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  • A very simple masking question

    Posted by Malcolm Desoto on February 26, 2008 at 6:25 pm

    This seems really easy to do but I can’t, for the life of me, remember how to do it.

    I have three 3D layers:

    1: frame
    2: Talent
    3: BG
    I have a 3D camera that slowly rotates by the frame.

    I want the frame to conceal talent and bg near the edges.

    I can’t remember how to make the frame a mask. I don’t want to animate a mask on the BG to keep them from popping out from behind the frame. That doesn’t seem necessary.

    Could some one jog my memory here?

    Thanks.

    Darby Edelen replied 18 years, 6 months ago 4 Members · 7 Replies
  • 7 Replies
  • Darby Edelen

    February 26, 2008 at 6:37 pm

    I’m not quite clear on what you’re trying to accomplish. Are you just trying to create a frame with a mask or are you trying to limit the lower layers to the ‘frame’ defined by the upper layer?

    Darby Edelen
    Designer
    Left Coast Digital
    Santa Cruz, CA

  • Steve Roberts

    February 26, 2008 at 6:43 pm

    Search the AE help for Track Matte?

  • Malcolm Desoto

    February 26, 2008 at 6:45 pm

    I want the frame to conceal everything behind it except for the BG, as the camera rotates around.

    cam

    “The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.” –Albert Einstein

  • Jeremy Allen

    February 27, 2008 at 12:36 am

    So you want the 3d layers to show through the frame, like a picture? I can think of a couple different ways..

    1. mask each layer individually with a layer mask.
    2. place the “bg” layer between the frame and 3d layers, using a mask set to subtract to act as a hole in the background. Does that make sense? If only the camera is moving and not the layers, that should work..

  • Darby Edelen

    February 27, 2008 at 10:20 pm

    Pre-comp your 3D layers, enable collapse transformations on the pre-comp then use your frame (or another solid layer) as an alpha track matte for the pre-comp.

    Darby Edelen
    Designer
    Left Coast Digital
    Santa Cruz, CA

  • Malcolm Desoto

    February 28, 2008 at 3:30 pm

    Yeah, that’s what I thought Darby. I just couldn’t get it to look right.

    “The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.” –Albert Einstein

  • Darby Edelen

    February 29, 2008 at 1:17 am

    [malcolm man] “Yeah, that’s what I thought Darby. I just couldn’t get it to look right. “

    I’m still not sure I know exactly what you want it to look like. The technique I described could be used to do a sort of a “Through the Looking Glass” effect where there appears to be a 3D space contained on/inside a 2D plane.

    Darby Edelen
    Designer
    Left Coast Digital
    Santa Cruz, CA

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