For more information about creating compositions, see this video by Andrew Devis on the Creative Cow website.
A composition is the framework for a movie. Each composition has its own timeline. A typical composition includes multiple layers that represent components such as video and audio footage items, animated text and vector graphics, still images, and lights. You add a footage item to a composition by creating a layer for which the footage item is the source. You then arrange layers within a composition in space and time, and composite using transparency features to determine which parts of underlying layers show through the layers stacked on top of them. (See Layers and properties and Transparency and compositing.)
A composition in After Effects is similar to a movie clip in Flash Professional or a sequence in Premiere Pro.
You render a composition to create the frames of a final output movie, which is encoded and exported to any number of formats. (See Basics of rendering and exporting.)
Simple projects may include only one composition; complex projects may include hundreds of compositions to organize large amounts of footage or many effects.
In some places in the After Effects user interface, composition is abbreviated as comp.
Each composition has an entry in the Project panel. Double-click a composition entry in the Project panel to open the composition in its own Timeline panel. To select a composition in the Project panel, right-click (Windows) or Control-click (Mac OS) in the Composition panel or Timeline panel for the composition and choose Reveal Composition In Project from the context menu.
Use the Composition panel to preview a composition and modify its contents manually. The Composition panel contains the composition frame and a pasteboard area outside the frame that you can use to move layers into and out of the composition frame. The offstage extents of layers—the portions not in the composition frame—are shown as rectangular outlines. Only the area inside the composition frame is rendered for previews and final output.
The composition frame in the Composition panel in After Effects is similar to the Stage in Flash Professional.
When working with a complex project, you may find it easiest to organize the project by nesting compositions—putting one or more compositions into another composition. You can create a composition from any number of layers by precomposing them. If you are finished modifying some layers of your composition, you can precompose those layers and then pre-render the precomposition, replacing it with a rendered movie. (See Precomposing, nesting, and pre-rendering.)
You can navigate within a hierarchy of nested compositions using the Composition Navigator and Composition Mini-Flowchart. (See Opening and navigating nested compositions.)
Use the Flowchart panel to see the structure of a complex composition or network of compositions.
Timeline button
Click this button at the bottom of the Composition panel to activate the Timeline panel for the current composition.
Press the backslash (\) key to switch activation between the Composition panel and Timeline panel for the current composition.
Comp button
Click this button in the upper-right corner of the Timeline panel to activate the Composition panel for the current composition.
Flowchart button
Click this button at the bottom of the Composition panel to activate the Flowchart panel for the current composition.
You can change composition settings at any time. However, it’s best to specify settings such as frame aspect ratio and frame size when you create the composition, with your final output in mind. Because After Effects bases certain calculations on these composition settings, changing them late in your workflow can affect your final output.
For more information about creating compositions, see this video by Andrew Devis on the Creative Cow website.
Note:
You can override some composition settings when rendering to final output. For example, you can use different frame sizes for the same movie. For more information see Render settings and Output modules and output module settings.
When you create a composition without changing settings in the Composition Settings dialog box, the new composition uses the settings from the previous time that composition settings were set.
Note:
New compositions do not inherit the previous Preserve Frame Rate When Nested Or In Render Queue and Preserve Resolution When Nested settings.
You can create a set of After Effects compositions tailored for a selected set of devices by using the File > New Document In > After Effects command in Adobe Device Central. See Create compositions for playback on mobile devices.
In After Effects CS6, you can create a ray-traced 3D composition for working with extruded text and shape layers. See Creating a ray-traced 3D composition.
Jeff Almasol provides a script on his redefinery website that creates and saves a new project for each selected composition in the current project. If a folder is selected in the Project panel when you create a new composition, the new composition is placed in the selected folder.
at the bottom
of the Project panel or choose File > New Comp From
Selection.
Screen dimensions and video frame rates vary from one mobile device to another. Adobe Device Central CS5.5, and earlier, contains a database of device profiles that provide information about these characteristics. Using this information, you can create movies that play correctly and look as you intend on the mobile devices that you choose.
For information on acquiring footage for playback on mobile devices, see Planning for playback on computer monitors and mobile devices.
For a video tutorial about creating compositions for mobile devices, go to the Adobe TV website.
You do your design, animation, and other work in the Device Master composition. You use the device-specific compositions for previews and to render for final output.
The Device Master composition is nested and centered in each of the device-specific compositions. The frame rate, height, and width settings for the Device Master composition are each set to the maximum of the values for the device-specific compositions. You can resize or move the nested Device Master composition within each device-specific composition—for example, to tweak layout for different frame aspect ratios. A guide layer for each device in the Device Master composition facilitates your design work.
A Preview composition is also created. The Preview composition consists of a grid of device-specific compositions so that you can preview your master composition in the context of several mobile devices simultaneously.
After you render and export the compositions, you can preview and test the resulting movies on the simulated devices within Adobe Device Central.
Each composition has its own Timeline panel. You use the Timeline panel to perform many tasks, such as animating layer properties, arranging layers in time, and setting blending modes. The layers at the bottom of the layer stacking order in the Timeline panel are rendered first and—in the case of 2D image layers— appear farthest back in the Composition panel and in the final composite.
To cycle forward through Timeline panels, press Alt+Shift+period (.) (Windows) or Option+Shift+period (.) (Mac OS). To cycle backward through Timeline panels, press Alt+Shift+comma (,) (Windows) or Option+Shift+comma (,) (Mac OS).
The current time for a composition is indicated by the current-time indicator (CTI), the vertical red line in the time graph. The current time for a composition also appears in the current time display in the upper-left corner of the Timeline panel. For more information on moving the current-time indicator, see Move the current-time indicator.
The left side of the Timeline panel consists of columns of controls for layers. The right side of the Timeline panel—the time graph—contains a time ruler, markers, keyframes, expressions, duration bars for layers (in layer bar mode), and the Graph Editor (in Graph Editor mode).
A. Current-time display B. Current-time indicator (CTI) C. Time ruler D. Layer switches E. Time graph
Press the backslash (\) key to switch activation between the Composition panel and Timeline panel for the current composition.
You can enter composition settings manually, or you can use composition settings presets to automatically set frame size (width and height), pixel aspect ratio, and frame rate for many common output formats. You can also create and save your own custom composition settings presets for later use. Resolution, Start Timecode (or Start Frame), Duration, and Advanced composition settings are not saved with composition settings presets.
Note:
The limit for composition duration is three hours. You can use footage items longer than three hours, but time after three hours does not display correctly. The maximum composition size is 30,000x30,000 pixels. A 30,000x30,000 8-bpc image requires approximately 3.5 GB; your maximum composition size may be less, depending on your operating system and available RAM.
To open the Composition Settings dialog box to change composition settings, do one of the following:
Select a composition in the Project panel or activate the Timeline or Composition panel for a composition, and choose Composition > Composition Settings, or press Ctrl+K (Windows) or Command+K (Mac OS).
Right-click (Windows) or Control-click (Mac OS) a composition in the Project panel or Composition panel (not on a layer), and choose Composition Settings from the context menu.
To save a custom composition settings preset, set Width, Height, Pixel Aspect Ratio, and Frame Rate values in the Composition Settings dialog box, and then click the Save button
.To delete a composition settings preset, choose it from the Preset menu in the Composition Settings dialog box, and click the Delete button
.To restore default composition settings presets, Alt-click (Windows) or Option-click (Mac OS) the Delete button
or the Save button in the Composition Settings dialog box.
Note:
You cannot move custom composition settings presets from one system to another, as they are embedded into the preferences file.
Note:
Ensure all layers are unlocked in the selected composition or the script will fail.
Jeff Almasol provides a script on his redefinery website to set the frame rate and duration of the current composition and all compositions nested within it.
Christopher Green provides a script (Selected_Comps_Changer.jsx) on his website with which you can change the composition settings for compositions selected in the Project panel.
Start Timecode or Start Frame
Timecode or frame number assigned to the first frame of the composition. This value does not affect rendering; it merely specifies where to start counting from.
Background Color
Use the color swatch or eyedropper to pick a composition background color. (See Select a color or edit a gradient.)
note: When you add one composition to another (nesting), the background color of the containing composition is preserved, and the background of the nested composition becomes transparent. To preserve the background color of the nested composition, create a solid-color layer to use as a background layer in the nested composition.
Anchor
Click an arrow button to anchor layers to a corner or edge of the composition as it is resized.
For information on specific Advanced composition settings not listed here, see the related sections:
After Effects CS6 includes an updated advanced section to allow for ray-traced 3D renderer options. The 3D renderer plug-in has been renamed as, "Renderer" for these choices because you are choosing one renderer or another for a composition.
To choose a composition type, select one of the following from the Renderer menu:
- Classic 3D
- Ray-traced 3D
Click the Options button to launch the Ray-traced 3D Renderer Options dialog box. You can also Ctrl-click (Windows) or Command-click (Mac OS) the Current Renderer Indicator button in the upper-right of the Composition panel to launch the dialog box.
Here you can choose:
- Ray-tracing quality: Click the Ray-tracing quality setting to change it according to your workflow.
- Higher values for ray-tracing quality decrease noise but greatly increase render time.
- Ray-tracing quality controls the number of rays fired per pixel (for example, a value of 4 fires 16 or 4x4 rays, and 8 fires 64 rays).
- A larger number produces a more accurate pixel at the expense of computation time.
- A value of 1 will provide better performance, but there won't be any reflection blur (for example, it is always sharp), soft shadow, depth of field, or motion blur.
Increasing the Ray-tracing Quality value will not increase the sharpness. Instead it decreases the noise inherent in point sampling. You should use the lowest value that produces an acceptable amount of noise or no noise.
- Anti-aliasing Filter: Controls the method of averaging the fired rays for a pixel. None fires all rays within the bounds of a pixel, whereas the others spreads the grid of fired rays partially across adjacent pixels to produce a better average. Box, Tent, and Cubic (which is not bicubic) are listed in the order of better quality.
- None
- Box
- Tent
- Cubic
The anti-aliasing filter controls the amount of blurriness. None gives the sharpest result but the edges of the projection catcher may look aliased, with Box blur, Triangle, and Cubic giving blurrier results.
Note:
Ray-traced 3D layers use Ray-tracing Quality to control the appearance of motion blur.
Depth of field calculations in Ray-traced 3D are more accurate than they are in Classic 3D (and previously in Advanced 3D).
Anchor
Click an arrow button to anchor layers to a corner or edge of the composition as it is resized.
For information on specific Advanced composition settings not listed here, see the related sections:
You can choose which frame of a composition to show as a thumbnail image (poster frame) for the composition in the Project panel. By default, the thumbnail image is the first frame of the composition, with transparent portions shown as black.
- To set the thumbnail image for a composition, move the current-time indicator to the desired frame of the composition in the Timeline panel, and choose Composition > Set Poster Time.
- To add a transparency grid to the thumbnail view, choose Thumbnail Transparency Grid from the Project panel menu.
- To hide the thumbnail images in the Project panel, choose Edit > Preferences > Display (Windows) or After Effects > Preferences > Display (Mac OS) and select Disable Thumbnails In Project Panel.
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