Masking question

[WulfstanDesign]

I'm a newbie playing around with some of the stuff I've learnt, so sorry if this is a simple thing. I made a piece that basically is a door scene with a mask applied to the door. I've added a fure effect to the door, that changes to a spooky scene. That works all ok, but I have an issue with the mask. At the moment I'm just using a static background image to keep things simple. The mask is applied, but it's just there as a solid shape, how do I get it to fade in after a few seconds, revealing the flames? 

[DigitalSpatula]

Hi

Can you post a screenshot so we can see visually what you are trying to do? FTI, there are opacity settings for masks that you can animate to reveal things, or you can precomp a mask and its masked layer.

Thx,

Steve

[WulfstanDesign]

Hi Steve,

Noy sure if this is a messy way of doing it, but I did work out a solution in the end. Basically I made a layer that contained a copy of the master image, setting it's duration to 3s, applied a mask to it that fades out, revealing the layer below. It works but pretty certain it's a "hack job" 🙂 

[Rick Gerard]

Animate the opacity of the mask or animate the opacity of the layer. The proper technique depends on how you set up the comp. 

This is really basic stufff. You shold probably spend a couple of hours with the User Guide. It will save you a lot of time.

[WulfstanDesign]

Many thanks. I'll take a look. I've been self learning and as usual it's inspired me to come up with ideas, but not how to achieve them 🙂