scaling and repositioning an entire mask path animation.

Forum|Forum|3 years ago
February 5, 2023
3 replies
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I've run into an issue where I want to move a mask (with a mask-path animation) from one layer onto another.

This mask animation needs to be repositioned and rescaled on the new layer but I cannot seem to find how to do this without changing the Layer properties or by going through each keyframe and adjusting it accordingly, which is way too tedious.

Any help here would be greatly appreciated,

Thank you,

Error or problem

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R

Rick Gerard

Community Expert

You can duplicate your original layer with the mask or copy and paste the mask to a new layer. Open Window/Create Nulls From Paths. Select the mask path on the original layer and choose Points Follow Nulls. Select the mask path on the second layer, and select Points Follow Nulls.

Now the mask on the second layer will not animate but if you parent each Follow null to the corresponding Moving null, then add a new null to the timeline, move it to 0, 0 (the top left corner), then parent all of the Follow Nulls to the New Null, you can move the new null to move the mask, scale the new null to scale the mask, or even rotate the mask.

I've done this several times. I attached a project file with one of the masks tied to a null. You can follow the steps and tie the second mask to another null.

If you want to tear apart all of the expressions used in nulls follow points and points follow nulls, then combine them, you could probably come up with a single expression that you could add to a duplicate path and allow you move it around without all the fiddling.

move_maasks.zip