How to have a character half in/half out a door?

Yosemite Sam · Post by **Yosemite Sam** » Thu Nov 24, 2011 2:47 am

Sorry about the GIANT images. I'll be sure to re-size in the future.

hayasidist · Post by **hayasidist** » Thu Nov 24, 2011 3:15 am

I think your layer order and masking is not quite right...

quick and dirty example (ASP7) here at http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?ivj6gg6f73cd6uv

if that's still not clear let me know and I'll do a "show and tell"... (but mañana -- it's 2 a.m. this side of the pond!)

Yosemite Sam · Post by **Yosemite Sam** » Thu Nov 24, 2011 3:37 am

Thank you for that sample. Really appreciate it. I understand it's late in your neck of the woods. I will look over your sample and see if I can figure things out.

If not, I'm gonna' post the file for you to look at. Whenever you get the chance.

Happy Thanksgiving

hayasidist · Post by **hayasidist** » Thu Nov 24, 2011 3:50 am

wow... Thanksgiving already!! Have a good one!

funksmaname · Post by **funksmaname** » Thu Nov 24, 2011 8:35 am

zipper is spam - ignore it.
What you did was hide all and put in a perspective block - you need to do the reverse and just use a normal square mask over the nearside door area so that everything in perspective going back isn't covered. Start it aligned with the nearside door and make it go to the right...

hayasidist example file is great - covers everything including moveing the mask if you need to.

Yosemite Sam · Post by **Yosemite Sam** » Thu Nov 24, 2011 1:52 pm

Haya, So I studied your file. And was able to get it to work with mine. It's 99 percent there, but does cut off the outline/stroke of the door.

GCharb, You spoke of possible artifacts with the masking, I'm guessing the fact that it also masks the door's outline/stroke was part of it. i like your idea of duplicating the apartment/door layer, but just can't wrap my head around how this would work

Funk, what is zipper? Spam???

Well, if anyone knows how I can use the masking but keep the door's outline, please let me know.

Thanks everyone.

And happy turkey day!

hayasidist · Post by **hayasidist** » Thu Nov 24, 2011 3:07 pm

yeah - can see the loss of line on close inspection. (I'm still on ASP7 BTW)

this thread: viewtopic.php?t=20128 discusses ASP8 masking issues and there's a "fix" in 8.1 viewtopic.php?t=20346&start=15.

just had another closer look - the door outline isn't lost on his arm - just on the lower body. It'd be worth checking the exact registration of mask and wall; maybe need to add an extra few points to the line of the mask near the door? ... or change the start and end points of the line to match the line of the door - if you're a pixel or two out of alignment at one end but well aligned at the other this will give the "stepped" effect: e.g. top portion aligned; lower part off by the misregistration - you can't get "half a pixel".

Also check line width on the mask? I'm not on my animation computer right now - so I can't check this: but as it's subtract from mask, I think you don't get the option to exlcude strokes - so I don't know how the masked area would be affected by the stroke width on the shape used to create the mask ... so maybe try a "fill only" mask - and adjust the edge as above...

if that ain't it - well - there's always the next option ....

enjoy the turkey!

(oh and a user called Zipper posted a spam reply to this - the Mods got in and cleaned up before you saw it!)

Yosemite Sam · Post by **Yosemite Sam** » Thu Nov 24, 2011 4:35 pm

Haya,

You are very generous in again taking the time to help me.

So, it turns out -- once I really zoomed in close -- that the door frame itself is at a slight angle and displays "jaggies".

That may explain why the mask is not able to perfectly blend with the door's outline. I got it to look a little bit better. It's not perfect. But I think it will do for now.

Also, I removed the "stroke" from the mask layer.

I'm working on putting a series together to market, so I want to try and keep it as professional as possible, but on the other hand the content is the most important part.

If a potential buyer sees flawed animation, but loves the content, they know the flawed animation is easily fixable.

However, if you have perfect animation, but the content stinks, then your up doo-doo creek

Still, this is the type of thing that I really would like to get to the bottom of eventually. I like to know as much as I can about the tools I'm working with.

Thank you again for taking the time. Thanks to everyone here.

I know it's cheesy, but Lost Marble RULES! This is truly the best forum I've ever had the privilege of being involved with.

GCharb · Post by **GCharb** » Thu Nov 24, 2011 6:39 pm

Yosemite Sam

Here is what I meant by using layers instead of mask, much simpler and no artefacts.

http://www.mediafire.com/?6e9c89p1emab6ya

Yosemite Sam · Post by **Yosemite Sam** » Fri Nov 25, 2011 2:38 am

Gcharb,

Thanks you for that.

Yeah, I guess I'm gonna have to take the apartment wall and double that layer. Then split it up. The real work will be making sure the door frames match up perfectly to one another (front layer, back layer, with character in-between).

While also maintaining the subtle gradient. Not sure how to take the gradient I have on the apartment wall and split it over two, but make it look like one. Confusing, i know, lol.

Also, I'd like to purchase all your tutorials this weekend, let me know if you have any Black Friday specials

I guess I just order them from your blog, correct? Been meaning to grab those.

Thanks

funksmaname · Post by **funksmaname** » Fri Nov 25, 2011 2:43 am

you could duplicate the wall, move it up, then mask it half way down the doorway - it'll line up - then just hide that whole top copy once the character is in the room...

GCharb · Post by **GCharb** » Fri Nov 25, 2011 2:55 am

Yosemite Sam wrote:Gcharb,

Thanks you for that.

Yeah, I guess I'm gonna have to take the apartment wall and double that layer. Then split it up. The real work will be making sure the door frames match up perfectly to one another (front layer, back layer, with character in-between).

While also maintaining the subtle gradient. Not sure how to take the gradient I have on the apartment wall and split it over two, but make it look like one. Confusing, i know, lol.

Also, I'd like to purchase all your tutorials this weekend, let me know if you have any Black Friday specials

I guess I just order them from your blog, correct? Been meaning to grab those.

Thanks

The set is still in pre-order at half the price, it should come out soon, so grab it while price is down!

I posted some of the videos on the store page, to give peoples an idea of what is to come!

Yosemite Sam · Post by **Yosemite Sam** » Fri Nov 25, 2011 10:20 am

Funk,

I will play around with your idea and post the results tomorrow.

Gcharb,

Thanks, will do.

hayasidist · Post by **hayasidist** » Fri Nov 25, 2011 1:00 pm

Hi again ...
IF (and only if) you find that the split doesn't give you what you want try this:

dup the wall layer; use the door frame shape as the starting point for the mask ... just grab the "far" points and swing them over to the "near" side, leaving the position-critical ones where they are -- they will be well aligned!; shift the (now) "near" points to where you need them; delete the "extra" shapes.

oh - and - check that, if you have "snap to grid" enabled, you take care if moving an end point or adding points in the middle of an existing "critical" line...

if you find that the fill doesn't look right and you hit the 8.x masking "feature" then you'll just have to decide what's the least worst approach...

Yosemite Sam · Post by **Yosemite Sam** » Sat Nov 26, 2011 3:40 pm

Alright, I'm eating a piece of humble pie

Everyone's ideas seem so simple in theory, but I just can't seem to make things work.

Part of the challenge for me is that I'm not just dealing with a wall, but a wall with a subtle gradient, a hole for a door, a door frame, a hole for a window, a window frame, a semi-transparent window glass... so I'm posting a copy of the file if anyone gets the chance to play around with it.

This file currently has the simple mask idea that was mentioned on this thread employed. But that effects the stroke on the door frame when the character crosses paths with it.

Anyway, here's the file.

http://www.mediafire.com/?qbdcapjsro4mdp7

Edit: It's ASP8