Apple Motion 2 - Manual (Page 819)

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Using Shapes and Masks
Motion has a flexible tool set that you can use to create
both simple shapes and complex illustrations, right in
your project. The same techniques you use for drawing
can also be used to mask objects to produce a wide
variety of transparency effects, to crop out parts of still
images, and to rotoscope moving subjects.
Shapes and masks are both vector-based objects that are drawn and edited using
control points that define mathematical curves. Each control point in a shape defines
some sort of corner or curve, and the actual spline that makes up the shape connects
these control points together like a connect-the-dots drawing. You can edit or animate
any shape by moving and editing its control points.
Since shapes are mathematically defined, you can take advantage of the vector nature
of shapes to resize them by any amount, without introducing unwanted artifacts.
Shapes are similar to imported PDF objects in that they’re completely resolution
independent.
01112.book Page 819 Sunday, March 13, 2005 10:36 PM