How to not have two layers opacities adding up?

[Tomghzel]

Hi all! It's pretty obvious that if for example, I have one layer with an image of two people, and a layer underneath with a house, so the two people are standing in front of the house, and I want to fade this image away, if I decrease opacity from 100 to 0%, when it's i.e. 50%, you see 50% through the people and you see the house too.

Now if I want to have both objects fade away from 100% I can nest them, and have them fade together, so at 50%, you see 50% of the background, and you never see the image of the house through the image of the persons. 

Sometimes in my projects, it's very impractical to create a pre-comp just for this. For most other aspects I would use a null object, but since null objects already are transparent this doesn't work.

Is there any other way to have two images fade together instead of separately into each other? I'm just curious. Keen to hear!

[Videogain]

This would be great to know if possible! But possibly not because it has to do with the render order and precomping is like rasterizing or flattening the two together so that they can be changed as one. Is there a way to rasterize two layers together without precomping?

[Rick Gerard]

Just use the pickwhip to tie one property to another. Take the opacity of layer one end drag the equip to the opacity of layer to to create the expression that ties them together.

[Videogain]

But that's the same problem.

[Mylenium · Accepted solution]

That's what effects like Channel Combiner and others or even CC Composite are for. In addition, many other effects like Fill or Ramp have Source opacity parameters that can be used equally creatively. You need to level up and move on from the basics...

Mylenium

[angie_taylor · Accepted solution]

Also, to add to the tips above from my friends - Calculations effect is a favourite of mine as it allows you to use Blending modes

[Tomghzel]

Amazing! Worked like a charm. I used calculations on the lower layer and was able to add the info from the above layer to the lower. Then just made the above layer not visible and: done!

I had to laugh Mylenium, because people around me who do video editing don't know much about After Effects and I always tell them to Google their questions instead of coming to me, now I feel like having been put in my place by a real pro haha. Yes, it is time to level up! Thanks a lot y'all!

[angie_taylor]

Thanks for letting us know. Happy to help 🙂

[Videogain]

Could you explain further how you are getting this to work based on the problem from the initial post? You are adding calculations effect to the bottom layer and hiding the top? Which property do you animation to fade out, for example. The "Second layer opacity"?