Masking Anomalies

[Blue]

Just wanted to point out a few masking anomalies. Explanation in file.

ASP6 file:
http://www.joelcardinal.com/ASP/maskingAlpha.zip


-NOTE-
This is a reminder for myself and anyone else who may run across it. To use images as masks, you need to have a transparent image background. Open the png in the zip in Photoshop to see. You can't use a black and white image as you do in Photoshop to create alpha channels.

[Darramouss]

I've found that when you lay a mask over complex group layer/bones/switches that ASP hides parts of your animation until you render it. Anyone know why this occurs??

[Blue]

The preview within Anime does not always correctly display the masks. I always hit control+R to get a one frame render to know for sure what is going on.

If you can figure out a under what circumstances it would be best to send a bug report to SM, including the test file.

I was going to send this in when I got more feedback. I suppose I could include your issues in the same report if you can figure out a repeatable problem. And post it here for me.

[heyvern]

Sub layers involved with masking don't display correctly.

For example suppose you have a bone layer inside a bone layer and the sub bone layer has masking on with a bunch of layers to create the mask for a layer inside the parent bone layer. This would probably not display correctly in the preview.

When all the layers involved with masking are just simple layers then masking is displayed correctly. Once you add in other group layers with masking AS doesn't display masking accurately.

I never trust the preview display... I always do a test render.

-vern

[GraphicAnime]

Hi,

I came across this thread when searching about this problem that I have with the masks. I'm having a similar issue, but the masking anomalies are showing up when I render the scene.

I have two eyes that are switch layers that holds two groups of eyes. One for closed Eyes and one for OpenEyes. The white eye object of the Right Eye switch group does not show. It is being masked out by the eye shadow layer, even though I selected “Do Not Mask this layer” for the eyeshadow. The strange thing is that the Left Eye switch group is working fine and it has the same exact layer order and masking options as the Right Eye group.

I’ve looked at the hierarchy layers and tried changing the masking options, but I’m still continuing to have a problem.

Here is the image of the layer order.
http://s204.photobucket.com/albums/bb31 ... ose-up.jpg

The two eye switch groups are under one group called WHOLE_HEAD. Within the red square, this is how I have the layers masked:
Switch layer : Right Eye : Don’t Mask this Layer
Eye_R: group mask: Hide All ; Layer Masking: Don’t Mask this Layer
Eyelash 2 : Don’t Mask this Layer
Iris: Mask this Layer
Eyes: add to mask
Eye_shadow 2: Don’t Mask this Layer

Here is the image that is not rendered:
http://s204.photobucket.com/albums/bb31 ... redeye.jpg

Here is the Image that is rendered:
http://s204.photobucket.com/albums/bb31 ... ed_eye.jpg

Let me know if anyone has this issue. The last resort for me was to take the eye shadow layer out of the eye_R group and place it below the right eye switch layer :/.

Thanks in Advance.

[Blue]

If you have ASP6 and could post a file I could take a look at it. It's difficult to guess otherwise.

However, since masks can be confusing I suggest making your hierarchy simple. Any time you want to mask something else try creating a new Group to hold the object to be masked and the mask. That way you don't have to worry about other elements, example:

IRISMASKGROUP (Hide all)
Iris (Mask this Layer)
Eyes (Add to Mask)

This makes things easier without having to worry about setting other layers to "Do Not Mask."

Also, in your case, if the Left Eye switch group is working, you could always duplicate it and flip it to use it as the Right Eye.