Noob: Multiple masks do not work together..
by BenRusso
on
Jun 24, 2007 at 4:29:48 pm
Hi - I'm very new to AE and CC.
I have about 45 paths/masks that use the stroke effect to sketch out a bunch of shapes. I drew them all on one layer, applied the stroke and it all worked fine. But because I need certain paths to work at certain times, I seperated the masks/paths into about 6 different layers - a simple cut-n-paste job.
However, now the masks do not work together at all. If I apply stroke to one layer, only the first mask is active. If I switch around the masks, it's always the first on the list. The other strokes do not appear at all. (And yes, I do have "all masks" set).
Has anyone ever experienced this? Is there a way to get these masks to work?
Re: Noob: Multiple masks do not work together.. by epontius on Jun 24, 2007 at 5:25:32 pm
You'll need to apply the effect to each layer. "All masks" doesn't effect every mask in your composition, just all the masks for that one layer. Since you have multiple layers with masks, you'll need to add the effect to each layer.
Re: Noob: Multiple masks do not work together.. by BenRusso on Jun 24, 2007 at 5:54:12 pm
That's the problem. I do what you'd normally expect to do. All the layers have "all masks" selected.
I have one layer that works fine. All masks stroke as they're supposed to, both in sequence and simultaneously. The problem is the other five layers only select one mask. Even when trying to pinpoint one mask through the stroke's path selection, it will only let me choose the first mask in each layer (i can switch the orders, and it will still only recognize the first mask listed). So "all masks" doesn't work either, because even when selected it only draws the first mask.
Possibly related is this: After I finished seperating the masks into layers, I noticed 1 or 2 masks in each layer have switched their first vertex (so if i drew the original path from bottom to top, the copied mask now draws from top to bottom).
I think something happened in the way I copied stuff, but now I can't really go back to the original first layer, so I'm stuck with these multiple defunct layers.
Re: Noob: Multiple masks do not work together.. by BenRusso on Jun 24, 2007 at 6:02:27 pm
ok, hold on...
so I've been playing with this problem all morning. I just "solved" it somehow.
What I originally did was copy from one layer, create a new layer, and paste. Very straightforward.
I just added an extra step within one layer. I copied all the masks within the layer and pasted within the same layer - the stroke instantly showed up, so I just deleted the original pasted masks. Things are working alright now.
But still, what a mystery. I must have done something while doing the original copying? Anybody else have similar problems?
