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Can I amke a null object follow a mask path?
Hello
I have a simple mask and I need to attach a null object to it so it can move it along the path without key framing every frame. Is there anyway to do that??
thanks in advance
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3 Replies
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Hi,
This works in AE 7 and CS3.
I’m not sure if this does what you need, but if the mask doesn’t animate, this seems to work. To test it out, I did a simple comp…
Create a solid and draw a mask in in. It can be open or closed. Select the mask shape and turn on it’s animating property. Copy that data to the clipboard (Command-C) Add a null and hit “P” to bring up it’s position property. Turn on the Position animation property. Paste (Command-V) the data into it.
The Null’s position animates over a two second range (at least in my case.) You can modify this by Option pulling on the last keyframe.
If you try this on an animated mask, the movement gets pretty wacky and I’m not sure it would be useful, but it might be worth experimenting with.
Unfortunately this doesn’t seem to provide a way to dynamically modify the Null’s movement depending on the shape of the mask. I suppose it might be possible with a bit of expression code, but I’m not sure if it could be done.
Hope this helps.
Lars
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[Lars Bunch] “I suppose it might be possible with a bit of expression code, but I’m not sure if it could be done.”
Unfortunately you cannot access information about a mask’s shape through expressions. Scripts, however, can access this information.
Darby Edelen
Lead Designer
Left Coast Digital
Santa Cruz, CA -
Very thank you, Lars. That’s what I’m looking for.
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