Help With Masking!

[ebenheizerm28787053]

Have you watched South Park? I believe you have. They are hilarious.

I noticed there are lines between the arms and the body (to distinguish the arms from the body) when the arms are resting at "A" position. When the arms move, thus not overlapping the body, the lines will disappear (unlike outline which will always follow), and if the arms overlap the body, the line will be there to distinguish the arms from the body again (even when not in the "A" rest position, like when doing hand movements, the lines are still there every time the arms overlap the body). Does anyone know how to make the same effect in Character Animator?

[alank99101739]

Wow, you like to set a challenge! 🙂

I was initially wondering if you could somehow use the color blend modes so it only impacts when it overlaps (you can do things like subtract colors - could a brown line under the arm be set to subtract so when it's over the body brown - brown = black. But it might subtract from the scene background as well, so you would have to generate one character at a time on no background and merge onto background scenes in another program. Ugg.

I was then wondering if you could somehow use the body as a clipping mask for the black shadow of the arm. CH you can do clipping masks. But the mask has to be the layer after the line, so I cannot think how to get the line to move following the arm around, but the mask to be anchored to the body. I think you can make the mask invisible, so you can put it inside the arm layer. Maybe there is some clever attach to usage you could use. Make it independent so it does not move with arm. But if the body can warp, this sounds hard.

The easiest way however i suspect is to use a trigger. Eg use a swap set for arms at rest beside body where you draw those lines in. The arm moving artwork is then different to the arms at rest artwork. Or put a trigger on the black line as part of the arms, so you can turn the black line on/off. It would not do perfect clipping, but sounds the most reliable and simple approach. It would get you close...

[ebenheizerm28787053]

The first option, yeah, that's too much.

The second option, I couldn't quite understand, but seems like the line/shadow won't follow the arms movement, only when it's resting.

The third option, using trigger maybe will work, but only for rest position, and not arms movement when overlapping the body. Creating multiple arms would be too much too I guess 😅

[alank99101739]

The second option scares me too. It might work and be rather cool, but seems dangerous.

If it was my puppet I use a trigger for the arms at the side of the puppet body with a line, and just put up with no line while the arms are moving. It is quite common to create multiple sets of arms (e.g. one set in front of body and another set behind). This would be the most robust approach I think.