About layers

Layers are the components you use to build a composition. Any item that you add to a composition—such as a still image, moving-image file, audio file, light layer, camera layer, or even another composition—becomes a new layer. Without layers, a composition consists only of an empty frame.

Using layers, you can work with specific footage items in a composition without affecting any other footage. For example, you can move, rotate, and draw masks for one layer without disturbing any other layers in the composition, or you can use the same footage in more than one layer and use it differently in each instance. In general, the layer order in the Timeline panel corresponds to the stacking order in the Composition panel.

In this composition, there are five footage items, and therefore five layers in the Timeline panel. Depending on the order in which the elements were selected

when you imported them, your layer stack may differ from the one shown on the previous page. The layers need to be in a specific order as you add effects and animations, however, so you’ll rearrange them now.

6 Click an empty area of the Timeline panel to deselect the layers, and then drag bgwtext to the bottom of the layer stack if it is not already there. Drag the other four layers so that they’re in the order shown in the figure.

_ Note: You may need to click a blank area of the Timeline panel or press F2 to deselect layers before you can select an individual layer.

From this point forward in the workflow, you should be thinking about layers, not footage items. You’ll change the column title accordingly.

7 Click the Source Name column title in the Timeline panel to change it to Layer Name.

8 Choose File > Save to save your project so far.

Дата добавления: 2014-11-20