Keep a hero shot, a detail study and a lifestyle setup in the same product file, and move between them without rebuilding the camera, environment or lights each time.
A presentation look records only what you ask it to. Everything else comes from the scene, so a change to the base model or lighting still reaches every look that does not deliberately replace it.
Capture the current state as a layer and choose what it governs: materials, visibility, camera, environment and lights. A materials-only layer behaves as a colourway; a layer that records everything is a complete studio setup. If part of a look can no longer be restored, the layer shows a warning instead of silently skipping it.
A suite is a reusable finish treatment — one choice per material set plus any per-part overrides, with optional camera, environment and lighting. Use a “Chrome” suite in several layers and see how many layers depend on it before you change it.
Each comp keeps its own timeline, frame range, resolution, output settings, passepartout and transparency, plus notes and a file-name token. Create, duplicate and link comps to After Effects compositions for finishing.
In an animated sequence, place a layer cut at the playhead to change looks on the beat, alongside camera and environment cuts. Material changes between layers can cross-fade, while camera and environment changes can use dissolves, dips, wipes, irises, pushes, slides and splits. A single timeline can take the product from a clean studio silhouette to a contextual scene and on to its colour range.
Set up three layers: a white-studio hero with the front camera, a dark close-up of the brew head with a focused light, and a kitchen setting with the full range of finishes. Reuse one “Brushed steel” suite in all three. When you retune the base lighting, the layers that do not record their own lights pick up the change from the same scene.
