pre-compose pro script

🧩 Overview

Pre-Compose Pro is an advanced automation script for Adobe After Effects designed to enhance and streamline the native Pre-compose function.

It gives users more control over how layers are precomposed, adds trimming options, batch processing, localization, and saves user preferences for future sessions.

⚙️ Main Features

1. Interactive Dialog Interface

The script displays a modern dialog box that allows users to fully customize how precomposition is performed:

• New composition name — editable field for naming the new precomp.
• Main options:
• Leave all attributes in the current composition
• Keeps effects and transformations in the main comp (like AE’s native “Leave all attributes” option).
• Move all attributes into the new composition
• Moves all effects, masks, and transformations inside the precomp.
• Additional options:
• Pre-compose each selected layer (Batch mode)
• Creates a separate precomp for each selected layer automatically.
• Use existing layer names for new compositions
• Assigns the same name as the layer to each new precomp.
• Trim new composition to the combined layers’ duration
• Automatically adjusts the new comp length to match the duration range of the selected layers.
• Trim handles (Head / Tail)
• Adds extra time before and after the trimmed range, in seconds.

🧠 Smart Features

🗣️ Automatic Localization

The script automatically detects the user’s After Effects interface language and translates all UI text, tooltips, and messages accordingly.

Supported languages:

• English (en)
• Spanish (es)
• French (fr)
• Italian (it)
• German (de)
• Portuguese (pt)

🧰 Automatic Validation

Before running, the script checks:

• That there’s an active composition open.
• That at least one layer is selected.
• If the selected layer has no source footage, the script disables incompatible options.
• It also displays localized alert messages when requirements are not met.

🧮 How It Works

🔹 Standard Mode

When one or more layers are selected:

1. The script collects the layer indices and calculates their combined in/out times.
2. It determines the earliest start and latest end points.
3. Executes comp.layers.precompose() with the selected option (move attributes or leave them).
4. If trimming is enabled:

• The new comp duration is automatically adjusted to match the layer range plus optional handles.
• The resulting precomp layer’s in/out points are corrected accordingly.

1. Handles time-stretching correctly (including negative stretch values).

🔹 Batch Mode

When “Pre-compose each selected layer” is enabled:

• The script runs the precompose process individually for every selected layer.
• Optionally uses each layer’s name as the new precomp’s name.
• Great for quickly organizing large projects with multiple precomps.

🧱 Compatibility

• Requires: Adobe After Effects 2020 or newer.
• Fully compatible with: Adobe After Effects 2025.
• The script automatically checks the app version before execution.