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Complex PIPs with Borders by expressions
Hi,
on Dan Ebberts Expression site there is Expressions for linking horizontal and vertical lines to the boundaries of a composition to achieve a kind of crosshair/zoom effect without parenting or tweaking by hand.
Now I am planning to to something similar with framed compositions or “picture in pictures” lined up to each other moving in my main comp and also changing the pan of the comps with masks.
So to have the frames or lines on the sides of the comps lined up properly with expressions I need to use the comp-dimensions as well as the mask handles to calculate top/bottom/left/right. Is there any way to access the mask points of a rectangular mask with expressions for this??Thanks for any replies in advance,
Karim
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2 Replies
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I agree Dan or Filip over at expressions are the go to guys:
https://forums.creativecow.net/viewforum/227
Don’t fully understand what you want.
I hear that you can access the vertices or points of the new Shape in AE8, but not mask vertices? I haven’t used AE8 as I’m on AE6.5, so haven’t tested it and maybe it’s not functional until the release. If it works you could use the new Shapes in AE8, maybe with a mask on it.
You can access mask vertices with Da Script:
https://del.icio.us/escruz/Rotoscope
It was written for Roto work so it makes the mask points adhere to track points. But you can sub any keyframes in for the trackpoints, even Expressions converted to keyframes. Here is a link to add a wiggle expression to mask vertices, an expression converted to keyframes.
https://forums.creativecow.net/cgi-bin/new_read_post.cgi?forumid=2&postid=891545
As far as Dan’s expressions, are you talking about “Border Lines”, here:
https://www.motionscript.com/expressions-lab-ae65/table-of-contents.html
If so,I don’t quite understand you’re needing masks as Dan’s Borders us thin/long solid layers instead of masks with stroke.
I guess I don’t still really understand what you’re trying to do, the part about “changing the pan of the comps with masks”.
Can you just use another instance of Dan’s setup for the Pan, but the solid in the middle has a mask on it? If the mask is the same dimensions as the Solid, by selecting the solid then double clicking the Rectangular Mask Tool, then when you changed the size of the solid, you change the size of the mask. Can you use that mask for panning?
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No,
expressions cannot get or set the position of mask vertices.
I recommend you just precompose your footage, set smaller dimensions for that pre-comp, then simply pan – and scan in your precomp using anchorpoint and scale animations.
You can add a stroked fixed mask if you need an outline.
Does that fix it, or am I overlooking something that does need expressions ?
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