Create a composition – Adobe After Effects CS3 User Manual
Page 113
AFTER EFFECTS CS3
User Guide
108
See also
“Preview video and audio” on page 120
“Work with the Flowchart panel” on page 24
Create a composition
You can change a composition’s 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.
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 “Work with render settings” on page 597 and “Work with
output module settings” on page 599.
When you create a composition without changing settings in the Composition Settings dialog box, the new compo-
sition uses the settings from the previous time that composition settings were set.
Note: The previous Preserve Frame Rate When Nested Or In Render Queue and Preserve Resolution When Nested
settings are not inherited by new compositions.
See also
“Work with composition settings” on page 110
“About nesting and precomposing” on page 113
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
1
Select footage items in the Project panel.
2
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.
3
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.