How to have 2 viewers each showing a different comp from the master timeline.

[Stonehedge]

I have a main comp and sub comps as scenes. When i make a change in a sub comp i want to see how its final will look from the main comp, as it interacts with main elements too. This helps with editing stuff with accuracy to match timings of some things on the main timeline. Now heres the kicker. I was able to right click and select New Viewer.....and i got this to work.....but forgot the actual keyboard / mouse click combination of how it should be done. Now im trying it again and the 2nd viewer is just replicating the 1st viewer and vice versa, theres no clicking the viewers tab upper bar and selecting the comps name etc that works, it works, but the 1st viewer also changes to the chosen one, so all i have is clone views.

Last week i could do this successfully, by shift clicking on the comp which i want to open in the new viewer or somethign and it worked...i even saved the dual viewer layout as a new workspace. When i activate that workspace it defaults to only one viewer even though i had 2 viewers in the workspace.

Can someone help me what key combo or how to click what in which order to get this 2nd viewer and to make it stick to the view chosen for it independently. Thanks.

[Stonehedge]

Found it on youtube. Cannot delete post here. Kindly ignore. Thanks.

PS : Anyone knows how to delete or remove a post plz let me know.

[Peru Bob]

For the benefit of others, can you post the link here?

[Joost van der Hoeven]

Instead of deleting your post, why don't you just share the answer you found? Thanks.

[Stonehedge · Accepted solution]

OK. sure.

Right click on the layers panel in an empty part of it. Select new viewer. A new viewer opens up. Set it how you want into your workspace by snapping it into place as you would any other panel. Now on top of each viewer panel theres a padlock and thats the main one that decides if it "holds" onto a view. So right next to it select the drop down and choose MAIN or MASTER TIMELINE or whatever you called your main composition. Then use the padlock and LOCK the view. Now the other viewer can be set to UNLOCK position and no matter which pre comp or comps you dive into, the first viewer which is lock will always show the master. This will allow you to monitor how the changes you are making are affecting your main comp and also help with timing elements to match with movements of elements which are on the main timeline.

Caveat, when you hit play, only one of the viewers will play and when you stop the LOCKED one will update to the stopped location snapshot like. To get both to play simultaneously previewing, use pgDown or pgUP and hold it down, both the viewers will play together (albeit a little slow, which i prefer actually) letting you see how the animation here is affecting the animation on the master. I found out all this by just playing around and seeing options, bec this is very useful for workflow.

Its a long winded textual explain, thats why i avoided. Hope this helps anyone in the same dilemma.