Various examples of the "Anchor Point" transform are shown here...this is a great resource for teachers and students.

I've decided to build my own little After Effects Visual Reference Library for when I'm teaching my motion graphics classes and post it here. This is in no way meant to replace the books out on the market when you are teaching...It's more of a visual complement to them.

There are several anchor point examples below that you can play.

Some helpful shortcuts when dealing with anchor point ( I'm doing these from a PC so the shortcuts might be different in some cases on a Mac...whenever it says CTRL switch that to CMND or Open Apple for the Mac )

A = Anchor Point
F9 = Easy Ease or look under the menu: Animation / Keyframe Assistant / Easy Ease
Shift F9 = Easy Ease In or look under the menu: Animation / Keyframe Assistant / Easy Ease In
Ctrl Shift F9 = Easy Ease Out or look under the menu: Animation / Keyframe Assistant / Easy Ease Out
Y = switches to the Pan Behind tool...(manual anchor point move tool)
J = Previous Keyframe
K = Next Keyframe
Home = Beginning of Timeline
End = End of Timeline

A. Anchor Point

A. Anchor Point Property
B. X position of Anchor Point
C. Y position of Anchor Point
D. Z position of Anchor Point - Can only be accessed if the layer is converted to 3D
E. Layer can be transformed in 3D space if the 3D cube is selected

A. Pan Behind tool...(manual anchor point move tool)

If you would like to use the After Effects project below you can find it HERE

Anchor Point has been moved to the tip of the rocket ship, causing the ship to rotate from the tip. You could also use this technique for clock hands.

Anchor Point has been moved outside of the rocket ship. This is great for orbiting planets. You can also get some interesting results by moving the anchor point away from the layer in Z space.

By moving the anchor point you can also cause layers to scale off center.

If you would like to use this After Effects project you can find it HERE