Shape layer vs. masks

- The tools that are used to create shape layers … in After Effects are also the same tools used … to create masks. … Masks are a powerful way to obscure or reveal … a portion of a selected layer. … Let's see how they work. … In this composition, I've got my character … I'd like to add some texturing to my character … And wouldn't it be great if I could just focus in on … just this one layer and not really see in the timeline … all these other layers? … There is in fact an easy way to do this. … Making sure our timeline is selected, … we'll come up over here to Edit and go down to Select All. … Now, let's deselect our beard layer. … I'll focus in on this column of switches … and this is the Shy Layers switch. … You can see our icon has this little guy … and if we tap on it, you can see … that all these selected layers now have our guy hiding. … But nothing happens in our timeline, … until we hit the Global Shy Layers switch. … After Effects will take into account all the layers … with that switch enabled and hide them …