"Set Matte" Effect Alternative?
As obligatory, I do love the potential for this. I've been messing around with compositing and for the most part see it as a great potential alternative to AE. Haven't done motion graphics just yet.
One thing I've been trying to solve is how to get the functionality of a "set matte" in this like in AE. In AE if I want to grab a puzzle matte layer I can set matte it then I can add effects on top that aren't bound to the original matte(Blurs, Glows, and the like).
The only way I can figure out to get this functionality, is to first apply the puzzle matte on the Mask source then precomp that and then I can add effects on top. I don't love the messiness of precomps when it's just for one effect.(though I recognize AE couldn't always avoid this either). But it feels like there has to be a way to around this with a modifier that does that without having to precomp and I'm just too dumb to figure out.
In a similar vein, I haven't found a way to do a shape mask combined with a layer mask, is this an option currently? Or is this expected to be put into a subcomp then shape mask on top of that as well?
Has anyone been able to get around this? It's not the end of the world to precomp a lot just feels a bit clunky for how I'm doing it.