Selecting & Editing

Selecting

The usual selection tools are available:

  • Toggle Select All A.
  • Box and Circle Select B, C.
  • Lasso Select Ctrl-Alt-LMB.
  • Select Linked from selection Ctrl-L.
  • Select Linked with mouse L.
  • Select tracking marker Ctrl-RMB.

Editing

The tools and panels available to edit masks are the same in both editors. Editing of mask splines happens in a way similar to editing Bézier curves or paths in GIMP or other curve editors.

Tip

To get interactive feedback on the resulting mask, a Mask node can be connected directly to a Viewer node in the Compositor, which will then keep updating the compositing result while editing.

Control Points

Add Vertex and Slide Ctrl-LMB
Ctrl-LMB is used to place new control points and define handle orientations by a continued mouse drag. A Ctrl-LMB double-click will also close the curve if the last point was selected.
Transform
Existing control points can be moved with LMB and moved, scaled and rotated with the usual G, S, R shortcuts. The whole spline can be moved by dragging the center dot with LMB.
Toggle Cyclic Alt-C
Toggle to create a closed curve or open it again. Close the mask by joining the last control point to the first.
Delete X
Removes control points.

Curve Handles

Slide Spline Curvature
LMB click on curve and drag to move the handle.
Set Handle Type V
Set handle type for selected spline points.
Recalculate Normals Ctrl-N
Make normals (handle directions) consistent.
Switch Direction
Switch Direction handle directions in/out.

Feather

Add Feather Vertex and Slide Shift-LMB
Shift-LMB is used to define a feathering outline curve. To create an initial feather, sliding from a spline control point outside or inside will create and position feather points. After this Shift-LMB will insert new feather point and mouse sliding can be used to move them around.
Scale Feather Alt-S
Will scale the feather size.

Animation

Masks can be animated with the shape keying system. This can be useful when there are not enough good feature points to track in the footage, or the mask is not based on footage. Mask animation timing can be edited from the Dope Sheet's Mask Mode.

Insert Shape Key I
Will insert a shape key for the active mask layer at the current frame. This works on the level of mask layers, so inserting a shape key will keyframe all the splines and points contained in it.
Clear Shape Key Alt-I
Will clear the shape key for the active mask layer at the current frame.
Feather Reset Animation
Resets the feather offset across all animated frames.
Re-Key Points of Selected Shapes
Re-interpolate selected points on across the range of keys selected in the Dope Sheet.

Show/Hide

  • Hide Selected H
  • Hide Unselected Shift-H
  • Clear Restricted View Alt-H