Good tutorials for making objects drop or fly in?

Question

I've been using the Adobe CS for years now, but just getting started using After Effects.
I'm trying to make a video where 2D images/objects appear to drop in from above, stay put for a second, and then fly out into the background. I figured tutorials for something this simple would be all over the web, but I've yet to find one exactly like this.
So far I'm assuming it will be something easy like using the scale effect? Any tips or advice are much appreciated!

Answer 1

Just pick a property like position then hold down the alt or option key and click the stop watch or with Position selected go to Animation Add Expression.
Did you try adding the animation preset to a layer in the timeline? Save the animation preset to your animation presets file and then select the layer, position it where you want it to end, then select Animation>Apply Animation Preset> and browse to the preset I sent you. Works with 2D and 3D layers.
The drop in and fly back animation that you want to do will work better with 3D layers and this Animation Preset could easily be modified to move in Z instead of fall out of frame.
It doesn't sound like you are very familiar with expressions. This one is fairly complex. It uses the in point and out point of the layer along with value at time to create the motion. If this looks like greek to you you'd better explain more about what you want to do with the expression.
sif = effect("slideIn Frames")("Slider");
sof= effect("slideOut Frames")("Slider");
// find in and out point
inTime = sif * thisComp.frameDuration;
          if (effect("Match SI SO")("Checkbox") == 0) {
          outTime = sof * thisComp.frameDuration;
          else if (effect("Match SI SO")("Checkbox") == 1) {
          outTime = inTime;
// Fix  layer size when scaled
sf = scale - [100, 100];
xSize = width + (width * sf[0]/100);
ySize = height + (height * sf[1]/100);
realSize = [xSize, ySize];
// Set Positions
spx = 0 - realSize[0] + realSize[0]/2 ;
rstx = value [0];
rsty = value[1];
epy = thisComp.height + realSize[1] - realSize[1]/2;
// create movement
freq = effect("bounce Frequency")("Slider");
        amplitude = effect("bounce Amplitude")("Slider");
        decay = effect("bounce Decay")("Slider");
    posCos = Math.abs(Math.cos(freq*time*2*Math.PI));
    y = amplitude*posCos/Math.exp(decay*time);
moveIn = Math.min(linear(time,inPoint,inPoint + inTime,spx  ,rstx-y));
moveOut = Math.min(linear(time,outPoint - outTime,outPoint - thisComp.frameDuration,rsty ,epy));
[moveIn, moveOut]