After effects CC 2014 transparency properties of pre comps, collapse transformation on, no longer keyframeable???!!!

Question

Hey there,
lately I'm using After effects CC 2014. Now I had to make the experience, after optimizing (collapse transformation) the pre comp, the global property transparency is no longer working.
I can make keyframes but the pre comp acts like my easy ease keyframes are hold keyframes. Btw if the collapse transformation button is unchecked it works fine but than i don't have the optimization features. It's a catch 22. Sure, I can go into my pre comp and set the keyframes there, but this is pretty annoying and seriously not the way to work.
So is that a bug in CC 2014?
Help is needed.
Computer specs:
Mac osX 10.9.4
2 x 2,4 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
32 GB 1066 MHz DDR3 ECC
ATI Radeon HD 5870 1024 MB
Thanks for any advice
Gwen

Answer 1

Layer styles render in a different order so lots of things can get fouled up with you use them. They are still usable in complex situations, you just have to apply them in the right place in your composite. I've never found a situation where I needed a Layer Style and another effect that I have not been able to work around the limitation.
There are other things that change the render order. After Effects only does one thing at a time. The basic render order is listed right in the timeline view. Here's a sample.
Basic effect with Layer Style turned off:
First Mask 1 is applied to the layer, then Mask 2 is subtracted creating the hole
Then Fast Blur is applied, then Bevil Edges to create the button with the soft edges
Then the Transform controls take over and the anchor point is evaluated, the position reported, then the scale, then the rotation, and finally the opacity
Then the Layer Style is applied.
In my button design I want to apply a stroke to the button so that I looks like this but with the soft base and a stroke on the inside hole:
But, as you can see I had to turn off the Fast Blur to get the stroke to work because the Layer Style Stroke is calculated from the alpha channel, which fast blur has made 76 pixels wide so with Fast Blur on I get this:
The solution to my problem is to pre-compose and add the layer style to the pre-comp, then use an adjustment layer with masks for the fast blur to get what I wanted in the first place:
So here's what AE is doing with the final project.
The background layer is rendered
The pre comp is added to the mix
Inside the pre-comp the layer is rendered
Mask 1 is added to give rounded corners
Mask 2 is subtracted to punch the hole
Layer styles are applied to add the stroke
Back in the main comp the pre-comp is rendered
Bevel Edges is applied to the pre-comp using the alpha chanel
Now the adjustment layer is added to the mix
Mask 1 is added and this limits the area in the underlying layers where effects applied to the adjustment layer will  work
Mask 2 is subtracted from the adjustment layer poking a hole in the effects
The fast Blur is added blurring only the bottom edge of the button
There you have it. An in depth tutorial on the rendering order in AE and how to use nesting and pre-comps to reorder effects to get what you want.