How to Reveal and Keyframe the Position Property in After Effects (P)

Pressing P with a layer selected reveals only that layer's Position property in the Timeline panel, replacing whatever was previously shown — the fastest way to isolate exactly the property you want to animate without manually expanding a Transform property group and scrolling to find it. **Setting the first keyframe**: with Position revealed, clicking the small stopwatch icon next to the property name enables keyframing for it and immediately places a keyframe at the current playhead time with the layer's current position value. From that point forward, moving the layer at any different point in time automatically creates a new keyframe there. **2D versus 3D layers**: Position shows two values (X, Y) for a standard 2D layer, but automatically expands to three values (X, Y, Z) if the layer has 3D been enabled via its layer switch, letting you animate depth movement in addition to flat-plane motion — a detail that catches users by surprise when a layer they expected to move only sideways also picks up unwanted depth movement from an accidental Z-value change. **Combining with other properties**: holding Shift while pressing another property letter (like Shift+S after already revealing Position) adds that property to the current Timeline view rather than replacing Position with it, letting you build a combined view of Position and Scale together — useful when animating two properties in tandem and wanting to compare their keyframe timing side by side. **Related shortcuts**: S for Scale, R for Rotation, and T for Opacity, the other three most commonly keyframed Transform properties, each following the identical reveal-then-keyframe workflow. **Separating dimensions for independent keyframing**: right-clicking the Position property and choosing 'Separate Dimensions' splits X, Y (and Z, if 3D) into individually keyframeable sub-properties, letting you apply different easing or timing to horizontal movement versus vertical movement independently, rather than always having both dimensions move together as one linked value. **Keyframe count and the graph editor**: once several Position keyframes exist, opening the Graph Editor shows the actual motion path's velocity curve, and for Position specifically, the Composition viewer also displays a visible motion path — a dotted line tracing exactly where the layer travels between keyframes — which is uniquely useful for Position among the transform properties since it's the one most directly tied to a visually traceable path through space rather than an abstract single value like Opacity. **Common mistake when starting a new animation**: forgetting to set a starting keyframe at the layer's original position before moving it at a later time can produce an unexpected sudden jump at the very start of playback, since without an initial keyframe, the layer simply holds its final keyframed value constant from the beginning of the timeline rather than starting somewhere different and animating into that value. Building fluency with separated dimensions and the visible motion path together gives noticeably finer control over how an animated object actually travels through a composition. These techniques form the foundation of fluid motion design. **Numeric entry as an alternative to dragging**: clicking directly on either the X or Y value once Position is revealed switches it into an editable text field, letting you type an exact coordinate rather than dragging the layer by hand in the Composition panel, useful when a design calls for pixel-precise placement rather than an eyeballed position.