Cannot access Create a New Composition from Selection menu options

[ChrisCrystalize]

Create New Composition From Selection - YouTube

Aymincendiary One2 minutes ago

If anybody here can answer this question, by all means set off a sea flare for me. I need to get into the Create New Composition From Selection menu screen in order to do this exercise in 2017 AE Classroom In a Book series. When I use the tool (please see screen capture), it just creates a new composition and doesn't let me get into the menu screen to change any of the settings. This is the shortcomings of the Adobe Classroom In a Book series, they are not detailed enough for the beginning user. This book is going back on the shelf until I can figure this out and I will move onto the Chris and Trish Meyers series which is much more comprehensive. I've already contacted Adobe Press about the issue and have posed numerous times on the Adobe site forums. In the meantime, I'm leaving this book unfinished, and will not buy the 2018 editions until I am fully fluent with navigating the user interface for any of the Adobe CC suite programs.

[Dave_LaRonde]

Don't use the pen tool -- that's just for masking or making shape layers.  Most of the time you want the regular Selection Tool -- invoke it by the v keyboard shortcut.

To open the comp settings once you've made the comp, use Ctl/Cmd - k.

[ChrisCrystalize]

I found the solution... you have to select more than one object and drag it to the Create New Composition Button at the bottom of the Project Panel. I sent a survey to Adobe Press that their Classroom in a Book series isn't descriptive enough. the Chris and Trish Meyers is much more comprehensive, however their Motion Graphics for AE is for CS5 and their 4th edition for AE Apprentice is at AE version 2015.

Thank you for your response. The most rewarding part of all of this is being able to find your own solutions by struggling with the material. I have a number of Power Point presentations I created about 18 months ago when first starting out and I try to clean up the .pptx file as much as possible and save to MP4 and then import it into AE for special effects. Power Point has some handy preset animations I haven't been able to fully emulate in After Effects so for a temporary workaround I've saved the object/animation combo as a green screen video in PP 2013, imported it into AE and used Keylight to key out the green and save as a Quicktime file with RGB/alpha to import into my composition. I do the same with text as well as I am much more versed with creative text and animations at this time with PP 2013 than with After Effects. Eventually I will be able to do all of this in AE directly and will not need to use PP anymore.