Adobe AFTER EFFECTS 5.5 Help Manual page 270

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Saving time by prerendering nested compositions
A complex nested composition can take a long time to preview and render. If you have a
nested composition that you do not expect to work on any further, render the nested
composition into a movie and use it as a proxy for the actual nested composition. As a
rendered movie, it will require less calculation and time to display and render in the larger
project. You can still make changes to the prerendered composition, because the original
nested composition remains in the project list. If you make a significant change to the
original nested composition, simply render it again. Prerendering a nested composition is
particularly beneficial when you use a nested composition multiple times in a project.
Using a prerendered movie in place of a nested composition also saves time and memory
when you render the final version of the main composition. Just be sure to apply your final
output settings when you prerender the nested composition. For more information about
rendering options, see "Changing render settings" on page 281.
There are three phases to prerendering a composition:
Creating a composition. See "Creating a composition" on page 56.
•
Rendering the composition you created. See "Understanding rendering and
•
compression" on page 278.
Creating a proxy using the rendered composition. See "Substituting a low-resolution
•
proxy for footage" on page 54.
To edit a prerendered composition:
1 In the Project window, click the proxy indicator for the prerendered composition until it
displays an empty box. This turns off the proxy so that After Effects uses the actual compo-
sition in the project.
2 In the Project window, double-click the composition from which the proxy movie was
rendered.
3 Edit the composition.
4 Save the project.
5 Render the composition into a movie again, using the same filename as the previous
version of the movie.
6 After rendering is complete, set up the movie as a proxy for the composition. The next
time you view the composition containing the movie, the new movie is displayed.
Understanding precomposing
Sometimes it's necessary to nest compositions after you have already created a complex
project hierarchy. It can be tedious or difficult to use nesting in an existing composition.
Precomposing is an easier way to nest layers within an existing composition. Precom-
posing moves the layers to a new composition. When you want to change the order in
which layer components are rendered (see "Understanding default rendering order" on
page 266), precomposing is a quick way to create intermediate levels of nesting in an
existing hierarchy.
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