Composition Settings in

After Effects
What is Composition Settigs in AE?
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.
 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.
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 layersthe portions not in the composition frameare 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 compositionsputting one or more compositions into another composition. You can
create a composition from any number of layers by precomposing them. After modifying
some layers of your composition, you can precompose those layers and then pre-render the
precomposition, replacing it with a rendered movie.
 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.
Note:
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.
How to Create a Composition?
You can change composition
settings at any time. However,
its 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.
Note:
You can override some composition settings when
rendering to final output. For example, you can use
different frame sizes for the same movie.
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.
Create a composition and manually set composition settings

Choose Composition > New Composition, or press Ctrl+N (Windows)

or Command+N (Mac OS).

Create a composition from a single footage item

Drag the footage item to the Create A New Composition button at the
bottom of the Project panel or choose File > New Comp From
Selection.
Composition settings, including frame size (width and height) and
pixel aspect ratio, are automatically set to match the characteristics of
the footage item.
Create a single composition from multiple footage items
Select footage items in the Project panel.
Drag the selected footage items to the Create A New Composition button at the bottom of the Project
panel, or choose File > New Comp From Selection.
Select Single Composition and other settings in the New Composition From Selection dialog box:
Use Dimensions From
Choose the footage item from which the new composition gets composition settings, including frame
size (width and height) and pixel aspect ratio.
Still Duration
The duration for the still images being added.
Add To Render Queue
Add the new composition to the render queue.
Sequence Layers, Overlap, Duration, and Transition
Arrange the layers in a sequence, optionally overlap them in time, set the duration of the transitions,
and choose a transition type.
Create multiple compositions from multiple footage items

Select footage items in the Project panel.

Drag the selected footage items to the Create A New Composition
button at the bottom of the Project panel, or choose File > New
Comp From Selection.
Select Multiple Compositions and other settings in the New
Composition From Selection dialog box:
Still Duration
The duration of the compositions created from still images.
Add To Render Queue
Add the new compositions to the render queue.
Duplicate a composition

Select the composition in the Project panel.

Choose Edit > Duplicate or press Ctrl+D (Windows) or
Command+D (Mac OS).
Timeline panel
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
andin the case of 2D image
layers appear farthest back in
the Composition panel and in the
final composite.
Note:
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).
Con't.
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
Note:
indicator.

Press the backslash (\) key to switch

The left side of the Timeline panel consists of
activation between the Composition panel
columns of controls for layers. The right side
and Timeline panel for the current
of the Timeline panelthe time graph
composition.
contains a time ruler, markers, keyframes,
expressions, duration bars for layers (in layer
bar mode), and the Graph Editor (in Graph
Editor mode).
Composition settings
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.
Working with composition settings
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: Note:

You cannot move custom

composition settings presets from
one system to another, as they are
embedded into the preferences file.
Ensure that all layers are
unlocked in the selected
composition or the script
fails.

To scale an entire composition,

choose File > Scripts > Scale
Composition.jsx
Basic Composition Settings
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.
Advanced composition settings
Anchor
Click an arrow button to
anchor layers to a corner or
edge of the composition as it
is resized.
Preserve resolution when
nested and Preserve frame
rate when nested or in render
queue
For a composition to retain its own
resolution or frame rate, and not inherit
those settings from the containing
composition. For example, if you have
deliberately used a low frame rate in a
composition to create a jerky, hand-
animated result, you must preserve the
frame rate for that composition when it
is nested. Similarly, the results of
rotoscoping may look wrong when
converted to a different frame rate or
resolution. Use this setting instead of
the Posterize Time effect, which is less
efficient.
Motion Blur settings
Shutter angle: The shutter angle is
measured in degrees, simulating the
exposure allowed by a rotating
shutter. The shutter angle uses the
footage frame rate to determine the
simulated exposure, which affects the
amount of motion blur. For example,
entering 90 (25% of 360) for 24-
fps footage creates an effective
exposure of 1/96 of a second (25% of
1/24 of a second). Entering 1
applies almost no motion blur, and
entering 720 applies a large
amount of blur.
Shutter phase: The shutter
phase is also measured in
degrees. It defines an offset
that determines when the
shutter opens relative to the
beginning of a frame.
Adjusting this value can help if
an object with motion blur
applied appears to lag behind
the position of the object
without motion blur applied.
 Samples per frame: The Adaptive sample limit: The
minimum number of samples. maximum number of
This minimum is the number samples.
of samples used for frames
for which After Effects is not
able to determine an adaptive
sampling rate based on layer
motion. This sample rate is
used for 3D layers and shape
layers.
3D renderer settings
You can use the options in the
3D renderer tab to choose the
right 3D renderer for your
composition. You can choose
from the following renderers in
the Renderer menu:
Classic 3D
CINEMA 4D
Ray-traced 3D
The 3D functionality of the CINEMA 4D
Composition Renderer and the Ray-traced
3D renderer is nearly identical with the
extrusion of 3D text and shape layers and
bending of other 3D layers (solids, footage,
and so on) into curved planes. However,
the rendered results can be different
because they generate results using
different renderers and support different
sets of features. For example, there are
differences in the 3D layer material options
and other layer behaviors.
Con't

The CINEMA 4D Composition

Renderer renders 3D layers
including extruded text and shapes
and curved 2D planes to make the
process of animating 3D text and
logos from scratch easier. The
performance of the CINEMA 4D
renderer is much faster than the
CPU-only performance of the Ray-
traced 3D renderer.