Mask animation via expressions

[Dan Ebberts]

You’re correct – expressions can’t access mask vertices. You can do it with a script though.

Dan

[Shannon]

Hi Dan,

Is it possible to script a keyframable controller, such as the “point control”, for the translation of mask vertices?

[Dan Ebberts]

Sure, but you’d have to rerun the script any time you made a change to the controler. You’d keyframe the point control to the values you wanted and then run the script to set the position of the mask vertex to the same values.

Dan

[Christopher R. green]

Hi.
Before you do a lot of unnecessary work, I might have what you want. It’s been about ready for release, but it only works:
1) with one vertex at a time (but you can do one after another, over and over again if you want)
2) with either one layer (mask and two-dimensional point value selected), or two layers that are identical in their geometrical properties and are in their default positions and anchor points

and it has only been tested on 6.5, on osx.
It’s also a little tricky if you’re not used to selecting specific properties (a friend of mine had a hard time isolating his mask and position selections, and the script needs to see specific selections to work) — and I’ve been trying to think of a way to improve upon the interface scheme (ae7 probably makes it easier).

I’ve been wanting to make it a bit more intelligent, so that at the very least it warns you if your layers are different or if things aren’t where they should be, but it’s non-distructive and undoable and obvious is something is amiss.

Let me know if you want to test it out.

[Colin Braley]

I would like a chance to test something like that out if you don’t mind. If you want, post a link to the script here or emailing it to me at cbraley11 at aol.com would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

~Colin

[Christopher R. green]

Well, scamper on over to the directory below and download the script.
Feel free to look at the qt movie in that directory, too, which gives a simple illustration of how the script can be used …

https://www.crgreen.com/vertexscript/

please, GIVE FEEDBACK.

Thanks

[Christopher R. green]

[crgreen] “, or two layers that are identical in their geometrical properties and are in their default positions and anchor points”

My apologies; this is a misstatement. The main thing is that the layer with the mask should be the size of the comp and have its default geometrics values.
I hope this makes sense.
I’m putting another movie with an animated mask effect example in that directory. It should be there shortly.

-cg

[Colin Braley]

I like the script alot it’s good work that should open up some interesting possibilities with AE. If I think of any ideas or changes to add I’ll let you know.

~Colin

[Christopher R. green]

Colin,
Glad you like it. You on Mac or Windows?

shannon, I assume you found a different solution?

[Colin Braley]

I’m on Windows and the pallette looks just fine. I think the script is great… the only addition I think you could make would be add another button to the GUI calld “help” or something. This button could trigger a few alert() boxes that tell you how to use the script. Once again, geat work.
~Colin