Is it possible to use comp twice in the same time graph?

[asiashappypills]

    

I'm new to AE. Just want to ask if it's possible to use the same comp/layer twice but in different time, as seen in the mockup above? I just find it taxing to look for the layer again via the search field if I could just rehash the comp/layer again without duplicating. Thanks in advance!

[Andrew Yoole]

The short answer is no.  Every layer has one in point and one out point, that's it.

The longer answer is that, depending on what your layer is, you may be able to duplicate keyframes across a longer layer to duplicate the action/animation it contains.  If it's a video layer you will also have to use time remapping keyframes to do this.  You can use opacity keyframes set to zero to make your layer invisible until needed.

In most cases it's easier to work with individual layers.  Remember you can precompose multiple layers so that many layers are represented by one precomp layer in your main comp.

[Joolsd]

It would be nice if you could do this. It is one of the things I hate about after effects when you end up with 150 layers. Or have to pre-comp incidental layers.

The way to imitate this is just to use the opacity on the same layer. Unfortunately, the after-effects UI isn't designed like FCP or premiere, where you blade it but keep it on the same layer. It would be great if you could (from a UI point of view), grey out a layer where it is not visible.

[David Arbor · Accepted solution]

After Effects is a compositing app, which is best served by layers (or nodes for other apps), not an editor which functions best with tracks. Yes, sometimes it gets annoying when you have a lot of layers or a cascading animations, but that is what pre-comping is for. One thing that allows you to reduce unnecessary pre-comping these days is Master Properties. You can have a single pre-comp and then add multiple parameters to the Essential Graphics panel. Those properties are then exposed in your Master Comp. What's amazing is that you can duplicate this pre-comp as many times as you want and change those Master Properties without affecting the other instances of your comp. This massive feature makes pre-comping less irritating since it can drastically reduce how much you need to do it, but it also lets you build out very powerful custom rigs.

This doesn't directly solve your issue of wanting two layers to occupy the same space on the timeline, but depending on what you're doing it could make your workflow simpler and potentially allow you to have fewer layers overall.

Here's an 11 minute School of Motion tutorial on them: https://www.schoolofmotion.com/tutorials/master-properties-after-effects

[asiashappypills]

Wow, thanks for the tip! So Master Comp is much like using Symbols in Illustrator?

[David Arbor]

To an extent, yes, they're like Symbols, but significantly more powerful. Imagine being able to start with a symbol that has a shape with a stroke at a certain thickness, then being able to duplicate it and change the stroke thickness on every instance. All instances are still referencing the original, so if you decide to edit the shape all the instances would update, but your custom stroke width would remain. This is barely the tip of the iceberg when it comes to what Master Properties can do.