Fiziwig's Animator Studio Tutorials

Gary's Anime Studio Experiments is my collection of experiments, in tutorial form, put together while learning how to use Anime Studio. I hope you find them useful.

Anime Studio has a built-in masking feature. Aparently is uses group layers, which are not available in the basic non-Pro version. In fact, the masking tutorial file "Tutorial 2.6" is provided already built, probably because it would not even be possible to make that tutorial unless you have Anime Studio Pro. In addition, the built-in masking is not visible until the movie is rendered. It can't be previewed in basic Anime Studio because the ability to render a preview of a frame is also not available in basic Anime Studio. A review of the technical posts at the Lost Marble Anime Studio Forum seems to indicate that gradient masks are also not possible with the built-in masking feature. The final disadvantage to the masking feature in Anime Studio is that it is poorly explained, and, frankly, I can't make heads or tails out of how it works.

For these reasons, I'm going to briefly cover the subject of masking without using the built-in masking function. Hand-built masking layers have these advantages: 1) You don't need Anime Studio Pro or Group Layers. 2) You can see the masking effect in the main window, frame by frame, and while playing the timeline. You don't have to wait until the animation is rendered. 3) Gradient masks are a piece of cake. 4) Hand-built mask layers are easy to understand. Everything about them is immediately visible and immediately under your control.

I've taken the Tutorial 2.6 file from Anime Studio and removed all the Anime Studio Pro features to create a simple file with no group layers. You can download it here to start with. The image looks just like the original masking tutorial.

Instead of the group layer, which we can't do in basic Anime Studio, create a new vector layer at the top of the list and call it Mask Layer.

Go to the Wall layer and select all the points of the hole in the wall. A good way to do this is to use the Lasso version of the Select POints tool. Start in the green area, outside the wall shape to avoid auto-selecting the whole shape, then drag the lasso around the hole, avoiding any points that are not part of the hole shape. Copy this shape and go to the new Mask Layer and paste the shape on the new layer. Then turn off the visibility on the Wall Layer.

The mask shape we want in the inside area of the hole shape. In some cases there are lines that cross each other without any point at the crossing. The first thing we need to do is to create points at those crossings. But only do this if the crossing is part of the outline of the innermost shape. Here is an example, before and after, of creating such an extra point.

Be sure auto-weld is on, and drag the outlying points into the new point to collapse the shape. When you are done you should have the outline of the innermost shape of the hole. Fill this shape with black, (I've used a strange pink color here for demonstration purposes) and turn the wall visibility back on. On the masking layer you will need to add two additional small masks, one in front of the background sky, and one in front of the background grass. These are simple shapes drawn by hand and filled with color to match the background and the grass.

In the sample animation below I've changed the mask color to black so you can see what it really looks like. This is visually the same end result as using the built-in masking feature, but without any mystery. The mask is simply just another vector shape that stands above the spotlight shapes and blocks them from view.

By making the mask shape have a gradient alpha channel you can have a gradient mask. By animating the opacity of the masking layer you can make the mask effect fade in and out. Granted, it is a little bit more work than the built-in masking feature, but it gives you a lot more exacting control over the masking effects.