Duplicating "Clean Comps for Reuse in AE Library?

[karenf1]

I'm trying to build an AE library of animated characters and backgrounds and other animated bits that are reusable in different combinations -- to make a series of short cartoons with recurring characters. I want to keep "clean copies" of some of the comps so I can have them to duplicate and change just certain elements. F.I. a floating fish, who would appear in 4 comps/short scenes - but only the text - kind of a caption - changes.

So far the method I found & tried was: to export the file via file dependencies and then reimport and rename it (from this lynda movie: Moving compositions between projects in After Effects

It seems to work - but is this a good way to do that? Any other suggestions on best and safe practices? Many thanks in advance!

I did notice that the text in the comp had a trasition applied throught he Mr. Horse plugin - and when I reimported it - Mr.Horse "flagged a problem" and asked me if I wanted him to fix it. So I thought - maybe remove the transitions before export - but then what if I use Motion2 or a plugin like that, and do lots of tweaking to an animation that I'd like to save for reuse. Is that a problem I should plan for and remove all transitions applied by non-core AE software?

BTW: I'm in CS6.

Yet another BTW: Just as a "BTW" I was thinking about those "Explainer Creator Kits" you buy at Envato. I'm trying to create that kind of Library/Kit for my own work.

[Szalam]

Once you get all of your elements built, you can save it as a Template project (.aet file). Then you can import that into any project you want.