What exactly is a 'pre comp' please?

hey guys!!
i am just getting to grips with the basics of AE CS4 and i am loving it!! what a fantastic piece of software!
now i am new to this so apologies for the silly questions but just trying to get my head around how AE works!
re pre comps, i had a comp with lots of layers and i wanted to animate it as a whole so i made these into a pre comp, animated and had my wicked way with them and then just rendered this 'pre comp' is this how they work please?
so a comp is like a mini project right?
but can someone explain what a pre comp is please as i have watched many tutorials on this and they assume you already know what one is??
a clear down to earth explanation would be great! thanks!

'precomp' is short for 'precomposition'.
To "precompose" a set of layers is to compose/composite/render them together as a unit.
It is often very useful to precompose a set of layers together so that you can then use the result (the precomposition) as one item.
That precomposition can be used as the source for a layer in a composition. When this happens, the precomposition is "nested" in the containing composition. So, 'precomposition' and 'nested composition' are terms that often get used interchangeably.
For more information, see the
"Nesting, precomposing, and pre-rendering" section of After Effects Help.
I highly recommend working your way through the "Getting started" materials linked to from the
After Effects Help and Support page. We put a lot of free stuff for beginners up there.

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