I created a simple 3D book with some 3D layers. Once I precomp it and check the Collaps transformations switch (the little sun/ star thing) it completely ruins the rotation or orientation of the 3D layer within the precomp. It goes all over the place. What could be happening here?
I think the problem is the nested comp on layer 2 in your pre-comp. Are there 3D layers in that nested comp?
You also have a light in the pre-comp. That will be ignored when you Collapse transformations. The camera in the main comp and the lights in the main comp will affect the layers in the nested (your pre-comp) comp.
You should also have a camera in the Main comp rather than relying on the default Active Camera view.
The standard workflow for nesting 3D layers in a pre-comp is only to include the 3D layers. No lights, no cameras, no 2D layers.
Cropped screenshots don't tell us anything about your comp.
I suspect that you may have made the Nested comp (your pre-comp) 3D, you may not be looking at the Active Camera view, or that the flipping pages are driven by a poorly written expression.
Please embed two more screenshots by dragging them to the reply field instead of uploading them. Make sure you select at least one problem layer in the Pre-comp and press the "u" key twice, and select the Nested comp in the main comp and do the same thing. We should be able to figure it out.
Thanks so much for your reply. You're right about the precomp of the book being a 3D layer. It need to be, because I want it to move and rotate around in 3D space, not like a flat plane. I've added screenshots. I used no epressions for the pages, just some simple rotation keyframes and parenting. The weirdest thing to me is that this animation is part of a series and about half of the projects has this problem, the other half works just as I would expect, though they're basically clones. I've also added a screenpic of a project where everything does work. Thanks so much for looking into this Rick!
Oh I forgot to add a screenshot of the precomp of the book. Here it is. Just some rotation keyframes on the cover, back and pages. They're parented to the back of book, so I that as a handle to move the book around a little.