User Guide

CHAPTER 3
108
Building a Composition
Setting duration
The duration is the overall length of the composition. Set duration by typing values in the
Duration box in the Composition Settings dialog box.
When you preview or render a movie, you can choose to preview or render only a portion
of the total duration. See “Setting up a work area” on page 121.
Understanding advanced composition settings
When you click the Advanced tab in the Composition Settings dialog box, you can change
the anchor setting, adjust the shutter angle for motion blur, specify when the shutter opens
relative to the frame start, set precompose options, and specify a rendering plug-in.
For information on adjusting the shutter angle and shutter phase for motion blur, see
“Adjusting the shutter angle for motion blur” on page 152.
Setting the anchor
When you change the frame size of a composition, by default the layers are centered within
the new dimensions. Use the Anchor control to anchor the layers to a corner or edge of the
composition as it is resized. Set the anchor by clicking the arrow button in the Anchor
diagram (in the Advanced panel of the Composition Settings dialog box) to indicate where
to position the existing layers.
Setting nesting options
The Advanced panel of the Composition Settings dialog box includes two nesting options.
If the Preserve Resolution When Nested option is selected, the nested composition retains
its resolution setting. If this option is not selected, the containing composition’s resolution
overrides the nested composition’s resolution.
When selected, the Preserve Frame Rate When Nested option locks a composition to a
specific frame rate, which should improve performance in many cases as well as eliminate
the need to use Posterize Time in creating reduced frame rate effects. If this option is not
selected, the containing composition’s frame rate overrides the nested composition’s
frame rate.
UG.book Page 108 Wednesday, February 21, 2001 12:05 PM