Help! Particles and Masks

[flashyx]

Hi guys / gurls,

Im having difficulty masking particles.

This is what ive done:

1) I have particles attached to a solid

2) I pre-comped it all

3) I've used a pen too to mask out a shape

I end up with it masked however it's just the bounding box and not the pen shape! How do I fix this?

[Mylenium]

Is this even a mask and not a shape layer on top of the particles? The blue color is suspicious, as rthe default mask color is pale red. Everything else will require better info like an actual full screenshot of the timeline and comp with the settings revealed. Cropped images of the comp only are pretty much useless for diagnosing such issues. And of course other things liek system info and so on may also be relevant.

Mylenium

[ShiveringCactus · Accepted solution]

Unfortunately effects like CC Particle World cannot be masked directly, but you can use an Alpha Matte with a mask. 

I would have thought using a pre-comp should have worked, but I haven't tried that myself.  Its possible Collapse Transformations is activated.

[flashyx]

Thank you so much! The Alpha Matt worked a treat! so glad you showed me 🙂

[Jeremy26732689ipl8]

Can you share how this is done? I have a very similiar thing. I have a still of an coastal scene. I'm using particles to send th particles horizontal across the image. I'd like to have them only show where the waves are breaking in the white foam. to make the waves look like they're moving. - thanks in advance. Jeremy

[ShiveringCactus]

Can you post a still frame, it might be easier for me to show than describe