Create and animate masks

- [Narrator] The process of hiding and revealing…portions of a layer's content on screen…is vital in the visual language of motion graphics.…In After Effects we can do this by use of masks.…Masks are like virtual scissors inside of After Effects…where we can non destructively…cut out sections of our layer.…A layer can have one or more masks…and can either be static or animated.…Here we'll take a look at how to create masks…and how to animate them.…So here in this first example I've got a, tahdah, mask.…But the shape of a mask is actually created…with the use of After Effects masks.…

So let's go ahead and look at this layer here, Layer 2.…This is nothing but a solid layer.…If I double click and open this up to the layer window,…you'll see that it's a solid, black layer,…and in this black layer I've got one, two, thee masks.…If you don't already have I enabled…go ahead and hit this button here…to enable toggle mask and shape path visibility.…And that will show you these lines, these dots,…those are our masks.…So I've got three here,…