duplicating compositions

[Steve Bentley]

There’s a script that does this for you but I just duplicate the layer in the comp, tell AE to find it for me in the project footage list, duplicate it there and then option or alt drag it back ontop of the one in the comp (which has to be selected for the alt drag to work). Now you have two versions, each unique of that original comp. Changing whats inside one will not affect the other.

[Steve Bentley]

Good point Dave,
Richard, If you have a lot of nested within nested comps you can really go down the rabbit hole because each of those increasingly inner comps probably also has to be unique. Perhaps the script is a better idea.

[Steve Bentley]

There’s this one
https://aescripts.com/true-comp-duplicator/

There are a few more that have slightly different functionality depending on your need.

[Richard Hutt]

Okay guys, I will try this in the morning Thanks so much for the help.

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

A good workflow prior to duplicating a Comp with precomps that reach further down than a single level in the hierarchy is to organize all the related comps, in the Project Panel, into a folder.

Name the Comps appropriately and use numbered suffixes to define their relationship to the Master/’Final’ comp. Then duplicate the folder and replace the precomps accordingly. Once organized into a folder, the duplication keeps all related comps in a context which allows for simpler substitution/replacement into their relevant/duplicated main comps.

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[Richard Hutt]

Steve and dave.. Jeez this is maddening. Ive been at it for 3 hours trying to copy, rename…nothing is working right. I have gone down that rabbitt hole and like the guy in the cave…I’m loooooooooost.

Ive tried to go ahead and buy this script program you mentioned, but they wont send a confirmation email to go ahead with the purchase. Are there any other scripts for Ae out there that I can get hold of

[Richard Hutt]

Steve, I got this True Comp Duplicator downloaded but Im not sure what to do with it now. I tried double clicking it, but I get and error form AE that says it is upssupported. ANy idea how to get this thing working?

[Steve Bentley]

TrueComp Duplicator probably goes in the script folder which is a folder right beside your AE applicatoin (at the same heirarchy level).
Then you acces it by either going to File/Scripts and choose it from the list there. or you go to the Windows menu and it will be an item in there. Once run you might be able to Dock it to your interface.
There should be installation and usage docs in the download, no?

[Richard Hutt]

Thank you Steve, I do appreciate your help.
Richard

[Hammers Nail]

Assuming, you don’t have too much scripted things in your project, you can simply save your project and import it in your open project. Find in the Project window automatically created folder with that imported project and drag necessary precomp into main comp. Rename new comps if you need more serious data organization, run Depencencies..->Reduce project after all duplication is done. No scripts needed, free.
Save. Import. Repeat.

Nh