beautypg.com

Save and back up projects, Work with the flowchart panel – Adobe After Effects CS3 User Manual

Page 29

background image

AFTER EFFECTS CS3

User Guide

24

See also

“Lock or unlock a layer” on page 149

Open a template project

To browse and open template projects using Adobe Bridge, choose File > Browse Template Projects. Double-click
a template project to open it.

To open a template project, choose File > Open Project. On Windows, choose Adobe After Effects Project
Template from the Files Of Type menu.

Create a template project

To convert a project to a template project, change the file-name extension from .aep to .aet.

To save a copy of a project as a template project, choose File > Save A Copy, and then rename the copy with the
file-name extension .aet.

Save and back up projects

To save a project, choose File > Save.

To save a copy of the project with a new automatically generated name, choose File > Increment And Save, or press
Ctrl+Alt+Shift+S (Windows) or Command+Option+Shift+S (Mac OS).

A copy of the current project is saved in the same folder as the original project. The name of the copy is the name of
the original followed by a number. If the name of the original ends with a number, that number is increased by 1.

To save the project with a different name or to a different location, choose File > Save As.

The open project takes the new name and location; the original file remains unchanged.

To save a copy of the project with a different name or to a different location, choose File > Save A Copy.

The open project retains its original name and location, and a copy is created with the new settings but is not opened.

To automatically save copies of projects at regular intervals, choose Edit > Preferences > Auto-Save (Windows) or
After Effects > Preferences > Auto-Save (Mac OS), and select Automatically Save Projects.

Auto-saved files are saved in the Adobe After Effects Auto-Save folder, which is located in the same folder as the
original project file. Auto-saved file names are based on the project name: After Effects adds “auto-save n” (where n
is the number of the file in the auto-save series) to the end of the file name. Maximum Project Versions specifies how
many versions of each project file you want to save. When the number of versions saved reaches the maximum you
specify, the Auto-Save feature overwrites them starting with the oldest file.

To save a copy of the project and copies of assets used in the project, use the Collect Files command. (See “Collect
files in one location” on page 594.)

Work with the Flowchart panel

In each composition’s flowchart, individual boxes (or tiles) represent each composition, footage item, and layer.
Directional arrows represent the relationships between components.

Note: The Flowchart panel shows you only the existing relationships. You cannot use it to change relationships between
project elements.

Nested compositions and other elements that make up the composition appear when you expand a composition tile.