One of the questions I’m asked the most is ‘why don’t I have insert CC effect name here in my copy of After Effects?’ To which the short answers are ‘because you’re using the demo version’ or ‘because you ripped the software off a torrent site, you thieving shit’.
But something else I get asked from time to time is ‘how do I loop a pre-comp in After Effects?’ And this one I’m happy to answer. When you consider how many advanced tools there are in AE, it’s surprising that there still isn’t an obvious way to do this.

You’ll be pleased to hear that it is possible, and it’s not that complicated – though there is a small catch you need to be aware of if you’re going to do it successfully. I’d also point out that there’s an older video on how to do this over at John Dickinson’s website – motionworks.com.au – but it doesn’t have an audio track, so it’s easy to miss the important bit at the end. Even so, I’d recommend a trip to his site as there’s loads of useful stuff there.