Project: QGIS
Version: 3.24
This is another exciting cartographic enhancement which opens up a whole new arena of symbology and map visualisation in QGIS!
Prior to this improvement, QGIS supported grouping layers within the layer tree as a means of structuring projects, but these groups had no impact on how the component layers were rendered. In QGIS 3.24 we've introduced a new option allowing these layer groups to "Render as Group", which causes all the component layers to be rendered as a single flattened object during map renders.
This option is available within the layer styling dock whenever a group layer is selected. This panel also allows you to control the appearance of the group as a whole, with options for the overall group opacity, blend mode, and layer effects!
Additionally, when a layer is contained in a group which has the new Render as Group option activated, new blending modes will be available which perform "clipping" style operations during the render. These allow you to achieve some very powerful results, such as clipping the render of one layer's content by the content in a second "mask" layer!
