Animated masks in C4

Question

I know that in C4 you can create layer masks as follows:

object.layer.mask = anotherObject.layer; 

Is there a known way to use an animated mask?

Answer 1

Yes. You can animate the mask in several ways.

First, if you use basic shapes as an object whose level will become a mask, you can animate them as usual, and this will become an animated mask.

This can be done for any visible object in C4 (e.g. forms, films, images, etc.).

For instance:

 object.layer.mask = aShape.layer; aShape.animationDuration = 1.0f; aShape.origin = CGPointMake(x, y); 

The above can be done with images. When using images, any sharp parts of the image will become transparent in your original object.

In addition, there is an undocumented animation image method, which is experimental and is only available in the latest template.

Usage will look like this:

 NSArray *imageNamesArray = [NSArray arrayWithObjects:@"imageName01.png",...,nil]; C4Image *animatedImage = [C4Image animatedImageWithNames:imageNamesArray]; object.layer.mask = animatedImage.mask; 

In fact, this method creates an animated image of the gif-style ... But since this method is completely new / experimental, there is no control over the speed of transitions between images.