Nesting Compositions
Nesting Compositions
It is time to add the Text composition into the Content composition we just created. This is known as nesting. It allows multiple compositions to be grouped together yet still retain their individual properties. If changes occur in the original comp, the changes will ripple through to the second comp. To add these two compositions together, make sure the playhead is at the start of the Content Timeline and drag Text composition onto the Content composition. The Text composition should now be nested in the Content composition.
Select the Text layer and then select Layer > Enable Time Remapping. Two Rs in quick succession will twist down the Time Remapping properties.
You will notice that the clip is currently running at 100% (realtime). You probably remember that the Text composition was 60 seconds long and we imported it into a comp that is only 52:02 long. We are going to speed the Text composition up to create an effect and make it fit into the composition a little better.
Hit the number 6 on your keyboard to jump to the 6 second time marker. Under time remap it should say 6;00 (realtime). Drag that value up so that it reads 30 seconds. This will take the first 30 seconds of our Text clip and play it back in 6 seconds, considerably faster than realtime. Hit the 0 key on the number pad to see what it looks like now.
As you can see, our last symbol is frozen until the end of the composition. However, it is not truly frozen due to the fact that there is one last keyframe out beyond the composition at 40 seconds. By deleting this keyframe, we will prevent the CPU from rendering this and thus creating a true freeze frame. To do this, click the right arrow under Time remap until you are at the last keyframe (should read 40 seconds) and uncheck the box.
As you probably noticed, the speed in which the images play back at are perfectly even. We will now add an effect which will make start the images slow and have them change more rapidly over time. Start by going to the beginning of the comp by hitting the Home key and then B for begin RAM preview. Grab the playback head and drag it to 7 seconds on the timeline. Lets add another time marker there by hitting 7. Hit the N key to end the RAM preview.
To add this speedup effect, we essentially want to ease out of the first keyframe and speed into the second. This can be easily accomplished by right clicking on the first keyframe and selecting Keyframe Assistant>Easy Ease Out.
Play around with the handles until you get the effect you like. My values look something like this:
Next, we will want to scale up the shuriken to create a zoom effect. Hit Home to go to the beginning of the comp. With ninjasymbols highlighted, hit the S key to twirl down the Scale keyframe menu. Select the stopwatch to place the first keyframe. Drag the scale down to about 15%.
Drag the playhead down to 6;10 and drag the scale up to 75%. This will place a second keyframe. Avoid scaling pixel based images (like those from Photoshop) up past 100% as they will begin to pixelate and degrade. Hit 0 on the number pad and view the change. You will notice again that the scale is linear. We will apply Easy Ease Out again to the first keyframe in scale. RAM preview the change.
