User Manual

Table Of Contents
Animating Polyline Masks
Animating masks is surprisingly easy. When Polygon or B-Spline masks are added to the Node
Editor, the spline’s control points are automatically ready to be animated. All you have to do to
animate a mask is move the playhead to a new frame and then change the shape of the mask.
A new keyframe is added in the Spline Editor and Timeline Editor. This one keyframe controls
the position of all control points for that mask at that frame. Once two or more keyframes have
been created, the shape of the polygon or B-Spline is automatically interpolated from one
keyframe to the next.
TIP: The center point and rotation of a shape are not auto-animated. Only the control
points are automatically animated. To animate the center position or rotation, enable
keyframes for that parameter in the Inspector.
To adjust the overall timing of the mask animation, you edit the Keyframe horizontal position
spline using the Spline Editor or Timeline Editor. Additional points can be added to the mask at
any point to refine the shape as areas of the image become more detailed.
Removing Animation from a Polyline Mask
If you want a Polyline mask to remain static, you can remove the automatic animation setting. In
the Inspector for the mask, right-click in the bottom of the panel where it says Right Click Here
For Shape Animation. From the contextual menu, choose Remove Bézier Spline. If you decide
you need to animate the mask at a later time, right-click in the same area again and
choose Animate.
Adding and Removing Points from an Animated Mask
When adding points to an animated mask, the new point is fit into the shape at all keyframes.
Deleting a point removes that point from all keyframes in the animated mask.
Publishing Specific Control Points
Although you can rapidly animate the entire shape of a polyline using a single keyframe, by
default the Spline Editor and Timeline display only one keyframe for the entire shape at any
given frame.
This default keyframing behavior is convenient when quickly animating shapes from one form to
another, but it doesn’t allow for specific individual control points that need to be keyframed
independently of all other control points for a particular shape. If you’re working on a complex
mask that would benefit from more precise timing or interpolation of individual control points,
you can expose one or more specific control points on a polyline by publishing them.
Be aware that publishing a control point on a polyline removes that point from the standard
animation spline. From that point forward, that control point can only be animated via its own
keyframes on its own animation spline. Once removed, this point will not be connected to
paths, modifiers, expressions, or trackers that are connected to the main polyline spline.
To publish a selected point or points, do one of the following:
Click on the Publish Points button in the Polyline toolbar.
Select Publish Points from the Polyline’s contextual menu.
Chapter – 71 Rotoscoping with Masks 1454