How To Feather The Edge Of A Layer?, with out masks.

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How To Feather The Edge Of A Layer?, with out masks.
by salils on Aug 1, 2005 at 8:41:20 pm

Is there anyway to feather the edge of a whole layer in after effects 6.5 pro? I know it can be done with masks, but it would be annoying since I will be chaning the scale and position of the layer. Also, it is hard to exactly mask the whole layer. Is there any easy way to do this? Thanks.

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Re: How To Feather The Edge Of A Layer?, with out masks.
by Andrew Kramer on Aug 1, 2005 at 9:19:32 pm

Well...
If you select a layer on the timeline and double click the mask tool (box or the cirlce) It will automatically create a mask the size of your layer.
Then push "f" and the feather properties come up and you can quickly make the layer feathered. Also just to the right of the title safe button in the monitor is a show/hide masks, if you switch this off you wont be accidently moving masks while you work. You can also lock masks to avoid that problem as well.

Here are 2 cool shortcut that I enjoy using when keyframing:

1. Shift + (parameter) for example: Press "P" to bring up Position info, then press Shift + "A" to bring up the anchor point while maintaining your position as well, instead of just switching.

2. Press "U" brings up all the paraments that have keyframe values so you can change them. Or Press "u", "u" quickly and it brings up parameters that have been adjusted but not keyframed.

You can also copy and paste masks if you are repeating your self.

Good Luck
Andrew

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Re: How To Feather The Edge Of A Layer?, with out masks.
by Filip Vandueren on Aug 1, 2005 at 9:22:03 pm

try using a roughen edges effect with these settings:

Edge Type: Roughen
Border: 50
Edge Sharpness: 0
Fractal Influence: 0

or (multiple effects needed)

Add any Blur ('Box Blur', 'Fast Blur', 'Gaussian blur', whatever)
Add a 'Levels' effect where you set "Alpha Input Black" = 128
Add a "CC Composite" effect

The blurriness of your first filter takes care of the feather radius
This has some side-effects if the layer you are starting from allready has a soft-alpha (but I'm guessing it doesn't in your case)

BTW: To easily mask the entire layer, select the layer, then double-click on the rectangular mask tool in the toolbox.

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Re: How To Feather The Edge Of A Layer?, with out masks.
by kwaku nyantekyi on Jul 7, 2011 at 4:00:50 pm

Your first suggestion worked perfectly Filip. Thanks a lot. It's crazy how something posted 6 years ago can still be so helpful.

http://vimeo.com/user746361

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