Pathfinder-effect for stroke-"blending"

[Luc_Adriaens]

Maybe a newbie question, but I'm a newbie in After Effects 😉

I have objects with the same fill and a stroke colors (each object on a different layer).

I’m looking for the visual effect that when the objects are overlapping each other, the outline is going around the overlapping objects and not the objects itself.

I can do this when adding objects INSIDE the contents ‘tab’ of ONE object, but this way I cannot animate the separate objects.

Any workflow/tip/tool/fx for this?

Thx!

Lucas

[Mylenium]

Pre-compose everything, apply a stroke layer style in teh parent comp.

Mylenium

[Luc_Adriaens]

This works, but forces me to animated in another comp. Thanks for the feedback. Appreciated!

[Mike_Abbott · Accepted solution]

Put your objects inside the 'contents' folder of one layer.

Look for the 'Add' menu to the right of the word contents. Select : Add: Group (empty). Put each of your objects into one of those groups. Each group will now have it's own 'transform' section.

[Luc_Adriaens]

For some reason I did't get the transforms in my previous tests.

'Add: Group (empty)' did the trick I guess. THX!