Whats the best way to reuse after effect comps and only pieces of a comp in different projects??

[Lokister]

Hi Team,

Just curious what everyone does to reuse entire comps and only pieces of a comp in completely separate projects. I have three separately filed projects each with their own after effects folders for their respective comps. To reuse comps or parts of comps so far I have been importing the entire comp from one projects folder into the new after effect comp that ends up getting saved in the new projects folder. It's working fine I believe since I have not moved any of the projects but I believe if I ever separate the source comp project file from the new project file I used it in, the comp in the new project should go offline I think. And due to disk space I will have to separate all these project in the future. Thank you so much for any help or advice!

[davidarbor · Accepted solution]

I'd suggest making a copy of your project and using two of the File > Dependencies menu commands.

1) Reduce Project will delete anything that's not related to the selected comp(s) in the Project panel. If you find you're only trying to reuse two main comps, but each of those has four pre-comps, running this command will save all 10 comps and any associated solids while deleting everything else. Note, this will not save any asset that isn't in your timeline. If you're doing any data-driven animation and relying on something like a .csv for data references, bring that file into your timeline before running the Reduce command so it's retained.

2) After your project is reduced, you can run the Collect Files command from the same menu. This will package up your project in a single folder, which you can then move to your new project folder for importing. This has the benefit of keeping your referenced items lightweight and together with your new project.

Since you're reusing comps a lot, if you're not already, I'd also highly recommend checking out Essential Properties which is one of my favorite features in AE. EPs will allow you to create one main comp with customizable features that you can add to the Essential Graphics panel; these properties will then be available each time your drag that main comp into another one. This allows you to have multiple instances of the same comp, all with different properties that don't overwrite one another, but everything is linked back to a single comp. https://helpx.adobe.com/after-effects/using/essential-properties.html

[Lokister]

Thanks so much for the response David. It will take me a little while to absord what you but I'm confident with your help ill get it. Thanks again!