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Set Matte for scaled objects
I have a solution, but It isn’t efficient and I’m wondering if there are other ways.
I have a video layer that I’ve masked a person walking by that I will be using as a transition. The video is scaled because it’s RED 8k footage and my composition is 4K. Red’s footage is 4096×2160 when scaled, rather than 3840×2160, so some of the layer’s footage is off the left and right.
I then have a few items that are images. Those are scaled as well to all look similar size. Some are 50%, one is 20%, some are 25%.
So Set Matte doesn’t work without doing some things. I would LOVE something like Set ToComp Matte, like the expression you can write for position where you get the position from the comp rather than it’s actual position. And that’s basically what I make, but it’s not efficient.
I put a solid above each layer I want to set matte, then apply the set matte to that. Then use that as a layer matte. And repeat for every object you need masked. Oh, and you can’t write an expression for the layer to take a matte from, so if you need to change it later you have to find them all and change them manually, which further sucks. And yeah, you can precomp those objects, so you only have to do that once, but precomps make editing things much more annoying (unless Adobe wants to finally allow you to edit compositions “in place” so you can see the contents and how they relate to each other more easily, but I won’t hold my breath).
Is there some obvious way that I’m not thinking of to do this that Isn’t precomping?
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4 Replies
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Nope, no obvious way to do what you want. With Ae’s render order putting Effects before Transforms, Set Matte just doesn’t work the way pretty much everyone wants it to.
Workflower might be worth a look:
https://aescripts.com/workflower/ -
That’s a real bummer. I just ended up precomping both, but sometimes doing that is a huge pain in the butt, if you’ve got a lot of expressions going because then you have to update them all to point to a different composition.
I would precomp a Whole lot more if they just let you show the contents in place as well, making it much easier to understand time differences, easier pickwhips, etc.Thanks for letting me know, even though it’s sad news.
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You might look at using Essential Graphics to avoid having to pickwhip for expressions across comps.
https://helpx.adobe.com/after-effects/using/creating-motion-graphics-templates.html
https://www.schoolofmotion.com/blog/essential-graphics-panel
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Thanks for the tip. I do both, depending on what is needed. If you use essential graphics to push a setting, that setting is different for each instance.
Maybe a good example is color. I know I’m supposed to use purple for a color, but I’ve seen 5 different versions of it. Clearly the graphics team hasn’t chosen it yet. So I’ll add a color effect to an adjustment layer in my main timeline, next to a few other things like a checkbox for turning off effects that take a crazy long time to render, and whatever else I think I might need to change on multiple layers. At the end, I’ve got maybe 40 layers that use that purple color. I tie them all to that purple color. So then I just change the one color, and I’m done.
If I do that through essential graphics, I have to set up the color in essential graphics, Then add another expression to link that color to the master color. Useful in some cases, but in that example, unless I’ll be using the same precomp elsewhere with a unique color, then I’m better of linking that color to my main comp, right?
Pickwhip isn’t the biggest problem with precomps. The bigger issue I’ll run into is time. You can’t link the comp settings from one to another can you? So if I precomp, then later I change the length of my master comp because someone added a 5 second segment somewhere, now the precomp, which used to be the length of my comp, is now 5 seconds short. (one reason I’d love to edit precomps from within the other comp)
I do use nested comps frequently. But more often, paired with essential graphics needs, or for some shorter thing that’s only a few seconds long. Also, editing text in essential graphics in AE is so dumb. Why don’t we get an interface like Premiere!? I have to drop down the menu, right click on the item, and edit value? First off, Not intuitive at all. But also, if it’s the text of a text box you don’t get to see the line breaks until you’re done. I know you don’t work for Adobe. Just ranting because Adobe sucks So often. I think I find a unique reason Adobe sucks about 3 times a week. And for the people that say “you should tell them what to fix by using uservoice” I would point you to 2+ year old Bugs that have yet to even be acknowledged. I’ve even pointed out bugs before that they’ve fixed, then later broke again. It’s just not worth it. Remember the days when companies used to Give you the software to be a beta tester? Now, they don’t even fix things unless enough people Vote on it.
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