Hello and welcome to the fourth video in this Beginner's Guide to Adobe After Effects.
In this tutorial I'm going to discuss compositions in After Effects.
In the previous episode I discussed in depth the timeline panel and how layers
work. Now in After Effects all the layers we see down in the timeline panel are
contained in what is called a composition. Now compositions are what we
use to help build video presentations in After Effects. In this video we are going
to be covering the following topics: What are compositions?, Composition tabs
and how to create compositions. After this video you will get a better
understanding of how compositions work so you will feel more comfortable moving
forward. so let's get into it! So what is a composition? So when you begin a new
project in After Effects you essentially start with a clean slate with nothing
whatsoever. When beginning an After Effects project we typically begin by
creating a composition or a comp for short. This is done by clicking the new
comp button or coming up to composition in the top bar and clicking new comp. For
now I'll just click OK for our new comp. With the new composition created you
will see it is now shown in the project panel over on the Left represented with
the composition icon. In After Effects a composition is represented by this
graphic of a film clip with some shapes. In this instance the comp is called comp 1
by default as I did not name it. With a new composition ready we can see a blank
screen in the visual composition panel and an empty timeline panel down below.
So a composition is essentially an empty vessel to place our media content into
such as video, text, animation or audio files. As you begin to add your media
elements into the timeline panel you will start to build your layers which
creates the composition. So here we are in an After Effects document with one
composition in the project panel consisting of lots of layers which we
can see in the timeline panel. Now some After Effects projects
can include many individual compositions to create an entire video presentation.
Let's now jump to another example. So in this example we can see a number of
compositions in the project panel and if we look closely in the timeline panel
below we can see that some of the compositions have been placed into
another composition. Now some video or animated sequences can be very complex
and require lots of layers, so we can use compositions as a way to focus on
particular sequences, organize and manage complexity in a project. Now another way to
think of compositions is to think of them like groups. Compositions can be
used to group lots of layers and then the individual comps can be placed into
one main composition like in this example. So let's take a closer look at
this example I have open here, to learn more about compositions. To follow along
with this tutorial you will need to open up this document I have prepared
especially for this video. This can be found in the introduction folder in the
project folder. Now you can download this project folder for a small fee the
download link with instructions is in the description. The download folder
comes with lots of exercise documents we will be using on this course that have
been carefully developed to aid your learning experience, the folder also
comes with document resources such as videos, graphics and images you can use
to build your first video presentation from scratch later on in this course.
To get the full learning experience I recommend you get the project folder,
download link with instructions is in the description. So with the project
folder open click into the S-1 introduction folder, into the fourth
folder compositions and open the Hyde Park After Effects file and you should
have something that looks like this. So the first thing I want to draw your
attention to is the timeline panel across the top here, we can see this
composition is one minute long and below this we only have seven layers. Now if i
drag my time indicator to the start and press spacebar to activate preview we
can see that there are lots of things happening in the composition visually
but only seven layers in the timeline pane. Now if we
look closely to the left of the timeline panel we can see the name and icon for
each layer. These icons indicate what type of layers these are. In this instance we
can see that each layer is a composition layer and we can tell this because of
the icon next to each of them. As seen earlier in the project panel again we
can see the composition icons indicating that these are compositions. Now if we
double click on one of these composition layers and let's start with the video
edit stills layer, upon double click this composition layer will now open in the
timeline panel. Notice now we can see all the individual layers that make up this
composition. Here we have the video, type shape and image layers and we know this
because of the icons next to each over on the left. Now it's important to note
that a single composition like this in After Effects contains both visual and
time information represented in two separate panels. When we have a
composition open we see the timeline information in the timeline panel here
at the bottom containing all the layer elements and above we see a visual
representation of these layer elements in the composition window. As we click on
some of the layers in the timeline panel we can see them selected in the visual
composition panel above. When creating a composition in After Effects we use
these two panels together to control the time and visual dynamic of the
presentation. So next I want to draw your attention to the composition tabs.
Now what our composition tabs? So currently we have this composition open and if we
look carefully in the top left corner of the timeline panel we have a tab that
shows the composition name, notice this is currently highlighted and to the left
of this is another tab. So if we click this we can see we are back to our
composition called main sequence. So currently we have our main sequence and
the 'video edit stills' comp open in the tab. So next I will come down to another
layer in the main sequence and this time I will double click on the video edit
Wildlife layer. Upon double-click the composition layer will now open in the
timeline panel. So again like earlier we can see all the individual layers that
make up this composition and now we have a new tab at the top of the timeline
panel. Now it's easy to navigate through your tab comps, simply click on them to
reveal them. If you want to close them you can click on the X over on the right
tab and if you want to open it up again make sure to go back to the main
sequence and double click it and it will reopen. So if I click back into the main
sequence we can see that this single comp contains seven composition layers.
For this project I have chosen to organize my main sequence into seven
separate compositions. So why would I do this? Well in After Effect we can use
compositions as a way to focus on particular sequences organize and
streamline a project. Each section here has complex video and animation settings
with many layers. I have organized my main sequence in this way to make it
nice and easy to manage each section individually, so my main composition is
not full of layers and overly complicated, this also gives me the
flexibility to move each section around as a whole and order the video sequence
differently if I so choose. Ok so now we know what compositions are how do we
create them? So there are a number of ways you can create a comp, one way is to
come to the bottom of the project panel here on the Left notice at the bottom of
the panel we have the composition icon. Here if we click this up will pop the
composition settings box. So here there are a range of settings we can customize.
As a beginner you only really need to pay attention to the comp name,
dimensions, frame rate and duration. So at the top you can name your comp and I'll
just call this new comp one, down below under preset we can set
the dimensions. Now this will default to the original composition you started the
project with, in this instance it's 1920 by 1080 our current standard dimension
for video. This is what we want for now. Now framerate is
regional, depending on what part of the world you're from you will need to
assign a particular frame rate. Here in Europe we use 25 frames per second, so
I'm going to use that for now. Next is duration and we can set this for however
long we want our composition to last. In this instance I'll set it to 10 seconds.
Now here you can also set the background color but for now I'll just keep it set
to black. Once happy I'll click OK. So upon click you will now see your
composition open down in the timeline panel. We can see the time span is 10
seconds across the top here and up in the visual composition panel we can see
the black screen. Now it's important to note that when you create a new
composition in your project it will always appear in the project panel. If we
look in the project panel here on the left we can now see our new comp 1 is
present at the bottom. This composition is now ready to start bringing in visual
elements to create a video sequence but for now I'll click the X in the top left
corner of the tab to close it. Now there are two other ways to create a
composition, first you can simply press the keyboard shortcut cmd N on Mac
or Ctrl N for PC. Upon click this will bring up the composition settings just
like earlier and I'll just hit cancel. The second way to create a comp is to
come up to the top menu, click composition, click new composition and
upon click you will see the composition settings again. So quite easy to create a
new composition. Now once a composition is created you can edit it, for example
change the name, duration or the frame rate. To do this you can come over into
the project panel right click on the composition and select composition
settings. Upon click you will see the same settings you saw when you created
the comp. Here you can make any modifications and click OK. Now another
way for example, if you see a composition in your timeline you can double click it
to open it, then come up to composition in the top bar and simply click
composition settings, easy. And that brings us to the end of this video
so to recap some key things to remember are:
Compositions are like individual video sequences, a typical After Effects
project will have multiple compositions. Compositions make it easier to organize
complexity. Compositions contain both visual and time information represented
in two separate panels, the timeline panel and the visual composition panel
and when you create a composition it appears in the project panel. Now in
After Effects every element that is brought into the program is placed into
the project panel and we saw in this video that when created, compositions are
also stored in this panel. Now it may help to think of this project panel as a
kind of links panel. Now as a beginner there are a few important things you
will need to learn about this panel before we move on. In the next video I'm
going to discuss the project panel in a bit more depth and show you how
compositions as well as all media elements brought into the program are
managed and placed into your timeline panel ready for editing.
So see you in the next video!