What happens when you pre-compose layers in After Effects?

When you pre-compose layers in After Effects, a new composition is created that consolidates the selected layers. This process groups those layers together, allowing you to manage them as a single entity while keeping the original layers intact in the main composition. The new composition contains only the selected layers and can have its own properties, effects, and transformations applied to it, which can simplify complex projects.

Pre-composing is particularly useful for organizing workflows, making animations easier to manage, or applying effects uniformly across multiple layers. By encapsulating layers into a pre-composition, you can also enhance performance since After Effects can process the nested composition in a more streamlined manner. This feature allows for a more structured approach when working with complicated animations or multiple visual elements.

While consolidating layers into a pre-composition facilitates better organization, it does not permanently delete any layers from the project, nor does it make them independent from the main composition. Instead, the original layers remain available, and any changes made within the pre-composition reflect in the main composition. Hence, this functionality supports a more efficient creative process without losing access to individual layer properties.