Viewing elements outside composition window

[Mike Clasby]

Hmmm, drag that comp into a new and larger comp, then add a pale colored solid the same size as the original comp, as a background, so you can see the original’s boundaries?

[Steve Roberts]

Yep … we can only see wireframes on the pasteboard, so yikesmikes way (or similar) is the way.

[Teeps]

If I create this larger pasteboard with a box in the middle corresponding to the original composition size, is there a way to later crop it back down or would I have to then paste it back into another composition to view it without “extra background”. Or would I not even have to worry about seeing a gray box around my composition if I export it?

thanks

[Steve Roberts]

Just drag the big comp into a comp of the smaller desired size and render that.

Actually, you can drag it in now, and go back to the bigger comp and work there until it’s time to render the smaller one.

[Teeps]

I just went into comp. settings and made it bigger and then made a rectangle shape with a bright green stroke.

[Harry Frank]

You can also use the camera tools on any other view. Perhaps you could set “Custom View 1” to the wide view. Even an Orthographic view like “Front” can use the Track Z tool to expand to a wider view.

A handy trick is to use the Esc key to toggle back and forth between the last two camera views. So you could have comp camera and the wide view easily accessed with one key.

Harry J Frank
Freelance Motion Designer
graymachine.com

[Quintus Lubbe]

I know this is an old post, but you’ve just saved me hours of guess work. Genius.

[Richard Garabedain]

Ive been using after effects for years and I never knew about the esc key…that “is” useful