When I turn on Collapse Transformation, the camera animation stops

[Kyryl Levenets]

Hi! I'm new to After Effects and I have a question. I have 2 compositions: the first one is an animation of the website interface with chatting (chat messages are animated with camera and null object). The second composition is the main composition, which has a couple of videos and other text. I put the first composition with the chat in the second composition and made an zoom. But as you might expect, the composition with the chat is pixelated when zoomed in. For that, I turn on the composition with the chat with Collapse Transformation and pixelation goes away. But also stops working chat animation. How to make the chat work and at the same time not pixelated? 

I'm also attaching a video

[Rick Gerard]

When you collapse transformations on any nested comp (pre-comp) with 3D layers, the camera in the main comp renders those layers. If there is a camera in a nested comp and you collapse transformations, that camera is disabled. I didn't see a comp camera in your video, but I'm almost sure that is the problem.

[Mylenium]

Yeah, Rick pretty much explained it. You need to consider the rendering order for 3D stuff as well. That aside, using collapsed transformations isn't a magic tool to keep content sharp and using it always has deeper ramnifications and repercussions. It might be a good idea to actually plan for those situations and prepare your content accordingly. In your example there isn't even a good reason to use CR. You could just have designed the artwork at a larger resolution.

Mylenium