ADOBE AFTER EFFECTS 7.0
User Guide
146
Working with multiple viewers
In After Effects, you may need to work on multiple compositions or layers at once, or you may need to work with
multipleviewsofasinglecompositionorlayer.Atypeofpanelcalledaviewer gives you added flexibility in arranging
your workspace to facilitate this kind of work. A viewer is a panel that can contain multiple compositions, layers, or
footage items. A menu in the viewer tab lets you switch between the open items. The Composition, Layer, Footage,
and Effect Controls panels all function as viewers.
Instead of housing multiple items in a single viewer and using the menu to switch between them, you can choose to
open a separate viewer for each open composition, layer, or footage item. When you have multiple viewers open, you
can arrange them by docking or grouping them together.
To create a new viewer
1
Click the tab at the top of a Composition, Layer, Footage, or Effect Controls panel.
2 Choose New Comp Viewer, New Layer Viewer, New Footage Viewer or New Effect Controls Viewer from the
menu.
To lock a viewer
Locking a viewer prevents the currently displayed item from being replaced when you open or select a new item.
Instead, when a viewer is locked and a new item is opened or selected, After Effects creates a new viewer panel for
that item.
1 Click the tab at the top of a Composition, Layer, Footage, or Effect Controls panel.
2 Choose Locked from the menu.
To edit one composition while viewing another, choose New Comp Viewer from the viewer tab menu to create a new
viewer that is locked to the current composition. Double-click other compositions to load your original viewer and
leave the new one unchanged. This procedure applies to Layer, Effect Controls, and Footage panels, as well.
To choose a viewer to preview
After Effects lets you designate any viewer as the default panel to preview. This is particularly useful when you have
a Composition viewer that represents your final output and you always want to preview that viewer even when you’re
changing settings in other panels.
When you start a RAM preview or standard preview, the viewer that’s set to always preview is the only one played.
When you preview to an external monitor, the external monitor displays only the viewer that’s set to always preview.
When you preview with tabbed Composition panels, the panel that’s set to always preview appears frontmost only
for the duration of the preview.
❖ Click the Always Preview This View button in the bottom left corner of the viewer.
Note: When multiple views are open, previews use the frontmost composition view for 2D compositions and the Active
Camera view for 3D compositions. To turn off the Active Camera, deselect Previews Favor Active Camera in the Time
Controls menu.
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