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Adobe after effects cs6 masking tutorial free
You can release the key before you complete the drag operation.
Adobe after effects cs6 masking tutorial free.Photoshop Latest Features Update History (1988-2022)
Polyline applies the algorithm for mask paths that have only straight segments. To delete a vertex from a mask, use the Delete Vertex tool to click the vertex. You can create a mask by dragging with a shape tool on a selected layer in the Composition panel or Layer panel. For a path imported from Photoshop to be scaled correctly, the Photoshop document must have a resolution of 72 dpi.
Photoshop Latest Features Update History (Present).How to use the Pen tool to create masks
You can select shape layers and their components at any of four levels of selection, referred to as selection modes :. Layer selection mode. The entire shape layer is selected. Transformations apply to the transform properties for the layer, in the Transform property group that is at the same level as the Contents property group.
Group selection mode. An entire shape group is selected. Transformations apply to the transform properties for the group, in the Transform property group within the shape group in the Timeline panel. Free-transform mode. Multiple vertices on one or more Bezier paths are selected.
A free-transform bounding box is shown around the vertices in the Composition panel. By operating on this box, you can move multiple vertices with a single transformation. Transformations apply to the vertices themselves, which are contained within the Path property in the Timeline panel. Path-editing mode. Only vertices are selected. In this mode, you can perform path-editing operations, such as adding vertices to a path and moving individual vertices. When a pen tool is active, path-editing mode is active.
Layer selection B. Group selection C. Free-transform D. Path editing. For information on selecting masks, see Select masks, segments, and vertices. Press again to select all shapes. Press again to select all layers.
Unlike layers, masks can have more than one level of selection. You can select a mask as a whole path, which is appropriate when you want to move or resize a mask. However, if you want to change the path of a mask, select one or more points on it. Selected points appear solid, and unselected points appear hollow. You can select only whole masks in the Timeline panel. To select individual vertices on a mask, use the Composition or Layer panel. Locking a mask prevents you from selecting it in the Timeline, Composition, and Layer panels or setting it as a target in the Layer panel.
Use this feature to avoid unwanted changes to the mask. You can scale and rotate an entire mask or shape path or selected vertices in one or more paths using the Free Transform Points command.
When you use this command, a free-transform bounding box surrounds the selected vertices, and an anchor point appears in the center of the bounding box to mark the anchor point for the current transformation. You can scale and rotate the selected vertices by dragging the bounding box or its handles.
You can also change the reference point from which the vertices are rotated or scaled by moving the bounding box anchor point. The free-transform bounding box handles and anchor point exist independently of the handles and anchor point for the layer. When you animate rotation using Free Transform Points, the vertices of the mask are interpolated in a straight line from keyframe to keyframe. For this reason, the results may be different from what you expect.
You can convert any manual Bezier mask path or manual Bezier shape path to a RotoBezier path. If the manual Bezier path has direction handles that have been adjusted, this conversion changes the shape of the path, because After Effects calculates the curvature of RotoBezier segments automatically.
The conversion of a RotoBezier path to a manual Bezier path does not change the shape of the path. You can change a Bezier mask path using the Selection tool and pen tools in the Layer or Composition panel.
You can change a Bezier shape path using the Selection tool and pen tools in the Composition panel. To reveal these tools in the Tools panel, click and hold the Pen tool in the Tools panel. In most cases, the appropriate pen tool becomes active when you place the Pen tool pointer in a particular context.
For example, the Delete Vertex tool becomes active when you place the Pen tool pointer over an existing vertex, and the Add Vertex tool becomes active when you place the Pen tool pointer over a path segment. To manually activate and cycle through these tools, press G. When modifying a path, make sure that you click only existing vertices or segments; otherwise, you may create a new path instead.
The Adjust Tension pointer appears as you drag a vertex of the RotoBezier mask. Dragging up or to the right decreases the tension of the selection, increasing the curve of adjacent path segments; dragging down or to the left increases the tension of the selection, decreasing the curve of adjacent path segments.
To animate a path, After Effects designates the topmost vertex at the initial keyframe as the first vertex and numbers each successive vertex in ascending order from the first vertex. After Effects then assigns the same numbers to the corresponding vertices at all successive keyframes. After Effects interpolates the movement of each vertex from its initial position at one keyframe to the position of the correspondingly numbered vertex at the next keyframe.
At any time during an animation, you can designate another vertex as the first vertex; this causes After Effects to renumber the vertices of the path. Renumbering vertices causes path animation to change, because After Effects then maps the new vertex numbers to the corresponding old vertex numbers still saved at successive keyframes. When copying a closed path into a motion path, the vertex designated as the first vertex of the closed path is used as the beginning of the motion path.
All motion paths are open paths. Some shape path operations, such as Trim Paths, also use the first vertex as input to determine how to modify the path. By default, when you add a vertex to a path, the new vertex appears on the path throughout the duration of the path but reshapes the path only at the time at which it was added.
When you delete a vertex from a path at a specific point in time, the vertex is deleted from the path throughout the duration of the path. The vertex designated as the first vertex appears slightly larger than the other vertices in the Composition panel.
Smart Mask Interpolation provides a high level of control for creating mask path keyframes and smooth, realistic animation. After you select the mask path keyframes to interpolate, Smart Mask Interpolation creates intermediate keyframes based on settings you provide. The Info panel displays the progress of the interpolation and the number of keyframes created.
To interrupt the interpolation process, press Esc. The Info panel indicates that the process has been interrupted and reports the number of keyframes created. Keyframe Rate. Specifies the number of keyframes that Smart Mask Interpolation creates per second between the selected keyframes.
Choose Auto to set the keyframe rate equal to the composition frame rate, which appears in parentheses. Create more keyframes for smoother animation; create fewer keyframes to reduce render time. Regardless of the keyframe rate you choose, Smart Mask Interpolation always adds keyframes at the frame just after the first mask path keyframe and at the frame just before the second mask path keyframe.
For example, if you interpolate between keyframes at 0 seconds and 1 second in a fps composition with a keyframe rate of 10 keyframes per second, mask path keyframes are added at frame numbers 1, 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18, 21, 24, 27, and Keyframe Fields. Doubles the keyframe rate. When this option is selected, and Keyframe Rate is set to the composition frame rate, a keyframe is added at each video field.
Select this option for animated masking for interlaced video. If this option is not selected, the mask may slip off the object that you are attempting to key out. For more information about fields in interlaced video, see Interlaced video and separating fields. Use Linear Vertex Paths.
Specifies that vertices in the first keyframe move along a straight path to their corresponding vertices in the second keyframe. Leave this option unselected if you want some vertices to interpolate along curved paths; for example, when the desired interpolation involves rotating parts. If this option is not selected, Smart Mask Interpolation creates a natural path for the mask.
Bending Resistance. Specifies how susceptible the interpolated mask path is to bending instead of stretching. A value of 0 specifies that, as the mask path animates, it bends more than it stretches; a value of specifies that the mask path stretches more than it bends. Specifies how strictly Smart Mask Interpolation matches vertices from one keyframe to another. A value of 0 specifies that a particular vertex in the first keyframe matches only the same-numbered vertex in the second keyframe.
For example, the tenth vertex in the first keyframe must match the tenth vertex in the second keyframe. A value of means that a vertex in the first keyframe can potentially match any vertex in the second keyframe. Higher values usually yield better interpolations; however, the higher the value, the longer the processing time.
Add Mask Path Vertices. Specifies that Smart Mask Interpolation adds vertices to facilitate quality interpolations. In general, Smart Mask Interpolation works best when the mask paths have dense sets of vertices. Also, a vertex on the first mask path cannot match the middle of a curve or straight-line segment on the second mask path, so sometimes you must add vertices before matching to produce the desired result.
Smart Mask Interpolation does not modify the original keyframes. Only the new mask path keyframes computed by Smart Mask Interpolation have additional vertices. The value you set specifies how finely the input mask paths are subdivided. Pixels Between Vertices specifies the distance, in pixels, between vertices on the larger perimeter mask path after subdivision.
Total Vertices specifies the number of vertices on the interpolated mask paths. Percentage Of Outline specifies that a vertex is added at each indicated percent of the mask path outline length.
To use only the vertices that were on the path at the first frame, do not select this option. Smart Mask Interpolation may add vertices at existing vertex locations even if Add Mask Path Vertices is not selected. If two vertices on one mask path match a single vertex on the other, the single vertex is duplicated at the same location so that the segment between the two vertices shrinks to that location.
Matching Method. Specifies the algorithm that Smart Mask Interpolation uses to match vertices on one mask path to vertices on the other. Auto applies the matching algorithm for curves if either of the two selected keyframes has a curved segment; otherwise, it applies the polylines algorithm. Curve applies the algorithm for mask paths that have curved segments. Polyline applies the algorithm for mask paths that have only straight segments. The mask path keyframes added by Smart Mask Interpolation are polylines when Polyline Matching Method is selected, regardless of whether the input mask paths contained curved segments.
Use Vertex Matches. Specifies that Smart Mask Interpolation creates a vertex on one mask path that matches the same-numbered vertex on the other mask path. On each of the input mask paths, Smart Mask Interpolation matches the first vertices, the second vertices, the third vertices, and so forth. If the two paths have unequal numbers of vertices, this action may produce undesirable results. First Vertices Match. Specifies that Smart Mask Interpolation matches the first vertices in the two mask path keyframes.
If not selected, Smart Mask Interpolation searches for the best first-vertex match between the two input mask paths. To ensure good results, make sure that the first vertices of the input mask paths match, and then select First Vertices Match. You can adjust the area that is visible through a mask by either moving the mask in the Layer or Composition panel or panning moving the layer behind the mask in the Composition panel.
When you move a mask, the Position values of the masked layer remain constant, and the mask moves in relation to other objects in the Composition panel. When you use the Pan Behind Anchor Point tool to pan a layer behind a mask, the position of the mask remains constant in the Composition panel but changes in the Layer panel. The Position values of the masked layer change in relation to the composition. As you pan past the edges of the layer frame, the Mask Path values on the layer also change.
Using the Pan Behind Anchor Point tool saves steps; without it, you would have to change the Position and Mask Path properties of the masked layer manually. You can animate a layer panning behind another layer by setting keyframes for the Position and Mask Path properties of the masked layer. You can use the mask tracker to transform a mask so that it follows the motion of an object or objects in a movie. For more information, see Mask Tracking.
You can also use the mask tracker to accurately detect and track human faces. For more information, see Face Tracking.
You can use expressions to read and write the x and y coordinates of path points, or vertices for:. The expression methods are similar to accessing path vertices via scripting. The expression method is named points instead of vertices for familiarity. Once you create a solid, create a mask.
Click Shape tool, for example, a polygon, and create a mask over the solid layer. In the Timeline panel, twirl open the Mask properties and alt-click Mask Path. The expression field is displayed. In the Timeline panel, click the Expression language menu and choose Path Property. To learn more about the expression methods, see Expression access to paths points on shapes, masks, and brush strokes expression reference. Create Nulls From Paths scriptUI panel allows you to create intuitive animations driven by expressions, without manually writing expressions.
You can directly link different paths to shapes, shapes to solids, etc. The Create Nulls From Paths panel uses expression access to path points to automatically link the nulls, so that you don’t have to write the expression yourself.
The panel creates nulls for each path point on a mask path or Bezier shape path. You can use the following buttons in the panel to direct how the nulls perform:. Add a shape mask to the layer. The panel works with Bezier shapes, so all the parametric shapes such as rectangle, ellipse, and star, must be converted to a Bezier shape. To convert a parametric shape to Bezier shape, twirl open the shape layer and right-click the shape path for example, Rectangle 1 , and select Convert To Bezier Path.
Every Bezier shape and mask has a path. In the Timeline panel, twirl open the layers to view the paths. If you want nulls to follow path points, select a path in the Timeline panel, and click Nulls Follow Points in the Create Nulls from Paths panel. The script generates a null for every point on the path. You can delete any nulls you don’t need. When you convert a parametric shape to a Bezier shape, After Effects adjusts the Position property of the shape. This causes an offset when the position of the nulls is calculated.
To avoid the issue, set the value of the Transform property of a shape such as Transform: Ellipse 1 to zero before creating nulls. If you want the path points to follow nulls, select a path in the Timeline panel. Placing the Pen tool B. Starting to drag mouse button pressed C.
Dragging to extend direction lines. Starting to drag B. Dragging away from previous direction line, creating a C curve C. Result after releasing mouse button. Dragging in same direction as previous direction line, creating an S curve C. Use Create Shapes From Text to extract the outlines for each character, create shapes from the outlines, and put the shapes on a new shape layer. You can then use these shapes as you would any other shapes. Use Create Masks From Text to extract the outlines for each character, create masks from the outlines, and puts the masks on a new solid-color layer.
You can then use these masks as you would any other masks. Some font families, such as Webdings, include characters that are graphical images, rather than text. Converting text from these font families can be a good way to get started with simple graphical elements in shape layers.
You can copy a path from Illustrator or Photoshop and paste it into After Effects as a mask path or shape path. For a path imported from Photoshop to be scaled correctly, the Photoshop document must have a resolution of 72 dpi. You can also use a copied Illustrator or Photoshop path as an After Effects motion path. See Create a motion path from a mask, shape, or paint path for more information.
To paste a path as a shape path, you must select the Path property of an existing shape in a shape layer. If there is no Path property—perhaps because the shape layer is empty—then you can draw a placeholder path with the Pen tool and then paste the path from Illustrator into the placeholder path. If you paste multiple paths into a shape path, the first path goes into the shape path, and the remaining paths are pasted into new mask paths.
When you create mask paths or shape paths from motion paths, make sure that you copy keyframes from a single Position property only—do not copy the keyframes of any other property. To create a shape layer, press F2 to deselect all layers, then click in the Composition panel with the Pen tool to create a single-point Bezier path. To do it, see Create a mask from a motion path. When a shape group is selected in group selection mode, you can duplicate the group while moving, rotating, or scaling it in the Composition panel.
The pointer changes to a duplication pointer or as you hold the key and place the pointer near the group transform box. Legal Notices Online Privacy Policy. Buy now. User Guide Cancel. Convert Vector Art Footage to Shape. Not all features of Illustrator files are currently preserved. Examples include: opacity, images, and gradients.
Files with thousands of paths may import slowly without feedback. The menu command works on a single selected layer at a time. If you import an Illustrator file as a composition multiple layers , you cannot convert all those layers in one pass. However, you can import the file as footage, and then use the command to convert the single footage layer to shapes. Create a shape dragging with shape tools.
To activate and cycle through the shape tools, press Q. To cancel the drawing operation, press Esc. Draw rectangles, rounded rectangles, squares, and rounded squares. Select the Rectangle tool or the Rounded Rectangle tool , and do one of the following: To draw a rectangle or rounded rectangle, drag diagonally. To draw a square or rounded square, Shift-drag diagonally.
Optional If drawing a rounded rectangle or rounded square, do the following before releasing the mouse button: To increase or decrease the corner roundness, press the Up arrow key or the Down arrow key, or roll the mousewheel forward or backward. To set corner roundness to the minimum or maximum, press the Left arrow key or the Right arrow key.
Draw ellipses and circles. Select the Ellipse tool , and do one of the following: To draw an ellipse, drag diagonally. To draw a circle, Shift-drag diagonally.
Release the mouse to finish drawing. If drawing a circle, release the Shift key after releasing the mouse button. Draw polygons and stars. Select the Polygon tool or the Star tool , and do one of the following: Drag to scale and rotate the polygon or star as you draw it.
Shift-drag to scale the polygon or star as you draw it, preventing rotation. Optional Do the following before releasing the mouse button: To add or remove points, press the Up arrow key or the Down arrow key, or roll the mouse wheel forward or backward. To increase or decrease the outer roundness, press the Left arrow key or the Right arrow key. To keep the inner radius of a star constant as you move the mouse to increase the outer radius, hold the Ctrl Windows or Command Mac OS key.
To increase or decrease the inner roundness of a star, press the Page Up key or the Page Down key. Create a Bezier shape or mask using the Pen tool. Create a manual Bezier path using the Pen tool. With the Pen tool selected and the RotoBezier option deselected in the Tools panel, click in the Composition panel where you want to place the first vertex. Click where you want to place the next vertex. To create a curved segment, drag the direction line handle to create the curve that you want.
Repeat step 2 until you are ready to complete the path. Complete the path by doing one of the following:.
To close the path, place the pointer over the first vertex and, when a closed circle icon appears next to the pointer , click the vertex. To leave the path open, activate a different tool, or press F2 to deselect the path. Draw straight manual Bezier path segments with the Pen tool. Place the Pen tool where you want the straight segment to begin, and click to place a vertex. Do not drag. Click again where you want the segment to end. Continue clicking to set vertices for additional straight segments.
Draw curved manual Bezier path segments with the Pen tool. Place the Pen tool where you want the curved segment to end, and do one of the following:. To create a C-shaped curve, drag in the direction opposite from the direction that you dragged the previous direction line, and then release the mouse button. To create an S-shaped curve, drag in the same direction as the previous direction line, and then release the mouse button.
Continue dragging the Pen tool from different locations to create a series of smooth curves. Create a shape of the size of the layer. Select the destination for the new shape:.
To create a shape on an existing shape layer, select the shape layer. To create a shape on a new shape layer with the dimensions of the composition, deselect all layers by pressing F2. To replace a shape path, select the shape path not the group in the Composition panel or Timeline panel. Create shapes from text characters. Select the text to convert to shapes:.
