Adobe AFTER EFFECTS CS3 PROFESSIONAL User Manual page 322

• Paint operations within a group are performed from the bottom to the top in the Timeline panel stacking order.
This means, for example, that a stroke is rendered on top of (in front of) a stroke that appears after it in the
Timeline panel. To override this default behavior for a specific fill or stroke, choose Above Previous In Same
Group for the fill or stroke's Composite property in the Timeline panel. (See "Work with strokes and fills for
shapes" on page 327.)
Path operations and paint operations apply to all paths above them in the same group.
Transform properties for shape groups and shape paths
Each group has its own Transform property group. This Transform property group is represented in the Timeline
panel with a property group named Transform: [group name] and in the Composition panel as a dashed box with
handles. You can group a path by itself and transform only the path using its new Transform property group.
Introducing an additional Transform property group for a single path is useful, for example, for creating complex
motion—such as spinning about one anchor point while also revolving along an orbit. The transformations of a
group affect all shapes within the group; this is the same behavior as that of layer parenting. (See "Work with parent
and child layers" on page 161.)
Each shape path also has intrinsic properties that affect the position and shape of the path. For parametric shape
paths, these properties (such as Position and Size) are parameters visible in the Timeline panel. For Bezier shape
paths, these properties are defined for each vertex but are contained within the Path property. When you modify a
Bezier path using the free-transform bounding box, you modify these intrinsic properties for the vertices that
constitute that path.
Group and ungroup shapes and shape attributes
You can group shapes or shape attributes that are at the same grouping level within a single shape layer.
Group shapes or shape attributes
❖
Select one or more shapes or shape attributes, and do one of the following:
• Choose Layer > Group Shapes.
• Press Ctrl+G (Windows) or Command+G (Mac OS).
When you group shapes, the anchor point for the group is placed in the center of the group's bounding box.
Ungroup shapes or shape attributes
❖
Select a single group, and do one of the following:
• Choose Layer > Ungroup Shapes.
• Press Ctrl+Shift+G (Windows) or Command+Shift+G (Mac OS).
AFTER EFFECTS CS3 316
User Guide