From the course: After Effects Guru: Mastering the Timeline

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Using track mattes

Using track mattes - After Effects Tutorial

From the course: After Effects Guru: Mastering the Timeline

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Using track mattes

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- Now, in our previous example, we had difficulty using the price tag layer to reveal the price. Because the underlying background layer was not preserving the transparency in the way that we wanted. Let's take a look at a more advanced option called the track matte, which uses a layer to effectively matte or mask another layer. I'll switch to Project 6C, and in this case, we're going to use a couple of layers. Let's delete away this one for a moment. And what you see here is the same as before, we've got a price tag that reveals. Now, I can duplicate that price tag, control d, and put that above the price layer. Now, what we need to take advantage of is the track matte controls. This says use a layer to effect things. So, for example, I can say use the alpha channel of the layer above to effect this one. Now when you do that, you'll notice two things. First off, the layer above loses its visibility, and, you'll see two layers here. One layer is the fill, the content, and the one…

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