[Todd Kopriva]

[Malcolm Man] “The way he does this is by simply copying the mask, and then pasting it into the Brush Position tab (CTRL + C, CTRL + V).”

You must copy the Mask Path property, not the whole mask.

————————————————————————————————–
Todd Kopriva, technical editor, Adobe Systems Incorporated
putting the ‘T’ back in ‘RTFM’ : After Effects Help on the Web
————————————————————————————————–
How about taking a survey about After Effects documentation? Please?
————————————————————————————————–

[Todd Kopriva]

I’d precompose the layer, add the rotation animation to the layer inside the precomposition, but add the mask to the precomposition layer. If you’ve already created the mask, just cut it from the layer inside the precomposition and paste it onto the precomposition layer.

Does that make sense?

For information on precomposing, see the “Nesting, precomposing, and pre-rendering” section of After Effects Help.

CreativeCOW also has many articles related to the subject by clicking on the following link…

https://library.creativecow.net/search.php?q=precompos

————————————————————————————————–
Todd Kopriva, technical editor, Adobe Systems Incorporated
putting the ‘T’ back in ‘RTFM’ : After Effects Help on the Web
————————————————————————————————–
How about taking a survey about After Effects documentation? Please?
————————————————————————————————–

[Todd Kopriva]

The behavior that you’re seeing is essentially because of the order of operations in rendering.

Within each raster (non-vector) layer, elements are applied in the following order: masks, effects, transformations, and layer styles. For continuously rasterized vector layers (which includes text layers), transformations occur before masks and effects.

By precomposing as you have described, you can force the effect the be rendered before the transformation.

For more information, see the “Render order and collapsing transformations” or “About nesting and precomposing” section of After Effects Help.

————————————————————————————————–
Todd Kopriva, technical editor, Adobe Systems Incorporated
putting the ‘T’ back in ‘RTFM’ : After Effects Help on the Web
————————————————————————————————–
How about taking a survey about After Effects documentation? Please?
————————————————————————————————–

[Todd Kopriva]

View > Reset 3D View

————————————————————————————————–
Todd Kopriva, technical editor, Adobe Systems Incorporated
putting the ‘T’ back in ‘RTFM’ : After Effects Help on the Web
————————————————————————————————–
How about taking a survey about After Effects documentation? Please?
————————————————————————————————–

[Todd Kopriva]

You can use the keyboard shortcut editor script from Jeff Almasol, which is posted on Adobe Exchange.

————————————————————————————————–
Todd Kopriva, technical editor, Adobe Systems Incorporated
putting the ‘T’ back in ‘RTFM’ : After Effects Help on the Web
————————————————————————————————–
How about taking a survey about After Effects documentation? Please?
————————————————————————————————–

[Todd Kopriva]

BTW, this might belong more on the expressions forum. I don’t know if the expressions masters check this forum as much.

————————————————————————————————–
Todd Kopriva, technical editor, Adobe Systems Incorporated
putting the ‘T’ back in ‘RTFM’ : After Effects Help on the Web
————————————————————————————————–
How about taking a survey about After Effects documentation? Please?
————————————————————————————————–

[Todd Kopriva]

I think that Daniel was asking about how to wiggle in only one direction, not along only one dimension.

Daniel, in your specific example, you ask about wiggling in the positive direction from 5, to range from 5 to 11. My first thought is this: Why not wiggle around a value of 8 with a magnitude of 3, which would give you a range from 5 to 11?

However, if you need to have your base value be 5, then this will work (on a property whose value is 5):

frequency=100; // …or whatever frequency you want
amplitude=6;
value+Math.abs(value-wiggle(frequency,amplitude))

The only trick here is the Math.abs method, which is a standard JavaScript method for the absolute value. The absolute value of a number is its distance from zero, so it basically just strips the negative sign off of negative numbers.

There is a slight difference between using this approach and just wiggling around 8 with a magnitude of 3; basically, the approach using the absolute value will have some sharper transitions “bouncing” off the 5 value.

I hope that this helps.

————————————————————————————————–
Todd Kopriva, technical editor, Adobe Systems Incorporated
putting the ‘T’ back in ‘RTFM’ : After Effects Help on the Web
————————————————————————————————–
How about taking a survey about After Effects documentation? Please?
————————————————————————————————–

[Todd Kopriva]

Go forward 1 frame:
Page Down or Ctrl+Right Arrow (Windows) or Command+Right Arrow (Mac OS)

Go backward 1 frame:
Page Up or Ctrl+Left Arrow (Windows) or Command+Left Arrow (Mac OS)

For more shortcuts like these, see the “Shortcuts for time navigation” section of After Effects Help.

————————————————————————————————–
Todd Kopriva, technical editor, Adobe Systems Incorporated
putting the ‘T’ back in ‘RTFM’ : After Effects Help on the Web
————————————————————————————————–
How about taking a survey about After Effects documentation? Please?
————————————————————————————————–

[Todd Kopriva]

You can toggle the visibility of all layer controls—which includes mask and shape paths—by pressing Ctrl+Shift+H (Windows) or Command+Shift+H (Mac OS).

For more information, see “Show or hide layer controls in the Composition panel”. If the Help document doesn’t contain the information that you need, or if you’d like to add a tip of your own, leave a comment using the link at the bottom of any Help page.

————————————————————————————————–
Todd Kopriva, technical editor, Adobe Systems Incorporated
putting the ‘T’ back in ‘RTFM’ : After Effects Help on the Web
————————————————————————————————–
How about taking a survey about After Effects documentation? Please?
————————————————————————————————–

[Todd Kopriva]

[Nelson] “I’ve got to admit – AE’s User Guide and help menu incorrectly or at least inadequately cover this – they both say you can copy the mask, they don’t point out that you need to highlight the mask shape property in order to paste it.”

Step 1 of the procedure in the “Create a motion path from a mask, shape, or paint path” section of After Effects CS3 Help says this:

“Select a Path property in the Timeline panel, and choose Edit > Copy.”

Is that not explicit enough? If you have a suggestion for how to improve Help, please add a comment by clicking the Add Comment button at the bottom of the page of Help on the Web.

————————————————————————————————–
Todd Kopriva, technical editor, Adobe Systems Incorporated
putting the ‘T’ back in ‘RTFM’ : After Effects Help on the Web
————————————————————————————————–
How about taking a survey about After Effects documentation? Please?
————————————————————————————————–