With regard to layers. A layer is completely transparent, except where something is placed or drawn or typed into a text box. If you want an opeque layer then you will have to place a rectangle of fill the size of the stage and centered on the stage on any given layer. I do not think that this will be necessary as there are other things that you are not thinking about. Try my example below, it may help you in a number of areas of your project.
You may be having problems with keyFrames in the layers. At least with regard to text still being in existance when it should be gone.
An object, or drawn lines/fills, or text block, sound etc. will stay in existance from the first keyframe it exists in until the end of it’s timeline, or until it encounters another keyframe.
Try this. Open a new movie.
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[]Select frame one of layer one on the timeline.
[]Select the text tool and click on the stage with it.
[]Type in whatever text you want.
[]Select the black arrow tool.
[]On the timeline select, “create layer”
[]With the black arrow tool, click on the text once to select it, if it is not selected.
[]Hit, Ctrl+C to “copy” the selected text block.
[]Select the first frame of your new layer. Mind you, I’m assuming at this point that the layer is located above the one you just copied from. It should be white with a small clear circle at in it.
[]Hit, Ctrl+Shift+V to “paste in place”.
[]The first frame should now be grey, and the circle at it’s begining is a filled in black circle, and should resemble in all manners the layer below it… A dotted line runs to the right, until the last frame of that timeline.
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Right now you have the same text on top of itself, so you wont be able to see the underlying text at this point. If you click on the eyeball symbol on that layer it will turn invisible and you’ll be able to edit the stuff below it… but remember, it’s only invisible in editing mode… the text or object or whatever will be there when you make a final production.
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[*]So… with the layer2 (the top layer) frame 1 selected, hit menu option Edit/Create Motion Tween
[*]set up the motion tween for this layer as you want it to look… you said that you could do that. Make it’s full animation 30 frames in length total.
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You should note that the timeline of the first layer… the bottem layer, does not continue past frame 1. A created layer will extend as far as the full length of the main timeline of that scene. At the time we created the layers there was only one frame in our movie.
What this means is if you draw the play head to the right, to see how your _alpha, _scale tweening is going, you wont see the text on frame 2. Select frame 20 in the bottem layer and choose menu option Edit/Insert frame.
You will now see the black dot in the first frame, and a dotted line running out into the frames to the right until frame 20 when it ends.
Now if you move the play head you’ll see the text remain behind while your motion tween does it’s thing.
Since I’m not sure what you want to have happen to the text, I can’t give you more than that. But this is the next logical step.
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[]select frame 1 of the top layer.
create a new layer, (should be layer3 and should be above both of the other two layers)
[]Where you see the text from the layers below, use the text tool and click around that area.
[]Type in some new text… different than you had on the first two layers.
[]Possition the text so that it is located overlapping the text from below.
[]Click on the “lock” symbol AND the “eyeball” symbol on layers 1 and 2. This will make it easier to work on your upper layers without confusion.
[]With the black arrow tool. Click and hold down on the first frame of layer3. With the mouse held down drag that frame to the right. and carefuly place it in frame 31 of layer 3 and let go of the mouse button.
[]Select the text on the stage and hit Ctrl+C to “copy”.
[]Create a new layer (layer4, should be above all the rest.)
[]Select frame 31 in this layer and hit menu option Edit/insert Blank Keyframe.
[]Select this new keyframe at frame 31 (which is white and has a small clear circle in it.), and hit Ctrl+Shift+V to “paste in place”.
[*]Use the method you did before to create a motion tween for the top layer of these two, expanding as far as you like down the timeline.
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What you will notice if you do a test movie, is that the first animation occurs, leaving behind a static version of itself on the stage, until the next animated words begin. As soon as that happens, the other two layers no longer have frames going to the right. They end at frame 31. So the next animation that comes along is not interfiered with by the remains of the previous.
Make use of, and learn to understand, what keyframes vs, blank keyframes do to a timeline, and be sure to delete frames at the end of a layer to suit where you would like something to end it’s existance in the flow of the movie. There’s no reason why some texts, if they are not on top of each other, exist at the same time or in overlapping times to each other. It actually makes things smoother in most cases.
These instructions are meant to be take step by step. If one step is confusing let me know
don’t rush into anything at this point.