October 5, 2006 by John Dickinson | 1,961 views | Comments (4)
Have you ever been annoyed by not being able to apply a blend mode to a collapsed layer? Don’t know what I’m talking about? Then try this: Precompose a layer (LAYER > PRECOMPOSE); in the switches column (F4) activate the Collapse Transformations switch (it looks like a little sun) for the new precomp; in the modes column (F4) you’ll notice that the blend mode popup menu has a little dash on it – letting you know blend modes are unavailable for the layer. Here’s the trick: Apply an effect to the collapsed precomp (this can be something like EFFECTS > EXPRESSION CONTROLS > ANGLE CONTROL that does nothing) and the blend mode popup will become active again. Thanks to Adobe’s Dave S. for this cool tip.
4 Responses to this post
June 9, 2009 at 3:17 pm |
Thanks so much for this John and Dave – I run into this all the time and just had to work around it as best I could, so nice to finally have a solution!
August 15, 2009 at 5:21 am |
uhmm! That annoys me since the dawn of time man!
Why the heck those Ae creators just don’t change the way how collapse trasformation works? This tip works but it’s still just a workaround.
A collapsed layer should behave like any other normal precomp or layer regardless if the CT switch is on or not.
arrrgh!
August 21, 2009 at 3:39 pm |
In agreement with Chris and Thomas–both thank you and goddam it why doesn’t it work properly.
August 21, 2009 at 8:44 pm |
Hi CAB, I hear you, this can be really annoying and is probably the most misunderstood aspect of After Effects.
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