Every week, Frame.io Insider asks one in every of our professional contributors to share a tip, instrument, or approach that they use on a regular basis and couldn’t stay with out. This week, Laurence Grayson reveals you learn how to calculate precisely how lengthy a precomp must be with After Effects layer markers.
How to seek out the right composition size in After Effects
Precomping is amongst After Effects’ most helpful instruments, permitting you to group a bunch of layered components into a novel composition, which might then be handled as a single layer in one other comp.
The most typical solution to create an After Effects precomp is to pick some layers in your present composition and choose Pre-compose (Shift+Option+C / Cmd+Shift+C) to maneuver them into their very own composition. But if in case you have a time-specific hole that must be stuffed, you’re extra more likely to begin from scratch with a brand new composition, as a substitute.
In which case, you’ll want to make use of a little-known operate in After Effects’ UI that allows you to simply calculate the precise time your composition must be. No calculations wanted.
Calculating period between markers in After Effects
- In the primary composition, choose a layer and hit Ctrl/Alt+8 to create layer markers on the In and Out factors for the world you might want to fill. (Note that composition markers don’t work.)
- Make positive your workspace has the Info panel seen.
- Hold down Opt/Alt whereas clicking on the primary marker, then the second marker.
- The Info panel will then show the precise period between these two markers in timecode or frames relying on the venture settings.
You can now enter this worth within the New Composition panel to create a brand new comp that precisely matches this period.
Bonus level
But wait. There’s extra. Leaving these markers in place makes it simpler to drop your new comp into place as a result of it’ll snap to them.
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