Rotating a layer but not its mask.

[skettalee]

I have a wheel thats inside of a Patch (Air Force Patch) and I want it to rotate in a circle like its turning but its at the bottom on the inside of the patch, the back patch layer is behind it so I made a layer mask for the wheel (film reel) that goes in the patch circle so only the part is visible inside of the patch and it doesn't overlap it. But when I try to rotate the film reel, the mask rotates with it and that just totally looses the effect I wanted. Can anyone help me?

[Scottdvx100]

Not sure I follow but if you want it to rotate around it's own center move the pivot point and then do your rotation.

Masks will move with the layer. If you don't want it to move with the layer copy it and place it another layer above depending on what you're doing or make a precomp that you can use the mask with.

[skettalee]

I know about the pivot point and everything. I dont understand about copying the mask to another layer. What should be on this layer? I tried an adjustment layer but that ended up hiding everything under it and crap. Can you explain a little better, thanx.

[David Jimerson]

You need to have one layer being the untouched patch, and then a layer on top of it consisting of the patch, but with everything you don’t want to rotate masked out. Then, you can put the pivot point under the unmasked part and rotate the top layer

At the most basic. It can be as simple or complex as you want.

[Scottdvx100]

It sounds like you want to see through a section of a layer and see an image pass behind it (rotating) Because you've created a mask with the layer, you're rotating it as well when you want it to stay static. Is that correct?
One thing you could do is add another layer of the same thing (BG or FG depending on exactly what you want to happen. This should be on the top.
Select the orginal mask from the orginal layer in the timeline expanded and copy.
Now go to your top layer and paste it in.
If this is infact a duplicate of the current fg you could just duplicate that layer. Turn off the rotation on the top layer.
In any case you would turn off the mask in the rotating layer.
Don't forget you can negate or invert the mask so it shows everything but the masked area.

[skettalee]

Actually I figured it out by doing a precomp on the layer that had the film reel I wanted turning. Then I made it turn in that comp and went back to the original comp and just made a mask there so it turned, now im only seeing half of the film reel at one time inside of a patch but it continues turning like its inside the patch and some of it hides away. Thank you guys for your help!