Problem With Mask Changing Borders

Hi guys,

Thank you both for jumping in!

As per your reccomendations, I started to create some of the elements all over again. So far, it seems it's working fine. The only difficulty I'm having is twisting the index finger a little when the hand is moving, because I'm still not good enough at manipulating the mask shape points according to my will.

@Rick Gerard I would love to try filling the buttons with color using the method you suggested, but could you please explain in a bit more detail how I should apply the color expression and which expression exactly do you refer to? Also, I'm a bit confused how I would apply the expression on the masked hand shape (at least that's what I figured when you wrote I should move the anchor point below the index finger), yet still the color of the buttons would be changed? Can you give me a video reference for what you mean?

Nik

I would give the workflow in that tutorial a D. Using an image to trace a mask is OK, but animating a path to move the hand around the frame instead of animating the hand's position, rotation, and even scale is a more efficient approach. Animating layer position first will give you more freedom in animating the fingers to give the animation a more professional look.

My recommended workflow.

1. Load your template footage of a hand into the timeline
2. Use the Pen tool to create a shape layer path above the footage of the hand
3. If you want the position of the fingers to change over time, animate the shape layer path now or later.
4. Set the hand footage layer as a guide layer, then turn it off just in case you need to look at it again
5. Use the Pan-Behind/Anchor Point tool to move the Anchor Point of the shape layer to the center of rotation for your hand layer.
6. Spin down the Transform properties of the shape layer hand and set keyframes for position, rotation, and scale to move the hand into the frame and click the buttons.
7. When you have the fundamental movement done, you can easily add a couple of keyframes to the shape layer to make the hand more realistic.

I also have issues with the way the keyboard was created. It took more layers and more time than necessary. The entire keyboard could be on one Shape layer if you use groups and repeaters. If you put the anchor point under the finger, you can use the position of the hand layer to drive an expression to turn on the fill color for any of the keyboard shapes without setting any additional keyframes.

Don't accept tutorials you find on YouTube as gospel. Most of them are prepared by enthusiasts, and only a few are much more than simple recipes that can be easily improved. 

Your anchor point for the layer is far off in space at 17000+ pixels, so all your values are mucked up. The rest is unclear. You're showing us everything, but never the actual solid for the hand selected in the project window, so we can't verify any of its properties. Anyway, in such situations it's simply best to create a new solid and start over. takes just as much time as resetting everything and deleting the keyframes.

Mylenium