Gads, wish I had the time! These days that has been in short supply!
But, your basic intro should provide those AHA! moments to some folk who're just about there. It helped Chrissy and so I'm sure many others as well!
WRT movement, mostly, in my case, it's been a case of a frame that needed to change the zoom levels as I zoomed the photo being masked. I wanted the masked image to zoom in or out and I wanted the frame layer(s) to zoom with the image (sometimes at a different zoom rate too). Translation wrt x or y position isn't something I use all that often in this type of situation but, different people (in their creative modes) may want/need to do it. At any rate, This techniques/approached saved me some time. I started out doing solid and gradient layers ... but found that starting off with a gradient layer saved time later (I use a solid layer now only when I know that it's a single purpose layer and that I'm not going to need to duplicate it for other purposes, except for perhaps a shadow layer).
I've done the solid and gradient layers too. But I found myself, often, trying to duplicate some of the work I'd already just done. Unfortunately I can't duplicate a solid layer and convert it to a gradient layer (but that'd be nice if I could!). Likewise, I'd like to duplicate an image layer and convert it to either a gradient or a solid color layer (alas, not an option!
). So, I learned the hard way!
If the darned initial layer was solid and my subsequent layer needed to be gradient, I found I was trying to duplicate the keyframes of the initial layer (not as much of a problem now that I can use a modifier for some types of movement) ... and that was more time and effort (and we can't forget that the motion style had to be the same as well!) - especially if there were numerous keyframes and some complicated movement. By duplicating the layer (which I'd then start out with as gradient for the maximum flexibility) and then making a few changes, I often saved many minutes of effort!
You're right tho, the getting them to walk before they run is important. I only meant to extend the idea of using all gradient vs using a solid and a gradient so that additional options could potentially be exercised. It's one of those things, if you tell someone something they don't get it ... until they see it in a visual context. Then the textual description starts to make sense.
Keep up the good work!
Dale