Workflow for duplicating comps in...

Hi!

I have a pretty massive animation project ahead of me and I'm asking for your advice on managing all my comps and project assets.

So far I have created the core animation that I'm going to use and the client approved it. It turned out to be a really complex one containing precomps in many ''generations'' (precomps inside precomps). The next thing I need to do is to make around 20 copies of the animation with different titles and other tweaks in each. Basically it's the same animation but the texts and a few other things change.

At this stage I have two options:

1. I could save each title design in an own AE-project. This way I could just replace the texts and then save the project with a new file name. Then in the end I would load all the 20 AE-projects in to a final render project and render them out all at the same time. There are some negative sides with this approach: The final render project would contain unnecessary duplicate files and also I would need to make changes to each project file individually if the client wanted to change something in the last minute (and they always do).

2. I could create a folder in my project panel that has title number 001 in it with all the necessary assets. Then I would duplicate that folder and name the new folder title number 002, make the changes to it and duplicate that folder and name it title number 003 etc.. This way I would always have all my titles in this same project which would make it easier to change things.

Now after this long introduction (sorry) I'm finally arriving at the question:

If I choose option 2, how do I make the comps that need changing ''independent''? At the moment when I change a setting in a comp in folder number 001, the changes reflect to folder 002 too -it seems that the comps are not actually independent duplicates at all but refer to the same comp. I arrived at the conclusion that renaming a comp with a new name makes it behave independently, but the problem is that the precomps inside it still link to the original folder.

I'm trying to figure out if I have to rename every single precomp inside a precomp everytime I duplicate the main folder. Or is there an easier way to make sure that the comps behave like individual ones?

Any help will be appreciated!

Workflow for duplicating comps in...

I'm thinking #1 would be easier in your case.?If your titles are buried in precomps, yes, you'd have to duplicate and replace the precomps.?Otherwise, your old project would update with the new titles...

Import all your titles.?Select title in project window, select title in timeline, alt drag from project window to timeline layer to replace.?Save as new name, repeat.

If I knew they would change the animation, I'd do it as #2, and build it so I could adjust animation and have it carry thru to all the titles via expressions.

Workflow for duplicating comps in...

Ok!

Thanks for your insight, I appreciate it!

Andy Bay wrote:

Or is there an easier way to make sure that the comps behave like individual ones?

Andy,

You could always split them into sep projects, then when you're done import them all into one project and reduce/consolidate, etc? This would keep everything in the same place, but not have duplicate assets everywhere when you archive it?

Thanks for helping out!

I think you are right, it is simpler in this situation to make multiple project files instead of comps in a single project. Let's just hope the client doesn't want any more changes!

Clients ALWAYS want more changes!