locking masks in place?

W

wes

Well-known member
I am wondering if there is a way to lock a masks in place while I have the layer moving? As of right now, I am having to keyframe the mask every few frames so it stays in place while the layer moves. Frustrating
 
A little confused. Do you want the mask to stay in place relative to the frame sides or do you want the mask to follow what you mask?
 
i have had this problem when moving text but wanting the mask to stay still. Not sure if this is the best solution for what you are doing but keyframing your layer movements first and then precomposing it and adding a mask to the precomp works for me.
 
ah that might work encity.

to the others:

I am masking a layer that is moving. I want the layer to move but the mask that is applied to the same layer to say in one place....almost as if it was on a seperate layer. But if the mask was on a seperate layer, it would mask what I wanted. See the issue.

But yes precomposing is what i should have tried. Sometimes you forget about the little things.
 
wes said:
ah that might work encity.
But if the mask was on a seperate layer, it would mask what I wanted.
Click to expand...
That's why I asked if you had tried a track matte.
Try this:
Create a new solid and place it above the layer you want to mask.
Draw the mask on the solid.
Set the track matte of the layer you want to mask to the Alpha of the solid layer above.
Key frame the position of the bottom layer to animate.

The stencil alpha mode and the set matte effect are other options for addressing the issue you're having.
 
Milksac is right,

What is important?

1. Your Track Matte layer (built like he described), the one with the mask, needs to be right above the layer that needs to be moving around with the content people need to see.

2. then set the TrkMat dropdown of the layer below the mask layer to "Alpha Matte"

Bob's your uncle,
Derrick

ps. SAMPLE AE CS3 project: www.malagold.co.za/TrackMatte.aep
 
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The biggest benefit of the track matte over precomposing is that you can still tweak your moving layers' properties without having to open up a precomp. Usually, I avoid precomposing unless I have to or need to to pull off a certain effect.
 
cool, thanks all. Will try every option so I have them for future reference. It was just getting super annoying having to keyframe both the layer and the mask.
 
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