I'm currently working on an animated film which makes extensive use of the puppet tool and, like most animated films, the surrounding world of the film makes use of perspective and perceived 3-dimensional space.
I very much appreciate the functionality of using 3d space in after effects to avoid having to animate every individual item (this background is quite cluttered) but as I have everything drawn and illustrated to the exact dimensions I want it to be seen as on screen, is there any option to effectively modify an object's placement in 3d space without allowing the Z axis to perform its natural function of making things larger as they come closer or smaller as they are pushed away? I am not going to be rendering any scenes that make use of altering position in the Z axis, so that's not an issue.
I tried moving the objects on the Z dimension, then adjusting the size of the items to make objects that are closer smaller (so they're essentially the size they started out as) and objects further away bigger (again, to make them the same size as they were to begin with) but to do this I have to do a lot of guesswork and I'd really appreciate just being able to move "prop items" where I want them to be without distorting their scale so I can pan through a scene with a nice multiplaning effect and the freedom of not having to animate every individual object.
I know this is a rather complicated request, but I'm assuming there must be some way to do it and I'm just not knowlegeable enough to figure it out on my own.