Preserve opacity option – Apple Motion 5.1.1 User Manual
Page 228
Chapter 7
Basic compositing
228
Change a layer’s opacity
Do one of the following:
m
Adjust the Opacity slider in the Blending section of the Properties Inspector.
m
Adjust the Opacity slider in the HUD.
Note: Some layers, such as text and shapes, have additional opacity parameters in their
respective panes in the Inspector. For example, setting a shape’s Opacity value in the Properties
pane and setting its Opacity value in the Style pane require separate controls that have
multiplicative effects. In other words, if Opacity is set to 50% in the Properties pane, then set to
50% in the Shape Style pane, the resulting opacity for the text is 25%.
For information on limiting overlapping layers’ visibility or selectively revealing a part of a layer,
see
on page 228.
Preserve Opacity option
The Preserve Opacity checkbox in the Properties Inspector lets you limit a layer’s visibility to
areas of the Canvas where the layer overlaps nontransparent regions of other layers. For example,
you might place two overlapping layers into your project, as shown below:
If you select Preserve Opacity for the Dolphin layer in front, the result is this:
The only area of the Dolphin layer visible is the area that overlaps the sea life picture
layer behind it. At first, this might not appear to be very exciting, but the Preserve Opacity
checkbox can be used in combination with the opacity and blend mode to create some very
interesting effects.
Note: The layer with the enabled Preserve Opacity parameter takes the opacity value of the layer
beneath it in the composite stack.
67% resize factor