Extend whole composition by X seconds

[jousefm]

Hi there!

I want to extend/expand my project with let's say 5-10 seconds but want all components to be affected or distribute the seconds amongst the components. Hope it's not too confusing of what I want to achieve, every help is very much appreciated!

[Andrew Yoole · Accepted solution]

If you want to extend the duration of a comp that's easy - just open Composition Settings and set a new duration.  However, this will simply add a block of extra time to the comp without changing any exisiting content.

To stretch the time of a comp you could use time remapping.  Precompose everything in your main comp, then change the comp duration and apply time remapping to precomp layer.  Now you can retime the entire animation to fit the new duration.

There's a script at aescripts.com that does a much more elegant job of the time remapping solution:

foxRetimer - aescripts + aeplugins - aescripts.com

[jousefm]

Thanks for the quick response Andrew.

The plugin is a lot of money for a student, but it really does its job as I have seen Do you mind going into detail about...

To stretch the time of a comp you could use time remapping.  Precompose everything in your main comp, then change the comp duration and apply time remapping to precomp layer.  Now you can retime the entire animation to fit the new duration.

Maybe there is a doc entry somewhere regarding this? Kind of "new" to AE, so any help is appreciated

[Andrew Yoole]

Time remapping allows you to adjust the timing of layers with keyframes, to stretch or contract time.  If you precompose multiple layers you can then time remap all of them by applying time remapping to the precomp layer in your main comp.

Select all the layers in your main comp and select Layer/Precompose.

In your main comp you should now have just one layer - the precomp.  Select it and choose Layer/Time/Enable Time Remapping.  The Time Remapping parameter should be revealed in your timeline, and you should see new keyframes on the first and last frames of the precomp layer.

Open Composition/Composition Settings and change the duration of the comp to your new requirement.  You should now have additional time at the end of your comp.  Drag the layer end out so it reaches the end of the comp.  Now drag the end keyframe to extend the duration of the layer to wherever you want it.  Drag to the right to slow down the comp and make it longer.  Drag to the left to speed up the comp and make it shorter.

Time Remapping takes a little getting used to, as you can do some complex and wonderful things, ramping speeds up and down, adding more keyframes to speed up specific sections etc etc.  But it's also easy to mess up, so tread carefully until you understand how it works.