Not able to easy ease correctly without moving the mask in pan behind tool

[alexander_3462]

Hey everybody, I'm a beginner and I recently discovered the pan behind a mask tool. Works fine so far, but the animation behind the mask looks very stiff. When I try to make it smoother in graph editor, both mask and element start to move. Does anyone know what i am doing wrong here? Thank you!

[ShiveringCactus]

The Pan Behind tool animates the Anchor property of a layer, so I'd expect to see the layer move.  

Are you trying to leave the mask in place but have the image move through it?  If so, use a second layer for your image and set its track matte to the layer with the mask.  This will turn off visibility of the mask layer but cut out the shape from the image layer.  You can then animate the image layer to move and the mask will remain in place.

[alexander_3462]

Hi ShiveringCactus, thank you for your response. I am bassically trying this. At 2:20 he easy eases the animation behind the mask, but in mine it moves everything up and down...

[Rick Gerard]

The Pan Behind/Anchor Point tool (y), moves the anchor point of the selected layer. If you have set keyframes, you get a path, but you must open the layer in the Layer Panel and select Anchor Point to edit the path. 

You can use the Graph Editor set to Speed instead of Value to adjust the easing directly in the timeline. The Value graph is almost unusable for any kind of time changes and should not be used for any position or anchor point (x, y, z) property editing. That is what the Layer view is for.

Without seeing your timeline I can't give you specific instructions but maybe this tutorial will help:

[alexander_3462]

Hi Rick Gerard, thank you for your response! I am bassically trying this. At 2:20 he easy eases the animation behind the mask, but in mine it moves everything up and down...

[Rick Gerard]

Try this workflow:

1. Select the layer with the mask and then press Alt/Option + m and Alt/Option + p to set starting or ending keyframes for both properties on the same frame.
2. Press the 'u' key to reveal both the Mask and Position keyframes so they are the only properties visible in the timeline
3. Move down the timeline to the next position
4. Select the Pan Behind/Anchor Point tool (y)
5. With the layer selected, click in the Comp Panel and move the layer to its new position (the mask should not move)
6. Select all keyframes and press F9 (or Function + F9 if your keyboard has a function key) to Easy Ease both keyframes
7. With both the Mask and Positions highlighted, open the graph editor
8. Make sure the Speed Graph is selected in the Graph Editor 
9. Place the CTI (current time indicator) somewhere between the keyframes
10. With the Selection Tool active (v) drag a selection around all of the keyframes so you see a box around everything
11. Click and drag on one of the handles for the speed graph, making sure you stay at the bottom of the graph and observe the position of the mask
12. If you have successfully selected all keyframes inside the graph editor and not moved up or down, the mask should not move

The tutorial misses and fails to emphasize steps eleven and twelve.

[alexander_3462]

Hi Rick Gerard, thank you for your help!! I used thepixelsmith's solution with the shape layer, and it worked.

[thepixelsmith · Accepted solution]

I watched the tutorial you linked.

It's probably the worst way of doing that type of animation.

A way with less keyframes and I'd argue less trouble would be to use a Track Matte.

This is a turtorial for that: https://youtu.be/I5aqP_cn4J8?si=AwT1bc8Haa4pnFRI

[alexander_3462]

Hi thepixelsmith, this worked perfectly, thank you so much!!!