Understanding layers

A composition without layers would be just an empty frame. As we said earlier in this chapter, compositions are formed from one or more layers, and anything you add to it, such as shapes, text, images, and audio, will become a layer as well.

Let's see that in practice:

1. Open the chapter03/AEbasics.ae file that we provided with this book.
2. In the Project panel, you'll see a bunch of different compositions and files.
3. Double-click on the composition called Animation:

Figure 3.12 – The Project panel

Now, let's check what we've got in the Layer panel. As you can see, several different types of layers have appeared in the timeline, and each of these layers has its own properties as well, such as size, position, rotation, and opacity. These properties are very important as we'll see soon because by tweaking them, we will be able to start animating, but let's not rush.

The layer&apos...