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use one layer as an alpha matte for many other layers
Hi,
I have a small problem here. Im doing a the post on a video tutorial where parts of the screen are supposed to be darkened at a defined time and then the mask should move to a different part of the screen.
It’s a really long tutorial and the mask is supposed to change very often.
So I’m asking you: is there a way to let many layers use one special layer as their alpha matte without the “Set Matte” effect?
Beacuse “Set Matte” works only if I pre-compose the layer but this would be very bad because I would need to switch very often between the master comp and the pre-comp to re-adjust the mask.Do you have any idea?
Thank you already -
4 Replies
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I´m not sure I understood what you want to do but why not use a solid with a mask?
Then you can lower the opacity of the solid (for example) and use a subtract mask where you want the visibility to 100%.
Then you can move it and keyframe the mask position and the layer´s transparency whenever you need.
Am I completly wrong here?
If I am I appologise.
Cheers.
ninguem
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Have you tried using the stencil alpha option in blending modes?
Lance
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Thanks guys,
well the stencil would affect all layers below which is not what I want.
I’ll try to explain it different.
Imagine you have three layers in a huge comp (not being near each other in the hirarchy) and all of them need the same alpha matte.
What would you do?
My idea was to make one matte named “mastermask” (just a solid with masks) and then apply the “set matte” effect on the three layers and tell them to use the alpha channel of the mastermask as their alpha matte.
But to do this I need to pre-comp the mastermask layer.
But doing so would mean you have to switch between this pre-comp and the main comp everytime you want to animate the mastermask.So what would you do?
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Dino
My immediate thought is there could well be an easy way to do this using expressions. I don’t know enough there to help.I personally would copy the 3 video tracks and paste them into your pre-comp. In the pre-comp animate the masks then turn the video layers off.
Then your main comp should have the correct timing for your animations.
Lance
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