The Masking Confusion continues...

[Joelsquare]

Hi there,

So sorry to even have to do this... but could some kind soul - who understands masking - save me a tonne of time and explain the right set up for this very simple situation:

(And I am confident that this is an extremely simple answer, as this has to be a setup that folks use all the time)

I have a character. (For reasons of Smart Bone control, I've put as much of him on a single layer as I can.) I have one folder that contains his head in it's entirety.

I simply want his head, eyes, eyelids, and pupils to behave as follows...

1. The pupils (simply two circles) sit behind the eye edges and never leave the sockets, no matter where I move them (i.e. they are only visible when they are IN the sockets)

2. The eyelids (two squares) sit BEHIND the eye socket and OVER the pupils and also never leave the sockets.

3. The eye sockets never leave the head. So, if I'm doing a head turn, I can move the eye sockets so that only one is visible and the other, upon moving outside of the confines of the head, becomes invisible.

Does that all make sense? Essentially, inside the oval that is the head, sit 2 eye sockets. Inside those sockets, sit eyelids and pupils, and each item is unable to leave the confines of the shape it's contained in.

Yes, I've done the tutorials. Can easily make this happen by using folders, BUT the trick is, for Smart Bone control ergonomics, I want all of this to sit in 1 folder. Why have I been working on this for hours and been unable to do it successfully. Wait, don't answer that...

Can someone give me the surely simple set up to accomplish this?

Best,
Joel

[funksmaname]

Here's how I think it would work:

Head (hide all)
--skin and eye lids (mask this layer)
Essentially you need the skin colour to be a large shape, larger than the canvas even, with holes for the eyes, so imagine a huge square, it the eyes the right shape and size cut out if it. You can the put the eye lids below that shape, but on the same layer. This will obscure the pupils below unless they are in the gap
--large eye white area, and pupils (mask this layer)
--head shape (add to mask)

[Joelsquare]

Mr. Funksmaname...

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU.

I just saw that you responded to me days ago, and for some reason I didn't get notified! Thanks so much for this, I will check out your suggestions. Masking is so confusing to me (and others, apparently), this is a huge help. But most importantly, thank you, and so sorry it took me a few days to say that.

I've been a member of many various tech / software / hardware forums since the internet became a thing. The Anime Studio community is by far the friendliest, most helpful one that I've been part of, thanks to guys like you.

Anyway, cheers... I can't wait to share this short film when it's finally done...

Best,
Joel

[funksmaname]

no worries, hope it works out!