I'm hoping to create a tutorial about this. From reading your post, if the fade is a transition between layouts the quickest way is as followed:
After creating your layout add two layers. Set their background colour to black and have one with their transparency set to 'No' (I'll call fade-in layer). (I find using layers instead of a black pixel a little easier)
At the beginning of the of the layout, set the fade-in layer's opacity to 100%, then 'Every Tick' set its opacity to 'Its own opacity - (dt*60)'. This should give a fade in effect.
Do the reverse for the fade-out layer, then change layout when its opacity is greated than 99%
Does that help?