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Organizing layers? (newbie)
I’m fairly new to After Effects, and I’m currently working on a video project for school that involves multiple explosions in one shot. I just finished the first one, and it’s comprised of about 6 layers. I need to duplicate it several times, and I was wondering if I could somehow consolidate them while still being able to edit each layer if I need to.
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4 Replies
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Not sure what you mean by consolidate, but it’s sounds like you want to make a pre-composition. That’s a fully functional comp, nested in your final comp. You can always step back into it an make changes.
To make a pre-comp, choose all the layers you want to be in it and press “shift+cntl+C”.
Pre-comps take on the length of the original composition, so you might want to jump into the pre-comp, go to your first explosion layer, press “B” to move the work area start, go to your whatever is the last ending frame and press “N” to set a work area end, then right-click in the work and trim the comp to work area. I just find that keeps things a little more organized that way.
Johnny Cuevas, Editor
Thinkck.com“I have not failed 700 times. I have succeeded in proving that those 700 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work.”
—THOMAS EDISON on inventing the light bulb. -
Also, if you are just starting, check out Getting started with After Effects (CS4, CS5, CS5.5, CS6, & CC), lots of great info and links to free tutorials.
Johnny Cuevas, Editor
Thinkck.com“I have not failed 700 times. I have succeeded in proving that those 700 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work.”
—THOMAS EDISON on inventing the light bulb. -
Thanks for the reply, I just tried pre-composing, but it seems to disregard the blending modes of the layers. I had one of the layers set to Screen, and when I pre comp it it looks like it reverts it to Normal. Is there anyway around that?
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In your final comp, you need to press the continuous rasterize button, it looks like a little sun.
Collapse Transformations/Continuously Rasterize
Johnny Cuevas, Editor
Thinkck.com“I have not failed 700 times. I have succeeded in proving that those 700 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work.”
—THOMAS EDISON on inventing the light bulb.
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