Multiple layer fade hugger-mugger

[Jkoseattle]

At the end of my scene, I have a whole buncha stuff on screen. One layer has some idle cycles running, the rest are static. All layers are line drawings on a white background. I want to fade all the layers except the one with the cycles running. This will end the scene, and the new scene starts with that one layer alone.

To accomplish this, I selected all the layers I want to fade (all of which were groups, maybe a dozen objects in all) and set opacity keyframes from 100 to 0 over a second or so. When playing back, the layers simply disappear when the opacity hits 0, with no fade. I thought this might be a render-only effect, so I exported animation. The resulting mp3 shows the fading layers chunk down in about four steps. Also, the cycles for the layer that doesn't fade now stutter at the same fps.

I assumed the multiple layer opacity fade was just a deceptively CPU-intensive operation, and exporting to mp4 would show what I wanted. Is there some reason this would be happening I'm not aware of, or is there a better method for invoking a fade effect like this?

[slowtiger]

I have no explanation for the steps in the fade, never noticed anything like that in my work. I suspect this is a matter of too much going on at the same time, as fading everything surely is.

But here's a different approach. As long as your BG is totally white, just put all fading layers under a layer with a white shape fading in. Less work, more control. The one remaining layer just has to be on top.

[Jkoseattle]

Oh yeah, of course. Why didn't that occur to me? Thanks!