The Project Panel: Think of It as a File System As you read through this, think about the advantages of considering an element finished, even if only for the time being. Many After Effects artists are already comfortable with the idea of precomping but miss that last point. As explained later in the chapter, the resulting cache remains available even if the project is reopened at a later time, provided it is reopened on the same system. This happens automatically when you preview the master sequence containing the precomp in question, but you can also select the precomp in the Project panel or open its timeline and choose Composition > Cache Work Area in Background to make After Effects immediately pre-render it in the background. One reward for effectively using precomping is the ability to then save the entire precomp to the disk cache for immediate playback. In a visual effects context, however, if your VFX composition has more than 20 or so layers, you’re doing precomping wrong, making your work way less efficient overall. Motion graphics comps can involve the animation and coordination of hundreds of animated elements. Yet precomping is both an effective way to organize the timeline and a key to problem solving and optimization in After Effects. Artists may sometimes let a composition become unwieldy, with dozens of layers, rather than bite the bullet and send a set of those layers into a precomp. Precomposing is often regarded as the bane of After Effects, because vital information is hidden from the current comp’s Timeline in a nested comp. These tips are especially useful if you’re someone who understands compositing but sometimes finds After Effects disorienting. Closely related to this is composition nesting, the act of placing one already created composition inside of another. Precomposing is the action of selecting a set of layers in a master composition and assigning it to a new subcomp, which becomes a layer in the master comp.
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