Move vertexes of a mask around

[ethandale]

So I managed to do it on accident earlier, but now, whenever I click and drag on vertex points of my mask, it just moves the entire thing. How can I move each point individually to follow a complex shape? Thanks.

[dj.summitt]

To select a vertex, click the vertex with the Selection tool. To add vertices to the selection, Shift-click. Sometimes, I will drag a selection box around the vertex to ensure I get it.

[ethandale]

I can select vertexes, I just can't move them around. I want to keyframe them with Mask Path.

[Szalam]

Are you saying that, when you select a single vertex and try to drag it, it starts moving everything? That is to say, you can select single vertices without issue?

[ethandale]

Ah, I didn't notice this before. As soon as I turn on keyframing for "Mask Path," it stops letting me select individual vertices. It makes me move/select the entire mask.

[P.M.B · Accepted solution]

ethandale  wrote

As soon as I turn on keyframing for "Mask Path," it stops letting me select individual vertices.

This is normal.  With the pen tool active just shift click the vert to deselect it release shift and click it again to re-select it.

If you somehow got in bounding box mode things are little more complicated.  Double click to get back to vert mode, select the pen tool & then do the selection steps described in the first sentence.

[ethandale]

Thank you! This seems unnecessarily unintuitive, but I'm glad there's at least a way to do it.

[P.M.B]

ethandale  wrote

This seems unnecessarily unintuitive

You're welcome.

Yah...After Effects is sort of famously unintuitive & silly.  I heard the original code was written by Mel Brooks and Soupy Sales.

Sewiously though,  I don't know why it selects all the verts like that.  My guess is that when you first initiate the keyframes it has to query the position of every vert so it selects them.