masking a light layer and grading lights

[Todd Kopriva]

Regarding making lights less intense with greater distance from the source: This is usually called ‘light falloff’. Here is a Community Help search for ‘light falloff’ that pulls up a few pages with workarounds for simulating light falloff.

———————————————————————————————————
Todd Kopriva, Adobe Systems Incorporated
putting the ‘T’ back in ‘RTFM’ : After Effects Help on the Web
———————————————————————————————————

[Beatrix Snyman]

Hi there,

I’m still having problems with masking lights even after reading through these posts. Maybe I’m not understanding it clearly. Here is my scene:

I have a camera that is showing the inside of a hut, which I constructed in Photoshop. On the left is a doorway which is open. I’ve placed a spot light on the left to simulate a sun beam. But the beam is also falling on the doorway’s inside (which is incorrect). I’d like to mask the part of the spot light which is falling on the doorway. I’ve tried to make a shape layer and make a mask on that shape layer, copied that path of the mask and pasting it on the spotlights position layer. But that only takes out my whole light. I’ve even change my mask to “inverted”.

Help would be appreciated.

Thanks
Beatrix