Creating a motion path from a mask....

[ruester]

So what I want to have (all 3d layers) is two photos positioned in front of my "camera", and I want them to revolve around my camera (as if I was standing in a spinning vertical cylinder with these two images "painted" on the walls)

So I am looking at the AE 7.0 Help Center and here's what it says:

***

"You can instantly create a motion path from any mask that you draw in After Effects (or from a path that you copy from Adobe Illustrator or Adobe Photoshop), by pasting the mask or path into a layer’s Position property, a layer’s Anchor Point property, or the effect point property of an effect. The assigned keyframes are set to rove in time, except for the first and last ones, to create a constant velocity along the mask or path. By default, After Effects assigns a duration of 2 seconds to the motion path. Adjust the default duration by dragging the first or last keyframe to a new point in time.

1) Do one of the following:

* Select a mask.

or

* Create and select a path from Adobe Illustrator or Adobe Photoshop. (For information on creating paths in those products, see the respective product Help.)


then:

2) Copy the mask or path to the clipboard.

3) In the Timeline panel, select the destination keyframe property.

4) Paste the mask or path."

***



I have a camera created and the two images in 3d layers. I created a null object and rotated it on the x axis to lie flat, horizontally, perpendicular to the camera. I then created an elliptical mask on the Null object, large enough to encompass my camera, so the camera lies inside the ellipse..

According to the above pasted advice, all I have to do is copy the elliptical mask to the clip board, select the 'position' property of one of the images and paste the mask into the position property, but when I do that, all it does is paste a new copy of the whole mask onto the image layer....

please help...
Thanks all,

Aza

[Matt Grunau]

One problem Adobe has never addressed with AE is that 90% of the time when you create a mask inside AE, copy it, and go do paste it, nothing happens. Nothing.

The only luck I have having lens flares or objects follow a mask was to save my work, copy the mask, close AE, open it up again, and then past where you want it. Hug pain in the butt. That's all I have found that will really work though.

[dory_breaux]

Hmm thats odd Matt its always worked for me.

[Derrick_SA]

hhmmm...

would an expression not be the easier and better way to address your problem?

- Derrick

[graymachine]

Make sure you actually click "Mask Path" and the "position" property. They should actually highlight. You might be clicking the Mask name, which is a common mistake and I've done it many times myself.

Expressions would be a great solution, unfortunately Masks cannot be connected to the position property.