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Compositions and nested compositions.

A composition is a canvas with its own size, frame rate and length: the main cut, a vertical version, a title you'll reuse. A composition can sit inside another as a nested composition, so a lower third is built once and used wherever you need it.

Make a composition

  1. Choose New Composition from the File menu, or from the Project panel's menu.
  2. Give it a name and pick a Canvas preset: HD landscape at 1920 by 1080, HD portrait at 1080 by 1920, square at 1080 by 1080, UHD landscape at 3840 by 2160, or Custom with your own width and height in pixels.
  3. Choose the frame rate and press Create composition.

To make a composition the size of a clip, select the clip's media in the Project panel and choose New Composition from Selection from the File menu.

Composition settings

Edit, Composition Settings… opens the same dialog to change the open composition. The Composition section of the Inspector has the same values and a few more:

Preset and Size
Common frame sizes, or any size you type. A side is at least 16 pixels.
Frame rate
Frames per second.
Duration
How long the composition is. Until you set it, it follows the longest layer.
Seamless loop and Check loop
For pieces that play on repeat. See Seamless loops.
Pan law
−3 dB constant power: a mono clip stays as loud wherever it's panned.

The output composition

The first composition in a project is its output: the one preview and export play. A new composition opens as its own canvas and leaves the output as it is. To make another composition the output, select a use of it and press Set as output in its Nested composition section, or pick the composition when you export.

Find your compositions

The Project panel lists compositions beside your media, in folders if you make them. Right-click a composition for Open composition, Rename, and Revert composition to History point…, which takes just that composition back to an earlier step. New folder from selection gathers what you've selected into a folder.

Nested compositions

A composition used inside another is a nested composition. Its layers keep working inside it: change the original and every use follows. Ask Ape to put one composition inside another, such as "Put the Lower third composition in Main from 4 seconds to 9". Ape places it as a clip on a layer, like footage.

Select a nested composition to see its Nested composition section in the Inspector:

Name
The composition it uses.
Open
Opens that composition on the Stage, so you can change what's inside.
Set as output
Makes that composition the project's output.
Duplicate
Places another use of it straight after this one.

A nested composition has a Continuous rasterization property. On, it's drawn at the size it's shown rather than at its own frame size, so text and shapes inside it stay sharp when you scale it up.

Seamless loops

For a background, a sticker or a social loop, turn on Seamless loop in the composition's Inspector section: the last frame leads into the first. Then press Check loop. It measures whether each piece of footage, each layer and each periodic driver, such as a Wave or a Spring, continues from the last frame into the first, and lists what doesn't.