How to reverse an animation in After Effects

Let’s say you have a motion you want to reverse or you want it to go back to the starting position so that you can loop the motion.

I’m going to show you two different ways of doing it, one with individual layers and one with the whole composition.

How to reverse an animation in After Effects

First, to reverse a single motion, just select that layers keyframes and then right click on one of the keyframes, go down to “Keyframe assistant” and click “Time-Reverse-Keyframe”. Pretty simple.

🎞 Watch the tutorial here!

The other method is to select all the layers, right click on one of the layers and then click “Pre-compose”. Click “OK” and now you will have a composition inside your composition and to access the individual layers, just double click on it to open it in a new tab.

Now right click on this composition, go up to “Time” and click “Time-Reverse Layer” to reverse the whole composition.

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Keep learning and have a great day!