Adobe AFTER EFFECTS CS3 PROFESSIONAL User Manual page 118

See also
"Creating layers" on page 137
"Preview video and audio" on page 124
"Work with the Flowchart panel" on page 22
"Rendering and exporting" on page 582
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 591 and "Work with
output module settings" on page 594.
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 114
"About nesting and precomposing" on page 117
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
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.
Drag the selected footage items to the Create A New Composition button
2
or choose File > New Comp From Selection.
3 Select Single Composition and other settings in the New Composition From Selection dialog box:
Choose the footage item from which the new composition gets composition settings,
Use Dimensions From
including frame size (width and height) and pixel aspect ratio.
The duration for the still images being added.
Still Duration
Add the new composition to the render queue.
Add To Render Queue
at the bottom of the Project panel or choose
at the bottom of the Project panel,
AFTER EFFECTS CS3 112
User Guide