Pre-Comp with Collapse Transformation / Masking / Expression Controls / Etc

Is there an issue with Pre-Comps and with the Collapse Transformation enabled?
I have a Pre-comp that has various layer modes in it and in the main comp, the Pre-Comp has collapse transformation enabled to see the layer modes so the text can blend into the background (otherwise the text is just a flat color).
The pre-comp works completely fine until I add a mask to it or say a expression control and then all of a sudden the collapse transformation stops working and the text loses it's properties.
This cannot be working as intended...otherwise I can't do any sort of reveal with a mask with anything that is pre-composed and has any sort of blend modes within the pre-comp.
The pre-comp also loses it's collapse transformation if you even put a expression control on it.

Contrary to what you think it works as intended. Effects require rasterization as do masks. This is inherent how AE's render pipeline works. You need to restructure your project.
Mylenium

Similar Messages

Use camera from pre-comp without collapsing comps

Hello,
I'm facing a problem that I can't solve.
Hope you can help.
I have a huge composition with some precomps, imported from photoshop, with blending modes etc.
Everything is working fine, but in one of the precomps I turned the layers 3d, and added a camera.
On the precomp it works fine, but when I go to the main comp, nothing happens. I solved the problem
collapsing pre-comps, but the thing is that I lose all the blending modes of my elements.
Any idea of how to keep my blending modes and also use the camera from the pre-comp?
(The pre-comp is a graphic with a much bigger resolution, that I need the camera to zoom-out)
Thank you.
Best,
João

My pre-comp works fine, when I say nothing happens, I mean there is no camera movement on the main comp as in the precomp.
If I move the camera to the main comp, and lights, The pre-comp gets the movement I want, but doesn't get rid of the resolution size of the pre-comp.
But I think that shoul do the trick if I increase the size of the precomp.
Thank you guys for all the help

Masked pre comp of clip not showing clip motion within the mask please help

Hi there,
I'm trying to create a phenakistoscope Phenakistoscope - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia out of a motion picture of a dancer.
I've transformed the clip of the dancer and precomposed it and then masked and animated the rotation of the pre comp in a new composition. I then duplicated the now animated pre comp 20 times offsetting each one, a frame later than the last to create the wheel effect with trailing frames.
The animation of the mask and offset is working fine, however the footage in the clip is not playing in the masked composition.
please help, here is the project file. Dropbox - caropheankistope.aep
RAW FOOTAGE SAMPLE Dropbox - carolina base_raw sample.mov
NON WORKING COMP SAMPLE OUTPUT Dropbox - carolina base_sample.mov
Thanks
adam

I'm replying to your question on my phone so I can't look at your project but I did look at your video.
Here is what I would do to troubleshoot the project. First run a RAM preview of the pre-composed and masked wedge comp. If that plays back correctly then everything else should work unless you have applied some kind of time effect to the duplicated layers. If that doesn't work then show us a screenshot of that pre-comp with all of the properties of the movie layer revealed (Press that u key twice).
If you have not sorted this out by the time I get back the office I will try and take a look at your project.

Light in pre-comp

Hi all!
Cs6/CC, Mac.
I have Main Comp and Inner Comp in it.
In second there are some solids and lights.
When i look at preview in Inner Comp, i see effect that lights provide, but when i go to Main Comp, i see Inner Comp's content like i have set no lights up.
In Main Comp 3d and transformation collapse triggers are enabled for InnerComp.
Is there a way to get the effect of my lights to Inner Comp content in Main Comp without putting them right into Main Comp?
i dont neet lights to work on Main Comp. just to Inner one.
Thanks!:)

First, you don't need the layers to be so big. Set pieces, your walls, should only be big enough to fill the frame when the camera is farthest away. If you need to do really big moves you can build your set in sections eliminating the parts (layers) that move off screen as the camera moves. Plan your work so that you don't have huge images in the scenes that have to be scaled way down to fit in the frame.
Second, I would work the other way around. I'd put my characters in Pre-comps and make them bigger than they need to be in the scene. Work on the individual performances in the pre-comp, then put them in the scene in the main comp as a 3D layer with collapsed transformations. I spent about 15 minutes setting this up tonight while the AME is kicking out a render. Hopefully it will give you some ideas.
Try playing with the project a bit. The walk cycle and smile are animated in the pre-comp. The blocking of the character - movement within the scene is animated inside the Main comp with the character in the room. There are a couple of other tricks here. Check out the expression that keeps the actor looking at the camera and the expression that ties focus distance to the point of interest to allow easy adjustment of the depth of field.
Run your motion tests with the lights turned off for faster previews. When the motion is good, Turn on the lights. The project was saved as CS6.

Toggle Layers Visibility Animation in Pre-Comp

Hi, I want to make a pre-comp with 2 mouse-pointer images, the one has the normal state, the other image has teh pressed pointer state. Now in a parent layer it'd be wonderful if I could use this pointer-pre-comp and when ever I want to show a pressed-pointer, I set a keyframe set (pree / unpress) to the pointer-pre-comp within the parent-pre-comp ... is such a thing doable ? Because rt now I'm animating out every single step.
Regards,
Frank

If you know anything about expressions you could do it with a Slider Controll. Because the pointer and the over state are different sizes you'll have to change opacity of both layers. I'm calling your pointer comp "pointerComp" (this name doesn't matter) and attaching adding the expression slider to a null named PointerController (not important) in the mainComp i'm naming "Main Comp" (and that name matters a bunch). I also named the slider Opacity Slider by selecting it in the ECW and pressing return the same way you rename layers in the timeline.
Here's the expression for the over layer's opacity:
comp("Main Comp").layer("PointerController").effect("OpacitySlider")("Slider");
for the second or normal layer we'll do something a little different. I'm going to subtract the value of the slide from 100 because opacity can only be in values from 0 to 100.
The expression looks like this:
100 - comp("Main Comp").layer("PointerController").effect("OpacitySlider")("Slider");
The only typing I did to create these expressions was to type in the 100 -
The rest was created entirely with the pickwhip by separating the two timelines and locking the null's Effect Controller window.
The last part of the solution is set keyframes and animate the Opacity Slider between 0 and 100. You can set pairs of keyframes a couple of frames apart if you want a little fade, or you can set the keyframes to Hold Keyframes using Animation>Toggle Hold Keyframe or using the keyboard shortcut Alt/Option + Cmnd/Ctrl + H.
Here's what the project looks like. It took longer to explain it than to do it.

Pre-comp 3D Ray-Traced text quality

I've made some text in AE. It looks smooth and great until I pre-comp. Then it gets some aliasing around the edges and is nowhere near as smooth.
Text looks aliased in the pre-comps. If I click the 3D icon on my master comp, it becomes smooth in master comp. Unfortunately, I can't leave 3D checked on because I want to apply effects to the 3D text - hence, the pre-comps. Changing the ray-trace quality and anti-alias filter type does not appear to change anything for me.
Any suggestions?
AE CS6
Win 7 64
2GB GTX 560 Ti
16GB RAM
i7-2600k
Thanks,
JB

I'm not exactly sure what your comp looks like but here are some guidelines. If you want to use Ray Traced rendering then you cannot apply certain effects, blend modes and other things to the 3D layer. If you pre-compose and collapse transformations you should be able to then apply effects to the pre-comp and still see the 3D and move around the object with the camera. If you turn on the 3D switch for the pre-comp the effects will then go away and the edges will show aliasing.
The Collapse Transformations switch looks like a * and is just right of the shy icon.
If that doesn't solve your problem then we need to see a screenshot and maybe a flow chart of your project.

After effects CC 2014 transparency properties of pre comps, collapse transformation on, no longer keyframeable???!!!

Hey there,
lately I'm using After effects CC 2014. Now I had to make the experience, after optimizing (collapse transformation) the pre comp, the global property transparency is no longer working.
I can make keyframes but the pre comp acts like my easy ease keyframes are hold keyframes. Btw if the collapse transformation button is unchecked it works fine but than i don't have the optimization features. It's a catch 22. Sure, I can go into my pre comp and set the keyframes there, but this is pretty annoying and seriously not the way to work.
So is that a bug in CC 2014?
Help is needed.
Computer specs:
Mac osX 10.9.4
2 x 2,4 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
32 GB 1066 MHz DDR3 ECC
ATI Radeon HD 5870 1024 MB
Thanks for any advice
Gwen

Layer styles render in a different order so lots of things can get fouled up with you use them. They are still usable in complex situations, you just have to apply them in the right place in your composite. I've never found a situation where I needed a Layer Style and another effect that I have not been able to work around the limitation.
There are other things that change the render order. After Effects only does one thing at a time. The basic render order is listed right in the timeline view. Here's a sample.
Basic effect with Layer Style turned off:
First Mask 1 is applied to the layer, then Mask 2 is subtracted creating the hole
Then Fast Blur is applied, then Bevil Edges to create the button with the soft edges
Then the Transform controls take over and the anchor point is evaluated, the position reported, then the scale, then the rotation, and finally the opacity
Then the Layer Style is applied.
In my button design I want to apply a stroke to the button so that I looks like this but with the soft base and a stroke on the inside hole:
But, as you can see I had to turn off the Fast Blur to get the stroke to work because the Layer Style Stroke is calculated from the alpha channel, which fast blur has made 76 pixels wide so with Fast Blur on I get this:
The solution to my problem is to pre-compose and add the layer style to the pre-comp, then use an adjustment layer with masks for the fast blur to get what I wanted in the first place:
So here's what AE is doing with the final project.
The background layer is rendered
The pre comp is added to the mix
Inside the pre-comp the layer is rendered
Mask 1 is added to give rounded corners
Mask 2 is subtracted to punch the hole
Layer styles are applied to add the stroke
Back in the main comp the pre-comp is rendered
Bevel Edges is applied to the pre-comp using the alpha chanel
Now the adjustment layer is added to the mix
Mask 1 is added and this limits the area in the underlying layers where effects applied to the adjustment layer will work
Mask 2 is subtracted from the adjustment layer poking a hole in the effects
The fast Blur is added blurring only the bottom edge of the button
There you have it. An in depth tutorial on the rendering order in AE and how to use nesting and pre-comps to reorder effects to get what you want.

AE CC2014 will not let me select individual/collective mask points, or boundaries on a pre comp and therefore moves the entire comp or scales (depending on where I've clicked obviously)

I'm working on a project that requires a similar style to the 'Criminal Minds Suspect Behaviour' titles. I'm precomping photos so that I can do edits in a separate comp but then placing those pre comps into a master composition where I will use the camera and masks to reveal the images in the required sequence. I am having an issue selecting mask points. It was working fine with no issues earlier today, but now I cannot select single or collective points of a mask nor a boundary of one either. What happens when I do try is that it just moves or scales the comp entirely and ultimately the mask is useless as I cannot animate it at all. Hope someone can help! I've reported it as a bug to Adobe but because I'm unaware of the process that causes it I'm worried they won't get back to me. Any help or troubleshooting tips would be amazing! Thank you in advance!

It sounds like you need to adjust the masks in the nested comps, but you're trying to do it in the main comp. Not good. Nothing happens. Do it in the nested comps.
And if you're doing that, it also sounds like spending some quality time here will be VERY helpful:
Getting started with After Effects (CS4, CS5, CS5.5, CS6, & CC)
It's better to learn AE from the Pros instead of a high school kid with sketchy AE knowledge on YouTube, y'know?

Another issue with 3D/collapse transformations

Hi!
Here's the situation:
I have a kinetic text animation in which the ae camera is rotating and moving in the 3D world. Some of my text layers have the roughen edges filter on them. When I turn on motion blur for those layers, it looks funny -propably because the roughen edges filter is affecting the motion blur (wrong render order?). So I tried my number one solution to these kinds of situations: precomposing. But when I precompose the text layers, I need to also turn collapse transformations on in order to maintain their position and rotation properties in the main comps 3d world. Which kind of cancels the purpose of the precomp because the render order changes back so that the motion blur gets applied before the roughen edges (and it looks funny again).
So how do I make sure that AE renders roughen edges first and applies the motion blur after that? I constantly struggle with render order issues like this and I have never come up with a simple solution that doesn't require several precomp generations.
Any help will be appreciated!

Thank you for your reply!
I was afraid that the answer would be what you stated. It sure would be great to have some way of manually changing the render order for effects in AE, maybe I should make a feature request about it. I have heard many pros asking for nodes in AE, and if I understand correctly, that could be one solution for these kind of issues right?
In the meanwhile, does anyone have a script that would automatically create the required precomp hierarchy for a 3D layer so that these kind of effects could be achieved more easily?

Collapsing a masks transform settings

So I have an Adjustment layer with a mask and I've adjusted it's position/scale/rotation with the transform settings and I want to copy the mask to another layer and of course when I do this the mask goes to the shape it was before the transform settings were applied, if I copy both the mask and the transform settings the transform settings mess up the layer they are copied onto and while I know there are longer ways around this I wanted to know if there was a way to simply collapse the current transform settings into a mask so that the mask would stay as it is with the transform settings reset.

Masks are based on layer size not scale so the behavior you describe is expected.
There a couple of things you can do.
First, I'd modify the workflow and instead of scaling your adjustment layer with it's mask I'd animate the mask path or adjust the mask path. If that's not practical you can duplicate the adjustment layer, remove the effects, turn off the Adjustment Layer switch, then use the copy as a track matte for your other layer.
The other option would be to use Layer>Auto Trace to generate a new solid layer with a mask. This mask can then be used as a track matte or the new mask copied and pasted to another layer.

Help With Pre-comps

Is there a way to maintain Scale, when Pre-composing? I have 3 layers that need to be one so I can Motion Stabilize, (slight camera bobble) the footage before I add a tilt, (Position) and zoom (Scale). The Scale is 34.2%, but when I pre-comp the layers it seems to automatically go to 100%. Am I missing something? Or is my workflow faulty...?
OSX 10.6.6, AE 10.0.1.19. I appreciate your help, thanks very much.

TR, I tried pre-composing and the Collapse Transformations switch was available to me afterwards, however the resulting pre-comp of my layers was still at 100%
This is the expected behavior.
when I tried to re-position/scale, it resulted in black around the footage
This doesn't sound right. If collapse transformations is enabled, and you pan your footage around, you shouldn't be getting cropped results. Did you perhaps precompose twice and your nested comp doesn't have collapse transformations enabled?
I'm not sure exactly what you're trying to achieve, or why collapse transformations isn't working for you, but try this a solution for your dilemma:
Create a null
Scale null to 34%
Parent your precomp to your null
Scale the null to animate the scale of your precomp

Feed unique values into effect parameters of duplicated pre-comps?

I have a pre-composition with some fairly complex particle systems that I would like to duplicate multiple times in a final comp.
The trick is that I want to apply a unique "position XY" value to the various effects inside each precomp instance. I already have the values chained together with the pick-whip inside the pre-comp, so all the "position XY" values can be moved as a unit.
Is it possible to feed unique effect values down into the stack of pre-comps using expressions or some other trick?

You can't have one instance of a set of precomps that renders differently when used multiple times.
You would have to create multiple sets of those precomps and put different values in each. You could do this by saving the set of precomps as a project then importing it multiple times. Or there's a script for duplicating a comp heirarchy here: http://aescripts.com/true-comp-duplicator/
Before doing that you could use expressions to feed a random value into certain properties so they would automatically be different in each duplicate set. For example this would put in a random XY position value:
seedRandom(1,true);
x = random(0,640);
y = random(0,480);
[x,y];

Pre-Comp Solid Mode Question

I have a pre-comp that contains a white solid at the bottom of the pre-comp's layers.
I want to set the mode of the white solid to multiply so that it's hidden.
Since there is nothing below the white solid in the pre-comp, this doesn't work.
When I bring my pre-comp into my main comp, I can set the mode of the pre-comp to multiply, however there are text layers in my pre-comp who's colors get messed up.
I can not set the opacity of the white solid to 0 or turn off the layer since I'm using the solid to capture shadows from the text layers above it.
Is there any way to accomplish setting the white solid's mode to multiply within the pre-comp so that the white area is hidden?

Thanks David that worked.
However this solution has caused another problem.
Inside of my pre-comp I have a camera, a light, a 3d text layer and the white solid is also a 3d layer.
When I turned on the collapse transformation switch in my main comp, it seemed to shift the position of the 3d text layer off from where it was in my pre-comp (which is the same exact size as my main comp).
Anything I can do to help keep it from setting things off?

Collapse Transformation on my Precomp reveals a trackmatted layer although it shouldn't

Hi
I'm using adobe after effects CC 12.0 on a windows machine.
I've checked and I'm having this problem also on after effects cs6 11.0 (different machine)
this problem does not occur on after effects CC 12.2
my problem is that I have a composition with a precomp that contains a layer using
a Track Matte solid with a mask that is revealed from top to bottom.
when I move the precomp forward in time in my main composition and press Collapse Transformations
for the precomp, the layer that is supposed to be masked first and then revealed from top to bottom
reveals itself although it shouldn't just yet, as if I am looking forward in time in my precomp.
this happens only when I use a track matte instead of masking the layer itself.
and if I take the Precomp and move it to the start of my composition
it works just fine even when collapsed. but only after I purge all memory.
if I move if forward in time again it works fine but if I uncollapse and collapse again
and clean the cache - it causes the same problem.
my question is:
is this a bug? or am I missing something here?
since this is hard to explain
Im attaching a project file with similar situation to make it clear
http://f1.creativecow.net/6948/6948
and also attaching 5 jpegs to further illustrate the problem.

yes thought about looking there in the 12.2 update and fixes
http://blogs.adobe.com/aftereffects/2013/12/after-effects-cc-12-2-december-2013-update.htm l
but its not there. maybe its under "Fixed several other causes of crashes and errors"
(if it is an error or bug and not a behavior thats what I tried to understand)
maybe Todd is here?
thanks again.

Problems with creating a mask in AE 4.1

Hi all,
Yes, I'm using After Effects 4.1... not CS4... that's version 4.1 from 13 years ago.
I'm having a problem creating a simple mask and I can see from a more current AECS5 tutorial that creating a mask on a layer is similar to creating one in AE4 based on a comparison to an old AE4 tutorial. I've read instructional material and it seems simple enough, but for some reason its not working for me... I know I'm doing something wrong. I'm an advanced Photoshop user and I know the concept of layer masks and how to create them.
I create the mask on a layer and I can see and adjust the bezier points to adjust the shape of the mask... adjusting the shape of the mask by the bezier points is a little tricky since it stretches in both directions when you grab a single point, but that's okay,
But no matter which mask mode I try, Add, Subtract, Intersect, Lighten, Darken or Difference, it is not masking the layer that it is attached to even when I preview the timeline.
I don't want to just create a color layer on top of the layer I want masked to simulate a mask (which I can otherwise do) because I want to stack layers with masks and have the unmasked parts showing through (like in Photoshop), without rendering separate layers and re-importing them with blue screening or black screening... I should just be able to mask the parts that I don't want to show up on each layer and only have the unmasked parts of each layer show through each other for my final render.
Thanks for any input,
digi

Thanks for writing back Dave and Rick,
I think there is something in what Dave said about opening a new layer window, but it still isn't working right. Please see the screenshot of two full project windows below.
One thing that could be giving me problems is my layer content... it is a numbers layer attached to a solid layer, as you can see.
In the comp window at the top of each screenshot below, you can see the bezier points from my original mask that I created by clicking on 'Shape' next to 'Mask' on the left in the timeline window after selecting 'Layer>Mask>New Mask'... but I can see that this isn't the right way to do it because (1) it isn't masking, it only shows bezier points. (2) When I try to adjust those bezier points in the comp window it only stretches the numbers. And (3) when I'm in the comp window, I don't have access to the layer shape square and oval tools... they are grayed-out.
So in the layer window after double-clicking on my numbers layer, in screen #2 below, you can see that it isn't showing anything... just black, but you can see the bezier points from my original masking attempt that also show up in the comp window. But in that layer window I do have the square and oval tools available to me and you can see that I tried creating a new experiment with a triangle mask, but that only shows bezier points and no masking effect. When I close that window, as Dave said, after making the new triangle mask, it only broadens out my original mask besizer points in the comp window to encompass both masks now, but does not reflect either masks actual shape, nor is it actually masking anything.
Let me know what you think.
Thanks again,
digi

Pre-Comp with Collapse Transformation / Masking / Expression Controls / Etc

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