Double dynamic link? Inception?

[Snaileb]

Hello! 

I was in premiere using the "Replace with After Effects Composition" feature on some footage in my timeline and once I opened it up in After Effects realized that one of the clips I selected was actually a nested sequence. 

This means that in my Premiere sequence I now have a linked AE comp, and in that AE comp, I have a (different) linked sequence from (the same) Premire project. 

Is this going to create issues? I'm not planning on making any changes to the nested sequence at this point so as a workaround I could render out the nested sequence and then replace it in my timeline prior to clicking "replace with AE comp".

I'm a little nervous because a year or two I tried something similar (against my better judgment 😅) and created a situation where the .aep would crash upon opening. I think the only thing that got it working was for me to open the .prproj first (all dynamic links would show up as offline), then open the .aep (now it would open and dynamic links would appear as online), and then close and reopen the .prproj. Don't want to do that again! But at the time, the idea of being able to adjust the sequence in premiere and have it auto-update in the .aep was so appealing that I couldn't resist trying it 😩

P.S. I am on apple silicon (16-inch MacBook Pro 2021 with a M1 Pro)

[R Neil Haugen]

That's an interesting question there! Ahem ... 

I've not actually ever done that, but yea, I can see potential at least processing order issues with something that complex. So maybe if @David Arbor or @Warren Heaton were available, they could advise ...

[David Arbor · Accepted solution]

Yeah, I'd avoid a Dynamic Link inception. I actually thought you weren't able to do that, but maybe you found an accidental "workaround."  I'd go with your gut and pre-render. 

[Snaileb]

Thanks @David Arbor!

The more I think about it, I start wondering if there are features that could be built that would actually be more helpful / effective in most use cases than the ability to double link/round-trip like this. Usually the instances where I want to be able to do this involve syncing certain graphics (built in AE) to specific words/phrases spoken by the talent (and trying to avoid retiming the GFX manually if I need to cut out or splice in footage).  If there were a way to "pin" the start and end of a clip/linked comp/mogrt to specific words or timecodes in the primary footage, maybe that would actually be better? 

Then again, maybe right click > link already/partly does this... I may have to play around with my workflow and see what I come up with. 

[David Arbor]

There's no way to pin the start of a clip to a word or timecode, I think that might be too specific of a workflow to be a useful feature, but just in case this is useful, are you aware of the "Reponsive Design - Time" feature in AE where you can create a Protected Region with markers? If not, check this page out; maybe it could be of some use to you? https://helpx.adobe.com/after-effects/using/responsive-design.html