The recent Adobe update to add selectable track mattes to After Effects is much appreciated. This will make projects much cleaner and the workflow much faster.
Traditionally, you had to make an individual matte for each layer that you wanted to apply a matte upon. Now, you can select the same matte and apply it to multiple layers! Similar to how the parenting tool works, you can either pickwhip to the layer or choose it from a dropdown. So, this matte layer can be anywhere in your composition. Adding and updating mattes is now easier than ever, so enjoy the increased production speed.
To see selectable track mattes in action, please watch this short After Effects tutorial:
