ABSTRACT
At its simplest, collapse transformations allows to scale a layer in one comp, scale it again in a second comp, and retain the same sharpness and resolution as it would have to had scaled it just once. Under normal circumstances, After Effects processes the masks applied to a layer, followed by the effects, followed by the transformations. Once a layer’s Masks, Effects, and Transform have been calculated, the rendering order includes a step “crop to current comp size” in which any pixels that end up on the comp’s pasteboard are trimmed. After this stage, the layer is composited with other layers using blending modes, opacity, and track mattes. When collapse transformations is enabled, blending modes applied to layers in the nested comp will be passed through to the current comp. In After Effects, some layer switches behave recursively, which means that changing their status in one comp changes the switch in the current comp and all nested comps.
