The recent Adobe Max update to add selectable track mattes to After Effects is a big deal. This will make your projects much cleaner and your workflow faster.
Traditionally, you had to make an individual matte for each layer that you wanted to apply a matte. 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 layer can be anywhere in your composition. Adding and updating mattes is now easier than ever thanks to selectable track mattes, so enjoy the increased production speed.