a camera follow a null object

• Build a multi-part object like a robot or a person

• Animate grouped UI elements together

You can still animate the child layer independently, but it will always follow the parent’s movement unless unlinked.

Null Objects

A null object is an invisible layer used to control other layers. It doesn’t render, but you can animate it and parent other layers to it. This gives you a central control point for groups of layers.

To create one:

Layer > New > Null Object

Then parent other layers to it and animate the null.

Puppet Tool

The Puppet tool lets you bend and deform a layer by adding pins. It works best on flat artwork like characters, shapes, or illustrations.

How to Use the Puppet Tool

1. Select the Puppet Position Pin Tool from the toolbar.
2. Click on a layer (usually a still image or shape) to place pins.
3. Move forward in time and drag the pins to create motion.
4. After Effects adds keyframes automatically.

Each pin acts like a joint. When you move it, the mesh stretches and bends naturally around it.

Types of Puppet Tools

• Position Pin Tool: Places regular control points.

• Starch Tool: Freezes part of the mesh so it doesn’t bend.

• Bend Pin Tool: Allows you to control how a specific point bends. Great for creating elbow or knee-style joints with a more natural feel.

• Advanced Position Pin Tool: Adds controls for stiffness, damping, and stretch. This gives you finer control over how the mesh deforms and returns to its original shape.

• Advanced Puppet Tools (optional): Add mesh depth, rotation, and stiffness.

You can find all these by clicking and holding the Puppet tool in the toolbar.

Tips for Better Puppet Animations

• Use fewer pins for smoother, more natural motion.

• Add starch to keep areas firm (like the base of a character).

• Keep artwork simple—Puppet Tool doesn’t work well with highly detailed or photographic content.

• Use pre-comps or nulls to combine Puppet Tool with other animations.

When to Use Parenting vs. Puppet

You can use both in the same project. For example, a character might have parented arms and legs, but the arms themselves use Puppet pins for natural bend.

Wrap-Up

The Parent and Puppet tools give you more advanced control over motion. Parenting keeps things moving together. The Puppet tool helps you bring static graphics to life with bend and stretch.

In the next lesson, we’ll walk through how to export your work and choose the right settings for delivery.