After Effects and Precomposing (Nesting)
Most of us editors are familiar with the term nesting, we use is to make complex edits and add multiple effects to a video track. Every After Effects class that I teach I am asked how to nest items in the composition of After Effects.
The first major difference between your editing application versus After Effects is that Avid, Final Cut and Adobe Premiere all use video tracks and you can have multiple segments on a single video track. Adobe After Effects uses layers (similar to Adobe Photoshop) for each segment, still, or any piece of material you want to compose.
Step-by-step instructions continue after the jump ...
If you want to make transform movements or add an effect to multiple
layers with the ability to manipulate them under one layer (track) you
need to Pre-compose (Nest) the layers. I use Pre-compositions in every
one of my After Effects projects and normally end up with several of
them in my final comp. It is also very useful to Pre-compose a single
layer to affect the order in which the effects are rendered.
To make a Pre-Compostion select the layer or layers you wish to pre-compose and choose Layer>Precompose or Ctrl+Shift+C for Windows and Command+Shift+C on a Macintosh. This is a shortcut you should become familiar with because once you understand and are comfortable with Precomps you will end up using this on most of your compositions.
You will have two choices once you select Precompose. You must decide if you want to leave all attributes in or move all attributes. The difference is simple: if you leave all attributes then it only applies on a single layer Precomp and the frame size remains the same size as the original layer. This is the least common form of Precomposing. The next option is to move all attributes. This is for multiple layers and it makes the layers the same size as the Precomp and moves all the keyframes and effects into the Precomp allowing you complete control over the new layer.
Remember Genius DV offers online interactive training, onsite training and classroom training.
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To make a Pre-Compostion select the layer or layers you wish to pre-compose and choose Layer>Precompose or Ctrl+Shift+C for Windows and Command+Shift+C on a Macintosh. This is a shortcut you should become familiar with because once you understand and are comfortable with Precomps you will end up using this on most of your compositions.
You will have two choices once you select Precompose. You must decide if you want to leave all attributes in or move all attributes. The difference is simple: if you leave all attributes then it only applies on a single layer Precomp and the frame size remains the same size as the original layer. This is the least common form of Precomposing. The next option is to move all attributes. This is for multiple layers and it makes the layers the same size as the Precomp and moves all the keyframes and effects into the Precomp allowing you complete control over the new layer.
Remember Genius DV offers online interactive training, onsite training and classroom training.
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