Here is a screencap of my Timeline (hopefully it will make things a bit more clear). Reminder I have to do this without precomping any layers into the one layer.
Hey cheers for that. I put the effect on but it doesnt seem to be doing anything. Ive looked it up in the ae. help files but I’m no clearer. What settings should i be using and how do I tell the matte not to mask out certain layers