• Adobe After Effects

  How to modify a layer propertie without influencing mask properties ?

  Posted by Clément Morge on November 5, 2013 at 6:34 pm

  Hi everyone !

  Here is my question : I’m actually working on a project on which I have to put reflection of a city on a window being opened. To proceed, I made the reflect image on Photoshop, then I import it in After Effects, and apply it in my composition by adding a mask at the format of the glass of the window. Anyway, everything worked perfectly since the camera make a huge traveling forward. The reflect is moving well because I made the mask following the path of the window, but I made my image too much little in Photoshop… And then I can see the black-color-of-the-background-where-there-no-image-anymore inside my mask. I know how to move the image inside the mask, independantly of the mask, with the anchor point tool. But I don’t know how I can change the scale of it without interact with the mask…

  I would be very grateful if someone could help me !

  Thank you by advance !

  Have a nice day,

  Clément.

  Clément Morge replied 12 years, 10 months ago 3 Members · 4 Replies
• 4 Replies

• 

  Darby Edelen

  November 5, 2013 at 7:18 pm

  You should use a separate layer to mask the image. Copy your mask to a solid layer and use it as an alpha track matte for your reflection layer.

  Then you have separate transform controls for the mask/matte layer and the reflection layer.

  Darby Edelen
• 

  Clément Morge

  November 5, 2013 at 11:09 pm

  Thank you very much ! I’ll try it tomorrow, but I guess I’ve already done a thing in that way and it didn’t worked when I pasted the mask from my original layer to another… But anyway, I’ll let you know !

  Film student in Paris at “Ecole de la Cité” of Luc Besson.
• 

  Roland R. kahlenberg

  November 6, 2013 at 12:41 am

  Perhaps the layer you pasted to had changes made to the Transform properties.

  If your original mask and layer has been created and it does the job of matting/masking the window then leave it as it is – simply use it as a Track Matte for a new and larger layer.

  HTH
  RoRK

  Intensive mocha & AE Training in Singapore and Other Dangerous Locations

  Imagineer Systems (mocha) Certified Instructor
  & Adobe After Effects CS6 ACE/ACI
• 

  Clément Morge

  November 6, 2013 at 9:07 am

  I’ll try it too. Thank you ! I don’t know if it’s important, but I forgot to precise that the reflection is made by keying, because the landscape it has to reflect came from a greenscreen that reflects itself in the windows, on the original footage. So it’s not only a layer with a mask, but yes, it’s almost the same.

  Clément Morge – Film student in Paris at “Ecole de la Cité” of Luc Besson.

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