After Effects: Pre-compose layers for reuse

After Effects Try it →Watch full video →Gavin Herman · Jan 2025

Demo summary

The user demonstrates how to group multiple layers into a single pre-composition to duplicate and manage them more efficiently.

Step-by-step

Select all desired layers by clicking one, holding Shift, and clicking another
Right-click the selection and select Pre-compose
Enter a name for the new composition
Click OK
Double-click the pre-composition layer to open it in a new tab for editing

Options

Scale or change the lightness of individual pre-composition instances
Delete or modify elements within the pre-composition to update all instances simultaneously

Watch out for

Changes made inside a pre-composition (like deleting text) will reflect across all instances of that pre-composition in the main project

Tips

Use pre-compositions if you want to reuse assets multiple times efficiently

Highlights

“pre-compositions are great if you want to reuse assets a lot of different times”

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