Animating Mask Anchor points any work round?

[Struan Farquhar]

sorry that’s a poor explanation on my part. I want to move the masks around with the orbs. For example if an orb moved around, the masks would move along with it. but I’m trying to parent the mask to the orb so that I don’t have to re-animate if I change the movement of the orb.

“where’s the movement? give it some movement, you always need movement… and up the depth of field”

[Barend Onneweer]

You can’t just parent a mask to anything (other than through elaborate scripting) but you can parent the layer that the mask is on.

But if you explain what you’re trying to do with the mask – we might come up with a better solution.

Barend

Raamw3rk – digital storytelling and visual effects

[Struan Farquhar]

Thank you very much for your help.

what I’m trying to do is have the orbs moving around in sporadic patterns across the floor layer. As they move they reveal the floor layer directly beneath them as if the orbs are the light source.

the mask for each orb is on the floor layer. I could animate each mask path for each orb but it is likely I will have to make changes and re animate all the paths.

I could set up a light to each orb so that it follows it around as it moves. However I’m not sure if I have enough RAM to handle all the lights.

Thank you again for the help.

“where’s the movement? give it some movement, you always need movement… and up the depth of field”

[Barend Onneweer]

Depending on the details of the project, could you set it up so all the orbs are animated in one composition – which would then be placed on top of your ‘floor’ layer?

If you do this, you can set the ‘orb’ layer as a matte for the floor layer.

From what I can tell of your screenshot it could work like this:

You animate all your orbs in comp “Orb Animation”.

You place “Orb Animation” on top of your floor layer.

Duplicate the “Orb Animation” layer and use it as an alpha track matte for the floor layer. This layer is automatically to invisible – but it’s alpha is now transferred to the layer below.

Now your floor layer is only visible where the orbs are – so they might be obscured by the top orb layer. You’ll want to expand and blur the track matte. One way to do that is add an ‘outer glow’ layer style to it.

Hope this helps,

Barend

Raamw3rk – digital storytelling and visual effects

[Struan Farquhar]

That does the job Perfectly, exactly the effect i wanted to get and also tidies up the final comp. Brilliant, Thank you.

“where’s the movement? give it some movement, you always need movement… and up the depth of field”