Motion 4 - Image Mask Trouble

[James Wong]

Hi all, I'm using Motion 4 and I wanted to apply an Image Mask.

The idea is this:
--
One wide painting is fully lit, and then a cloud "shadow" slowly covers the painting as it moves in from left to right.
--

I have two layers: (1) is the painting fully lit. The mask would slowly mask this layer to reveal layer (2) which is the painting dimmed with a higher contrast.

I'm having trouble with the image mask itself, so I haven't even animated the mask yet. Is there a specific format that the image mask should be?

Please see the attached file for my layer setup in Motion 4. Even with the Image Mask applied, I'm not seeing any effect the painting.

[Austin Meyers]

where is the clouds layer that you're setting as the image mask? is it the same res/aspect? is it turned on?

[James Wong]

Originally Posted by Austin Meyers

where is the clouds layer that you're setting as the image mask? is it the same res/aspect? is it turned on?

Hi Austin! It should have been the same res and aspect, but it just wasn't working for me. I solved this by creating a cloud layer of basic white shapes and made an Image Mask out of that. For some reason that made it active/turned-on, and it was fine for what I needed to do (for the time being).

I think I put both at Square pixels. My project workflow is to render everything at 1280x720 and then just dump to anamorphic DVD. The client will also be provided the high def stuff if the videos are playing on a computer/kiosk (through quicktime, for example).