Best practice for tweening multiple layers at once?

[DrewRothman]

I have a couple of folders on my timeline that each contain a dozen layers. I want to fade all 24 objects out. The obvious methods I can think of would be:

• Add a start and end keyframe to all of the individual layers and tween the opacity.
• Add another layer above all of them and tween in a white rectangle over the top (fortunately I'm dealing with a blank white background on this particular project).
• Create a new symbol that's a combined copy of all of them, add a blank keyframe to drop all of the separate layers off the screen, and then tween a fade-out on the combined one.

Is there some better or more "correct" way? Is there any way to mask an entire folder or apply an opacity tween to all of the contents at one time?

[n. tilcheff]

There is no 'correct' way.

Use whichever method seems easiest and most flexible for you.

[_keyframer]

As Nick said, there's no "best" way but I prefer to nest all layers in a symbol and then tint to a solid color background when possible - which will work in your case. The problem you'll experience using alpha is during the tween, you'll see the assets on different layers overlap each other. A color tint effect will not reveal the layering inside the symbol or across layers.

[DrewRothman]

Ah - I hadn't thought about combining them into a Symbol.

This is the first time I've used Animate - my last animation project was in Flash back in 2005, so I've forgotten more than I know about how this stuff works!

[sergiopop75]

I share with you this video where you can see that I have the parts of the character inside a symbol. And in symbol you can do the transparency tweening, but you will get the parts separated, and applying a filter, as I show in the video I solve that representation. (Min. 3:09)

https://youtu.be/fGvMJwsMPVw?t=189