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Chapter 3 Basic Compositing 259
When you begin to lay out a composition, it’s a good idea to start by creating a static
layout of your project that represents how it looks at the beginning, end, or at a
particular moment in time. In addition to manipulating the geometry of objects in your
project, you can also alter their opacity. This gives you additional control over how
overlapping elements of your layout merge together. Blend modes provide further
control over the appearance of overlapping objects, accentuating or stylizing the colors
of the topmost objects based on the objects underneath.
After you create an initial layout, you can animate any of the objects you’ve added to
set your project in motion. For more information about animating objects and their
properties, see “Animation in Motion” on page 504.
Group and Layer Order
As discussed in Chapter 2, “Creating and Managing Projects,” in a purely 2D project, the
order in which layers and groups appear in the Layers tab and Timeline (the layer order)
determines which layers appear in front of others in the Canvas. Before you use any of
the tools described in this chapter, you should first arrange the layers and groups in
your project so that they appear in the proper order.
Arrangement Commands in the Object Menu
In addition to rearranging object order in the Layers tab, you can also move objects in
front of or behind other objects using commands in the Object menu. This is useful
when you want to quickly move an object to the front while you’re working in the
Canvas. Rather than open the Layers tab, you can simply use one of the commands in
the Object menu.
The arrangement commands can be used with either objects, groups, or groups that
are nested within another group. Reordering a group reorders all objects that are
nested within that group.
Note: You cannot use the reorder commands to move objects out of the group they’re
nested within.
There are four arrangement commands in the Object menu: